After Caster left, I walked back to my dorm in silence. The academy grounds were busy with students laughing and talking about the festival starting tomorrow, but I barely noticed them. My mind was already past the noise.
I reached my room and entered the training room, shut the door behind me, and locked it.
The room was huge — fifty feet wide with a forty-foot ceiling. The walls were made of dark metal that absorbed mana, and glowing runes lined them, ready to soak up any attack. It was built for Grandmaster-level training and could even survive low-level Transcendent strikes.
I walked to the center of the cold floor, sat down cross-legged, and laid Tempest across my knees.
The dark steel blade caught the dim light of the room. It looked perfectly still, but I could feel the faint buzz of my mana running through the handle.
It was time.
I had been putting this off for too long. Every time I thought about the third form, about trying to use it, something held me back.
