"Centuries ago, the Church began to rewrite history. They claimed high-order myth-beasts like dragons were extinct, and sealed away most of the old tamer records — afraid of what would happen if humans walked alongside legendary creatures again. That was the real reason your father was erased from history.
He dug too deep into the forgotten archives of the old tamers."
Silence filled the small dorm room. Wind whistled softly outside the tower window.
Cecil had only ever seen his bond with Gwendolyn as a lucky accident — a strange contract formed on the Day of Soul-Echo. Now he understood: this was far bigger than simply surviving inside Griffin Holt Academy. He was stepping into a buried world of ancient tamers, hidden ranks, and long-lost myth-beast secrets.
"None of this is ever going to be taught in class, is it?" Cecil murmured.
Gwendolyn shook her head. "The academy only teaches you to survive with common-grade beasts. If you want to climb the true tamer ranks, you learn from me. Starting tomorrow — frost manipulation training by day, ancient tamer knowledge every night after classes."
She stretched lazily, yawning. "Remember every word I’ve said. Your path will never look like your friends’."
Curiosity crossed Cecil’s face. "Can you keep your maiden form permanently?"
"No." A trace of helplessness flickered across her features. "I cannot even control when I shift into it, let alone maintain it. Achieving stable transformation will take both of us growing stronger together."
They spent the next hour practicing anyway. Gwendolyn shifted back into her tiny lizard form, and Cecil sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully trying to draw a wisp of her frost energy through his fingertips while she coached him through gritted teeth.
A quiet thought suddenly flickered in Cecil’s mind. He spoke in an extremely soft voice:
"Gwendolyn... once you recover all your memory shards and regain your full power... will you finally be able to stay in your human form permanently?"
The tiny dragon perched on his knees stiffened slightly.
After a long moment, her soft, gentle voice rang out, laced with faint hope and quiet uncertainty.
"I do not know."
"A thousand-year seal weighs heavily upon me. It is not only my strength that has been shattered, but my soul and memories as well. Even I cannot tell if permanent transformation is possible."
Gwendolyn lifted her small head and icy-blue eyes reflected the silvery moonlight, clear and distant.
"But... I trust you, Cecil."
Just as the two locked eyes, the air thick with unspoken affection, a sudden knock echoed sharply at the dorm door.
Cecil froze mid-breath, his hand still raised, the frost fading slowly from his fingertips. Gwendolyn’s head snapped upward from the bed pillow, her tail tensing instantly.
"Who’s there?" he called out, not moving an inch.
A muffled voice came from the hallway. "It’s us! Can we talk for a minute?"
Cecil did not unlock the door. "State your names and your reason for visiting so late at night."
There was a short, awkward pause.
"Uh — I’m Freddy Toller. This is Lydia Crowe, and that’s Oliver Baker. We’re all from Group B. We found something strange beneath the old library and we need your help."
"What did you find? And how do you know my room number?"
"A newly opened portal in the basement," Lydia explained. "No one else has found out yet. We asked other Group B students for your room number."
After a long moment of quiet consideration, Cecil cracked the door open slightly and studied the three of them with calm, guarded eyes.
"A brand-new portal opened in the lower levels," Freddy repeated, his voice low with barely contained excitement. "Behind a wall on the first basement floor of the old library. The runes on the frame are still fresh — it opened only this afternoon."
"A portal?"
Lydia stepped half-forward, a thin emerald vine-snake coiled neatly around her forearm. "Beneath the academy lie three abandoned trial floors filled with old portals. Most are permanently sealed, but new ones occasionally spawn, linking to trial grounds of varying difficulty. If we go down tonight—"
"We can explore it before anyone else discovers it," Oliver cut in quickly. "New portals mean untouched resources: combat experience, rare materials, even beast evolution drops. Group A doesn’t have the slightest clue. By tomorrow morning, every reward will already be claimed."
Cecil studied the three students and their contracted beasts carefully: a small grey weasel perched on Freddy’s shoulder, the vine-snake wrapped around Lydia’s wrist, and a grey wind falcon resting atop Oliver’s head. All ordinary-rank creatures. All Group B students. Just like him.
"How did you discover this portal?"
"My weasel sniffed out the residual magic," Freddy said, tapping the creature’s head gently. "It can’t fight, but it’s extremely sensitive to magical traces. It kept scratching frantically at the library wall, so I chipped away the outer plaster — and fresh portal runes were hidden right underneath."
Gwendolyn climbed down to the edge of the bed, her tail swaying slowly as she sized up the three strangers with sharp, appraising eyes.
"Why do you want him to come with you?" she asked coolly. "He was meant to rest tonight."
Freddy startled slightly at the tiny dragon’s sharp tone. "We’ve seen your beast manipulate frost during today’s ritual! We want to team up. Group B gets almost no decent combat resources compared to Group A. This portal is our best chance — before the academy labels it an official training zone and locks it down, we can grab everything we can."
Cecil’s expression remained steady and unyielding. "If we work together, we need complete honesty. We barely know each other. What guarantees do I have that you won’t betray me down there?"
"We would never do that!" Freddy blurted out, waving his hands anxiously.
Lydia nodded firmly, her vine-snake twisting restlessly on her wrist. "None of us would dare. We’re all stuck in Group B together — same unfair situation. There’s no benefit in turning on each other."
"We only want to grow stronger," Oliver added earnestly. "Betraying each other gets none of us out of Group B. You have our word."
Gwendolyn said nothing, still watching silently from the bed’s edge, her tail twitching faintly. She remained entirely unconvinced.
"We’ve already talked through our plan," Lydia continued quickly. "Freddy’s weasel can detect hidden doorways and magic traces but is useless in combat. My vine-snake can bind small targets but can’t hold strong enemies. Oliver’s falcon is perfect for scouting... but we have no one who can withstand heavy attacks or deal serious damage." She glanced pointedly at Gwendolyn. "We all saw that frost power during today’s soul ritual. You two are exactly what our team is missing."
Before Cecil could reply, a new voice sounded from the back of the hallway group.
"I’m coming too."
Edwin stood quietly at the rear of the small crowd, a small copper lock-beetle clinging steadily to his uniform collar. He held a shallow enamel basin filled with nutrient paste for his bug-type beast.
"If everyone’s going, I’m joining as well," Edwin said calmly. "My beetle can chew through almost any lock. Who knows what sealed doors or chests we might find on the other side of that portal?"
Freddy grinned widely. "Perfect! Five of us total. Group B’s first real adventure together."
Edwin set the basin down lightly on the hallway floor and met Cecil’s gaze.
"...Are you in?"
Cecil hesitated for only a heartbeat. He had planned to wake at six in the morning for Gwendolyn’s strict frost training, but an untouched, newly spawned portal was a rare opportunity no Group B student could afford to waste.
He finally pulled on his outer robe and tightened his belt firmly. Gwendolyn leaped nimbly onto his shoulder, her tail coiling securely around his collar.
"Let’s go."
They wound quietly through the old tower’s damp stone hallways, down creaking staircases, across the empty entrance hall, and into a narrow moonlit alley behind the academy’s main building.
The Old Library loomed ahead: a grey, weathered stone building half-swallowed by overgrown vines, its front entrance boarded off and marked with a faded UNDER REPAIR sign. Freddy led the group around the rear side of the structure, pushed aside a thick tangle of thorny bushes, and revealed a narrow, hidden passage carved into the broken foundation stone.
"We enter here," he whispered. "No patrols have noticed a thing. This passage leads straight down to the basement archives — the portal is on the far wall."
They moved forward single-file, gravel crunching softly under their shoes. The underground air smelled thick with damp stone and rotting old paper. After walking for several minutes, the narrow passage opened into a half-collapsed archive chamber. Tilted bookshelves lined the walls, and mold-covered ancient books littered the dusty floor.
Carved directly into the stone stood a massive archway gate, roughly three meters tall. Its edges were lined densely with glowing pale blue-white runes, still faintly warm to the touch — proof it had only just been activated that day.
"This is it," Freddy breathed quietly. His weasel clung tightly to his ear, its nose twitching nonstop. "It says the residual magic lingering here is unbelievably strong."
"Don’t worry," Freddy added quickly in a hushed tone. "The old library’s ancient protective wards completely rotted away decades ago. The academy’s patrol and detection arrays can’t pick up any magic fluctuations down here. That’s why no one’s found it yet."
Cecil stepped forward slowly, staring up at the glowing runic archway. He could not decipher every ancient symbol carved into the stone, but he instantly recognized the core teleportation formation from his advanced textbook notes.
The unknown trial ground waited beyond the light.