CaleThe first challenger announced himself loudly. Laden Lass, a senior student just getting ready to graduate and a heavy blade user. He started with different forms of Aura, primarily Aura Reinforcement, which he activated and thickened the application so much that a faint hue of Aura Shroud enveloped him. It was a solid Aura, thick enough that the stone hummed beneath his boots. He then added an application of Elementa Arcanum in the form of Terra (Earth), anchoring his stance and giving him the confidence of someone who believed space claimed led to authority.The crowd approved.The lunge came faster than it should have. Kaereth should have retreated. He didn’t. Instead, he shifted. The pressure he had allowed into the Circle slid sideways, stripping weight from the strike without ever touching the blade itself. Steel cut air where resistance had been expected. Kaereth’s rapier touched wrist, shoulder, then the hollow at the throat in a single, fluid sequence.Three contacts.The ward chimed.The challenger stepped back, breathing hard, eyes wide as if the exchange had happened somewhere else.There could have been blood, pain, and a lesson. There wasn’t—only a very clear, very defined lesson.The crowd hesitated, then erupted.The second challenger approached with caution. Dual-core. Aura and lightning tuned for speed. He pressed rather than charged, sparks skating along the rapier as he tried to force Kaereth into a commitment.Kaereth let him.Wind compressed inward, space growing unreliable beneath the challenger’s feet. Balance shifted by degrees too small to see and too large to ignore. One correction came late.The rapier slid through the gap between intention and action, touched the chest ward, and stopped. Lightning snapped free and discharged harmlessly into the stone. The challenger staggered back, blinking like he had just woken from a vivid dream.Kaereth (...)