Chapter 56: Apology

Thomas walked down the neat and orderly stone corridor of the academy freshman barracks, keeping his stride measured and level as he carried Mina through the threshold of her shared dormitory room.

Lina quickly cleared a space on the mattress, her hands still radiating faint traces of green healing mana as Thomas carefully laid the battered girl down onto the sheets.

Thomas looked down at Mina’s pale features, his face masked in his usual unreadable calm. "I am sorry for putting your life in danger today, Mina," Thomas said flatly, his voice carrying a firm grit.

Mina slowly shook her head, a soft, weary smile breaking through the dust on her face as she looked up at him. "You shouldn’t apologize, Tom. I was the one who asked you to go out to the marketplace with me in the first place." She paused, her hazel eyes warming. "And I also had a lovely day nonetheless, before everything went sideways."

Lina stepped up beside the bed, adjusting the blankets. She turned to Thomas, her eyes filled with a deep, breathless relief. "Thank you for rescuing her, Tom. If you hadn’t gone down there..."

"What are friends for?" Thomas interrupted quietly, his tone smooth as glass.

Ryan stepped closer to the edge of the mattress, his face set into a serious, tight mask as he looked down at Mina. "Please be exceptionally careful from now on, Mina."

"I will," Mina murmured softly, offering them a supportive nod.

With the situation stabilized, Thomas and Ryan turned on their heels and left the girls’ room, walking back down the orderly avenues of the freshman barracks. They pushed open the heavy wooden door of Unit 112, entering their former shared dormitory space. The single mana stone on the center table cast long, familiar shadows across the wooden floorboards.

Thomas stood by the window, his dark eyes wide open as he stared out toward the massive defensive walls of the fortress city. He never told Ryan anything about his talent, keeping the cold lines of his system locked away behind his eyes, but his voice carried a sharp, unyielding focus.

"We need to grow stronger, Ryan," Thomas stated flatly, his posture perfectly rigid. "We have to hone our talents to their absolute fullest potentials if we want to protect the girls from people like Darian."

"Yeah," Ryan said, running a hand through his blonde hair as he leaned against the desk. He let out a low sigh, gesturing toward the empty third mattress in the corner. "By the way, they have already assigned a new freshman named Melvin to the dorm to share the space with me, since you officially got promoted to the luxury suites in the sky sector."

Thomas turned his head, his face perfectly smooth. "Does this mean nothing will change between us, Ryan?"

Ryan violently scoffed, a genuine, wide grin breaking across his face as he stepped forward and roughly gripped Thomas’s shoulder. "What the hell are you even thinking, man? Nothing will ever change between us. To me, you are the absolute brother I never had."

Thomas looked at him, the dangerous, quiet mask of his face softening for a rare fraction of a second. Right there in the dim light of their old room, the two lesser blood freshmen swore their unyielding brotherhood to one another, sealing a pact that no high blood decree could ever hope to fracture.

After a moment of silence, Thomas adjusted his silver-trimmed jacket, his brow furrowing slightly. "I am still deeply worried about leaving the aftermath of the subterranean situation entirely in Julian and that senior’s hands."

"Well, there is absolutely nothing we can do besides watch how the Academy Council reacts," Ryan shrugged helplessly.

"There is something we can do," Thomas said, his sharp intellect already moving the pieces across his mental board. He looked directly into Ryan’s eyes. "Where can I get one of those runetech devices for communication?"

Ryan blinked in surprise, his wind core pulsing softly. "The important, high level ones are sold strictly inside the Metropolis. But those communication relics are completely reserved for the High-bloods. The only lessers who ever enter the borders of the Metropolis are registered servants and laborers. For lesser academy students like us, the entire commercial hub is completely off limits."

Thomas merely shrugged, his dark smile quietly returning in the shadows. "I will just ask one of my seniors in the Horsemen of Calamity to get it for me then."

Ryan stared at him, his jaw dropping into a circle of pure, unadulterated shock. "I didn’t know you all were absolute best friends already."

"Well, yeah," Thomas said flatly, his voice completely level. "It is all thanks to my amazing people skills."

Ryan violently burst out laughing, shaking his head in absolute disbelief. "You mean your completely non-existent people skills, right?"

Thomas didn’t flinch. "You are just intensely jealous, man."

Ryan smirked, rolling his eyes as he turned away. "As if."

The sudden, sharp resonance of the primary academy bell violently struck thrice through the open sky.

The three heavy, echoing booms vibrated straight down the stone columns of the freshman barracks, signifying an emergency mandatory academy meeting where every single one of the students was expected to show up immediately. Thomas and Ryan quickly made their way out of Unit 112, their boots clicking rapidly against the stone floorboards as they joined the massive wave of rushing students flooding the central spiral staircases toward the summit.

On their way up the tower avenues, they ran into Mina and Lina, who were running alongside the crowd. Mina was still slightly pale, but her posture was steady under the silver-trimmed jacket.

"What is going on, Tom?" Lina asked, her voice carrying a sharp trace of anxiety as she matched their pace.

"Beats me," Ryan answered fiercely, his wind core pulsing softly beneath his uniform. "I guess we are about to find out right now."

They arrived shortly at the top of the tower apex, walking out onto the massive, wind-swept tiers of the Crimson Arena. The thousands of vaulted stone benches climbing the walls were packed to absolute capacity in less than ten minutes, a breathless, suffocating silence hanging heavily over the entire student body.

Thomas sat down in the back row alongside his circle, his dark eyes wide open as he meticulously scanned the layout of the front stage.

Up on the grand elevated platform stood three members of the Academy Council: President Cedric of House Wisa, Director Seraphina of House Pint, and Dean Talia of House Erengale. The Vice President, Declan, was noticeably absent from his seat today.

President Cedric stepped forward to the gilded marble railing, his pale features and sharp, platinum-tinted hair catching the harsh morning sun. He didn’t offer a polite introduction. He looked over the thousands of noble rows, his voice carrying an immense, deep weight that cleanly sliced through the high-altitude gale.

"We are deeply disappointed in all of you High-bloods," Cedric said, his tone dropping into a cold octave that made the stadium hum. "Where is your sacred honor as the superior human? How dare you plot to covertly maim and kill the lesser just because he managed to secure a placement inside the Horsemen of Calamity?"

A collective wave of tense, anxious murmurs instantly rippled through the front noble rows, many of the students shifting uncomfortably under his piercing gaze.

"By acting in such an unrefined, cowardly manner, you are actively feeding the lesser-bloods the pathetic notion that we, as their superiors, fear their potential," Cedric continued, his elegant face twisting into a condescending scowl. "And we absolutely do not. We are the ones favored by the heavens. We are the ones born with superior potential from birth. Why should we ever fear a simple fluke of the crystal? We know there is always one or two such anomalies born in the dirt every once in a while. But we do not feed their egos. Instead, we crush them openly in front of all to see, on the open sand of the arena floor."

Julian sat perfectly rigid in his seat a few rows down, his silver-rimmed glasses reflecting the light as he listened to the declaration with a completely bare, vacant expression.

"So, I will be passing on a completely new rule to this institution today," Cedric commanded, his voice echoing off the stone pillars. "Anyone who acts against the lessers in such an unrefined, street-level manner will be permanently expelled from Blackspear Academy, regardless of their house status or bloodline lineage."

A massive wave of utter shock visibly settled over the High-blood tiers, the nobles gaping in disbelief at the severity of the new administrative decree.

Meanwhile, Thomas sat unmoving on his stone bench, a cold, dangerous focus hardening his features as he listened to the speech. He was thoroughly shocked by the speaker’s absolute lack of decorum. Beneath his unreadable mask, his sharp intellect failed to understand why the council would even bother calling the entire lesser student body to the arena if they were simply going to talk down against them.

Feeling a sudden, new wave of raw, unfiltered anger flooding his nervous system, Thomas didn’t keep his mouth shut. He didn’t think about the rules of survival. He simply projected his flat, razor-sharp voice straight across the silent stadium.

"Oh, fuck off!" Thomas yelled.

The entire Arena went deadly, terrifyingly quiet in a single frame. The whistling wind was the only sound left as thousands of eyes violently snapped toward the back row. Ryan, Lina, and the rest of his friends were instantly trembling in pure, unadulterated fear beside him, their faces turning completely pale. Mina shook her head frantically at him, a deep, primal terror evident in her hazel eyes as she silently begged him to stop.

Thomas didn’t flinch. He gave Mina a small, reassuring smile before carefully descending down the steep stone stands, his jacket catching the wind as he stepped fully out onto the open black sand of the arena floor.

President Cedric looked down at Thomas from his high marble platform, his platinum-tinted hair completely level as his face smoothed into a calm, emotionless expression. He didn’t yell. He slowly stepped away from the railing, his dark crimson robes billowing behind him as he gracefully descended the marble steps, walking out onto the black sand until he stopped exactly ten paces away from Thomas.

Standing on the sand, Cedric looked down at him like an absolute ant, his golden gaze carrying the crushing, passive mana output of a high-tier administrator.

"What did you say to me, child?" Cedric asked softly, his voice akin to a dangerous whisper.

Thomas didn’t pull back his stance, his expression remaining completely hard as glass. He raised his right hand, pointed his calloused finger directly down at the black grains beneath his boots, and looked straight into the president’s face.

"Come down here if you want to talk to me, old man," Thomas said flatly, his voice carrying an absolute, unyielding grit.