"No! Please! I'll talk... I'll tell you everything!"
The white-robed spy screamed, his voice choked, tears of sheer terror streaming down his pale cheeks. Lyra hadn't even stabbed him yet. She merely traced the cold edge of her silver dagger painfully slow along the carotid artery of his neck. Her absolute apathy and emotionless silver eyes were far more terrifying than death itself.
Kael lifted his heavy boot an inch off the traitor's chest to let him breathe, while Orik and Faren sat in the shadows, watching the scene in dead silence.
"How did the Eclipse Cult breach Cloud Peak's magical barrier?" Orik asked, his voice echoing in the wooden room like a death sentence. "The barrier is designed to withstand an entire army. A squad of five assassins couldn't even scratch it from the outside."
The spy gulped hard, glancing nervously at Lyra's blade before whispering, "They... they didn't breach it from the outside. I disabled a node of the magical grid in the northern courtyard from the inside. The black crystal I crushed... it was a key."
"And who gave you that key, you little insect?" Faren demanded, gripping his wooden cane so tightly his knuckles turned white.
The spy hesitated for a fraction of a second. Lyra pressed the dagger just enough to draw a thin line of crimson blood.
"I don't know his face!" the spy shrieked in panic. "I swear to the Heavens, I don't know! We met in an abandoned cellar outside the walls. He wore a thick black cloak that hid his features entirely... but... but I noticed one thing! He leaned on something heavy when he walked, and he reeked of an overpowering perfume—'Diamond Lotus' flowers!"
Orik and Faren exchanged a swift, dark look. There was only one person in the entire Academy notorious for his obsession with the exorbitantly expensive Diamond Lotus flowers, and he was the exact same person who strutted around leaning on a diamond-encrusted staff: Grand Elder Thorne.
"So, the greedy old bastard wasn't satisfied with just embezzling the Academy's resources; he decided to sell us out to the Eclipse," Orik muttered with profound disgust. He waved his hand dismissively at Lyra. "Put him to sleep."
Before the spy could even process the words, Lyra struck the back of his head with the heavy pommel of her dagger in a swift, precise blow. The spy slumped to the floor, instantly unconscious.
Faren let out a heavy sigh. "If Thorne is colluding with the Eclipse Cult, the 'Celestial Dragon Tournament' won't be just a normal competition. It might be a trap to purge the disciples loyal to the Dean, or perhaps a cover for a full-scale invasion."
Orik turned his attention to Kael, who had been watching in silence, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes glinting with instinctive defiance.
"You heard the man, boy," Orik said coldly. "We have exactly one month. Either you win that cursed tournament and enter the Forbidden Library to find a way to tame the 'Azura Core', or the Academy falls... and your body crumbles into dust along with it."
Orik walked over to an ancient bookshelf in the corner of the room and pulled a specific, worn-out tome. With a metallic clack, the bookshelf swung open, revealing a narrow, stone staircase spiraling down into the depths of the earth.
"Follow me," Orik ordered, descending into the gloom.
Kael followed without hesitation. After several minutes of walking in the dark, they emerged into a vast underground cavern. The walls were covered in glowing blue moss that bathed the area in an ethereal, ghostly light. The air smelled of damp earth and old iron. This was the "Vault of Roots," the Puppet Master's personal, hidden training ground.
In the center of the cavern sat a simple stone table. On top of it was something Kael had never expected to see.
There were no legendary swords, no enchanted armors, no combat puppets. There was only... a single, incredibly fragile glass cup, filled to the brim with water.
Orik stood behind the table and gestured to the glass. "Your current weapon is your body, and your body is this glass cup. The energy residing in your chest is a raging ocean. When you swung that broom today, you tried to pour the entire ocean into a fragile cup in a single second."
Kael looked at the glass, then at Orik, trying to grasp the metaphor.
"Your first and only task for this week," Orik stated in an unquestionable tone, "is to place your finger on this glass and channel the 'Azura' energy into it without shattering the glass, and without spilling a single drop of water. You must make the mana flow as smoothly as blood flows through your veins."
Kael smirked with sheer overconfidence. As a blacksmith, he believed his hands were steady enough to control anything. He stepped up to the table, took a deep breath, and gently placed his index finger on the rim of the glass.
He summoned a tiny drop—much, much smaller than what he had used in the courtyard—of the blue Azura energy from his chest, guiding it carefully down his arm toward his finger.
The very instant the blue energy touched the glass...
BAAAAM!
The glass cup exploded into thousands of microscopic shards that sprayed everywhere, the water splashing uselessly onto the cold stone floor. The glass hadn't even withstood a millisecond of the pure, violent nature of the Azura energy.
Kael's eyes widened in sheer shock as he stared at his wet hand, the familiar, painful stinging sensation coursing through his veins once again.
Orik flashed a wicked, lopsided smirk and raised his hand. Suddenly, dozens of empty glass cups flew out of wooden crates in the corner of the cavern, lining up neatly on the stone table in front of him.
"You just shattered cup number one," Orik said coldly, patting Kael's shoulder. "You have ten thousand more. If you don't learn how to control your inner monster before these cups run out... don't even bother entering the tournament, because you'll be dead before it even begins."
And so, in that cold, isolated cavern, Kael began his true journey into the hell of control, realizing for the very first time that his greatest enemy wasn't the arrogant disciples or the greedy elders... it was the raw, untamed power chained behind his own ribs.