The Anomaly's Path

”Ugh! Gods damn it... I literally cannot feel my ankles! Whose bright idea was this?!”

”Are we actually dead? Please tell me we’re dead.”

”Just let me sink into the mud and die.”

”Shut up and start moving! She’s coming back!”

The breathless, chaotic yelling sliced through the freezing morning air.

The ground was cold, wet, and smelled heavily of churned soil and crushed grass. I was flat on my back in a muddy trench, my lungs burning, cold sweat dripping off the tip of my nose and splattering into the dirt below.

I forced myself up, wiping a streak of wet mud off my eyes.

We’d been at this for two hours.

The sun wasn’t even up yet. We were stripped down to dark, sleeveless training shirts and loose trousers, both soaked through with freezing dew and covered in mud. But the real nightmare was strapped around our wrists and ankles.

Heavy metal bands, weight-seals, packed with enough weight to make every step feel like dragging a wagon.

”Up,” a dry voice echoed from the fog.

Across the dirt clearing, Professor Morgana stood completely calm.

She stood there in her usual worn trousers and scuffed boots, casually spinning a thick wooden baton between her fingers. Around her waist, tied loosely over her dark jacket, was a simple red cloth. That cloth was our target. All we had to do was touch it, or snatch it off her waist.

But no. It wasn’t that easy.

It was four against one. And we weren’t allowed to use mana. Heavy weights locked our bodies down. We had tried twenty-three times in a row, and none of us had even touched the edge of the fabric.

I forced my legs to straighten. My calves felt like they were packed with solid lead. My lower back throbbed with a deep, sick ache that ran all the way into my teeth. I took a long, slow breath and steadied myself.

Without mana to protect my body, every drop of tiredness hit me.

I looked at the others.

Roan pushed himself up from the dirt a few feet to my left. His usual neatly tied silver ponytail was half-unraveled, plastered with leaves and wet clay. His face was pale, his shoulders trembling as he tried to lift his arms.

Beside him, Alice was on one knee, her chest heaving violently. Her wild crimson hair hung in heavy, wet clumps around her face, her amber eyes wide and bloodshot as she stared down at the mud beneath her.

Further back, near the shadow of the crumbling stone wall, Malva leaned against a wooden post. She was silent, as always, but her face was completely devoid of color, her breath coming in thin, shallow gasps.

”What are you four doing?” Morgana said, her voice dry and completely devoid of pity as she rested the wooden stick against her shoulder. ”Where did the bravado go you all were showing earlier? Move your asses and fight again.”

Roan let out a weak, pathetic groan from the ground. ”Professor... my arms are literally swelling. Have some mercy on us! You are just too strong, besides why the hell do we have to wear these damn things on our limbs?!”

”Pain builds better soldiers than talent ever will,” Morgana replied without skipping a beat. ”Get up.”

”Wait, wait, hold on,” Roan wheezed, waving a shaking hand in the air. ”Let’s be fair here. You were the one who signed off on this. We came to you three months ago asking for extra training, and you said yes. But you didn’t say you’d be throwing us in the mud every morning before the sun’s even up!”

”Heh. Let me correct that for you,” Morgana said, a faint, dark curve appearing at the corner of her lips. ”You came to me whining about your weaknesses. I simply offered the most efficient method I know.”

She tapped the wooden stick against her palm. ”Now stop whining and take the cloth.”

Alice let out a sharp, ragged breath and pushed off her knees. ”Ugh fuck this! Leo... left side.”

”Yeah, yeah. I heard you.”

We didn’t need a plan anymore.

After three months of getting thrown into the dirt together, we had learned how to move as one. Alice moved first. She just sprinted forward on heavy footwork, the mud exploding behind her boots as she lunged toward Morgana’s right flank.

Morgana didn’t even shift her stance. She just tracked Alice with cold, dark purple eyes. Just as Alice closed the gap, Roan threw his whole body into a low, sliding tackle across the wet grass, aiming straight for Morgana’s lead ankle to pin her down.

Morgana simply stepped over Roan’s sliding form with effortless grace, but that brief jump was what we were waiting for. From the shadow of the wooden post, Malva dropped flat to the grass, sliding under Morgana’s vision like a silent snake, reaching upward for the red cloth.

At the exact same instant, I drove my weight forward, closing the distance in a single, explosive burst. I ignored the screaming pain in my thighs, thrusting my hand straight through the narrow opening between her guard and her hip.

For half a second, our timing was perfect, just raw position and rough teamwork. Morgana’s eyes flickered with a spark of real interest.

Then, she moved. She didn’t use mana. She didn’t need to. Her Transcendent rank body control was simply on a different plane. With a subtle twist of her hips, she dodged Malva’s reaching fingers by a fraction of an inch.

She brought her wooden stick down in a quick, precise flick, striking the inside of my wrist hard enough to send a numb shockwave up my forearm, forcing my hand to veer off target. In the same fluid motion, her elbow clipped Alice’s shoulder, sending her tumbling sideways into Roan.

Thud!

I lunged one last time, my fingers brushing against the rough texture of the red fabric—

Snap!

Morgana pulled the cloth back, stepping out of the cluster of flailing limbs and landing cleanly three paces away. I hit the ground on my hands and knees, my fingers clutching empty air. Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the sound of four people gasping for air like fish out of water.

”Close,” Morgana said calmly. She re-tied the red cloth around her waist with a clean, simple knot. ”Three months ago, when you all started training under me. You couldn’t even get within five feet of me without tripping over your own boots. Today, you actually touched the cloth.”

Roan was sprawling flat on his back, staring up at the gray morning sky with blank, lifeless eyes. ”I touched it... I think my pinky finger grazed it... I can die happy...”

”Shut up and get off the ground, idiot,” Alice muttered, her face still buried in the mud.

”You get up...” Roan mumbled into the dirt. ”My soul has left my body. It’s currently hovering over the main dorms.”

I dragged myself up into a sitting position, resting my elbows on my knees. The numb, tingling sensation in my right wrist was slowly fading, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache.

I looked over at Malva.

She was sitting back on her heels, quietly checking her bruised knuckles without a single complaint. She had come a long way from the guarded, cold girl who didn’t trust others. But now she was working as team with us.

And her reaction time had become sharper.

”That’s enough for today,” Morgana said. She reached down, tapped her baton against the side of her boot, and unlatched her own weight-seals with a sharp clack. She looked down at the four of us, her dark eyes narrowing slightly.

”...The written and practical Midterms start in a week,” Morgana said, her voice turning cold and serious. ”You know where Class Ascendant stands. We started the semester with fifty students. Now thirty-eight remain. And right now, our class point ranking is second last.”

She pointed her wooden stick directly at Roan’s face.

”If any of you fail the written theory section and drag our class average down, I won’t just double your weight-seals. I will make you run combat drills until you drop dead.”

Roan winced, sitting up quickly. ”Professor, please! Theory class is taught by Professor Vance! Do you have any idea what that man is like?! We’ve also got History of the Gates with Dain, which is basically a memorization nightmare. And don’t even get me started on Elemental Theory. The new Professor is the most strictest mage, I’ve ever seen!”

”Then figure it out,” Morgana snapped. ”You’re a elf prince. Act like one. Use your brain for something other than cheap jokes.”

Roan protested, holding a hand over his heart in mock offense. ”I am a model student! I ask engaging questions!”

Alice let out a harsh, wet laugh from the mud. ”You? A role model student? Don’t make me laugh.”

”Shut up! What do you even know about being a role model, you brute?” Roan yelled back.

Morgana let out a long, heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose as if a massive headache was brewing right behind her eyes. ”Just... clean yourselves up. Get to the showers, put on clean uniforms, and get to the lecture halls.”

She turned around, tossing the wooden sword into a weapon rack near the wall.

”And Leo?” she added over her shoulder.

”Yes, Professor?” I asked smoothly.

”I hope you still remember that your Primus title doesn’t make you untouchable. The midterms are scored as a team. Your rank means nothing if the people around you fail. You fight alone, you lose alone. You carry them, or you fall with them.”

Without waiting for a response, she walked away. Her long dark cloak fluttered in the morning wind before she disappeared down the path toward the faculty quarters.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then, one by one, the braces around our wrists and ankles clicked open and fell into the ground. The sudden loss of weight was dizzying. My arms felt light. Too light. Like I could throw a punch and launch myself across the field.

”Ah... finally,” Roan breathed, slowly lifting his hands and staring at them in awe. ”I feel like a feather. I feel like I could fly.”

”Don’t get cocky,” Alice said, pushing herself up and shaking the wet dirt off her pants. She looked over at me and Malva. ”You both okay?”

”I’m fine,” I said, standing up and rolling my shoulders. The stiffness in my back was already fading.

Malva gave a slow, silent nod back at Alice, her expression as unreadable as ever beneath her damp hair, though the faint tension in her shoulders had finally eased.

”Come on,” I said, grabbing my jacket off the ground. ”Let’s head back or we’ll be late for the lectures.”

I walked beside them in silence, hands buried deep in my coat pockets, listening to the usual low bickering bounce off the damp walls. A small, dry twitch pulled at the corner of my mouth before I flattened it out.

We kept moving toward the main campus, the grey morning light pressing down on our shoulders as the day rushed back in to fill the quiet.