Author Notes
Please i edited the earlier Chapters , please check out the earlier Chapters ,thanks for reading
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Professor Marsh walked into Summoning Fundamentals at exactly eight in the morning and set his tablet on the desk without looking at anyone.
"Today’s session is practical," he said. "Change of venue."
He picked the tablet back up and walked toward the door.
"Now," he said.
Nobody argued with Marsh’s timing. Students gathered their bags and followed him into the corridor with the slightly hurried energy of people who hadn’t been warned and were adjusting.
Corbyn fell in beside Dex.
"Where are we going?" Dex said.
"No idea," Corbyn said.
"Is this normal?" Dex said.
"I’ve been here for a few days," Corbyn said.
"Right," Dex said. "Same."
Marsh led them across the east courtyard, through the older section of the academy campus where the buildings were stone rather than marble and the paths were narrower and less maintained. Students started glancing at each other as the route became less familiar.
Then the gate came into view.
It sat at the base of the old eastern wall. A registered Class Two gate, designated by the amber-colored frame of compressed light around its edges. Amber meant low tier. Known monster types. Pre-assessed and cleared.
Three junior instructors were already stationed around the perimeter, running final checks on containment readings.
Marsh stopped in front of the group.
"Practical Gate Studies," he said. "First entry of the year. You’ll go in groups of ten. Each group has one junior instructor. I’ll be running oversight from the junction inside." He looked at the students in front of him. "Class Two gate. The monsters on the first level run approximately B-rank output. If you have a B-rank summon or above you can handle anything you’ll encounter today." He paused. "If you don’t, stay behind your group’s stronger summoners and don’t do anything that requires individual heroics."
His eyes moved briefly to Corbyn.
Corbyn looked back at him.
Marsh looked away.
"Groups are posted on the containment board," Marsh said. "Check your assignment. First group enters in five minutes."
Students moved toward the board. Corbyn checked his name.
Group three.
He looked down the list.
Dex was in group three. Six noble students he recognized from the ceremony. Two merchant-class students he didn’t know yet. And one name at the bottom that made him look twice.
Lyra was in group two.
She was already assembled with her group near the gate entrance, notebook under her arm, expression carrying the focused calm she brought to everything. She caught his eye across the crowd and looked at the group three assembly point without saying anything.
He went.
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The gate smelled like wet stone and something older underneath it.
Corbyn had read descriptions of low-tier gates before the ceremony. The textbooks made them sound manageable. Clinical. A controlled environment with known parameters.
The textbooks had not mentioned the smell.
Group three went in behind their junior instructor, a young woman named Instructor Hale who moved with the careful confidence of someone on their third or fourth supervised entry. She kept her voice low and her movements deliberate.
"First level monsters are cave-type," Hale said, leading them down the initial passage. "They respond to light and sound. Keep your summons controlled and your voices down. Don’t separate from the group."
The passage opened into a cavern.
Low ceiling. Damp walls. The gate’s ambient light cast everything in a pale blue that made the shadows look deeper than they were. Old stalactites overhead. The floor uneven, carved by whatever had been living here long before the gate was registered.
Three monsters moved in the far end of the cavern. Cave Stalkers — tall, thin, six-limbed, the kind of creature that looked wrong from any angle. B-rank. Exactly what Marsh had described.
The two noble students at the front of the group summoned without hesitation. A paired earth construct and a wind-type beast that moved fast across the cavern floor. The Cave Stalkers were handled in under a minute. Clean. Efficient. The kind of performance that came from years of preparation.
Hale made notes on her assessment pad.
The group moved deeper.
The tunnel ahead branches left, Ishtar said in Corbyn’s mind. The left passage has more of them. The right is clear for now.
’How can you tell?’ Corbyn thought.
I can feel living things through the bond when I pay attention, she said. It is not precise but it is more than what your eyes give you in this light.
’You didn’t mention that before,’ Corbyn thought.
You didn’t need it before, she said.
Corbyn looked at the junction ahead.
Hale was already moving left, following the standard assessment route.
He said nothing. She knew the route. She’d done this before.
They went left.
More Stalkers. The group handled them efficiently. Corbyn held his mana and watched. His channels were at 94% and he intended to keep them there. The noble students didn’t need him yet.
Dex walked beside him near the back of the group.
"I can feel them before I can see them," Dex said quietly.
"Your class?" Corbyn said.
"Support Reader," Dex said. "It reads emotional states. Apparently cave monsters have something close enough to emotion that it works on them." He paused. "Mostly what I’m getting is hungry and territorial. Which is useful information that I have no way to act on."
"You can tell me," Corbyn said.
Dex looked at him.
"There are four more in the passage ahead," Dex said. "And something bigger further in that feels different from the others."
"Different how," Corbyn said.
"Calmer," Dex said. "Which is somehow worse."
Corbyn filed that.
They moved through two more chambers. The group was performing well. The instructor was satisfied. The assessment was running exactly the way supervised assessments were supposed to run.
Then the lights went out.
Not dimmed. Not flickered.
Out. Completely. The gate’s ambient light cut from pale blue to absolute nothing in under a second.
Someone in the group made a sound that wasn’t quite a scream.
Emergency bioluminescence kicked in along the walls. Faint green. Enough to see shapes but not details. Enough to make the cavern look like somewhere a story ended badly.