The notice went up on the board outside the dining hall right after breakfast the next morning. No big announcement, no fanfare. Just a plain sheet of paper pinned there by one of the staff, with Captain Lorne's scrawl across the top.
Practical Field Assessment. All intermediate students report to the eastern training gate at noon. Bring light armor and weapons if you have them. No spectators.
Harlan and his crew were already clustered around it when I walked up, laughing like it was another joke at our expense. "Field assessment," Harlan read out loud, voice dripping with mock importance. "Finally, a chance to see who actually belongs here and who should go back to the pigsties."
His redheaded friend elbowed him. "Bet the scholarship scrubs last five minutes before they start crying for their mommies."
I ignored them and read the rest. It looked like a standard training exercise, something about navigating an old Aether labyrinth beneath the academy grounds. Supposedly built centuries ago for testing recruits, now used for practical drills. We would go in small teams, face simulated threats, and get scored on control, teamwork, and survival.
Mira came up beside me, still chewing the last of her bread. "You think this is the real thing?" she whispered. "I heard rumors from the older students. Sometimes these tests are how they pick who gets recommended to the capital academy. The big one in Valdris. But they never say it outright."
I felt a spark light up in my chest. That was exactly the kind of quiet gatekeeping I had expected from the stories. Secret selection. No public rankings, just evaluators watching from the shadows to see who had the talent worth pulling into the real game. Perfect opportunity. Shine enough to get noticed, but not so much that I looked like I was trying too hard.
"Could be," I said, keeping my voice casual. "Either way, we treat it serious. Grab your gear."
Kael showed up a few minutes later, still in his janitor tunic but with a borrowed short sword strapped to his belt. The staff had started letting him join some drills unofficially after the bandit fight. He nodded at us, face calm as always. "Heard it is underground. Dark. Tight spaces."
"Great," Mira muttered. "My favorite."
By noon the whole intermediate year stood at the eastern gate, a heavy iron door set into a low hill behind the main buildings. Captain Lorne was there with two other instructors I did not recognize, both wearing plain cloaks that hid their ranks. They split us into teams of three. I got Mira and Kael. Harlan drew two of his snob buddies. The rest scattered out.
"Rules are simple," Lorne barked. "Enter the labyrinth. Navigate to the central chamber. Deal with whatever is in there. First team out gets priority on next week's advanced drills. Last team buys drinks for the whole year. And no killing each other. This is assessment, not a blood feud."
He did not mention the capital recommendation. Not once. But I saw the way the unknown instructors scanned faces, taking notes on small pads.
The door creaked open, revealing stone steps leading down into darkness. Torches lined the walls, flickering with faint Aether light. We went in team by team, five minutes apart. Our turn came quick.
The air down there was cool and damp, smelling of moss and old stone. The passages started wide but narrowed fast, forcing us single file. Mira took the middle, short staff in hand. Kael brought up the rear, sword ready. I led, cycling Aether through my eyes to sharpen my vision in the low light.
"Stay close," I said. "These old labyrinths have traps. Pressure plates, falling rocks, that kind of thing. Watch your feet."
We moved slow for the first ten minutes, mapping turns in our heads. The walls were carved with faded runes that hummed faintly when we passed. Nothing dangerous yet. Just the echo of our boots and distant dripping water.
Then the first scream ripped through the tunnels.
It came from somewhere ahead, high and raw, cut off fast. One of the other teams. Harlan's voice followed, cursing loud enough to carry.
"Shit, something got Jensen! Pull back!"
Mira's grip tightened on her staff. "We keep going?"
"Yeah," I said. "Whatever it is, we handle it better together."
The passage opened into a wider chamber, the floor slick with something dark and wet. Blood. Fresh. A body lay crumpled against the wall, one of the younger scholarship kids, arm torn open from shoulder to elbow. Muscle hung in ragged strips, bone gleaming white where the flesh had been ripped away. The wound still pumped slow, thick blood onto the stones. He was alive but barely, whimpering through clenched teeth.
"Gods," Mira breathed, dropping to her knees beside him. She tore a strip from her own sleeve and started binding the mess, hands steady even though her face had gone pale. "Hold on. We have got you."
Kael scanned the shadows. "Whatever did that is still close."
I felt it too, the faint wrongness in the Aether around us. Corrupted. Not full demons, but something twisted by the old magic down here. A low growl echoed from the far tunnel, and three shapes scuttled into the torchlight.
Rats. But not normal ones. These were the size of dogs, eyes glowing sickly green, fur matted with pus and old blood. One had Jensen's blood still dripping from its jaws. Their claws scraped stone as they charged.
"Flank left!" I snapped, pushing Aether into my legs for speed.
Mira finished the bandage with a quick knot and stood, staff ready. "I take the middle one. Kael, right side."
The fight was ugly from the start. The lead rat lunged at me, jaws wide enough to take off a hand. I sidestepped and drove my short sword down through its skull, the blade crunching bone and sinking deep. Hot blood sprayed across my arm, thick and foul-smelling. The thing convulsed once and went still.
Mira swung hard, cracking her staff across the second rat's spine. It shrieked and twisted, claws raking her leg before she stomped its head flat. Blood and brains squirted out under her boot with a wet pop. She cursed sharply but did not stop moving.
Kael met the third head-on. His sword took it in the side, but the rat clamped down on his forearm, teeth grinding through cloth and into flesh. He grunted, pain flashing across his face, and rammed his knee up under its jaw until the neck snapped with a crack. Blood poured down his arm as he pried the jaws loose.
More growls answered from deeper in. A whole pack, at least eight or nine, pouring out of side passages like they had been waiting.
"Back to back!" I yelled. "They are herding us toward the next chamber. We push through or we get swarmed."
We moved as a unit, weapons swinging. I took two more rats, one across the throat so its blood fountained hot across my chest, the other by slamming Aether-enhanced strength into its ribs until bones shattered and it crumpled. Mira fought like someone possessed, her staff a blur, smashing limbs and cracking skulls. One rat got under her guard and tore a chunk from her calf, but she drove the end of the staff straight through its eye and out the back of its head without a sound, just gritted teeth and determination.
Kael held the rear, sword work slower because of his bitten arm but steady. He finished off a straggler that tried to drag the wounded kid away, hacking its spine in two with a downward chop that sent vertebrae and gore flying.
The chamber narrowed again into a tight corridor. That was when the trap hit.
A pressure plate under my boot clicked. The ceiling groaned and dropped a section of stone blocks, slamming down behind us and sealing the way back. Dust and smaller rocks rained down, one catching Mira across the shoulder hard enough to draw blood through her tunic. We were stuck. The only way forward was a narrow arch into what looked like the central chamber, but more rats poured from cracks in the walls ahead, drawn by the noise and the blood.
"Shit," Mira hissed, pressing her hand to her shoulder. "We are trapped. And those things are getting bigger."
The biggest rat yet emerged from the arch, easily the size of a wolf, scarred hide covered in old wounds and fresh pus. Its eyes locked on us, jaws working like it could already taste us.
No time for panic. I cycled Aether harder than I had in any drill, letting it flood my arms and legs. Not full power, not enough to scream prodigy, but enough for what we needed. "Mira, you and Kael hold the line here. I will clear the arch. We break through to the center and signal for help if we have to."
She nodded, face set, blood running down her leg and arm but eyes clear. "Do it fast. I am not dying to fucking rats."
I charged. The big one met me head-on. I feinted left, then drove my sword up under its jaw, twisting as it bit down on the blade. Teeth scraped metal, but the upward thrust punched through the roof of its mouth and into brain. Blood and thicker fluid gushed down my arms as it died, heavy body slumping against me. I shoved it off and kept moving, hacking at the smaller ones that followed. Limbs flew. One rat's head rolled past my boot still snapping its jaws. Gore slicked the floor, making every step treacherous.
Mira and Kael covered me from behind, their shouts and impacts echoing. Mira took a nasty bite to her forearm but used the pain to fuel a spinning strike that crushed two rats at once, their bodies bursting under the blow with wet crunches.
We pushed through the arch into the central chamber, a wide round room lit by glowing runes on the walls. The exit gate was on the far side, but a final barrier of writhing shadow blocked it, some lingering Aether trap. More rats swarmed from alcoves, at least a dozen.
I did not hold back now. I channeled a focused burst into my sword and swept it in a wide arc, the Aether edge slicing through three rats in one go. Heads and torsos separated with meaty thunks, blood spraying in arcs that painted the stones red. Mira limped forward and drove her staff through another's eye, twisting until it stopped twitching. Kael finished the last few with grim efficiency, his bitten arm hanging heavy but his strikes still true.
When the final rat fell, the shadow barrier flickered and dissolved. The gate creaked open. We had made it.
We dragged the wounded kid through with us, collapsing on the grass outside as instructors rushed in. Captain Lorne was there, along with the two cloaked evaluators, their pads out and faces unreadable.
Harlan's team staggered out a few minutes later, covered in less blood and looking pissed. They had lost one to injury and barely scraped through.
The evaluators said nothing about capital recommendations. They just noted names and dismissed us to the healers.
But I saw the way one of them lingered on Mira and me, eyes sharp.
Mira sat on a bench while a healer stitched her leg, face pale but grinning through the pain. "We did good, right? MVP shit."
"Yeah," I said, wincing as they cleaned the bites on my own arms. Blood had dried in crusts on my skin, and the smell of it mixed with the rat gore still clung to me. "We carried that. Kael too, but you and me… we owned it."
Kael sat nearby, arm bandaged, quiet as always. He nodded once. "Team effort."
Inside, my pulse was still racing. That had been real. Blood, screams, the wet crunch of bodies breaking. Not a drill. And we had shone. Not flashy enough to steal the whole show, but enough that the right people noticed.
This was the climb starting for real. One step closer to the capital, to the power, to everything the story promised.
Eren would have hated every second of it.
I wiped blood from my face and allowed myself a small, private smile.
Worth it.
The evaluators would talk tonight. I was sure of it.
And when the recommendations came, my name would be on the list.
Along with Mira's.
Maybe even Kael's, if the plot allowed.
For now, I just let the healer work and felt the fire in my core burn hotter than ever.
This world was finally giving me something to grab onto.
I was not letting go.