The clang of fists against steel echoed through the remote training grounds beyond Elandor's city walls — a private battlefield carved from a ridge of shattered stone and scorched ground, surrounded by gravity-thick Essence barriers. This was no ordinary training site. It was Arkzen Vael's personal crucible. A place where limits were not just tested — they were discarded like ash.
Kael stood opposite the man nicknamed "Humanity's Strongest." Sweat streamed down his back, but his eyes burned brighter than ever.
Arkzen crossed his arms, golden-white Essence flickering through the air behind him like trailing comets. "You're pushing yourself like you're running out of time," he said, his voice a low rumble.
Kael didn't respond right away. He was breathing hard, his muscles twitching, his Essence burning to the edge.
Kael stepped forward, his Essence flaring red, gold, and violet-blue. "You said you wouldn't be around forever," he said quietly. "What did you mean by that?"
Arkzen's eyes narrowed, distant for the first time. "My body's breaking down," he admitted. "Too much time channeling raw Origin-tier energy. We're not meant to handle it endlessly. I've got maybe a year — two, if I'm lucky."
Silence fell between them.
Kael swallowed. "Then I have to be ready before you're gone."
Arkzen smirked. "Then stop holding back. Show me your will, Fael."
The days that followed were brutal.
Kael fought through storms of lightning arcs, endured gravity wells that crushed weaker men to pulp, meditated under roaring flame geysers, and shattered kinetic barriers with nothing but Essence-infused strikes. Under Arkzen's guidance, Kael's pace of growth became monstrous.
Radiant – 10th Flame. A title that few achieved, and Kael had clawed his way to it in weeks.
Yet it wasn't enough.
Each night, the memory of Leiya's death in his dream replayed — his powerlessness, the silence, the grief. Each morning, he got up before dawn and trained until his limbs gave out.
Arkzen taught him more than technique — he taught him rhythm. Flow. Restraint.
Kael learned to condense all four affinities into spiraling Essence patterns. He forged multi-core casting nodes within his body. Developed unnamed techniques that overloaded standard casting systems — attacks that bent the battlefield around them.
But none of it mattered if he couldn't prove it in a real fight.
And then the day came.
On a cliffside high above the Solmire basin, Arkzen waited.
Kael approached slowly, his Essence cloaked, hidden — like a coiled serpent beneath calm waters.
"I'm ready," he said.
Arkzen turned, one eyebrow raised. "We'll see."
No more words.
Kael moved first — a blur of wind and heat. His fist came down with volcanic force, but Arkzen side-stepped it like drifting mist. A backhand strike from the veteran nearly cratered the ground beneath Kael — but Kael didn't fall.
Instead, he twisted midair, Stormfire Barrage igniting around his limbs. Flame and lightning raged outward in violent arcs.
Arkzen grinned and raised a single palm. "Not bad."
Their clash sent shockwaves across the ridgeline. Storm clouds gathered. The cliff cracked and splintered beneath their feet.
Kael's body blurred — a fusion of movement and intent.
He struck with speed just shy of sub-relativistic. Kinetic ripples lanced through the air. His punches created brief vacuums in space.
Arkzen was still stronger. Faster. But Kael was learning, adapting — matching rhythm for rhythm.
Then Arkzen's fist hit him square in the gut.
Kael flew back, Essence sputtering from his wounds — but he didn't collapse. He skidded, breathed, and then stood. Bleeding. Smiling.
He refused to fall.
A single flare of all four affinities pulsed from Kael's core. His eyes shimmered white.
Arkzen paused. For the first time, truly paused.
"…You're almost there."
Kael's vision blurred. His body was breaking — but he could feel it. That final step.
The air bent around him. Lightning crackled from his fingertips. The ground lifted in kinetic shards.
Arkzen lunged, and Kael met him head-on.
This time, the heavens cracked.