"Explain it again."
Those words, filled with exhaustion and frustration, echoed throughout the commoner training hall.
There was no one there to answer me.
Not physically anyway.
The time of day was late enough that most of Aetherion had surrendered to their sleep. Even the corridors above had gone quiet, their usual mixture of noble footsteps, commoner chatter, and distant professor voices replaced by the low trill of Aether lamps and the occasional creak of old cracked stone settling into the night. The commoner training hall was emptier than I had ever seen, with targets lined up in silence along the far wall like battered and worn-down witnesses waiting for mercy.
I had given it to many of them already.
The air smelled of dust, old sweat, scorched stone, and the faint metallic sharpness that always followed repeated spellwork. Hours of training had left the training hall looking less like a practice room and more like the aftermath of an intense battle. Blackened impact marks covered the walls in overlapping circles, some still smoking faintly at the edges. Sections of the floor had cracked beneath repeated bursts of force, while loose fragments of stone lay scattered between shallow craters and long scorch trails. One corner had been gouged open where a spell had struck at the wrong angle, exposing the darker material beneath the polished surface.
The suppression arrays carved into the walls still glowed, but unevenly now. Several runes flickered with exhausted light, their lines strained from absorbing one violent cast after another. Heat clung stubbornly to the room, trapped beneath the ceiling in heavy layers, and the air felt thin from being burned, displaced, and forced back into place too many times. Even the practice targets had suffered. Some leaned crookedly on damaged bases, others had split apart entirely, leaving only charred frames and fragments scattered across the floor.
The room had endured me for several hours.
It looked as tired as I felt.
The Codex answered inside my mind, as if it were able to sense my fatigue weighing down on me.
[QUERY RECEIVED]
[SUBJECT: CORE ADVANCEMENT]
[CURRENT STATUS DISPLAYED]
The familiar text appeared in my vision.
[COMPREHENSION: 94.2%]
[TIER: IGNIS ADEPT]
[NEXT THRESHOLD: IGNIS MASTER]
I stared at the numbers.
'Ninety-four point two, huh.'
It wasn't close enough to matter, but it was close enough to be infuriating.
Staring at the number made me recall the frustration I've been having for the past couple of days. Ever since Professor Seris had explained the Island examination, ever since Darius Renora forcefully made his presence known in the commoner training halls, ever since the Codex confirmed the thoughts I had already expected. The sense of jeopardy felt painfully present.
Darius was at the Aetherflow stage. Initiate stage, yes, but Aetherflow nonetheless. While I... I was still at Ignis Adept, on the cusp of Ignis Master, but still a way away from Aetherflow.
The difference between us was big enough to feel, let alone display as a simple line of status.
It was a gap in understanding, a gap in application, a gap that would become devastatingly obvious if we met on the island and engaged in combat.
I have certain advantages, yes.
Tricks.
Precision.
The Codex.
I've survived situations some would deem impossible for me just by noticing the small details others missed.
But none of that mattered if this gap between us remained. In the face of that dark violet Aether, I was growingly aware that not even my uniqueness could oppose overwhelming strength.
If I wanted a real chance, a real fighting chance at obtaining the top ten, if I wanted a real chance standing against Darius Renora— no, not just him, but the other heirs and nobles who seemed to threaten my existence- then Aetherflow Initiate was not enough.
It was the bare minimum.
It was a stage I needed to reach as quickly as possible.
But before that, I had to cross this threshold first.
"Only ninety-four point two," I muttered while flexing my right hand. "Fine. Let's try this again."
I raised my palm toward one of the remaining targets.
"Ignis: Fireball."
Flame gathered above my hand, but I refused to release it.
Not yet.
I held the shape in place and corrected it piece by piece. The outer casing tightened first, compressing until the fire formed a near-perfect sphere. Beneath its surface, a burning red and gold churned in dense, controlled waves, folding over one another without spilling free. Every unstable flicker was drawn back in. Every uneven pulse was corrected before it could distort the whole structure.
The air began to bend around it.
Thin white streams curled across the hall and wrapped themselves around the Fireball in smooth, intersecting arcs, tracing the pressure currents feeding its rotation. I adjusted them carefully, narrowing one flow, strengthening another, until the sphere turned with perfect balance above my palm. It was larger than my usual cast, but felt lighter in my control. No shaking edges. No wasted heat. No uncontrolled flare.
For the first time, the spell did not feel like fire I was holding back.
It felt complete, ready to flow.
So, I let it.
The Fireball surged across the room as a blazing red-gold sphere, the air spiralling around it in pale ribbons. It struck the target plate dead centre and collapsed inward for a fraction of a second before erupting in a compact, thunderous burst. Sparks scattered across the floor. Heat rolled outward in a single controlled wave, and the suppression arrays blazed across the walls as they absorbed the impact.
Then the hall fell still.
A blackened crater remained where the target had stood.
It was the cleanest Fireball I had ever cast.
It seemed like the Codex agreed, as it responded to my efforts.
[CAST SUCCESSFUL]
[CONTROL VARIANCE: ACCEPTABLE]
[COMPREHENSION: 94.4%]
I inhaled slowly.
'All that for a tiny increase.'
But at least it wasn't nothing.
'Somehow this feels worse than nothing.'
"Ignis: Vector Lance."
This time, I sharpened the flame into a line. A thin, focused spear of heat formed from my palm, narrow enough to leave almost no waste around the edges. I adjusted the angle by half a degree and released.
It crossed the hall like a streak of red-orange light and punched into the reinforced target exactly where I intended.
Clean.
Precise.
And efficient.
[CAST SUCCESSFUL]
[OUTPUT STABILITY IMPROVED]
[COMPREHENSION: 94.7%]
My jaw tightened slightly.
"Ignis: Ember Shield."
Flame curved around my arm, forming a defensive shell that shimmered in layered bands. It was not large, but it was stable, the outer edge burning hotter than the centre to disperse incoming force more evenly.
I held it for as long as I could.
Ten seconds.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Then dismissed it before the twenty-five-second mark, unable to project the defensive flame any longer.
[CAST SUCCESSFUL]
[DEFENSIVE STRUCTURE STABLE]
[COMPREHENSION: 95.0%]
'It's still not enough.'
"Ignis: Implosion."
The air above my palm compressed.
Heat folded inward.
A sphere of flame formed, smaller than Fireball, denser, heavier, its surface twisting around a point of pressure at the centre. I held it carefully, feeling the strain against my palm as the spell tried to collapse too early.
Then I released.
The sphere struck the target and folded in on itself before bursting outward in a contained shock of flame and pressure.
I could feel the floor tremble.
The suppression arrays pulsed in anxiousness.
[CAST SUCCESSFUL]
[COMPRESSION CONTROL IMPROVED]
[COMPREHENSION: 95.3%]
I stared at the text.
"That's it?!"
The Codex, predictably, offered no apologies for my anger.