Chapter 126: Training [1]

"For starters."

Ulvakor straightened his posture. One hand came forward, palm open, fingers curled just slightly, held at chest height. His other hand rested loose near his waist.

"Throw your strongest attack at me, Alden."

Alden looked at him. Then looked at the open hand, the loose waist, the casual set of his shoulders.

’My first training exercise is to attack him with everything I have?’

"You’re sure about that, Trainer?"

"Come on." Ulvakor waved a hand. "I’ll be fine."

Alden held his gaze for a moment. Then a slow smirk appeared on his face.

"Alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you."

The moment his hand closed around the hilt of the blade, he started layering Concepts.

[Concept: Breath Active]

[Concept: Electricity Active]

Mana surged through him and out of him simultaneously. Translucent spears began appearing in the air around his body, one after another, sharp-tipped and crackling with contained energy. They multiplied fast, filling the airspace above and around him until dozens of them hovered in a formation that covered every angle.

Ulvakor’s eyes moved across them with genuine interest. "Impressive."

’That’s not all.’

Alden brought the sword forward. Breath activated through the blade first, frost spreading in a rapid crawl from the hilt outward along one edge while flame followed the other, blue-white ice on one side and deep red fire on the other, both climbing the steel simultaneously. Then he pushed Electricity through the center of both elements. Lightning arced between the frost and the flame, threading itself into the gap, and where the three energies met they began to compress.

The colors merged. Blue into red into gold into something that sat between all of them, a crackling, violent violet light that spread along the full length of the blade and grew more unstable with every second he held it.

The air around the sword started warping slightly, heat and cold fighting each other and creating visible distortion.

Ulvakor’s casual grin had gone somewhere quieter. His eyes were on the blade.

Alden raised it.

’I didn’t even know I could do this until just now.’ He let out a sly grin. ’I’ll name this...’

"Purple Eclipse."

The shockwave that came off the blade wasn’t aimed at anything. Just the pressure of the stored energy being given a name and a shape. Ulvakor’s white hair snapped back in the current, his coat whipping at his sides, the snow across the training ground scattering flat.

Ulvakor stared at the violet sword with something that looked like actual surprise on his face. "That’s an astonishing amount of energy, Alden."

Then something shifted in his expression. A strained kind of smile appeared. His eyes moved to the dozens of floating spears.

"Too bad," he said. "I was hoping you’d hold back a little."

Alden’s smirk deepened.

’Now regret it.’

He launched.

The spears went first, all of them simultaneously, a volley of crackling translucent weapons tearing through the air from every angle toward Ulvakor’s position. The sound of them moving was a sharp continuous rush, like something tearing through fabric at high speed, and they spread across the space to cut off every possible direction at once.

Alden moved inside the volley itself.

[Predator’s Instinct: Activated]

His senses sharpened into something almost physical. The positions of every spear, the exact spacing between them, the trajectory of each one, it all mapped itself out clearly enough that he could move through the gaps without adjusting consciously. His body read the openings and moved through them before he had to think about it.

He came out of the storm at full speed with the violet blade already swinging toward Ulvakor’s neck.

CRACK.

CRACK.

CRACK.

The spears exploded.

Not from impact or from any visible deflection. They came apart simultaneously, every single one, the translucent forms shattering into mana fragments mid-air without reaching their target.

And then the air landed on Alden.

That was the only way to describe it. Something descended on the training ground that had weight, actual physical weight, pressing down from every direction at once. It was presence, radiating outward from Ulvakor, and the presence alone made Alden’s body heavy against the marble and made every breath require a decision.

Alden’s muscles seized under it. His foot that was coming forward slowed, the momentum fighting against something he couldn’t see. His grip on the sword tightened reflexively as the blade’s violet light flickered under the same pressure.

’This is just his aura? He’s literally standing there not doing anything.’

He gritted his teeth and kept moving. Step by grinding step through air that had become something closer to water. His arms still swinging the sword forward even as his whole body argued with the force pushing against it.

His blade reached Ulvakor’s neck.

CLINK.

Ulvakor had raised one finger.

One finger, pressed against the flat of the blade just as it arrived.

The Purple Eclipse guttered. The violet light flickered hard twice and then simply stopped being there, the frost dissolving, the fire going out, the lightning scattering into harmless sparks that faded before they hit the ground. Three elements combined into something he hadn’t expected to create, stopped by one finger.

Alden stood there with a now ordinary steel sword pressed against one finger and nothing left in it.

’...What?’

Then the finger released a tiny, localized burst of energy.

BOOM.

The impact hit him in the chest and sent him backward through the air. He had enough instinct left to flip midway, rotating his body in the arc, and landed with both boots finding the marble at the same time. The landing was clean.

He looked back across the training ground.

Ulvakor was standing in the exact spot he had started. Not a hair out of place. Not a mark on his uniform.

Alden looked at the sword.

The steel was intact. Not a crack in it.

"How," he said flatly.

Ulvakor’s eyes were still on the blade. "Hm." Something quiet moved across his expression. "I see."

"How did you do that? The spears, the attack, all of it."

Ulvakor looked up. "Your sword didn’t break."

Alden frowned. "Yes, I know my sword didn’t break. That’s not what I was asking about. You stopped Purple Eclipse with one finger and destroyed dozens of spears without moving and the air turned into a wall when you released your aura, and I want to know—"

"Your sword didn’t break," Ulvakor repeated, his voice carrying something more deliberate this time.

Alden stopped.

Ulvakor gestured toward the blade. "Every cadet who comes to me on their first day gets the same request. Use your strongest attack. Most take a weapon from that rack and give me everything they have." He looked at the sword. "And every time, after I release enough energy to defend myself, their weapon shatters. The force of their own attack combined with my response is more than the material can take."

He paused.

"Yours didn’t."

Alden looked at the sword properly for the first time since landing.

The steel that had been holding Purple Eclipse, three conflicting elements compressed into one volatile output, had survived contact with whatever Ulvakor had released to stop it.

"That puts you ahead of a fair number of cadets who have trained here," Ulvakor said. "Human and Primordial both."

Alden turned the sword over in his hand.

"Not bad for your first day," Ulvakor added.

"But," Alden dropped his head "I still didn’t touch you."ℯ