Chapter 6: The Training Rift

The announcement went up on the great doors three days after the ceremony.

First-Year Field Examination. The Training Rift will be opened at dawn in five days. Students will enter in teams of four. Each team will include one support student from Class D.

The basement groaned loudly when Crane read it out, because everybody knew exactly what support student meant. It meant porter: carrying the food, the water, the bandages and the bags of noble children through a Rift full of monsters while the noble children did the fighting and took the credit.

"The Training Rift is rated F to E," Crane said. "This Academy has used it for two hundred years. It is perfectly safe, as long as you do what you are told." He glanced at his list. "Teams are assigned by the instructors. You will find yours posted tonight."

That night, Aren found his name under Team One.

Vivienne Ashgrave (Leader). Darius Holt. Celia Penrose. Aren (Support).

He read the list twice in disbelief, then went straight to the clerk.

"Professor Crane made the teams," the clerk said before Aren could even open his mouth. "He said it would be educational."

’Educational. Sure. For whom?’

Mira did not take it well.

"He’s doing it on purpose," she said furiously. They were sitting on the broken fence in the old practice yard, where the iron post used to be. The groundskeeper had carted off the bottom half, and now there was only a round scar of bare stone in the weeds. "Crane, I mean. He’s putting you with the two people in this school who hate you most. And Penrose’s sister, Aren! The weak-chinned idiot who lied about the vault! That whole family will be watching for a chance to make you look bad."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you keep saying I know and then doing the stupid thing anyway." She kicked viciously at a weed. "Rifts are dangerous. Even training ones. Two years ago, a second-year lost a hand in there."

"I’ll be careful."

"You’ll be carrying their bags. If Holt decides to leave you behind with a pack of wolves, who’s going to stop him? Her?"

He didn’t have a good answer, and she saw that he didn’t, and her face softened slightly. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a flat clay charm on a string, painted with a simple orange flame.

"Hearthwardens can bless one thing a week. I’ve only got the first level, so it won’t do much. It might stop one hit." She shoved it into his hand. "Wear it."

"Mira..."

"Wear it, or I’ll tell Nell you got hurt because you were too proud to wear a charm I made."

He put it on obediently.

The Training Rift stood in a walled garden at the far end of the Academy grounds: a tear in the air twice the height of a man, in the middle of a circle of white stones. Its edges shimmered faintly like heat over a summer road, and through it Aren could see grey trees under a purple sky. A cold wind breathed out of it, smelling of old leaves and of something under the leaves he didn’t want to think about.

Six instructors stood around the circle, and Crane was one of them, though he never once looked at Aren.

Team One went first, naturally.

Vivienne walked to the front without looking back, in light grey armor with a silver crescent on the chest and a slim sword at her hip. Since her awakening, something about her had changed in a way that was surprisingly hard to name. She didn’t walk or talk any differently, but the air around her felt heavier, like the air before a storm, and other students stepped out of her path without seeming to notice they were doing it.

Darius followed with a long sword on his back and a grin on his face. Then came Celia Penrose, a thin, quiet girl with a C-rank healing class who hadn’t said one word to Aren since the teams went up. She looked at him now as though he might cheerfully steal her boots.

Aren came last, with three heavy packs on his shoulders and a fourth in his arms.

"Try to keep up, Zero," Darius said.

They stepped through.

The other side was cold and eerily quiet. Tall, thin, leafless trees stood everywhere, their long pale branches crossing overhead like old bones. Grey moss quietly swallowed the sound of their steps. The purple sky had no sun, but there was light anyway, flat and dim, coming from nowhere at all.

Aren had read about a hundred first dungeons in his old life. Every one of them had been described as eerie, quiet and beautiful, and every one of them had gone horribly wrong.

’Let’s not share that with the team.’

They walked for an hour before they found the first monsters.

Five Ash Wolves slid silently out from between the trees, low and fast, grey-furred, with eyes like live coals. They were E-rank, and they hunted in packs. Celia stepped quickly behind Darius, and Darius drew his sword with a grin.

Vivienne didn’t draw at all. She simply lifted one hand.

The air above her filled with pale light. Five thin silver crescents, like slices of the moon, appeared out of nothing and flew faster than Aren’s eyes could follow. Four wolves died in the same breath. The fifth leaped at Darius, who cut it in half with one clean swing and then looked visibly annoyed that he had only gotten one.

The whole fight took three seconds.

"Collect the cores," Vivienne said, to nobody in particular.

Celia looked at Aren, and so did Darius, so Aren set down the packs and knelt by the first wolf with his little knife.

Monster cores were small stones that grew in a beast’s chest, near the heart, and when you absorbed one, its energy turned into experience. The ones from Ash Wolves were the size of a marble and as grey as ash. Aren cut out all five, wiped them on the moss, and held them out on his palm. Vivienne took four and Darius took the other, and neither of them thanked him.

[Vivienne Ashgrave has absorbed 4 cores.][Vivienne Ashgrave F tier: Level 2 -> Level 3.]

’Nothing for me. She grew, but I didn’t help her grow. Cutting out cores is just my job.’

The System was strict about what it called an investment. Doing your job clearly didn’t count. It had to be something given, something risked, something that truly helped.

An hour later they ran into another pack, seven wolves this time. Vivienne killed most of them, and Darius took two and made very sure everyone saw it.

But Aren was at the back with the packs, where he could see everything, and he saw the eighth wolf.

It hadn’t come with the others. It was coming from behind, low and completely silent through the moss on Vivienne’s left, where her eyes were busy with the fight in front of her. It was bigger than the rest, and its teeth were already showing.

There was no time to think, so Aren grabbed the nearest heavy thing, a full water flask, and threw it as hard as he could.

It cracked the wolf across the side of the head. The beast flinched, snarling, and in the half-second it lost, Vivienne turned. A silver crescent took its head off before it hit the ground.

The clearing went quiet. Vivienne stood looking at the dead wolf, then at the dented flask lying in the moss beside it, then at him.

Darius laughed. "Look at that! The servant threw a bottle."

Vivienne didn’t laugh. She looked steadily at Aren with no expression at all. Then she knelt, cut the core out of the big wolf herself, and absorbed it.

[Investment recorded.][Vivienne Ashgrave: Level 3 -> Level 4.][Anchor progressed through Host’s investment.][Mirror Return triggered.]

A small wheel appeared in front of his eyes, only the size of a dinner plate this time, visible only to him. It had four segments: two wide ones marked x10 and x100, a narrow one marked x1,000, and a very thin sliver marked x10,000.

It spun, slowed, and stopped on the widest segment.

[Result: x10.][Experience received: Vivienne Ashgrave’s level gain x10.][Host F tier: Level 1 -> Level 4.]

Warmth rushed suddenly out from his chest to his fingertips. The packs suddenly felt light on his shoulders, and the cut on his arm stopped aching. Three levels in one breath, from one thrown flask.

’That was the worst result on the wheel, and it just did more for me than a month of training would. What does x1,000 feel like?’

"We should keep moving," Celia whispered nervously.

"We should," Vivienne agreed. But she didn’t move right away. She was still looking at Aren with her head tilted slightly, as if she were trying to read something written very small.

Then the ground shook.

It wasn’t much, only the kind of tremor you might not notice in a city. Here, in the silent grey forest, every pale branch overhead rattled at once. Far away, deeper in the Rift, something made a sound. It wasn’t a howl. It was lower than that, and longer, and it went on until Celia clapped her hands over her ears.

Behind them, toward the entrance, a red flare climbed into the purple sky.

Aren had heard about that signal in class, and he remembered exactly what it meant. Something has entered the Rift that does not belong here. Return immediately.

The sound came again. Closer.