Fragile Tissue
Sari’s face turned red, though Fate couldn’t tell if it was anger or embarrassment.
My fingers brushed against my lips, still frozen from the sheer disbelief of what had just happened. Did that little brat just… kiss me? A wave of hot frustration and anger rushed through me. How dare he? He’s thirteen. A mere child! For a moment, I wanted to turn around, hunt him down, and teach him a harsh lesson in manners with my sword. Who does he think he is, acting so unnaturally calm and collected all the time, and now this?
But as the heat in her chest faded, a strange calmness took over.
It wasn’t a malicious stunt; it was just his strange, impulsive way of showing closeness. Like it or not, this little brat had somehow managed to crawl past my walls. We are comrades now. Friends, even if neither of us had said it out loud.
After a few seconds, she took a deep breath and, for one reason or another, managed to suppress whatever she was feeling.
She drew one of her swords and tossed it to Fate.
“You’ll need a proper weapon if you want to survive in a dungeon. The one you have now was made for training and nothing else.”
Fate caught the sword and, for the first time, looked at it properly. Simple. No ornamentation. A little wider and heavier than a standard blade.
On closer inspection, though, he realized it was a mid-level magic weapon — one that would have cost at least twice his full three years of tuition. He might have said it was too expensive a gift, but he wouldn’t insult Sari that way. He accepted it instead.
“I never really bothered to look closely before,” he said, “so tell me — how the hell am I still alive? This sword could cut through my old piece of junk, and my bones, with a single swing, and somehow all I’ve got are a few bruises.”
Sari smiled, noting that Fate already spoke as if the sword belonged to him. She stepped closer and drew its twin.
“There’s a simple spell you can use to coat the blade so it stays sharp and protects it from damage.”
After learning the spell, Fate said his goodbyes and collected his things. Then he went into town and sold most of them.
He’d gathered a few animal pelts from the prey Shafir had brought him over the last two weeks. With two practice swords added in, he recovered the money he’d lost last month and earned a little extra. He bought a few new pieces of clothing made from solid hide, a coat, and boots — which cost him most of what he’d earned.
Then he headed back to the academy.
Last month, he’d understood that boots were the first and most important piece of armour for a knight. He’d lost more fights to Sari than he could count because his footwear didn’t support him properly — no grip, no way to use his full speed. The boots he bought were the lowest tier of magic item, but they still cost more than he’d spent on food in the last year.
Walking back to the academy, he really looked at it for the first time.
It was practically a small town nestled within the bigger city, strictly separated from the outer world by massive, imposing walls. The academy split into eleven distinct sectors, each functioning as its own sub-district, packed with buildings and a smaller tower dedicated to its specific craft. Every sector focused entirely on a different discipline of magic or combat.
Fate lived in the Light Ki Knights Sector, where training prioritized blinding speed, agility, and the sharpest, most lethal blade techniques. It stood in stark, logical contrast to the Heavy Mana Knights Sector, where warriors focused purely on raw physical strength, crushing power, and dense mana-infused armour. To accommodate the students’ bonded beasts, sprawling stables for drakes and other high-level summoned companions were built into practically every sector.
But everything in the academy bowed to the centre.
In the absolute middle of the campus stood a single, gargantuan tower that pierced the clouds. Fate knew that beneath its foundations lay the Great Underground Library — a legendary vault of knowledge infinitely larger than the one in his own sector. The bottom floors served as living quarters for the elite academy teachers. As for what lay hidden within the middle and upper floors of that gigantic monument — Fate had no idea.
For the first time, he started thinking about it properly. The academy housed tens of thousands of new disciples each year, and it stood, technically, on the border of the Gate Kingdom. Neutral ground, where people from different kingdoms gathered freely. Even the king had no say on academy soil.
Before, Fate hadn’t thought much of it. Now, with his old memories returning, he understood the significance. No king would allow a force this large to exist inside his kingdom, entirely separate from his rule — unless he had no choice.
Fate walked the wide corridor to his quarters with a new kind of respect for the academy, and understood, a little better now, why no one had helped him when he first arrived. Some people noticed him and looked surprised.
There were probably rumours about his month-long absence, but with thousands of students in the Light Ki quarters alone, he doubted they’d amounted to much. He wasn’t naive enough to think he was important enough for people to keep talking about.
Still, he was certain that by tomorrow, his brother would know.
After a good bath and a night’s sleep in a proper bed, Fate walked slowly to class. He wore his new coat so it hid the sword at his hip.
He found his brother and his friends exactly where he expected them. Students from other sectors weren’t allowed in another sector’s dorms, so they waited in the corridor connecting the living quarters to the school grounds.
This time, he didn’t hide or try to avoid them. He looked straight ahead and walked with confident steps, right down the centre of the corridor, and stopped just before them.
“Can I help you somehow, brother?” Fate asked.
Asin’s eyes went wide. After knowing Fate for thirteen years, he knew something had changed.
Dar stepped forward before speaking. “You really have balls, boy, showing up like that after finally disappearing from the academy for this long.”
Dar’s face twitched with anger as he took another step.
“Dar, wait!” Asin said. “Something’s not right.”
But Dar wasn’t listening. He took another angry step, and a small flame flared to life in his palm — Ember, a beginner spell that burned on contact. It wouldn’t do much damage on its own, but if it touched Fate, his whole body would come away scorched raw.
Dar snarled. “I see I need to explain this properly. Nobody wants you here. You’re a bloody disgrace to the name of this academy, so you’ll turn around and go hide wherever you were hiding for the last month, or I’ll be forced to do something really nasty.”
A number of students stopped to watch. Using spells to attack a fellow student was forbidden — Dar could be severely punished for it — but after noticing who the target was, no one moved to help. They simply watched to see what would happen.
Fate watched Dar close the distance. The moment he came in range, Fate used a basic feint and stepped forward.
Two of the fingers on Dar’s spell-hand hit the stone floor, wet and severed clean. Dar started screaming.
He lost control of the ember. It caught his own sleeve, licking fire up his forearm — not badly, but enough to send him staggering back, howling, as his friends looked on in disbelief.
“KILL HIM! KILL THAT BASTARD!” Dar screamed.
His friends began chanting incantations for something stronger. But a fifteen-year-old named Clin stepped up, blade already drawn.
“You really have the balls to try killing one of ours, in our own sector?” he said, voice edged with quiet danger.
Dar glared at him, blood dripping steady from his ruined hand. “Back off, Clin. This isn’t your business.”
He started his own incantation — Fireball, a low-level spell an experienced caster could finish in barely a second.
Before Fate could react, Clin stepped in front of it and cut the spell down with a single swing of his sword, flame scattering into harmless embers against the stone.
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