At one point, the group even tripped Victor in the lecture halls.
They mixed irritants into his food tray at FeedHub-11.
They left strange glyphs above his room's entrance that set off minor explosions whenever he walked through the door.
And somehow, nobody else seemed to notice. Or worse, they noticed and chose to ignore it.
Victor wasn't dumb. He noticed patterns—recognizable faces always around when things went wrong. So he started putting names to faces. He followed them discreetly. Took note of their shared hangout spots. It didn't take long before he and Danny pieced things together.
There was a gang operating within the Academy.
Aggressive. Coordinated. Bold.
And at the center of it all? Derek Slate.
Victor remembered how Derek had led a pack of troublemakers back in high school, intimidating younger students and manipulating teachers with charm and raw aggression. It hadn't changed.
It was one thing to have enemies, but a gang within the Academy? That was a whole different kind of threat.
So Victor approached Derek.
It was outside the training plaza, where several students were practicing sword forms.
Victor walked up to Derek casually, without a hint of malice in his tone.
Derek paused mid-swing while turning slowly. His eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"
"I know where the attacks have been coming from," Victor voiced calmly. "And I know you're part of it."
Derek laughed. "You must have gotten hit in the head harder than I thought."
Victor ignored it. "This has gone on far enough. I'm not looking for a fight. I wanted to say... I'm sorry. About what happened with Amara. I shouldn't have kissed her. It was wrong. I won't go near her again."
Derek's smirk returned.
"Oh, don't worry," he said smoothly. "You won't."
And then he turned and walked away.
The next day, Victor was attempting a solo training exercise with weighted pendulums that swung from every angle.
He was moving smoothly, almost elegantly, dodging and twisting when suddenly someone altered the trajectory of one of the weights with a spell. It slammed into Victor's ribs at full force.
Pain exploded through his side. He coughed and staggered while dropping to his knees.
The pendulums kept swinging.
He barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid a second hit.
When he limped out of the training field, clutching his ribs, he caught sight of the same gang members smirking from the sidelines.
Victor visited the administrative tower that evening and asked to see a higher-ranked instructor or coordinator.
He was referred to an Awakened Officer named Instructor Velmoor.
Victor explained everything.
"I've been getting attacked repeatedly. My dorm is being tampered with. I was nearly drowned last week and today I got a cracked rib. These students have organized. They're working together, and I'm telling you, someone is going to get seriously hurt."
Velmoor leaned back in his seat with an unreadable expression.
"You want the Academy to step in?"
Victor blinked. "Yes. That's what I just said."
"And what would you do if you were out there on the battlefield, Revenant? If your team turned against you or your supplies got sabotaged? Would you run to someone and ask them to save you?"
Victor's brows drew together. "That's not the same. This is training. This is supposed to be a place where we prepare. There are rules."
Velmoor smiled faintly. "Rules are a guideline, not a safety net. The world is cruel. Your enemies won't follow rules. Even your allies might not. You want to survive, Revenant? Handle your business."
Victor stared at him with a stunned look.
"So you're not going to help?"
"Consider it a lesson," Velmoor said simply.
Victor rose to his feet while clenching his fist.
He stepped outside, feeling the wind get chillier than usual. The Academy wasn't a school. It was a crucible.
And he was done playing the part of a quiet student trying to survive unnoticed.
He walked back to his dorm with the painful jolted at his ribs constantly reminding him not to let things be anymore.
Danny was inside, sprawled on the bed, flipping through a virtual magazine.
Victor didn't say anything.
They wanted to break him.
He was about to show them what a broken Victor Revenant looked like.
Because from this moment on—
He wasn't holding back anymore.
"Are you okay dude?" Danny inquired after noticing his expression.
"Yeah all good..." Victor responded dismissively.
"I don't like that look on your face... you had that same look when you caused a school lock down back in middle school,"Danny sat up with a slightly worried expression.
"Yeah? Well, no worries... I won't be doing anything that crazy... yet..."
The fourth week at the Awakened Academy had rolled in like a storm, and with it came yet another intense training session.
Today, the first-year Warriors had gathered at the base of an artificially created mountain, one of several training installations spread across the underwater landscape of the academy.
This mountain, like many others used for drills, was imbued with advanced gravitational runes and core-embedded pressure regulators.
A hundred steep stone steps wound upward along its slope, and today's lesson was simple in premise but brutal in execution: climb the stairs one step at a time, swinging your sword twice for every step taken.
Every ten steps increased the gravity pressing down on their bodies, making it harder to breathe, harder to stand, harder to think.
Only those who reached the top were considered to have passed the drill. But so far, not a single first year had done so.
Kai had made it to the 50th step before collapsing to his knees, drenched in sweat.
Aria's pride didn't let her stop at 50 which also seemed to be her limit.
She furiously pushed pass him and managed 52 steps, forcing herself forward with raw willpower.
"You only went two steps further..." Kai reminded her.
"Still higher than you... no one is beating this..."