Chapter 32: Pre-Expedition Shielding
Training Hall Three smelled of wet stone, scorched sand, and old ozone.
The subterranean practice room sat deep beneath the academy’s West Wing, enclosed by thick granite walls built to withstand high-tier spell impacts and sudden mana backfires. At the center of the wide sand arena, Prince Lucien stood with his arms folded across his silver-trimmed chest, overseeing the final setup for our first official squad drill.
Lord Caelum Frostford stood five paces to his left, sword drawn and held low. His face was still pale and tight from yesterday’s public rejection in the main atrium, his eyes fixed grimly on the sand at his feet. Lady Elara Snowveil occupied the vanguard position near the iron target dummies, her long white hair tied back tightly, her cold expression completely detached from everything around her.
Lady Celestia Raine stood near the rear line, holding her polished wood elemental focus staff.
I stood three paces behind her, holding the heavy brass casing of the squad’s training Warding Stone.
"Listen up," Lucien announced, his voice echoing off the high stone ceiling and bouncing down the empty corridor. "Floor Twelve is known for sudden mana surges and subterranean beast swarms. Our core strategy relies entirely on tight, reliable warding defense."
He pointed a gloved finger toward the heavy stone artifact resting in my hands.
"Leo," Lucien said, his tone commanding and authoritative. "Explain the warding procedure to the line before we activate the simulation."
I stepped forward and set the heavy Warding Stone onto the reinforced stone pedestal at the exact center of our combat formation.
The Warding Stone was a thick, fist-sized chunk of ancient runic granite encased in heavy brass bands. In actual dungeon exploration, a Warding Stone was the single most vital piece of equipment a squad possessed. When activated with steady mana, the stone projected a wide dome of bright blue light over ten paces in every direction. That glowing dome acted like a solid physical shield—pushing back wild dungeon beasts while filtering out the dark, volatile residual mana that leaked from deep continental cracks.
Without a working Warding Stone, a squad trapped on lower floors would either be torn apart by monster swarms or corrupted by raw residual energy within a few short hours.
"Place the stone," I said, keeping my voice calm, plain, and direct. "Channel steady mana through the base runes to expand the barrier dome. Keep the output even so the shield doesn’t flicker when heavy spell impacts hit the outer wall."
Lucien nodded slowly, looking satisfied with the answer. "Correct. Simple and precise. Now, we run the high-output pressure drill."
---
Lucien stepped back to the formal command mark at the edge of the arena sand.
"Caelum, vanguard stance," Lucien ordered sharply. "Elara, frost lane control. Celestia, target the upper rune marks. Leo, maintain the barrier dome at fifty percent output."
"Understood," Caelum replied, his voice flat and strained.
At the far end of the arena, three heavy iron target mechanisms began to spin on their tracks with a loud metallic clatter. Runic spell circles lit up along the side walls, simulating a tier-three monster wave breach.
"Begin!" Lucien called out.
Caelum surged forward first, his broadsword glowing with silver aura as he struck the lead iron target. His movements were hard and aggressive—far too aggressive, driven by the quiet humiliation still burning inside his chest. He overextended his stroke, leaving his left flank completely open.
Elara moved next. She raised her hand, her golden eyes dead calm as a thick wave of frost mana coated the stone floor, freezing the second target’s tracks instantly. Her control was flawless, completely ignoring Caelum’s ragged footwork and wild sword swings.
Celestia raised her staff, channeling three bright blue arcane bolts into the upper targets. Her spell hit with precise accuracy, but her posture was visibly tense. Her eyes kept shifting sideways toward me every time she reset her stance between spell casts.
I pressed both palms flat against the Warding Stone’s pedestal, feeding a steady stream of my suppressed mana into the base runes.
The blue barrier dome expanded around us, glowing steady and bright against the dim arena torchlight.
Then the simulation mechanism glitched.
---
A high-pressure mana collector at the back of the arena overloaded with a sharp crack.
Instead of firing a weak training bolt, the upper runic circle flared with a blinding purple flash. A compressed, unstable blast of heavy tier-four Arcane energy snapped off the wall, curving wildly off its intended track.
It wasn’t heading for the vanguard targets.
It was flying straight for Celestia’s unguarded right flank at terrifying speed.
"Look out!" Caelum yelled, but he was completely out of position, his sword buried deep in an iron dummy’s side.
Lucien reacted quickly, raising his hand to cast a defensive barrier, but he was ten paces back at the command mark. His spell wouldn’t form fast enough to intercept the incoming blast.
Celestia froze in place. The bright purple bolt reflected in her wide, terrified violet-blue eyes. She raised her staff defensively, but her personal mana shield was far too thin to stop a tier-four impact.
I didn’t think about my public rank. I didn’t think about keeping my Second Ascension cover.
I slammed both palms down onto the Warding Stone’s metal casing.
Instead of trickle-feeding standard mana, I tapped the purified core sitting under my ribs—the dense, Fourth Ascension threshold power I had consolidated with Elara’s Ice bloodline.
I shoved a heavy surge of purified mana straight into the stone’s core.
*VRRRRRR!*
The blue Warding Stone dome didn’t just flicker. It flared into a brilliant, solid wall of blinding light that illuminated every corner of the vast arena. The runic bands around the granite stone hummed with a deep, booming frequency that shook the sand arena beneath our boots.
The purple Arcane blast slammed into the reinforced barrier right in front of Celestia’s face.
*BOOM!*
A heavy shockwave of air blew across the arena, sending sand and dust swirling high into the stone rafters. The tier-four spell shattered against the Warding Stone’s overcharged barrier like glass against iron, breaking into harmless sparks that dissolved into the air.
Celestia didn’t have a single scratch on her.
The arena went completely silent.
---
The spinning iron targets slowly ground to a halt with a dying metallic whine.
Dust settled over the damp sand pit. The Warding Stone’s barrier slowly faded back to its normal, calm blue glow under my hands.
Celestia stood frozen behind the barrier line, her hands trembling around her wooden staff. Her chest heaved with quick, shallow breaths as she looked at the solid wall of light that had just saved her, then turned her head slowly toward me.
I pulled my hands back from the pedestal, stepped back, and put my hands into my blazer pockets.
"System overload," I said plainly, keeping my voice flat and casual. "The wall collector needs calibration before the next run."
Lucien hurried forward across the sand, his expression pale as he checked Celestia’s shoulders. "Celestia! Are you unhurt?"
"I am fine, Lucien," she whispered. She didn’t look at him. Her eyes stayed locked on mine, wide and full of profound shock.
She had felt the frequency of that barrier flare. As a high-tier elementalist, she knew exactly how much raw mana it took to absorb a tier-four impact without the stone cracking under the pressure.
A Second Ascension student couldn’t have powered that shield. Not even close.
Elara walked back from the vanguard line, her white hair swaying over her shoulder. She glanced at the Warding Stone, then gave me one long, silent look before turning her back to the squad. She knew too.
Lucien cleared his throat, forcing his confident public smile back into place. "Excellent reaction time on the ward, Leo. That is precisely why we assign a dedicated support mage to the stone."
"Just following drill," I replied.
"Right." Lucien turned to Caelum. "Caelum, help the technicians inspect the rear wall collector. We take a ten-minute break."
---
While Lucien walked to the far side of the arena to talk to the training grounds supervisor, Celestia stepped around the side of the stone pedestal.
She stopped two feet from where I was standing near the weapon rack.
"That was not Second Ascension mana," she said in a low whisper that didn’t carry past the sand pit.
"The stone had leftover charge from the previous squad," I lied smoothly.
She looked up into my face. Her violet-blue eyes were intense, searching, and entirely uncovered by her usual polite noble mask.
"You’re hiding your real strength," she whispered. Her fingers tightened on her staff until the wood creaked. "You have been hiding it from everyone."
"Everyone hides something in this academy," I answered, looking down at her calmly. "You hide what you do in dark rooms. I hide what I can do with a stone."
A deep flush rose up her neck, staining her cheeks bright red. She bit her lower lip, unable to offer a comeback.
"Thank you," she added, her voice dropping so low I barely heard it over the hum of the wall torches. "For shielding me."
"It’s my job on the squad."
She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say more, but stopped shelf. She took a step back, adjusted her blue hair clip with shaking fingers, and walked back toward the break bench.
I turned my head slightly.
Up on the high observation gallery twenty feet above the training arena, a single figure stood in the dark shadows near the stone railing.
Prince Lucien.
He wasn’t talking to the supervisor anymore. He was standing completely still in the dark alcove, looking down at where Celestia and I had just been standing. His blue eyes were narrowed, his jaw set hard in quiet suspicion as his gloved hand gripped the iron gallery rail.
I locked my mana down tight under my ribs and picked up my water flask.
The expedition hadn’t even entered the dungeon yet, and the cracks were already spreading.