The roar of the crowd still echoed in Rey's ears even after the arena cleared. His limbs throbbed, and every breath he took felt like knives scraping against his ribs, but he stood tall. Bruised. Battered. But not broken.
Rey Velst, the so-called D-Rank, had defeated an A-Rank elite. That single victory upended the academy's hierarchy like a flipped chessboard, scattering assumptions and shaking the foundations of what students thought they knew. Even now, whispers trailed him through the corridors like a shadow.
"Did you hear what he did to Kieran?"
"They say he moved faster than lightning."
"How can a D-Rank even have that kind of speed?"
Rey kept walking, each step steady despite the burn in his legs. The chatter rolled off him like water. He didn't need validation from them. Not anymore. But there was one person whose opinion still mattered.
He found Aya leaning casually against the corridor wall near the Special Division dormitory. She wasn't in uniform anymore, just a loose combat hoodie and fitted training pants, but she still carried the same dangerous aura that never seemed to leave her. Her arms were crossed, and an unreadable look played in her eyes.
"That was reckless," she said without looking up. "You nearly fried your nervous system."
"Yeah," Rey replied. "But I won."
Aya smirked, finally meeting his eyes. "Barely. And next time, your opponent might not hesitate."
"That's why I'm going to get stronger. Fast."
She studied him for a long second, the silence between them not awkward but heavy with thought. Then, without warning, she pushed off the wall and began walking.
"Come."
Rey blinked. "Where to?"
"Your next lesson. The real one."
He followed her through the maze of corridors, down a restricted stairwell that most students weren't allowed to enter. Every step took them deeper into the academy's underground labyrinth, where reinforced walls and suppression seals kept volatile energies contained.
Finally, they reached a heavy obsidian door covered in glowing runes. Aya pressed her palm against the panel. The runes shifted, recognized her mana signature, and unlocked with a soft chime. The door hissed open.
Rey stepped into what looked like a subterranean temple, except instead of relics or altars, the room was filled with arcane training equipment, simulation pods, and floating core crystals that pulsated with raw elemental energy.
Aya gestured to the center of the chamber. "Welcome to the Eye of Retribution. It's where we shape weapons, not students."
Rey scanned the room, his instincts already screaming that this place was far more dangerous than it looked.
"Why here?"
Aya picked up a sleek tablet and began calibrating the simulator core. "Because what you did today? That was survival. But if you want to thrive, you need to stop relying on borrowed speed and raw instinct."
Rey stiffened. "I wasn't relying on anything. I calculated every move."
"No, you reacted," she corrected, without venom but with firm authority. "If Kieran had been trying to kill you, you'd be dead. So let's fix that."
Before he could ask what she meant, the room shimmered, and reality twisted. Rey found himself standing in the middle of a battlefield simulation, a scorched wasteland with jagged rocks and oppressive red clouds. The heat was real. The pressure was real. And so was the monster that stepped from the haze.
It stood over ten feet tall, its body made of molten stone and encased in obsidian armor. Its eyes burned with cruel intelligence. A simulated Hellwrought Behemoth, a Class-S creature known for turning squads of elite Elementalists into ash.
"You're insane," Rey muttered.
"You need to be," Aya said through the comms, now observing from the control platform above. "This one's power is limited to a high B-Class. Still lethal, but beatable. If you can survive five minutes, we move to stage two."
The Behemoth roared.
Rey braced himself.
The first strike came fast, a chunk of molten debris hurled with seismic force. Rey sidestepped it by a hair, the heat searing past his cheek. He dashed to the side, using terrain for cover, but the Behemoth was relentless.
Its fists smashed through rock like paper. Its breath was a wave of flame. And each time Rey tried to retaliate, he found himself one step too slow.
I need to think. Not react. Predict. Analyze. Respond.
He closed his eyes for half a second and focused. Visualized the attack patterns. Timed the gaps. Measured the range of motion. There. A small window between its left-foot stomp and right-arm sweep. He charged.
This time, he didn't aim to dodge. He dove into the gap, sliding under the beast's leg, and slammed his palm into its exposed knee joint. The impact wasn't strong enough to damage it, but it staggered the creature, giving Rey just enough time to leap backward.
"Better," Aya said. "Again."
The simulation reset. The Behemoth reemerged. Again. Again. Again. Each time Rey failed, the scenario reset. Each time he survived a little longer.
Aya watched with a narrowed gaze, her mind processing every adjustment he made. His learning curve was unnatural. But not impossible. She had seen this kind of acceleration before. Years ago. In the war. From people who no longer existed.
By the tenth round, Rey's breath was ragged, his body drenched in sweat. But he lasted five full minutes without a single hit.
The simulation ended.
Aya nodded, impressed. "You learn faster under pressure. That's rare."
Rey dropped to one knee, catching his breath. "How many more of those do I have to fight?"
"Today? Just one."
She tapped on her console. The room darkened.
The temperature dropped.
Chains of light materialized around the simulation field.
From the shadows emerged a humanoid figure, cloaked in crimson, with no face, only a black void beneath a hood. It hovered, untouched by gravity. Around it, the air crackled with cursed mana.
Rey felt every hair on his body rise. "What is that?"
Aya's tone turned grim. "A Wraithborn Shade. It doesn't exist anymore. But it did. And it's the kind of thing you'll face if you ever leave these walls."
Rey swallowed hard. The Shade moved with erratic, jerking motions, and its attacks were near silent, daggers made of compressed void energy. He could barely track them, let alone counter.
He activated Unshackled Ascension. No use. The Shade blinked out of reality whenever he closed the distance. Its attacks left afterimages of distorted space.
Aya's voice rang through. "Don't fight its body. Fight its rhythm. Wraithborns phase in patterns. Read the intervals. Strike between moments."
Rey shifted his stance. Slowed his breathing. Counted the milliseconds between attacks. Found the tempo hidden beneath the chaos. He moved in harmony with the pulses.
Then, he struck. A clean hit to its center.
The illusion shattered.
The simulation faded. The silence returned.
Aya descended from the control deck and walked up to him. "You did well."
Rey didn't answer. He was still absorbing it. The fight. The fear. The way his body had started to sync with the chaos.
Aya handed him a water bottle and a compressed mana pill. "Rest. Tomorrow, we go again. And you'll learn to fight not just with speed, but with foresight."
As he downed the pill, the sensation of pure energy burning into his bones, Rey asked quietly, "Why are you helping me this much? I'm just a D-Rank."
Aya paused. Looked at him like she was weighing secrets.
"Because D-Rank is a label," she said. "But your eyes? They remind me of someone who nearly changed the world."
Rey frowned. "Who?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she turned, her wind affinity flaring briefly around her like a whispering storm.
"You want to stand with the top? Then learn what it means to carry weight. Not power. Not status. Purpose."
And just like that, she walked out, leaving Rey in the chamber, heart pounding for reasons far deeper than combat.