The battlefield was crackling with energy.
Over a thousand first-years hurled themselves into the trial, and the world responded with chaos. Magic shrieked across the sky, weapons rang with raw hunger, and the scent of fear—thick and bitter—drenched the air like blood.
Cassian Reed stood at the fringe of it all.
He wasn't fighting. Not yet.
His coat fluttered gently in the breeze as he stood atop a broken column, scanning the battlefield like a bored god. He looked unimpressed. Detached. But behind those storm-blue eyes, he was mapping everything.
Spatial Awareness — active.
Mana Detection — active.
Like threads pulled taut across his vision, every ripple of mana, every shift in space, every stray blade became part of a vast, intricate web. His mind filtered it with ease.
Left: two students circling behind a broken monolith. Mana levels low. Untrained.
Right: spell charge forming — unstable, likely miscast.
Fifteen meters ahead: someone's trying to suppress their aura. Amateur move.
He clicked his tongue. "This many rookies and no one knows how to shut up their heartbeat? Embarrassing."
He dropped to the ground without a sound.
Footsteps closed in from behind—fast, reckless, heavy on the heel. Third-rate.
"Hey!" a voice snarled. "Stop skulking and fight, coward!"
Cassian turned, eyebrow raised.
Two students stormed toward him—one swinging a curved blade, the other charging a glowing rune between his palms.
Cassian blinked. "Seriously?" he muttered. "You're announcing your spells now?"
The swordsman lunged.
Cassian pivoted, sidestepped cleanly, and drove his knee into the boy's gut. As the blade fell, he twisted it from the student's hand and flipped it, pressing it gently to the spellcaster's throat before the incantation finished.
"Boom," he whispered.
The rune fizzled. The boy flinched and fell backward.
Cassian let the sword clatter beside them and walked past with a smirk.
"You guys ever heard of reading the manual first?
But one of the downed boys wheezed out, "You're… you're G-ranked… how…"
Cassian paused mid-step.
"Funny thing about ranks," he said without turning. "They don't measure whether you're an idiot or not."
Across the battlefield, real threats were beginning to emerge.
Cassian watched them from a safe distance. His vision flared with mana trails and movement paths, each clash unfolding like a chessboard with no rules.
He spotted Lira Ashveil weaving through a collapsing corridor of summoned thorns, daggers dancing in her hands. Every move was clean, practiced, unafraid. Her pale braid snapped like a banner behind her.
Farther down the valley, Aeris Greythorn surged through a pack of mages, her enchanted longsword glowing with S-rank heat. Her footwork was brutal, her strikes methodical. That was a girl who trained like war was tomorrow.
Cassian tilted his head, watching them.
So the stars are starting to shine.
Still, he wasn't in a rush.
He let the battle churn around him, only intervening when someone got too close or tried something stupid.
A group of four approached, laughter in their voices and cruelty in their eyes. Arrogant. Overconfident. The kind who thought a little bloodline magic and two weeks of sword lessons made them gods.
One pointed at Cassian.
"Oi! Pretty boy over there just standing like he's better than us."
The leader smirked, cracking his knuckles. "Let's fix his attitude."
Cassian exhaled slowly. "Ah. Here comes the discount villain squad."
They charged.
He didn't move. Not until they were almost on him.
Then—
Boundary Sense — active.
He felt the tremble in the earth, the shift in air pressure, the staggered rhythm of footfalls. He sidestepped the first punch, grabbed the attacker's arm, and flung him into the second one's chest.
The third swung wide. Cassian ducked, came up under the blow, and jabbed his palm into the kid's chin. Not enough to break anything. Just enough to drop him.
The fourth tried to cast something. Cassian crushed the spell mid-channel with a well-placed throw of a stray dagger.
He stood among the four groaning bodies and yawned.
"See, this is why I keep to myself. You guys ruin the vibe."
A few observers were watching now. High up on the terraces—senior students and faculty, silent and evaluating.
Cassian glanced upward, eyes catching the faint silhouette of a fourth-year leaning on the railing.
He gave them a lazy salute.
Let them wonder. Let them speculate.
He had no interest in fame. No interest in saving anyone. He wasn't the protagonist. He wasn't a hero. And he wasn't here to make friends.
He was here to survive.
To adapt.
To avoid the kinds of anomalies that broke stories.
Still... fighting these kids was starting to feel like swatting flies.