The Hall of Choice remained alive with murmurs and flickering energies. Most students had made their decisions. The once-glowing altar was now dimmer, with only a few scrolls left hovering in their rune-locked tubes.
But anticipation hadn't faded—it had merely shifted. Now, all eyes turned toward the final candidates who had yet to choose.
Among them stood Veyran, his silver-white robes flowing like liquid moonlight, an odd contrast to the thick leather-bound book he cradled against his chest. He walked toward the altar with a pace as calm as still water, each step measured, each breath slow. His dark ash-gray hair was tied back, revealing eyes as pale as frost and twice as distant.
Students whispered behind their hands.
"That's Veyran… the one who ranked third."
"I heard he's from one of the fallen noble clans—his family used to serve the old dynasty."
"I bet he'll pick something cold and cruel."
Veyran ignored the murmurs. He stopped before a scroll encased in a cube of translucent crystal—like a gemstone caught in ice. His eyes didn't shine with awe or greed. Only calculation.
He extended his hand.
A wind stirred, soft and cutting. The crystal shell cracked with a clean snap, and a pale blue glow spiraled out, forming runes shaped like descending snowflakes and silken chains. The cold aura didn't bite—it embraced.
"A binding-based inscription," one instructor murmured. "And… soul-affiliated?"
Veyran said nothing. He simply took the scroll, bowed slightly, and turned to leave. As he walked away, his gaze swept briefly across the room, meeting Ryn's for only a moment.
He gave the faintest nod.
Ryn furrowed his brow but nodded back. The air around Veyran seemed to chill with each step he took.
Then came Seraphina.
She needed no introduction. Students parted instinctively as she approached the altar, her presence radiant and arresting. She wore a robe of midnight violet embroidered with golden thread in the shape of phoenix wings. Her long, silver hair fell like silk over her shoulders, and her eyes seemed to reflect something eternal.
Elias, standing with his arms crossed near the back, tilted his head.
"She always knows how to make an entrance," he murmured to himself.
Seraphina walked past a dozen scrolls without pause. Then she stopped before a single scroll—sealed in a golden case carved with fire and feather motifs. The moment she raised her hand, golden embers exploded outward like a flaring sun. The air shimmered with heat and light.
A visible gasp spread through the room.
"That's the Dawnflare Crest!"
"A solar-type main engraving… it hasn't been chosen in years!"
"She's perfect for it…"
Seraphina's fingers hovered, then gently lowered onto the scroll. The light pulsed once, then softened like an ember nestling into warm ash. She smiled, then turned.
Straight into Elias's gaze.
For a moment, her confident aura wavered. Then her smile returned—this time gentler.
She walked toward him.
Whispers began to rise.
"Why's she going to him?"
"Are they… close?"
Elias didn't move. His golden eyes studied her as she approached. When she reached him, Seraphina tilted her head slightly.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
"I did," he said.
She laughed softly.
"And you? What did you pick?"
"I'm not ready to choose," Elias replied, eyes gleaming. "I'm waiting for something… better."
" I haven't forgotten what happened in the Forest of Ordeals. I'll make you go through the same embarrassment next time."
Elias replied sarcastically: "Heeeh, we'll see."
Some distance away, a group of boys scowled.
"Tch. Why is she talking to him?"
"Elias again… Just because he ranked first doesn't mean—"
"He acts like he's above all of us."
Not far off, a few girls watched Seraphina with barely concealed annoyance.
"She always gets all the attention…"
"She's not even that pretty."
"She just flirts with powerful guys."
But Seraphina heard none of them. Her world, in that moment, seemed narrowed to Elias—and him to her.
Meanwhile, Ryn watched it all from his place near the wall.
He didn't envy Elias—but the way others looked at him, the weight of attention he carried effortlessly—it felt like something Ryn would never have. Yet strangely, he wasn't bothered. Not today.
Because someone else had approached him.
"Ryn!!"
It was Veyran, quiet as shadow.
Ryn turned, alert. "Yes."
Veyran's voice was soft but cold. "The one who chose the Abyssal Coil."
"…You recognized it?" Ryn asked, surprised.
"I've studied it. It doesn't appear often… but when it does, death follows."
The words weren't hostile. Merely factual.
Ryn's gaze narrowed. "And?"
Veyran's lips curved into a subtle, unreadable smile. "Interesting."
Before Ryn could respond, Veyran walked away, his cloak swaying like mist.
At the altar, only one scroll remained. Forgotten. Sealed in lead and wrapped in silence.
Elias glanced at it once—then looked away.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet."
As the final selections were made, Elder Rahim stepped forward once more.
His deep voice echoed once more across the Hall of Choice.
"You have chosen your paths. What you hold is more than power—it is burden, identity, and fate."
"May your engravings reflect your spirit."
The scrolls pulsed once in unison, then vanished into the hands of their chosen.
The ceremony was over.
But a hundred new stories had just begun.
* * * * * *
Far above the Hall of Choice, within a secluded observatory chamber etched with ancient runes and veiled by enchanted mist, a solitary figure stood in silence.
Through a wide, circular window of translucent crystal, the academy's Leader, the supreme overseer of the academy, watched the ceremony unfold.
His robes were a cascade of black and gold, stitched with symbols that shimmered faintly with ancient authority. His face was hidden beneath a hood woven with memory-silk, concealing his features, but not his presence. Behind him, towering shelves of scrolls and relics pulsed softly—each an artifact of past eras, of fallen empires and ascended legends.
Yet none of those relics drew his attention now.
His gaze was locked onto one student.
Ryn.
The boy who had chosen the Abyssal Scroll.
The Leader's fingers rested on the silver head of his staff—a curved rod embedded with a living fragment of starlight—and his voice, though spoken aloud to no one, echoed with weight.
"So the Abyss responds again… after all these years."
"You are not its first… but perhaps… you will be its last."
He moved a single piece on a small board beside him—a game of inscriptions played with divine pieces shaped from compressed fate. The piece he moved was black, almost formless, like a shadow in motion.
It slid into position across from a radiant gold piece… one he hadn't touched in centuries.
Outside, lightning cracked quietly across a distant sky.
And within the silent heart of the tower, the academy's true watcher continued to observe—unseen, unblinking.