Night settled over Eclipse Hunter Academy.
Most of the dormitory lights had gone dark by the time Lysander made it to the secondary training ground near the edge of campus. Exhausted first-year students had collapsed into their beds after the exam and orientation — a reasonable response to the day they'd had. He understood it. He just couldn't afford it yet.
The training ground was empty. Moonlight spread across the stone floor and Kagekiri caught none of it — the blade absorbed the light the same way it absorbed everything else, existing as a piece of dark rather than an object in the dark.
He lowered into his stance. Left hand on the sheath. Right hand on the hilt.
Focus. Breath.
One step forward. Draw — slash — sheath.
Click.
He frowned slightly. The motion was there but the timing was still rough. The draw worked. The return to sheath was clean. The part in between — the actual strike — was where the hesitation lived. A fraction of a second where his body and the technique weren't fully speaking the same language yet.
"You're still forcing it."
Nythera's voice came through quietly — not from anywhere specific, just present the way she was always present when Kagekiri was in his hand.
"I know," he said.
"Your body has the form. It doesn't trust it yet."
He rolled his shoulder once and reset his stance. "How long does that take?"
"Depends on how often you do this."
He exhaled and ran the motion again. Draw — slash — sheath. Click. Slightly better. The hesitation was still there but smaller.
He kept going.
After the fourth repetition he sat down on the stone floor cross-legged, Kagekiri across his knees. His body ached from the exam in a way that training was making worse and he needed to give it a moment. He turned his attention inward instead — basic mana circulation, something he'd pieced together from what the system had shown him and what felt natural when he focused inward. Following the current through his channels. Feeling where it moved freely and where it didn't.
At first there was just the normal flow. Warm and slow, the baseline that every living person carried whether they trained it or not.
Then something shifted.
The current sharpened. Crackled. A different quality entirely — faster, less patient, with an edge to it that the normal flow didn't have.
His eyes opened.
A small spark jumped across his fingertips and vanished.
He stared at his hand for a moment. Then closed it slowly.
Lightning.
The reward from the exam — he'd felt it settle into his channels earlier but this was the first time he'd actually touched it consciously. It was genuinely different from what he'd expected. Not just fast. Sharp. Like the difference between a river and a current running through a wire.
He focused on it carefully. Let it move through his channels without trying to direct it yet. Just feeling the shape of it.
Another spark. Then another. Small, unstable, but real.
The system appeared briefly.
ABYSSAL SYSTEM — UPDATE
Lightning Element Fragment
Status: Active
Elemental compatibility: Low — stabilizing.
He closed the window. Low compatibility meant it would take time to work with properly. But it was there and it was his and nobody looking at him would see anything but a lightning swordsman doing exactly what lightning swordsmen did.
He stood up and ran the draw again. This time he let a thread of lightning mana into the motion — just a thread, barely anything, testing how it felt alongside the physical technique.
The draw was faster.
Not dramatically. Just slightly. Enough to notice.
Click.
He stopped. Looked at the blade. Then at his hand.
Interesting.
"Don't push it tonight," Nythera said quietly. "Your channels aren't stable enough."
"I know." He sheathed Kagekiri properly and let the lightning mana settle back to a resting state. She was right — the channels felt slightly raw from the unfamiliar current, like muscles that had been used in a new way. Too much too fast would just set him back.
He was about to head back when footsteps crossed the training ground behind him.
Heavy. Confident. Someone who moved like they owned whatever space they were in.
He turned.
Tall, dark hair, grey eyes with the specific alertness of someone who woke up ready to compete. Lightning mana moved around him in a way that was noticeably different from Lysander's own — more settled, more practiced, the element of someone who had been working with it for years rather than hours.
Caelum Draven.
He stopped a few meters away, practice sword resting on his shoulder, eyes moving over Lysander with the direct assessment of someone who didn't see the point in being subtle about it.
"I saw your duel earlier," he said.
Lysander waited.
"You moved well. For someone who lost that easily." He tilted his head slightly. "Either you're worse than you look or you weren't trying. Either way I want to find out which."
He pointed the practice sword forward.
"Spar with me."
Lysander looked at him. Then at the sword. Then back.
Caelum Draven. C rank, lightning element, one of the stronger students in the first year. Fighting him tonight with a shoulder that still ached from the exam and lightning channels that were raw from just being activated was not ideal timing.
But turning it down wasn't really an option either. Not without a reason that would raise more questions than the spar itself.
He picked up the practice sword he'd set against the wall.
"Sure."
Caelum's eyes sharpened slightly. A faint grin.
"Good."