Sera Valdris was the best the Academy had produced in seven generations, and that was saying something because the Academy had one hundred and fifteen branches all over this continent.

She had been tested at eight, early, because the Academy had been watching her since she was a child, because they had seen something in her that they had not seen in anyone for a long time.

She had opened eight pools that were all freakishly deep, granting her access to more essence than any Siphon in her stage or higher. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The number of pools was more than anyone in her class had opened in centuries, and from that moment, she was told that she could be one of the most powerful Siphons to ever emerge from the Academy.

Sera had spent the next ten years proving them right.

Now eighteen years old, tall, lean, with the kind of grace that came from years of training and the kind of stillness that came from years of waiting.

Her talent was steel. A relatively simple talent, but all of that changed when she placed her vast amount of essence she had into play.

Sera could feel, shape, and make it do things that steel was not supposed to do.

Her sword, which had been forged for her when she was twelve, had grown with her, becoming something that was not quite steel and not quite anything else.

It was sharp enough to cut through the armor of a Mist Phantom, tough enough to block the claws of a Rune Beast, light enough that she could wield it for hours without tiring.

She had never lost a match at the Academy, never drawn in a spar, and had never been touched by an opponent who was not her equal, and she had not yet found an opponent who was her equal.

Sera, of course, did not come from the Academy in Stormfall, but was sent here in secret for the opportunity to hone her Legacy of Steel, one of the most domineering Heaven-grade Legacies of the Academy.

She did not care about who her competitors were; they would all fall before her steel.

Before her were reports on who she should watch out for going into this trial, and Sera had been avoiding looking at it for a while now, not because she was dreading this information, but because her daily meditation needed to be complete.

She meditated for four hours daily, and there were days when distractions sought to break her out of this habit, but she relentlessly suppressed any sort of distraction.

To become a powerful Siphon was a journey of sacrifice, of the sort that normal people could hardly imagine.

Sera had a competitive spirit, and it was quite the challenge to ignore pamphlets containing all of her competition.

If she were dealing with the local bumpkins here, then she would not be this interested, but knowing the reach of the Guilds and the Royal Houses, she would not be surprised if there were truly odd monsters in this trial, and she was so eager for them to taste the edge of her blade.

®

Kaelen Ashford, was the last of his line.

At twenty-one years old, he was not too old to become a competitor, since for Siphons, you were still a youth even in your forties, as long as you could become a Fury Forge, where it became possible to reach 150 years of life.

This number could also be extended by the Legacy of the Siphon and the Attribute they focused on, since greater durability extended the lifespan of a Siphon.

However, it was hard to know that Kaelen was in his early twenties because his face was scarred, making him appear much older. It also did not help that he had grey hair, and his eyes carried too much weight for one that was so young.

Like all children of the old families, he had been tested at twelve and had opened three pools, enough to be a Siphon of some standing, but not enough to be noticed. The number of pools was considered average in an old family,

His family had other heirs, stronger heirs, heirs with four pools, five pools, heirs who would carry the Ashford name into the next generation.

He had been given a small allowance and a small place in the world where he had been forgotten.

Kaelen would have loved to remain in the shadows for the rest of his life, but events caused him to spend the next nine years proving that they should have remembered him.

His talent was earth. A simple one where he could move the ground beneath his feet and shape it as he wanted.

However, this simple talent made him incredibly dangerous because of the fact that the earth was everywhere, and it was only a matter of time until his reach grew great enough to shake the entire continent.

However, Theron had been abandoned before his talent was fully understood, and he was seen as a minor mover of the earth.

He had learned in the quarries, where the old families sent their unwanted sons to work the stone that built cities and palaces.

From there, he was sent to learn in the tunnels, where the Guilds mined the metals that made their weapons, and soon he became lost in the depths of the earth, where he had learned in the deep places, where the old things slept and waited... and dreamed.

He had no formal training from the Guilds or the Academies. Theron had been trained by the stone itself, by the years he had spent breaking it, shaping it, learning to listen to what it told him.

Three days before the trial was to begin, Theron had walked into the city, and no one believed that he was to be a contestant, thinking him much older until he presented proof of his age, and he was to wait until the day the gate would be open and the trial would begin.

He had no money to rent a room, and so Theron found a corner beside an alley, and sat on the ground, and with his head bowed, anyone would believe he was a piece of old sculpture as he did not move, even as days passed.

Theron was wearing an armor that was ancient, it had no great abilities or profound runes.

It was simply an armor that refused to fade away. It had been his grandfather’s, passed down to his father, passed down to his brother, passed down to him when his brother died, and his father remembered that he had another son.

This armor was heavy, old, and worn in a hundred places, and yet, Theron believed that it was stronger than anything the Guilds could forge.

His weapon was a hammer, and like all things that he owned, it was old and far heavier than it looked.

Theron was here alone; he did not have the backing of a guild, an academy, or a family that remembered his name. He only had himself, so why would he risk coming to an unknown city with unknown dangers? The answer was the voices from the earth.

The stone t had been his only teacher, his only friend, and his only purpose.

It was this purpose that drew him here because the stone in the depths of this city was screaming.

Theron would have loved to report what he was hearing to the authorities of this city, but he knew they would never believe him.

And so, he could only take on this burden by himself, and free the earth of the cancer that was slowly growing in its veins.

End of Volume Two.