Rooley’s wrist buzzed softly. He glanced down at the bracelet, breathing still heavy from the coordinated assault that had just ended. The numbers glowed faintly.

[650 PTS]

Three hundred from the two Mana Heart Rank 1 criminals. Two hundred fifty from the Mana Heart Rank 2. Not bad for someone who had started the round with a hundred points and a reputation as the weakest link in his group. His lips curved into a faint, humorless smile. The people who had written him off clearly didn’t understand what a summoner was capable of when given room to breathe.

His smile faded as his eyes lifted to the figure standing motionless at the far end of the parking lot.

Vareth.

The Mana Heart Rank 3 criminal hadn’t moved during the entire fight. Hadn’t lifted a finger to help his subordinates. He had simply watched with that quiet, assessing gaze, like a man studying insects through glass. The other three criminals were dead now, their bodies cooling on the cracked concrete, and Vareth didn’t look even remotely concerned.

Vareth said, reading Rooley’s expression with unsettling accuracy. "Not bad for a brat from a top fifteen academy. But you look tired."

Rooley didn’t respond. His mana reserves were sitting at roughly sixty five percent. The wolves, the wyrm, the sustained summoning, it all cost. Not catastrophically, but enough that he couldn’t afford to be wasteful.

Vareth raised both hands, palms downward, and slammed them together.

BOOM.

The ground erupted.

Massive shapes pulled themselves from the concrete and rebar of the parking structure floor. Golems. Ten of them, each standing three meters tall, their bodies composed of compressed earth, stone, and twisted metal from the building’s infrastructure. Mana Heart Rank 2 power radiated from every one of them.

"Summoner versus summoner," Vareth said, his voice carrying a lazy satisfaction. "Let’s see how you handle numbers."

Rooley’s rank 2 Obsidian Wolf didn’t wait for an order. It charged forward with a snarl, slamming into the lead golem with enough force to crack its torso. The golem swung back, stone fist whistling through the air, but the wolf ducked low and raked its claws across the construct’s legs.

Rooley raised his hand. The wyrm burst from the ground beside him, its serpentine body coiling tight before launching into the golem formation like a living battering ram. Two golems crumbled on impact. Three more swarmed the wyrm, stone fists hammering its scales. Vareth summoned more.

The weaker golems, the ones Vareth had clearly spent less mana on, rushed past the main engagement toward Rooley himself. Five of them, slightly smaller, slightly slower, but still dangerous.

Rooley didn’t flinch. His five remaining rank 1 wolves materialized in a defensive line around him, snarling and snapping. The golems crashed into them, and the parking lot became a chaos of snapping jaws, crumbling stone, and clawing limbs. Wolves dodged stone fists. Golems grabbed wolf tails and swung them into pillars. A wolf bit clean through a golem’s arm and got kicked across the lot for its trouble.

Then Vareth moved.

The man exploded forward like a cannonball, earth mana reinforcing every fiber of his body as he closed the distance to Rooley in a heartbeat. His fist crashed down in a hammer strike, and a massive fist of solid rock materialized above Rooley’s head, descending with crushing force.

Rooley threw himself backward. The rock fist slammed into the concrete where he had been standing, sending debris spraying in every direction. He hit the ground rolling, came up on one knee, and Vareth was already there, driving a palm strike toward his chest.

Rooley twisted. The palm missed his sternum by inches. He scrambled backward, feet sliding on loose gravel, trying to create distance. Vareth pressed forward relentlessly, each step accompanied by another earth technique. A spike of stone erupted from the ground. Rooley sidestepped. A wall of earth surged up to cut off his escape. Rooley ducked under it.

Schlick.

A snake materialized from the shadows coiled around Rooley’s arm, its scales shimmering with an oily sheen. It lunged forward, body uncoiling like a spring, and slammed into the descending rock fist. The stone cracked but held. The snake’s jaws opened wide, and a spray of toxic mist erupted directly into the fist’s surface.

The rock hissed and bubbled. Acid. The poison was eating through the earth construct.

Vareth raised an earth wall between himself and the spraying mist, but the residual acid touched the wall’s edge and the stone literally melted, running like mud down the structure. Vareth’s eyes narrowed. He dropped the dissolving wall and raised another one further back, blocking the spreading residue.

Rooley didn’t waste the opening. His mana surged outward, and the air above the parking lot shimmered with golden light.

A roc materialized in a burst of starlit feathers. Three meters wingspan, feathers edged with crackling lightning, talons gleaming with condensed electrical energy. Mana Heart Rank 2. The bird screamed, a sound like tearing thunder, and dove straight at Vareth.

Vareth’s eyes went wide surprised that Rooley still had enough mana to summon another beast.

Earth armor exploded around his body, layer after layer of compressed stone and metal wrapping him from head to toe like a living cocoon. The roc’s lightning slammed into the armor, electricity arcing across the surface, but the earthen shell held. Cracks spider-webbed across its surface, but it held.

"You little shit," Vareth breathed from inside his armor, genuine surprise breaking through his composure. "How the fuck do you have this much mana? You’re only Rank 2."

He wasn’t wrong to be shocked. In Heaven’s Gate Academy, mana pools were a topic of quiet discussion among those who paid attention to such things. Kael Cassian Vorn possessed a mana reserve so absurdly large that it rivaled cultivators in the early Spirit Soul realm. Anyone at the same Mana Heart rank as Kael didn’t even possess a fifth of his capacity. It was grotesque. Unnatural. The kind of thing that made instructors whisper and rivals despair.

Rooley sat firmly in second place. His mana pool was the largest in the academy after Kael’s, the primary reason he was considered more talented than his elder sister Silas, despite her being older and more experienced. Karacus followed in third, his dragon bloodline providing reserves that most beast-kin could only dream of.

But even Rooley, with his second-place position, didn’t possess a quarter of what Kael carried inside that Transcendent Core of his. The gap was humbling when Rooley thought about it too long. So he tried not to.

Vareth shook off his surprise and went on the offensive.

Earth spears erupted from the ground in a staggered pattern, a wall of stone spikes flying toward Rooley from three different angles. The snake coiled tight and lunged into the path of the nearest cluster, its body taking the impacts. Two spears punched through its scales. The snake hissed in pain, green blood spraying, but it deflected the rest.

Rooley was already shifting his attention back to the spear formation when something hit him from behind.

PAM.

A fist slammed into his spine with force that made his vision white out. The impact launched him across the parking lot like a rag doll. He crashed through a concrete pillar, slid across broken asphalt, and came to a stop in a heap of rubble, coughing blood.

The pain was immediate and vicious. His back felt like it had been hit by a transport vehicle. Something was definitely cracked. Maybe two things.

He forced his hand up and summoned a rank 1 wolf. It materialized beside him, and he grabbed its fur, using the beast as a crutch to pull himself upright. He patted its head once, a brief gesture of thanks, then sent it charging back toward the fight. The wolf would support the others against the remaining golems.

Rooley turned his head slowly, wiping blood from his lip, and looked toward the direction the attack had come from.

A figure stood on the third level of the parking structure, looking down at him with a calm, assessing expression.

The student wasn’t wearing any academy insignia prominently, but the style of his combat uniform, the cut of his jacket, the specific enchantment pattern on his wristband, Rooley recognized it. He’d seen it during the briefing materials.

Astral Zenith Academy.

Mana Heart Rank 2. Rooley could feel the cultivation pressure from here.

The student didn’t say a word. Just looked down at Rooley like he was something mildly interesting that had just gotten in his way.

A frown settled on Rooley’s face.

One Mana Heart Rank 3 criminal who could summon golems. One Astral Zenith student with unknown abilities who had just sucker-punched him hard enough to crack his spine. His wolves were scattered. His wyrm was tied up. His snake was injured. His mana was dropping.

Rooley spat blood onto the concrete and straightened his posture as much as his damaged back would allow.

"Well," he muttered, green eyes narrowing. "This just got complicated."