The training ring was loud, hot, and smelled of chalk and sweat.
For the first three minutes of the spar, Kael did exactly what everyone expected an F-rank to do: he lost.
Sebastian moved with the blinding speed of a B-rank, his wooden sword a blur that hammered against Kael’s defenses.
The blows that slipped through bruised Kael’s ribs and stung his thighs.
“Come on, Morgan!” Sebastian laughed, driving Kael back toward the edge of the mat.
“I thought you found your nerve yesterday!
Or was that just a fluke?”
The crowd of high-rank students cheered, roaring their approval every time Kael stumbled.
Up on the observation balcony, Mori watched the spectacle with dead eyes.
The fight bored her.
Kael was losing ground, and Sebastian was grandstanding.
She checked her data slate.
Miro.
Her sister had skipped morning assembly again.
Mori sighed, the familiar weight of family duty pressing down on her.
She turned her back on the ring, adjusting her coat to go hunt down her sociopathic sister.
Down on the mat, Sebastian made a fatal error.
He heard the cheers, felt the rush of his own superiority, and glanced up at the balcony to make sure Mori was watching him win.
His eyes left Kael for half a second.
Faster Brain processed the opening instantly.
Kael didn’t hesitate.
Beginner Swordsmanship flared in his muscle memory.
He didn’t retreat from Sebastian’s next heavy swing; he stepped inside it.
Kael dropped his center of gravity, ducking under the whistling wooden blade, and drove the heavy pommel of his own sword straight up into the underside of Sebastian’s jaw.
The impact sounded like a snapping branch.
Sebastian’s eyes rolled back.
His feet left the mat, and he crashed onto the hard oak floor in a heap of white-and-gold fabric.
A brutal, absolute knockout.
The roar of the crowd died instantly.
Up on the balcony, Mori stopped.
She turned her head, looking over her shoulder at the ring.
When she saw the golden boy flat on his back and the F-rank standing over him breathing hard, the corner of her mouth twitched.
A slow, genuine smirk broke her perfect composure.
Interesting.
On the mat, the humiliation flooded Sebastian’s system faster than pain.
“You rat,” Sebastian snarled, spitting blood onto the oak.
He didn’t just stand up; he exploded.
Sebastian abandoned form entirely, his B-rank mana flaring around him in a visible, angry haze.
He launched himself at Kael with lethal, wild strikes, aiming to shatter bones.
Kael didn’t try to block the onslaught.
He couldn’t.
Instead, his accelerated mind mapped the chaotic swings, calculating trajectories before Sebastian even fully swung.
Kael slipped a horizontal slash by a fraction of an inch.
“Center of gravity is too high, Sebastian,” he panted, backing up.
Sebastian roared, slashing downward.
Kael sidestepped.
“Did I scuff the white coat?
I’m sure the academy pays for dry cleaning.”
“Shut up!” Sebastian screamed, swinging so hard he spun himself off-balance.
“Breathe,” Kael mocked, ducking another strike.
“You’re turning red.
It’s really not your color.”
Sebastian snapped.
He threw his entire weight into a massive, uncontrolled lunge.
Kael pivoted, letting the strike sail past his chest, and slammed the flat of his blade hard against the back of Sebastian’s overextended shoulder.
There was a sickening pop.
Sebastian dropped his sword, screaming in agony as his shoulder dislocated, and collapsed into the sawdust.
Kael lowered his weapon, his chest heaving, his muscles screaming from the sheer exhaustion of dodging a B-rank’s full-force assault.
He was completely drained, but he was standing.
The silence in the hall was deafening.
Then, the reactions rippled through the crowd.
A few students gasped in genuine horror.
Others backed away, terrified of what Sebastian’s family would do in retaliation.
But from the back rows, a few low-rank students were hiding their mouths, trying desperately to stifle their laughter.
“Enough!” Instructor Toris stormed into the ring, his face livid.
He didn’t look at Sebastian.
He pointed a trembling finger right at Kael. Get faster updates on g.com.
“You injured a B-rank student!
This was a form drill, Morgan, not a street brawl!”
Kael leaned on his sword, wiping sweat from his eyes.
“He swung first, sir.
I was just adapting.”
“Provisional status doesn’t protect you from discipline,” Toris hissed, his bias completely exposed.
He wanted to expel the boy, but the Director’s priority stamp prevented it.
“You want to fight?
Fine.
You can fight the grime off the lower levels.
Dungeon maintenance.
Floor one.
Tonight.
And you don’t sleep until the holding pens are scrubbed.”
Kael didn’t argue.
He just nodded, his exhausted body aching.
An hour later, in the academy’s medical wing, Sebastian sat on a cot while a healer popped his shoulder back into place.
He ground his teeth, refusing to scream in front of the two C-rank sycophants standing nervously by the door.
“He got lucky, boss,” one of them offered weakly.
“Just a cheap shot.”
Sebastian’s eyes were dead and cold.
The humiliation burned hotter than the torn ligaments in his arm.
He looked up at his henchmen.
“Toris gave him dungeon duty tonight,” Sebastian said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
“The lower pens.”
“Yeah.
Scrubbing duty.
He’ll be miserable.”
“No,” Sebastian corrected, standing up and ignoring the healer.
“He’ll be dead.
Go to the maintenance sector.
Bribe the gatekeeper.
When Morgan goes into the holding pens…” Sebastian’s eyes darkened with raw malice.
“Unlock the cages.”