Aster pressed his fingers against the mirror’s cold surface, tracing each glyph with precise strokes and muttering each rune under his breath like someone programming a printer that might explode if disrespected
The symbols shimmered as the spellform completed.
As he checked himself over one last time—adjusting the sharp cuffs of his white Galamad uniform, smoothing the metallic violet embroidery denoting his Spirit Typing, and pulling the hem straight—he couldn't help recalling, with the clarity of trauma, how he'd received this supposedly prestigious attire.
Delivered.
By fish.
To the face.
He’d barely crossed over from the Material Plane when it happened. One moment: spiritual transit, peaceful disorientation, the gentle metaphysical slip into the Astral Realm. The next—
[🔔 Incoming Courier Familiar]
[Salm’oon. The briny parcel daddy.]
Before he could even register the pervert now monologuing in his head—
Whap.
A salmon-shaped missile of divine postal vengeance clocked him square in the jaw, trailing a dainty paper tag:
Welcome to Galamad. Uniform delivery courtesy of the Astral Courier Guild.
Even now, standing perfectly pressed and properly creased, Aster glared at his reflection.
"I vow to push the courier service to another animal—a sentient rock, for all I care," he muttered. "But I will make the courier fish learn that we evolved past fins for a reason."
With an exasperated sigh and his pride mostly repaired, he stepped forward and was swallowed by the mirror.
The world reassembled around him in a rush of colour and grandeur.
The Sylvi Wing of Galamad looked like someone had turned poverty into an architectural problem and then thrown enough money at it to forget the concept. Deep ocean-blue marble gleamed beneath his boots, polished so intensely it could trigger an existential crisis. Gold filigree threaded through white marble walls, every surface announcing that whoever built this place had mistaken excess for virtue.
It was all too much.
Again.
Always.
Aster adjusted his collar and inhaled deeply, trying to steady himself. He’d missed the introductory parts of cultivation class, but Lena had promised to help him catch up.
He turned into the classroom, already mapping out the fastest way to sneak into a seat unnoticed. No need to draw attention. Just blend in. Keep quiet. Learn a few things. Easy.
The sudden silence hit him like a slap.
Voices died.
Heads turned.
A room full of synchronized stares pinned him in place like a museum exhibit labelled:
VOID CURSED – DO NOT TOUCH
He froze.
Reflexively, he checked behind him. No one there.
Great. Definitely him.
And before he could think up a clever line to cut the tension, Lena appeared beside him like summoned shame. She grabbed his wrist with all the urgency of someone dragging a fire hazard out of a gas leak and yanked him from the room.
"Good to see you too," Aster muttered as the door shut behind them.
Lena shoved a folded newspaper into his chest.
The headline punched harder than the fish.
SURVIVOR OF VOID-WYRM SAVED BY IMPOSSIBLE MEANS — CURE STILL NOT FOUND
His throat tightened.
Aerathena had promised she'd control the narrative.
Keep things ambiguous.
"They printed this?" he croaked.
"They didn’t use names," Lena said, rubbing her temple. "But people talk. They know it was you."
"So what's the verdict?"
Lena sighed.
"It depends who you ask."
"That's never a promising sentence…"
"Some people think whatever Matter did wasn't a cure at all. They think the Wyrm is just temporarily dormant."
"...Technically not wrong."
"They think you're one bad day away from becoming a Void Emergence."
"Fair."
"Then there are the people asking whether it should've been attempted at all."
"Meaning?"
"Void infections have always been terminal. If he found a way to interfere with one..." She shook her head. "Some think you crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed."
She rubbed her forehead.
"Others think the whole story's fabricated. That the Council invented a miracle to stop public panic."
"...Conspiracy theorists already? And the people who do think I'm cured?"
Lena gave him a sympathetic look.
"They're asking why it was you."
Silence settled between them.
"If there really was one chance to save an infected host..." she continued quietly, "...why was it spent on an unknown orphan?"
Aster stared at the headline.
"It really is amazing," he murmured, "how quickly surviving becomes something you have to justify."
She nudged his shoulder.
"For what it's worth..."
He looked over.
"...I think the fact they're debating who deserved to live says a lot more about them than it does about you."
He studied her for a second.
"And Yani?"
Lena snorted.
"She offered to throw anyone spreading rumours through a wall."
"Supportive."
"And Musa said that the moment they realized the cure was scarce, people stopped celebrating survival and began questioning whether someone deserved to be saved."
Something unclenched in Aster's chest.
"Come on," Lena said. "Let's go remind them you're not made of glass."
He followed her back inside, fully prepared to spend the next several hours pretending he did not exist in any meaningful spiritual, political, or biological capacity.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
No such luck.
"So, they really are letting it sit in class." The voice came from a boy lounging near the centre of the room with the effortless confidence only generational wealth and institutional protection could produce.
Dark hair.
Immaculate white uniform, its seams picked out with the metallic powder-blue piping reserved for those with Water Typing.
A polished platinum mantis crest fastened neatly to his collar.
His expression held the particular disgust rich people reserved for public inconveniences.
Aster disliked him immediately.
Deeply.
Spiritually.
Like his face had personally voted against affordable housing.
Lena stiffened.
"Cassian—"
"What?" Cassian asked lazily, never taking his eyes off Aster. "I'm curious how this works."
He gestured vaguely.
"Do we pretend the corruption never happened, or are we simply expected to ignore it while it sits in lectures with the rest of us?"
Aster felt his jaw tighten.
It.
Not he.
Cassian smiled faintly.
Glad he'd finally noticed.
"Oh, don't look offended," he said. "I'm sure the Academy has everything under control. They wouldn't risk Legacy students like me if there were any real danger."
"And you are?" Aster asked.
"Cassian Vale," Lena whispered.
Her eyes flicked toward the platinum mantis crest.
"House Vale. Legacy main branch. Officially, their family is one of the largest hunting lineages operating across the African Cradle."
Her expression soured.
"Unofficially, they're mercenaries with better public relations."
Cassian's smile widened.
Like that wasn't an insult.
Just accurate branding.
"They handle monster outbreaks. Extermination contracts. Quarantine enforcement."
Lena hesitated.
"They're the people called when families refuse to surrender a child infected by a Void Wyrm…"
Aster felt cold crawl slowly up his spine.
"They're the ones responsible for the Wyrm-Eater Hounds."
The memory hit instantly.
Wet claws scraping across concrete.
Sirens swallowed by fog.
Eyes like search lights.
"They don't raise them," Lena said quietly. "They manufacture them."
"That’s what their known for, House Vale maintains entire islands dedicated to flesh-forging. Corrupted predators are forced to hunt each other for generations until only the strongest remain."
Her voice hardened.
"Then they're butchered for spare parts."
She glanced toward Cassian.
"Anything useful gets grafted onto mechanical frames they program like a machine."
Jesus Christ.
Aster wished he could forget the things that had hunted him through the Johannesburg fog.
The way they moved.
Like an animal designed by someone who fundamentally hated the concept of mercy.
Cassian watched the realization settle in and smiled wider.
Ah.
So he enjoyed this.
Not just the violence.
But the power of it.
"The Vale family practices Flesh-Welding."
"They treat living tissue the way artificers treat steel."
"Even themselves?"
"Especially themselves."
Aster blinked.
"Their children are modified from an early age. Entire combat styles engineered around different types of their Primordial-Mantis bloodline."
Cassian looked faintly pleased hearing it described.
"Their philosophy is simple."
Lena's voice cooled.
"Compassion compromises efficiency."
Cassian didn't even deny it. "Compassion gets cities killed."
"To House Vale," Lena continued, ignoring him, "the moment someone is diagnosed, they stop being a person and start becoming acceptable collateral."
The room felt colder.
“Your ritual sealing caused a massive political backlash inside the Legacy Factions. Especially among the Vales.” Her voice lowered further. “Their entire authority is built on the idea that Void corruption is irreversible. That extermination is mercy.”
“Because it is,” Cassian said evenly.
Lena ignored him.
“If people start believing Hosts can survive,” she continued, “then suddenly every execution House Vale ever justified becomes… questionable.”
Ah.
So that’s how it is.
His existence wasn’t merely controversial.
It was politically dangerous.
“They’ve already tried pressuring the Council to classify your sealing as unstable contamination instead of recovery,” Lena said. “If the Celestial Council hadn’t issued an iron-clad protection order around you, there’s a very real chance someone from House Vale would’ve attempted a termination request already.”
And suddenly the hostility made perfect sense.
His existence wasn't just inconvenient.
It threatened the story House Vale had been telling for generations.
For one dangerous second, Aster almost understood him.
Void outbreaks were horrifying.
He didn't know the stories in full. He didn't need to. But he'd heard enough to know people didn't build monsters like the Wyrm-Eater Hounds unless history had taught them exactly what the alternative was.
He could see how someone born inside that system would learn to fear hesitation.
Then Anathi’s face surfaced in his mind.
Small.
Tired.
Trying so hard not to be afraid.
And just like that, empathy curdled into hatred.
Because Cassian wasn't talking about abstractions.
He was talking about her.
One day, if Aster failed, people like Cassian would hunt Anathi through the streets with flesh-crafted horrors at her heels while calling it mercy.
Cassian noticed.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Tell me something," Cassian said lightly. "Do you still hear it?"
Lena frowned. "Hear what?"
Cassian ignored her.
His eyes stayed fixed on Aster with detached fascination, like he was examining an intelligent parasite.
"The sirens."
Aster's stomach tightened.
"They say Hosts never forget the sound, that it follows them for as long as they have left, always looking over their shoulders, always sleeping with one eye open."
His smile was almost pleasant.
"They only end when containment inevitably succeeds."
Aster looked at him for a long moment.
Then laughed once under his breath.
"Sorry."
Cassian raised an eyebrow.
"I'm just struggling with the branding."
"Because 'child execution squad' feels like the sort of thing most families would try to keep off the coat of arms."
His voice stayed calm.
"It's amazing what changing a few words can do. Call it containment, and suddenly nobody has to admit you're sending engineered predators to tear apart frightened kids."
Cassian's chair slammed backward as frozen air burst from him with killing intent.
"You gutter-born little—"
The classroom doors crashed open.
Pressure rolled through the room.
"Seats."
The single word silenced everything.
Aster turned.
For a moment, his brain stopped performing non-essential functions.
She was breathtaking.
Tall. Dark-skinned. A loose sundress drifted around her as golden glyph-rings revolved lazily around one wrist like bored celestial machinery.
Every student hurried back to their seat.
Except Cassian.
And of course, Aster.
Both still glaring at one another.
She sighed.
"I said sit down, Mister Vale."
Cassian didn't move.
The rings around her wrist began to rotate.
His legs buckled.
Violently.
The entire classroom froze as invisible pressure folded him into his chair.
He tried to stand.
Nothing.
Pressure pinned him in place like an insect mounted for display.
Interesting.
Apparently House Vale's prestige meant absolutely nothing to a sufficiently irritated professor.
"I said," she repeated calmly, "sit down."
Cassian stopped struggling.
Slowly.
Very slowly, without taking his eyes off Aster.
Hatred now.
Open.
Undisguised.
The woman turned toward Aster.
"Mr. Elchen, I presume?"
Every head swivelled toward him again.
Wonderful.
The social equivalent of surviving a firing squad only to discover there was apparently a second firing squad waiting its turn.
He cleared his throat.
"...Yes?"
She studied him for a moment.
Then her expression softened.
"I am Mrs. Lerato, welcome to Cultivation 101. You may take a seat."
Her gaze drifted briefly back to Cassian.
"No student in my classroom will be treated as less than human."
Cassian looked personally offended by the statement.
The professor's eyes narrowed.
"This classroom is not one of your family's breeding pits, Mister Vale."
The rings turned once.
Slowly.
"You do not decide which students deserve basic dignity."
Cassian's jaw tightened.
"Yes, Professor."
"No."
Her voice remained perfectly calm.
"I don't believe you do."
The rings rotated again.
The pressure in the room deepened.
Every student instinctively sat a little straighter.
"If I hear you've attempted to intimidate, isolate, provoke, organise against, or otherwise harass Mister Elchen outside this classroom..."
She took one measured step closer.
"...I will ensure the consequences set such a precedent that your father keeps what's left of your mangled spirit beside the family portrait as a reminder."
Silence.
Utter silence.
"And before you misunderstand me..."
Her voice softened.
"...that warning extends to your friends, your retainers, your family, and every ambitious little sycophant hoping House Vale rewards initiative."
Cassian's face darkened.
Good.
She'd seen straight through him.
Not just the insult.
The machinery behind it.
The quiet ways powerful families destroyed people without ever dirtying their own hands.
"Am I understood now, Mister Vale?"
Cassian held her gaze.
Then looked away first.
"...Yes, Professor."
Satisfied, she walked to the front of the classroom.
"Aether refinement and absorption," she began, her voice calm but carrying effortlessly, "is the cornerstone of our cultivation on the Astral Plane."
Aster perked up.
Ah.
Finally.
The cornerstone. The holy grail. The actual lesson, after everyone had spent the previous day comparing magic to accounting.
He leaned forward, pen ready.
Mrs. Lerato reached inside her Dantean and slapped a dripping slab of blue meat onto the polished surface with all the ceremony of a butcher restocking Friday specials.
Aster blinked.
"...Is that... meat?"
"Unlike the creatures of the Astral Plane, who absorb Aether passively through consumption," Mrs. Lerato said, unfazed, "humans must first refine it."
He glanced sideways at Lena.
She refused to meet his eyes.
"This," Mrs. Lerato continued, "is Aquaguana flesh. Rich in Mist-aspected Water Aether. Refined correctly, it becomes fuel for cultivation. Refined incorrectly..." She looked around the class. "...it becomes lunch."
A few students chuckled.
With a flick of her wrist, two glyphs bloomed into existence above the desk.
They hovered on either side of the meat, rotating slowly, humming with restrained power.
"This is the crucible."
The glyphs closed inward, forming a sort of arcane pressure cooker around the flesh. A flash of energy pulsed from her into the glyphs. The meat began to glow faintly, then distort. Fibers unwound. The muscle liquefied and shimmered as steam-like mist coiled upward—luminescent and oddly… beautiful.
Aster stared.
So...
…the cornerstone of cultivation is… monster vapor?
The vapor gathered above the crucible before flowing cleanly into Mrs. Lerato's chest.
It disappeared beneath her sternum in a flash of blue.
She didn't even blink.
"My Typing is Water," she said. "Mist corresponds to my diaphragm gate. Every Typing enters through its own gate on the Astral Vessel. During the Initiate Realm, your task is simply to open each of them."
The glyphs vanished.
Ash drifted lazily onto the desk.
"At your level," she continued, "you'll recover perhaps twenty percent of the available Aether."
Aster leaned back.
Right.
So I melt alien steak...
inhale the smoke...
and somehow my ghost levels up?
"Absolutely nothing cult-like about spiritually vaping seafood," he muttered.
Mrs. Lerato clapped once.
"Your materials and scripts are at the front."
She paused.
"Begin."
The class surged toward the front.