Chapter 14: The Pillar of Light [1]
Deep beneath Astral Academy, past the classrooms and dormitories and the usual noise of the upper floors, there was a place most students didn’t know existed.
The Underground Artifact Chamber.
Pale blue mana lamps lined the corridor walls at even intervals.
Seals pulsed across the floor in slow rhythmic waves.
Protective barriers overlapped in layers, each one calibrated to detect a different kind of intrusion.
Detection threads stretched invisible through the air from wall to wall, sensitive enough to register a change in temperature.
No one walked through this place without being noticed.
A cloaked figure moved through it anyway.
With no sound of footsteps and no trace of mana signature. Like something that exist in the gaps between detection rather than trying to avoid it.
The figure’s gaze swept across display cases. Ancient swords behind enchanted glass, grimoires sealed with silver locks, crystal cores pulsing with contained energy, sacred relics.
None of it earned a second look.
"Not this one." A pause. "Not this either."
They kept moving toward the far end of the chamber where the displays stopped and a single stone pedestal stood beneath more layered formations than everything else combined.
Above the pedestal, suspended inside a transparent glass cube, sat a palm-sized orb. Mana rippled outward from its surface in slow steady waves, disturbing the air around it the way a stone disturbs still water.
The figure stopped.
"...Found it."
Mana threads emerged from beneath the cloak, moving like fingers feeling for gaps in a wall.
They slipped between the sealing formations without touching a single one directly.
Click.
Click.
Click.
One lock at a time. The glass casing rose.
An arm extended from the cloak. Not a hand, a concentrated mana wrapping around the orb and lifting it from the pedestal without contact.
"At last–"
"Stop." The voice filled the chamber from the entrance.
The figure went still.
Professor Helena stood at the only exit in a crimson uniform that caught the blue lamp light along its edges.
Golden mana moved slowly around her feet as she stepped forward into the chamber. Her eyes fixed on the intruder and didn’t move from them.
"You bypassed every barrier in this academy," she said. "And came directly to the most protected object beneath it." Her eyes narrowed. "You’re not an ordinary thief."
Golden light erupted from her back.
Brilliant feathers of mana unfurled like the wings of something enormous, filling the chamber with warm radiance that pushed the cold blue back toward the walls.
The temperature climbed immediately.
Her voice went flat.
"Tell me who you are."
There was no answer. A sword slid from its sheath beneath the cloak instead. From within the hood, two crimson eyes caught the golden light.
Helena’s jaw set.
"...That’s your answer then." The wings behind her blazed.
"I’ll get it out of you the other way."
______
Far off in the dark, someone had just caught an owl in a strand of web and was crouching over it in the dark with a deeply satisfied expression.
"There you are." Alden looked at the struggling bird. "Your whole flock has been screeching at me for the past hour."
An hour ago, as night swallowed the forest, Alden had been forced to stop hunting. To make matters worse, a flock of owls had been tailing him the entire time.
Until he noticed a tiny firefly drifting between the trees. Its faint golden glow lit the path wherever it flew.
An idea immediately came to his mind.
’If I can extract souls from beasts... then insect’s light should work too, right?’
He caught several fireflies and extracted their souls. Just as he’d expected A new Concept was born.
[Glow]
It summoned a small floating orb of pale golden light that hovered quietly beside him, illuminating everything within several meters.
Anyone reckless enough to touch the orb would be burned by its condensed mana.
Unfortunately, these flames were far too weak to threaten actual monsters for which these aren’t suitable for combat.
At present, Alden looked at the struggling bird.
He placed his palm flat against the last owl.
FWOOOSH!
The black energy pulled free and sank into his arm, and the notifications arrived before the bird had finished fading.
[DING!]
[Soul Extracted — Beast: Owl — Rank: E]
[Owl Soul Fragment ×102]
[Owl Blueprint: 99% → 100%]
[+50 EXP — Current Level: 14]
[Power Combat: 31 → 32]
[EXP: 8350 / 9000]
[Thread Used — Spider Blueprint: +1%]
Alden stood and let out a long breath.
"Finally."
He’d lost count and had just kept going on principle.
The last few percent of any Blueprint moved like they were personally offended at the idea of being completed. Every fragment contributed less than the one before it, the gap between ninety-nine and one hundred feeling larger than the gap between zero and fifty.
He opened the library and checked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soul Library
Wolf — Fragments ×39
Giant Spider — Fragments ×19
Firefly — Fragments ×52
Owl — Fragments ×102
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He selected Owl.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Species: Owl
Blueprint: 100%
Known Concepts
✔ Insight [Unlocked]
Greatly enhances visual perception. Detect subtle movements, see distant targets with exceptional clarity, perceive through natural concealment and weaker magical obstruction.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He stared at it.
"...One concept."
He checked the other progress.
_________________
Wolf Blueprint: 87%
Spider Blueprint: 48%
Firefly Blueprint: 92%
Owl Blueprint: 100%
_________________
’Spider next. Wolf after that.’
He shrugged and equipped Insight.
[Insight Equipped.]
The forest changed.
"...Whoa."
The darkness was just gone. Replaced by something that felt like his eyes had been recalibrated entirely.
Every leaf on every branch within a hundred meters was distinct and separate. Insects moving through the grass below his feet were visible without him looking for them.
Past the immediate forest. Past the tree line. Past the first ridge of the mountains. His vision kept going, pulling further and further until—
He went very still.
On the other side of the mountain range, circling above a series of towering cliffs, were Enormous beasts. Winged. Some perched on rock faces, some gliding between clouds, their wingspans large enough that from this distance they looked like they could cover the hunting grounds.
"...Jackpot."
Then he looked at the mountain range between him and them.
The full enormous mountain range.
"...Wait." His expression went flat. "I have to cross ALL of that?"
His shoulders dropped.
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
Then he turned away with a sigh and let his enhanced vision sweep in a different direction.
Toward Astral Academy.
He stopped walking.
Far away above the academy buildings, a pillar of golden light drove straight upward into the night sky.
Even from this distance, through Insight, he could see the air around the pillar distorting from the mana collision. The ground beneath his feet carried a faint tremor that hadn’t been there a minute ago.
Alden stood in the Ravenveil hunting grounds with an owl’s vision and looked at the thing happening at his academy.
"...What the hell happened over there?"