Irina’s gaze lingered on him, the faint glow of the mana gate casting a pale rimlight along the edge of Astron’s profile. Always still, always composed, always just slightly unreadable—even now, after everything.
She let out a quiet breath, somewhere between a laugh and an exhale.
“It’s strange,” she said, her voice low, almost amused. “Watching you do all these thoughtful things with that weird, impassive face of yours.”
Astron didn’t answer.
Didn’t glance her way. Didn’t give a shrug or a smirk or even a blink longer than necessary. Just stood there, his hand still gloved, his presence quiet.
Predictably quiet.
And maybe because of that, Irina’s smile only widened.
She stepped closer—not dramatically, just enough to close the air between them—and without asking, without warning, she reached down and took his hand.
Not forcefully. Not hesitantly.
Just… took it.
Astron’s fingers tensed for half a second in response, the barest flinch of someone not used to being touched without tactical reason.
Irina held it anyway.
Warm. Direct. Steady.
“I like it,” she said, her smile crooked now—genuine in a way that cut through the usual fire she carried.
‘It shows you are getting better and better.’
Astron didn’t reply.
But he didn’t pull away.
And in the quiet that followed, the pulse of the gate dimmed entirely behind them—leaving only the soft hum of mana settling back into the stones, and the weight of a moment that neither of them needed to explain.
*****
The scout hall was quieter now.
The heavy press of first-day fervor had faded into something leaner. More measured. Less crowded.
Gone were the overeager contractors and wide-eyed freelancers. What remained were the ones who understood the game: career hunters turned talent brokers, guild tacticians with clearance, military strategists in plain uniform.
They no longer scrambled to tag every standout.
They watched. Waited. Focused.
But even among the veterans, one name remained on everyone’s internal lists.
Sylvie Gracewind.
And yet—
Nothing.
No footage beyond official combat reels.
No post-dungeon sightings in scout-cleared cafeterias or open lounges.
No off-duty glimpses near the public walkways or student networking halls.
“She’s avoiding us,” one scout said flatly, his arms crossed as he leaned against a projection table.
The woman next to him, from Dawn’s Cross, didn’t look up. “No. She’s avoiding attention.”
A third scoffed quietly. “Same thing.”
But none of them denied it.
Because it had become obvious by Day Three: Sylvie wasn’t coming to them.
The academy had released a formal bulletin earlier that morning—low-key, but pointed. A gentle reminder of Article 17-A, which barred scout groups from initiating direct outreach beyond designated interaction zones.
They framed it as a matter of cadet focus. Stress minimization.
But everyone knew what it meant.
Too many eyes on too few names.
And one name in particular?
Had vanished.
“She’s smart,” muttered one of the Blackstone scouts, running the footage back through mana filters. “Stays with her squad, avoids isolated rotations, never lingers after dungeon clears. Not a single recorded visit to the usual hotspots.”
“Someone’s guiding her,” said the older man beside him. “Could be Emberheart. Could be that boy. Astron.”
“She’s not hiding,” the Dawn’s Cross woman corrected. “She’s managing exposure. That’s different.”
Either way—
The result was the same.
No approach. No conversation. No opening.
And that was fine.
Disappointing, yes. But not unexpected.
The smart ones never made it easy.
And so, without protest, the scouts shifted their lenses.
Today, their attention turned fully to the two names they could still read in real time:
Layla Calderon.
Jasmine Myre.
On-screen, the pair moved in tandem through a wind-blasted ridge formation—Dungeon Three’s primary terrain.
Layla’s stance had changed since the earlier runs.
Her shield handling had grown tighter, not in caution, but in structure. She no longer waited for impact. She anticipated pressure points, using terrain advantage to meet momentum before it hit her.
“She’s breaking engagement flow,” one observer muttered. “That’s frontliner instinct. She’s not waiting for the hit anymore. She’s setting the angle.”
Jasmine, too, was adjusting.
Where she’d once relied on flash-step mobility and reactive feints, now she layered her strikes—disruptive bursts followed by position theft. She moved more like a vanguard than a rogue—slipping into space Layla created, then forcing follow-ups with her own tempo shifts.
“Hard to flank when the second line collapses inward on cue,” said a tactical analyst from Silverhammer, tapping timestamps. “That’s trained synergy.”
And the two together?
They moved with a kind of pressure-trained rhythm—rough-edged, maybe, but undeniably coherent. One advanced, the other filled. One struck, the other redirected. There was no wasted motion between them.
The Silverhammer analyst paused the stream, then leaned back slowly.
“…We were too focused on the Emberheart girl and the healer.”
No one disagreed.
Yesterday, the board had been dominated by flames and resonance glyphs. The scouts had watched for brilliance. For refined spellwork. For innovation.
But this dungeon?
This was different.
Wind-heavy ridges. Sloped terrain. Visibility shifts.
A battlefield that actively punished forward line fighters.
Layla and Jasmine’s affinities were ill-suited to it. Their control zones disrupted. Their movement channels fractured.
Yet—
They adapted.
Quietly. Without flare.
And that mattered.
“It’s not about ceiling,” one of the Blackstone scouts murmured, flicking through comparative feeds. “It’s about floor. And they’ve raised theirs again.”
He brought up prior footage from Dungeon One. Layla’s timing had been slower. Jasmine’s flanking less disciplined. It was subtle, but this latest run was sharper, tighter.
Effort left a mark.
“They’re not Sylvie,” said the woman from Dawn’s Cross. “And they’re not Irina.”
“But they’re clearly learning,” added another voice. “Quickly. Under fire.”
And that alone—
Was worth watching.
Names were updated.
Layla Calderon — Confirmed Shortlist.
Jasmine Myre — Confirmed Shortlist.
They weren’t highlighted. Not flagged as first-priority prospects.
But they were no longer just background to Sylvie’s brilliance or Irina’s bloodline.
They were discernible.
Visible.
Reliable.
And in the long war that was guild development?
That meant something.
The screen dimmed.
And the scouts, without ceremony or chatter, began preparing for the next evaluation.
Because Team Fourteen wasn’t just Irina and Sylvie anymore.
The other two were also not bad.
And the world had started to notice.
The screen dimmed.
And the scouts, without ceremony or chatter, began preparing for the next evaluation.
Because Team Fourteen wasn’t just Irina and Sylvie anymore.
The other two were also not bad.
And the world had started to notice.
Then—
A shift in the chamber.
Not physical.
Not magical.
Just a voice—low, crisp, and immediately magnetic—carried from one of the upper-tier platforms.
“Ethan Hartley’s team is entering.”
It wasn’t shouted.
It didn’t need to be.
Because the moment that name left the scout’s mouth, the atmosphere in the chamber changed.
Chairs swiveled. Screens adjusted. Conversations stilled.
Dozens of fingers flicked across crystal consoles, tuning feed allocations to a new window—marked now with a glowing identifier:
[DUNGEON FOUR – TEAM SIX: ENTRY SEQUENCE INITIATED]
Lead Cadet: Ethan Hartley
The weight behind the name wasn’t just legacy.
It wasn’t just bloodline.
It was momentum.
Because in the past few weeks—after every rotation, every challenge, every ranked bout—Ethan Hartley’s name had risen.
Not loud.
But steadily. Irrefutably.
“He’s finally at the front,” one of the analysts murmured, leaning forward. “Let’s see what he does with it.”
Several scouts nodded, already aligning visual focus on the portal view.
No one said it aloud.
But the implication was clear:
Team Fourteen had made the board.
But Ethan Hartley?
It was a name that had far longer surpassed them in the name.
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