The next day, after wrapping up the usual class schedule, Ian returned to his cluttered workstation. He was hunched over the bench, fine-tuning a delicate mechanism with steady fingers.
This was another commission, nothing extravagant. Commissions came his way from time to time, but with the workload from the academy and his duties at Master Malon's workshop, he didn't actively promote himself.
Today, though, he was making an exception.
He was repairing a miniature automaton bird, its wings jammed and the internal joints misaligned. The client hadn't come to him directly, but through someone familiar: Aithlin, his very first client, who apparently still remembered his work.
Once satisfied with the bird's wing articulation, Ian wiped his hands, packed the repaired piece in a padded case, and headed out to deliver it.
His client, Faeron, was already waiting at the exchange point near the old fountain, lounging with the easy confidence of someone used to being ahead of schedule. Draped in a deep blue cloak, the young elven boy glanced up as Ian approached, his expression a blend of expectation and casual impatience.
"That was quick," Faeron muttered, though he smirked as he said it.
"Well, you did say it was urgent," Ian replied dryly, setting the case between them.
Faeron opened it without fanfare. The mechanical bird inside shimmered faintly in the afternoon light, its sapphire eyes blinking, wings flexing and folding with fluid precision.
"It looks perfect," Faeron murmured, lifting it gently to eye level. After inspecting the fine detail a moment longer, he turned to Ian.
"Thanks for completing it on such short notice. Without it, I'd be at a serious disadvantage in the upcoming competitions."
With a flick of his wrist, Faeron transferred the payment, nodded once, and strode off, clearly satisfied.
Ian lingered for a moment, watching him go, before turning back. His thoughts drifted.
He'd heard the same buzz from Sylve and Elara, both of whom were combat specialization students. Unlike Ian's own arcane engineering specialization, where assessments were confined to structured theory and controlled practicals, the combat track was chaotic by design. Their tests involved live missions, sudden assignments, and bunch of academy-sanctioned competitions.
Though the term wasn't coming to the end yet, the second half of the session was already tightening its grip. Ranking matches were beginning to intensify. The duels would grow more frequent, more public. And stakes would keep rising.
Speaking of which…
Ian's gaze darkened as his thoughts shifted to Cairon. He'd been looking for him, to settle things, and maybe extract some long-overdue answer. Rhys had mentioned Cairon hadn't left the grounds after his punishment, instead retreating somewhere inside the academy itself.
Hiding, maybe. Or waiting.
Whatever the case, Ian would find him.
Sooner or later.
For now, he made his way through the winding lower halls toward the Synthetic Alchemy sector. The scent hit first, sharp herbs, trace minerals, and something acidic clinging to the stone corridors. He pushed through the iron-glass doors of Lab 7, where warm blue light flickered over workbenches covered in etched flasks and humming sigil plates.
Inside, Lysian was already at work.
He hunched over a bubbling alembic, his hair tied back, sleeves rolled past the elbow. The moment Ian entered, Lysian raised a gloved hand without looking up, instructing him to stop.
Ian leaned against the doorway, silently watching as Lysian added a droplet of silver-powdered thistle into the mixture. The liquid turned from dull green to a pale violet. Next came a precise swirl of auric concentrate, followed by a very slow infusion of memory bark extract, just enough to produce a slight shimmer across the surface.
Then the flame beneath the alembic was snuffed.
Lysian finally looked up.
"Done."
He slid off the goggles, poured the glowing solution into a small hex-glass vial, and handed it to Ian. The liquid swirled like liquid light, faintly reactive to his skin's warmth.
Ian held it up to the overhead lamp. "Nice."
Lysian gave a slight smirk. "Should boost synaptic harmonics in the axomorph by thirty percent. Maybe more, if fully stabilized."
Ian nodded. "That's exactly what I need."
He tapped a sequence onto his communication device and transferred the agreed amount to Lysian's account.
"You'll want to administer it during a resonance window, ideally right after calibration."
"Got it." Ian paused.
Lysian had been helping Ian with the recovery process of Eryndor. Together, they'd been experimenting with axomorph frameworks to find a viable way to replicate what had been lost.
The potion Lysian made was meant to boost the neural activity inside the axomorph. That would make it easier for Ian to record and track the flow of information.
He turned toward the exit, tucking the vial into his coat. "Later."
"Let me know how it works."
Ian raised a hand in vague acknowledgment and slipped through the door.
Ian arrived at Axilya's training facility. He spotted Axilya standing near the center, calmly guiding Myrra through a series of weapon forms. Myrra was drenched in sweat, her stance a little shaky, but she followed every motion with focused determination.
When she saw Ian enter, her face lit up.
"Ian!" Myrra waved, breathless but smiling.
He stepped down into the arena. Axilya turned to greet him with a nod, her usual calm gaze indifferent as ever.
"I was just finishing with Myrra," she said.
"You're improving," Ian told Myrra, watching as she lowered her training blade.
Myrra grinned. "Still not good enough. Actually…" She looked between them. "Would you two spar? I want to observe the fight between first order."
Ian looked at Axilya. "I'm in."
He'd been wondering about it himself. Now that he had stepped into the First Order of both the Architect and Eldritch paths, he wanted to see how he stacked up against someone at the very top.
Axilya gave a small nod and turned away, saying nothing. Typical. No questions, no hesitation.
She stepped back, her boots settling into the stone floor with practiced ease, and drew her claymore. The massive blade gleamed in the light, its edge giving off a low, steady hum of contained force.
Ian raised one hand. Thick, dark-green vines burst from the floor around him, coiling in the air. His stance shifted low. Focused.
Myrra took steps back moving to the outer edge of arena and raised her hand.
"Ready… Start!"
Ian had his eyes fixed on Axilya.
She was gone.
He flared Mindbloom, flooding all his senses with raw input, sound, light, vibration, even the faint pulse of movement in the air. A warning signal sparked in his head.
Too late.
Axilya appeared beside him in a blur, her sword already in motion.
Clang!
Sparks flew as Obryx blades appeared in his hand, just in time, intercepting the massive swing mid-arc. The force of the impact made the ground crack beneath his boots.
Axilya smirked as she pulled back.
"Your reaction time…" she said, tilting her head, "has definitely improved."
More and more Obryx coverings unfolded around him. They floated like shifting armor, each one controlled by a different thread of his split consciousness. While one tracked Axilya's footwork, another scanned the arc of her sword. A third calculated angles. A fourth counted pressure shifts beneath the stone.
Each fragment of his mind worked its own task, building a plan.
But Axilya didn't wait. She lunged again, her claymore moving in a wide arc, deceptively slow, until it wasn't. Ian ducked, the blade passing inches above his head, and released a volley of sharp-edged projectiles. They shot forward like fangs, aimed clean at her flank.
She didn't flinch. With a sharp twist of her body, Axilya pivoted, dragging the flat of her blade across the air in a tight circle. The metal caught the projectiles mid-flight, deflecting them all in one fluid motion.
Ian had already moved.
He closed the distance, shifting behind her, a construct forming in mid-air, an arched array of Obryx spikes aimed downward. With a gesture, he launched them.
Axilya stepped into the impact.
Stone shattered beneath her feet as she pushed forward instead of dodging, tanking the spikes.
"Better," she said simply, and slammed the hilt of her claymore toward his ribs.
Ian blocked it, but barely. The impact knocked him back two steps, his shoulder numb from the force.
Thick vines burst from the floor around him, surging forward with sudden speed, whipping toward Axilya like striking serpents. She didn't stop. Her claymore flashed once-twice-cutting clean through them as she pushed forward, closing the gap between them again.
But Ian's preparations were done.
A dense, circular shield of Obryx locked into place around him, layered, shifting, protecting him from all directions like a hardened cocoon. More vines twisted outward from its base, trying to keep Axilya at bay.
Axilya didn't flinch.
Her sword began to glow.
In a blink, dozens of thin, condensed strands of violet energy formed in the air around her. Each one pulsed like a string pulled tight, humming with unstable force.
She swung her claymore forward and the energy strands followed.
The blast ripped through everything in front of her.
Vines were shredded. Stone tiles split. The Obryx dome lit up with impact as the blast slammed into it from all sides.
Ian remained safe inside. The Obryx held, but he felt the strain. If it had been any other material, even high-grade steel, it would've been torn apart instantly.
But there was no time to breathe.
Before he could react, the condensed strands of violet energy had changed shape again, faster now, sharper, slamming into the dome from all directions in perfect sync, like spears forming an attack enclosure around him.
Boom.
The impact hit all at once.
The Obryx barrier didn't break, but it didn't absorb the force cleanly either. With nowhere for the pressure to escape, it pushed inward, right toward the center.
Ian gritted his teeth as the force closed in around him, but his body held.
Thanks to the strength gained from the Eldrith path, he was tougher now. The pressure hurt, but it didn't do much damage. And whatever strain there was, his body responded on its own, vitality moving through him, quietly repairing and restoring.
This is dangerous.
Ian dropped the full enclosure instantly. In its place, he layered partial barriers, semicircular shields that allowed force to pass through in controlled gaps.
Mid-air, Navarax flowed into position.
The gel-like substance expanded in wide arcs, translucent and slightly iridescent. Ian wove it between plates of Obryx, forming a hybrid matrix. The Obryx provided structure; the Navarax absorbed the shock.
Small, floating shields hovered around him in precise formations, shifting as needed.
He exhaled sharply.
Axilya, watching, gave the faintest smile. "Oh… you adapted faster than I expected."
Ian didn't respond with words. Instead, more vines surged forward, thicker, faster, wrapped in Obryx plating. A wave of them spread across the field, moving like a living wall, each path of escape sealed off with precision.
Every few seconds, Axilya launched a compressed energy blast at him, tight violet arcs meant to break his rhythm, but each one was absorbed or redirected by Ian's hybrid matrix shields. The Navarax gel pulsed on impact, distributing the shock harmlessly.
And slowly, Axilya was being pushed back.
More vines. More Obryx constructs. The space around her began to shrink.
Almost over, Ian thought. She's surrounded.
But then, something shifted.
Axilya didn't move, didn't raise her blade. She let the Obryx-covered vines rush toward her.
And just before they landed-
They missed.
One by one, they veered off, just slightly. A curve here, a shift there. A soft counter-pressure that turned their momentum aside. As if their own force had betrayed them. They didn't even graze her.
She stood still, calm, claymore at her side.
Ian frowned.
He formed a massive Obryx blade, the vine at his side twisting into a giant arm. It shot forward at high speed, aiming straight for her chest.
Clang!
The blade deflected at the last second, no strike, no block, just clean redirection.
Seeing this Ian lost in thoughts. His physical attacks were strong, but too reliant on momentum, not energy. He lacked focused strikes or high-grade energy bursts.
And while he stood there, calculating his next move, Axilya moved.
She took a stance. Her entire body began to glow with a soft violet hue.
Ian could sense something dangerous brewing over.
And then-
"Phrhrp!"
A sharp whistle cut the tension.
Both turned to see Myrra, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"I just wanted you two to spar," she said. "Not kill each other."