Shattered Sanity

(Meanwhile, The Others)

While Riven was fortunate enough to choose a spell of his own volition, many within his batch did not possess the same privilege.

Mary, for example, had already been informed by the senior members of House Argent that her first registered spell needed to be a detection technique linked with her Shadow affinity.

She had not been given the freedom to browse through the Offensive or Defensive sections and choose whichever technique interested her most, as Argent had instead provided her with three specific detection spells from which she was expected to select.

None were particularly powerful, nor were they techniques Mary would have naturally chosen for herself, but personal preference mattered little compared to what House Argent required from her.

The House leadership had selected every candidate with a specific purpose in mind, and naturally, they expected the juniors to develop according to the roles envisioned for them.

Allowing every recruit to independently select whichever spell seemed most impressive was a surefire way to create unnecessary overlap, potentially leaving Argent with dozens of offensive specialists while lacking students capable of fulfilling less glamorous but equally important roles.

Mary’s Shadow affinity made her naturally suitable for scouting, detection and information gathering at night, an area where House Argent had suffered dearly the previous year, which was why Cedric had personally insisted that she choose a detection skill.

On the surface, Mary could reject his request and choose whatever she deemed best for her own development, but in practice, she knew that she could not.

Disappointing the House leadership was a surefire way to make her life considerably more difficult going forward, and although she desperately wanted to choose an offensive spell, she ultimately selected the detection ability Cedric had requested.

Unfortunately for the majority of the incoming First Years, House Argent was hardly unique in thinking this way, as the other three Houses operated according to much the same philosophy.

Stacy, much like Mary, had been given direct instructions by House Aureate, which required her to choose the skill [Ice Floor] as her first registered spell.

[Ice Floor] was a wide-area Frost technique that spread a layer of slippery ice across the surrounding terrain, making ordinary movement considerably more difficult for anyone caught within its range.

Although it was certainly not a bad technique to learn, Stacy believed that something like [Ice Spike] or [Instant Freeze] would have been considerably more compatible with her fighting style.

Unfortunately for her, the choice was never truly hers to make, as only a relatively small number of students escaped House interference during their first semester.

Exceptional recruits such as Riven and Gary possessed enough value that their respective Houses preferred allowing them to develop according to their own judgment rather than forcing them into predetermined roles.

While at the opposite end were students whose Houses had invested so little in acquiring them that nobody particularly cared which techniques they selected.

However, those unfortunate enough to exist between those two extremes often possessed considerably less freedom.

They were valuable enough for their Houses to have expectations of them, but not important enough for their personal preferences to outweigh the needs of the larger roster.

For them, the Skill Selection Hall offered thousands upon thousands of possibilities, yet their actual choice consisted of only two or three techniques handed down by senior students.

And so, while the Academy was responsible for teaching them how to become stronger Ascendants, the Houses were the ones deciding what kind of Ascendants they would become.

—------------

(After the last class, Mary’s POV)

After registering her choice, Mary started walking towards Battleground Arena Four, which had been booked by members of House Argent and House Aureate for today’s exhibition bout.

According to the rumors she had heard throughout the afternoon, Professor Mike, Professor Jules and Professor Sparrow were going to serve as the three neutral judges for the match.

Mary did not particularly care who judged it.

She had already sacrificed an entire month of food rations for her ticket, and unlike most students heading towards the arena alongside her, she wasn’t going there simply because she expected an exciting fight.

She was going there, because she needed to see Riven fight once for her own mental sanity.

’After this fight, I’ll know for sure whether you’re the Riven I know or not.’

Mary thought, as she followed the growing stream of students heading towards the arena.

Ever since seeing Riven again, everything she had learned about him had made her question herself more.

His appearance was almost identical to the boy she remembered from Ashfang, yet everything else about Riven Dawnriver seemed completely different.

His mannerisms were different, his upbringing supposedly had nothing to do with Ashfang, and even his physical abilities seemed far beyond anything Mary remembered Riven Veyr possessing.

Yet she still couldn’t convince herself that she was wrong.

’People can change, but can someone really change this much?’

Mary wondered, as she finally entered the arena and immediately realized just how popular the exhibition bout had become.

Nearly every one of the five hundred seats appeared occupied, while conversations regarding Riven and Gary echoed from practically every direction around her.

”I’ve been waiting for this all day,” one student said excitedly somewhere ahead of Mary. ”A Great House Noble taking on another on the first day of the Academy? There’s no way I’m missing that.”

”This could become one of those stories we tell our children someday,” another replied. ”Imagine if one of them becomes a legendary Ascendant. We could say we watched their first Academy fight.”

Mary quietly listened as she searched for her assigned seat.

’Legendary Ascendant...’

For a brief moment, she tried connecting those words with the Riven she remembered following Garron’s instructions back in Ashfang, and the image simply didn’t fit.

But then again, very little about Riven Dawnriver fit anymore.

Mary finally found her seat and settled down before looking towards the empty battleground below, where the two First Years would soon face each other.

Around her, students continued arguing over who would win, while others discussed the techniques and weapons they expected the two fighters to reveal.

Mary ignored most of it.

She didn’t particularly care whether Argent won, whether Aureate won, or whether the fight lived up to everyone else’s expectations.

She simply wanted Riven to enter that arena and fight.

Because perhaps once she saw how he moved, how he reacted under pressure and what kind of person emerged when someone genuinely tried to hurt him, she would finally have her answer.