Even after Aiden Everhart stepped down from the platform, the air didn’t settle.
How could it?
The image of him standing within that divine pillar, holding Excalibur aloft like a myth reborn, had been seared into the minds of every student and instructor present.
The Weapon of the Gods.
The murmurs hadn’t stopped. Some still stared at the glowing formation, as if expecting it to explode again. Others whispered theories, comparisons to legends, speculations of prophecy.
But no one was paying attention to the students who went after him.
Ten... then fifteen more stepped up to the platform.
Swords appeared. Staffs. Twin daggers. A whip—though sadly, not cursed.
And yet, none of them registered.
Because all eyes and minds were still haunted by golden flames and divine light.
It wasn’t until the name was called that the hush fell again.
"Selena Weiss."
Silence dropped like a blade.
The air shifted.
She stepped forward, expression unreadable as always, her long white hair flowing behind her like a cloak of moonlight. The heir of the Weiss lineage. The prodigy of the arcane. The future of the Mage Tower.
Luca watched her quietly, his arms crossed. Even Eric stopped his chatter.
Selena paused at the edge of the array. A deep breath. Not nervous—just composed.
Then she stepped in.
The runes flared instantly.
A different kind of energy.
Not divine.
But elemental.
The temperature dropped sharply.
Frost spread across the platform in jagged spiderwebs of ice. Wind howled, circling her like a tempest given form. And above—lightning cracked through the clear sky, tearing through it in jagged forks.
It was as if the world had turned into a magician and cast its own spell.
A blizzard roared into being around her, swirling with arcs of lightning. The crowd instinctively stepped back, eyes wide with awe and fear alike.
And then—from the heart of the storm—Selena emerged.
Snow flurried around her, strands of white hair billowing. Her eyes glowed faintly, reflecting the arcane torrent.
In her hand, she held a wand.
It was long and elegant, forged of pale crystal and etched with runes that shimmered with violet and silver light. The top was crowned with a floating shard of elemental ice, locked in a perpetual spin of frost and sparks.
The instructors exchanged glances.
Eric exhaled. "That... is not just a wand."
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
No. That was no ordinary magical focus.
That was Cryolux, the Wand of Tempest Veins.
And just like that—the storm had chosen its master.
The silence that followed her emergence was deafening.
Then—movement.
Vice Dean Caelan stepped forward, the air shifting with his presence. His eyes, which rarely showed anything but cold calculation, betrayed something now:
Shock.
Beside him, Sir Halreth’s brows furrowed, and even High Priest Emeron leaned forward slightly, his serene composure disrupted.
"Another one..." Halreth muttered under his breath. "Back-to-back?"
"This... shouldn’t be happening," Emeron added, voice low. "Such phenomena... twice in one generation?"
Seraphina’s eyes remained fixed on Selena. "No," she whispered. "Not just one generation. The same year."
Caelan’s hand twitched near the hilt of his blade. "The flow of fate has been disrupted."
Then, he raised his voice, projecting calm authority despite the weight pressing on his shoulders.
"The wand she holds..." he began, his words slicing through the stunned crowd, "...is no mere relic."
He glanced at the glowing crystalline weapon in Selena’s grasp, the floating shard above it spinning with an arcane hum.
"It is called Cryolux," he said slowly, reverently. "The Wand of Tempest Veins. Forged by the Archmage Lucien of the Seventh Era... and lost during the Sealing War."
Gasps followed.
"It was said to house the breath of the northern storms and the fury of the high skies," he continued. "Only one with perfect dual affinity in frost and lightning may awaken it."
His eyes flicked toward Selena.
"And even fewer can survive its acknowledgement."
The crowd remained silent, watching as Selena stepped off the platform, her expression unreadable—but her grip on Cryolux firm, unshaken.
Two legends.
Born within minutes of each other.
The storm and the light.
And fate had only just begun to shift.
Next came the name that brought the silence back, but with it, tension.
"Kyle Drayden."
Aiden’s closest ally. The spear-wielding grandson of the Iron Duke. And the strategist of their trio.
Kyle moved toward the platform with a steady, unshaken grace—like a knight who knew the battlefield even before setting foot on it.
The array responded immediately.
A tremor ran through the courtyard.
Then a pulse. Not wild or explosive—measured. Intentional.
Suddenly, concentric circles of blue and silver energy pulsed outward from Kyle’s position, casting reflections across every stone tile. The wind around him spiraled with calculated control, as if even nature recognized a tactician among its ranks.
Then—BOOM—a thunderclap echoed not from above, but from the ground itself, sending a pulse of shockwave through the air.
Glowing lines formed across the marble tiles beneath him, resembling a tactical grid. The sky dimmed for a moment—and then a single bolt of cobalt light struck down from above.
The clouds above parted in a perfect ring, revealing a swirling vortex of constellations as if the stars themselves bowed to one mind.
And when the energy cleared—he stood tall, gripping a spear.
A long silver weapon with a midnight-blue shaft, the tip shaped like a sharpened crescent. The runes upon it shimmered with logic—like star charts.
Vice Dean Caelan’s voice was slow and low. "...That spear... is Astravolt, the Spear of the Last Strategos."
Sir Halreth’s brows furrowed deeper. "It vanished during the Fall of Darskyr. No one has seen it in over a century."
Before awe could settle—
Another name was called.
"Lilliane Fairmoore."
The crowd—mentally exhausted from awe—could only blink.
Lilliane walked forward, pink hair catching the wind, and her expression as composed as if she were merely walking into tea.
She stepped into the array.
And the world responded.
A song.
No—magic that felt like song.
All six base elements burst into motion—fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, frost—each circling her in harmony. Above her head, light shimmered. Below her feet, shadows rippled. It was like watching nature itself kneel.
The wind whispered.
The ground hummed.
A beam of prismatic light erupted skyward as if the heavens were responding.
Celestial motes danced across the sky like falling petals. The air shimmered, painted in living color.
The marble tiles beneath her bloomed with vibrant flowers and elemental sigils.
And from that convergence of all things—Lilliane emerged.
She held a wand shaped like woven branches of sacred wood, entwined with gemstone veins that glowed with multicolored light. A radiant crystal floated at its head—shifting through every element in turn.
Vice Dean Caelan looked like he’d seen a ghost.
"That is Nature’s Grace," he said, slowly. "The Wand of Elemental Accord. A mythical artifact said to be born from the World Tree itself. No wielder has been chosen for nearly six hundred years."
High Priest Emeron simply sat down.
Eric opened his mouth. Then closed it.
Then opened it again.
"...I swear we’re in a prophecy."
Shock had long since stopped being shock.
Now it had simply become numbness.
Students went in and out of the formation, collecting their weapons—some leaving empty-handed, others returning with blades or rods not aligned to their expected class. But no one paid attention.
The instructors huddled in quiet, serious conversation.
"These phenomena aren’t unheard of," murmured Sir Halreth. "But there’s typically one per year... if that."
"Two in a century is remarkable," Emeron added.
"But four?" Seraphina whispered, stunned.
Knight instructor Halreth rubbed his temple. "Surely this is it. There can’t be more."
But Vice Dean Caelan said nothing.
His face had shifted—joy to awe, to numbness... and now, something closer to fear.
Only a handful of students remained.
Eric returned with a wand that looked suspiciously like a magical quill.
"A pen," he muttered, slouching next to Luca like a man who’d just gotten divorced by fate. "My weapon is a pen. Might as well write my will."
Luca tried not to laugh.
Only five names remained.
The murmurs had died down.
The atmosphere, once buzzing with awe and disbelief, had settled into something heavier—expectation and dread mixed into one.
Then, finally—it came.
The voice that called the next student echoed across the courtyard, amplified by the magic circle.
"Luca Valentine."
[To be continued]