Chapter 31: The list

The first week under Selvar was hell.

The man had dragged them into waters deeper than anything Vorath had ever dared to push them through. Vorath had cared for strength, discipline, and precision of the body.

But Selvar? He broke those foundations down and demanded something else entirely 'awareness'.

On the second day, he had marched them to the obstacle grounds and tossed a bundle of cloth to the dirt.

"Blindfolds," he said with a calm that was more chilling than any roar. "Two hours. No longer. You will complete the course without your sight. You will feel, not see. You will listen, not assume. You will smell the path itself, and if you cannot, you will fall. The world does not care about your excuses."

It was worse than horrible.

The obstacle course consisted of pits, swinging logs, walls of thorns, shifting terrain he had somehow created with runes and had became a nightmare of stumbles, cuts, bruises, and disorientation. 

The Archetypes, proud and stubborn, had been reduced to crawling half-blind in the dirt. More than one cursed Selvar under their breath, but it made no difference.

Every mistake that they made had consequences. Some fell into mud pits and had to claw their way out. Others slammed into walls, leaving teeth-rattling echoes, if they'd been normal humans most would have died. 

Riven himself felt the sting of failure more than once but unlike the others, he began to notice patterns. The faint rustle of a rope before it swung. The hollow sound of earth where a pit lay. The shift in temperature when he was nearing open air.

Selvar had gone further as the days passed.

Blindfolded runs became blindfolded duels, students stumbling about with padded staffs, trying to read their opponent's presence. He unleashed bursts of water at them without warning whatsoever, teaching them to react on time and not just predict.

By the end of the week, their bodies were battered with their pride cracked, but they had improved a bit. Riven could sense it he could hear breaths from yards away, feel the weight of a presence behind him, smell the shift of moisture in the air. Most of his already enhances sense didn't actually increase but were now working more actively.

Selvar's last words to them that week were simple:

"You've been taught to use your senses. Now you will learn what it means to be defined by them."

The second week brought no relief either.

If Selvar had torn away their sight, Amira Zeyne tore away their air. The violet-eyed Mistress of Arcane Arts was elegance sharpened into cruelty. She stood with perfect posture, flowing robes, and a serene smile that never reached her eyes. Lynn muttered something about hating her the instant she laid eyes on her and by the end of the first day, half the Archetypes agreed.

Her first test was unlike anything they had imagined it would be. She reshaped the training grounds into a labyrinth riddled with pocket voids, sections where she stripped the air itself away.

 Walking into one was like plunging into a drowning death of silent, invisible suffocation that gripped the lungs until collapse. Leo surprisingly had been the first to stumble into one. 

He had gone pale, clawing at his throat before crumpling unconscious. Riven and two others dragged him free, but Amira had not so much as flinched. "Awareness of the seen is not enough," she said coldly. "If you cannot feel what the world steals from you, then you are already dead."

The training only escalated. On the second day, she manipulated huge boulders to shoot at them with surprising speeds and from

Odd angles while also manipulating tiny pebbles to shoot at them like bullets. One wrong step, and a body went flying with a heavy bruising and a concussion.

On the fourth, she layered it all together suffocating voids and a barrage of rocks of different sized shooting at them on different intervals. Most collapsed before finishing.

Even Riven, whose endurance held firm, found himself on his knees, gasping for air while sweat ran down his face.

It was Marven Solith, a green-eyed archetype, who discovered the solution. While the others flailed against the environment, he paused while calculating where the pocket voids were along with the speed the boulders and pebbles were moving.

He crossed the course first while the others watched in grudging awe. For the first time, Riven's eyes lingered on him longer than necessary. 'A possible ally… or a rival too dangerous to ignore.'

By the end of the week, Riven's mental list grew:

The first was Cairon Delth, the lean Sigil-bearer with glyphs shifting across his throat. He was strange, dangerous and not to be underestimated.

The second was Irian of the Arcanum, master of wind, who carried himself with smug superiority but that attitude was backed up by his power over wind element.

The third was Nelson Blackwood, the hothead whose flames roared as recklessly as his temper.

The fourth was Kyra Stross, black-haired and fierce, she is capable of bending water to her will with unsettling ease but was as arrogant as they come.

The fifth surprisingly was Oriselle Kaith, she was a quiet rune-gifted girl who avoided attention but was somehow able to complete most of the obstacle courses without much bruising according to what he heard in the cafeteria of course. Normally that wouldn't be enough to rouse his interest but still somehow she never seems to have much bruises compared to the rest of her powertypes.

The sixth was another archetype named Cyris Maelor, wiry and weathered, a storm-gray gaze that seemed to pierce through façades what got Riven's attention about him though was his explosive strength and deductive nature.

The seventh is of course Leo, he was… unpredictable at most time, impossible to fully understand and to Lynn's dismay he was infuriating and intriguing.

The last was a bit peculiar, it was Myra Stross, the white-haired fraternal twin of Kyra, whispered about as the "Ice Princess. That title seemed to suit her personality well as she did not speak to anyone except her sister and she alway gave everyone a cold look when they tried to approach her"

That name though, 'Stross'. He had heard it before, though where, he could not say. 

The third Week was with Dorian Hal 

Then the groups were reshuffled and placed under Dorian Hal, the students thought they had finally found relief. At least the Combat Instructor was one of their own. He was power of flesh and muscle, not tricks of elements and suffocation.

They were wrong.

Dorian, stocky and scarred, with his thick black beard and dark, piercing eyes, stood in the training ground like a mountain in human form. His grin was a thing of nightmares. 

"Come at me," that was the first thing he had  said to them, cracking his knuckles. "All of you. Don't hold back, I'd like to see what you are all made of."

Thirty Archetypes moved all at the same time to attack him.

Five minutes later, thirty Archetypes lay in the dirt groaning in pain.

It hadn't even been a fight. Dorian had toyed with them. His speed was impossible as they only saw blurs of movement no eye could follow. His strikes were brutal, sending bodies sprawling with enough force to crater the ground. He moved like a predator among children, and by the time it ended, not one of them remained standing.

And the grin on his face never faded.

"Pathetic, I expected more from you lot but you are no different from those arcanums" he said, shaking his head.

The second round was no better. Divided into groups of three to attack him from opposite sides while boxing him in, they thought this would at least allow them go land a hit. They were wrong again. Dorian stomped on the floor once, the ground shuddered like a quake, and half the group fell to their knees as they all lost their balance. Then he blurred among them, dismantling each trio as if swatting flies.

He ended it by planting his foot on the earth again, sending a shiver through the ground as his voice boomed.

"You think Archetypes are strong because you can lift stones and tear walls? Because you can move faster than the other powertypes?" His gaze swept across the broken students, hard and merciless. "You fools are only touching the surface of your power. You cling to instincts instead of mastery. You wield strength without discipline. 

Until you understand what it means to become your power rather than use it, you are nothing more than children throwing tantrums." The silence that followed was deafening. Not one dared speak.

Riven lay back in the dirt, chest heaving, eyes staring into the pale sky above.

'Argh, I'm starting to regret wanting to awaken now damn it… I think my ribs are broken.'