The rain had finally broken.
After the chaos of the surreal zone, after Kaela's confrontation in the core and the awakening of her Echo—the nine-tailed kitsune whose presence still shimmered behind her like a silken veil of light—the students of Class C found themselves in a rare moment of calm.
A week had passed.
In that time, the Academy grounds had returned to their equilibrium. The Veins Beyond were sealed again. The Echo Council had long departed, leaving behind rumors, adjustments in class placement, and revised scrolls posted across the messaging boards.
And now came the news.
An island.
A trial.
Officially titled "Sanctum Isle Orientation for Applied Combat and Development," but everyone just called it:
The lock in.
⸻
Toji sat in the grass behind the West Tower, shaded beneath the overhang of a crumbling stone archway. Phantom Edge leaned against his shoulder, sheathed in shadow. Kareth—the jackal Echo—was nowhere to be seen, dismissed for the day. The Mnemo-Eye pulsed dimly, coiled behind him in a tight ring like a sleeping dragon.
He turned a page in the scroll.
New briefing. Five weeks. S through D class participation. Mixed units. Island transport via spell-ship. Open field training, wild-zone survival, Echo duels, elemental exposure.
He exhaled.
"I need to rebuild my forms," he muttered.
His domains had grown unpredictable after the surreal zone. The forge had imprinted deeper than expected. Kareth's evolution was steady, but volatile. And the Mnemo-Eye—still unruly.
He needed the distance.
He needed the silence.
"Of course they'd make it another battlefield."
⸻
Elsewhere, Kaela stood before the mirrored pond in the Whisper Garden. Her reflection shimmered—not just her own, but the ghostly silhouette of the kitsune, now partially fused with her soul.
It stood beside her, ethereal and tall, its nine tails coiled protectively around her image.
"I'm not afraid anymore," she said softly.
The kitsune tilted its head, as if acknowledging the shift.
She'd been journaling every day since the zone. Sketching dreams, scribbling thoughts, mapping out new Echo-invoked magic styles. Her spells had begun incorporating illusions now—vivid ones. Constructs made of thought and tethered to emotional memory.
She called it: Mirrorweave.
And it frightened even the instructors.
"Kaela!" Roth's voice echoed from the nearby path. "We're getting assignment packets. You're in Group 7, by the way."
She turned.
"Who else is with me?"
"Niko, that new blade-ward from Class D… and Toji."
Her gaze flickered.
Of course.
⸻
Later that evening, their group gathered in the arcane logistics hall. Lysara stood at the front, posture relaxed for once.
"You've all survived the Veins Beyond. And no, that's not a poetic exaggeration," she began, folding her arms. "Now, you move into continental tier training."
She gestured to the rune-map floating behind her.
"Sanctum Isle is divided into sectors. Your base camp will be on the north ridge. Each class will have interwoven rotations, meaning you'll work with, against, and around other classes during scheduled trials. There is no eliminatory combat—but if you get injured, you'll be pulled."
She glanced at Toji.
His face gave nothing away.
"You'll rotate through instructors based on observed affinity and development needs. Expect to train with bladesingers, elementalists, primalists, even those from Echo divisions. Every day will test a different part of your arcane and physical composition."
She paused.
Then softened slightly.
"Last thing. You're no longer students merely surviving assignments. You've been seen. Remember that."
⸻
That night, in the quiet of the dorms, Toji sat on the balcony, watching the clouds drift by. A single strip of parchment lay across his knee.
A sketch—quick, rough, but unmistakable.
The outline of Kareth. Then the Eye. Then the faint suggestion of a third figure: something else he hadn't summoned yet.
He didn't know where it came from.
But Kaela sat beside him, silent for a long time, then asked, "What's the third one?"
"I don't know," he said.
"You've changed."
He said nothing.
So she continued.
"It's not just your power. You seem… like you're walking toward something now. Not running from it."
His grip tightened on the sketch.
"I still don't know what it is."
She smiled.
"Maybe you'll find it on the island."
⸻
In the days that followed, the academy buzzed with activity. Students packed their gear, received elemental resistance scrolls, trained in terrain adjustment protocols, and stocked up on emergency tethers and recovery charms.
Toji trained alone most days.
But sometimes, Kaela joined him. Or Roth sparred without a word. Or Niko brought strange fruit from the north gardens and sat down like they were old friends.
They weren't.
But maybe, someday, they could be something.
By the end of the fifth day, the transport sigils glowed at the gates.
Their names were called.
Group 7. Island-bound.
And behind them, Valemont Academy stood tall beneath the storm-scattered sky.
The sea ahead boiled with magical currents.
Toji stepped forward.
And the world shifted again.
The spell-ship hummed as it sliced across the horizon, trailing a streak of auric light through the storm-veined sky. Beneath its hull, the churning sea of Aetherglass roared—an arcane ocean known for its mana-reactive tides and prismatic foam. When struck by sun, it shimmered like a kaleidoscope. When stirred by emotion, it boiled.
Toji stood near the prow, fingers wrapped around a braided rope rail. The wind lashed his hoodie against his frame, and beneath the fold of his sleeve, the Mnemo-Eye blinked once.
Behind him, the others leaned into the wind.
Kaela stood with her arms crossed, tails curled faintly around her ankles—visible only to those attuned. Roth had his sleeves rolled up and was chewing dried root from his pack. Niko sat cross-legged mid-deck, talking to one of the four new additions to their group—Sohra, a quiet tactician from Class D whose Echo resembled a crystalline owl.
Then there was Dren, a wiry blade-channeler from Class B with skin marked by ritual scars.
And finally the twins: Callix and Rynn, Echo-bound siblings whose bond extended through a strange, mirrored tether—a resonance rarely seen, even in high-order circles.
Six new faces. Some already powerful. Some dangerous.
But none had seen what Toji had seen.
And none had walked into a surreal zone and emerged… altered.
Not like him.
Not like Kaela.
The deck shifted.
A deep chime rang from the spell-core at the ship's center.
"We're descending," Roth muttered, eyes narrowing at the island ahead.
⸻
Sanctum Isle was… vast.
Mountains like sleeping giants curled at its spine. Forests roiled with elemental mist. Strange lights darted between trees that bent unnaturally in spiraled directions. Open fields crackled with leyline fire, and the beaches shimmered faintly with silver-tinted sand.
As they disembarked, Lysara met them at the northern ridge.
She looked different here—less teacher, more operative. Her jacket was replaced with armor-stitched leathers, a dagger at her side, Echo-glove laced with glyphs.
"Welcome to the training that decides what kind of mage you'll become," she said without ceremony.
Behind her, tents flapped in the wind. Training wards flickered across the stone ground. And several instructors—bladesingers, war-anchors, field elementalists—waited beneath sigil-marked banners.
Lysara pointed to the eastern slope.
"That ridge over there? The neutral zone. You fight there without instructor interference. Use it for disputes, practice, or if someone pisses you off."
She smiled faintly.
"The instructors won't save you if you bleed. They'll just heal you after."
Callix whistled. "Nice to know Valemont believes in practical application."
Rynn elbowed him.
Lysara nodded once.
"Settle in. Gear checks in twenty. Training rotation assignments at dawn. Class dismissed."
⸻
That night, around a low-burning mana fire, the group gathered beneath a starlit canopy. The constellations above were strange—rearranged by proximity to the Aetherglass sea.
Niko passed around some of his gathered fruit—sour, glowy, but edible. Sohra jotted notes. Dren sharpened a whisper-blade while keeping his Echo half-summoned—a bladed serpent that hissed when looked at directly.
Kaela sat beside Toji.
"I know what this is," she said quietly, watching the fire.
"What?"
"This… feels like the calm before another storm. But this time, I think we'll choose what burns."
Toji didn't answer.
Instead, he held out a hand.
The Mnemo-Eye slowly emerged from his shadow, folding open like an ancient lens.
It blinked once.
Then twice.
Kaela tilted her head.
"What's it looking for now?"
"Patterns. Motions. Residual traces of the surreal."
Kaela lowered her voice. "Do you think it's here too?"
Toji's eyes flickered.
"Parts of it."
⸻
The next morning came with drums.
Actual drums—echoed across the stone valley from the central training grounds, each beat infused with minor wind magic to carry the rhythm across the island.
The message was clear:
Training had begun.
Group 7's rotation began at the Obsidian Scar—a battlefield carved from elemental stone, where Echoes naturally manifested fragments of memory during combat.
Their instructor was a former war-channeler named Adrix, whose left arm was made of tethered lightstone and who could summon a spectral version of himself mid-combat.
He greeted them with one sentence:
"Today, you fight yourselves."
Then activated the field.
Toji found himself facing an illusion—no, a perfect recollection—of himself from the dungeon. The way he had looked when he first awakened Phantom Edge. When the Mnemo-Eye opened in fear instead of precision.
His former self struck first.
And hard.
⸻
Kaela, nearby, faced a similar horror.
A younger version of herself, shadowed by the voice of her doubts, casting illusions she no longer needed to hide behind.
The fight was brutal.
But this time, she didn't hesitate.
The kitsune behind her flared, eyes glowing violet-gold, and Kaela dispersed the memory-form with a single arcing glyph strike, made of tethered threads from her new spell style: Mirrorweave Reversal.
Her opponent shattered like glass.
She gasped, steadying herself.
Across the field, Toji was still locked in a flurry of blows—present and past clashing, power against hesitation.
Kaela stepped forward instinctively—but stopped.
He didn't need help.
He needed to win.
And so, she waited.
Until, finally, Phantom Edge drew fully. Mnemo-Eye spun once.
And the illusion collapsed in three clean strikes.
⸻
Adrix nodded once.
"You pass."
Then moved on.
Toji exhaled.
Kaela met his eyes.
For a moment, the camp dissolved. The fire faded. The others vanished from sound.
"I saw who you were," she said gently.
"And now?" he asked.
"I still see who you are."
The Mnemo-Eye flickered.
But said nothing.