The morning bell of Thornwick's Knight's College rang three times—once for dawn, twice for duty, thrice for death. Kaelen Voss had learned to distinguish them long ago, back when the bell's echo meant something other than another day of pretending to be weaker than a half-starved rat. He stood at the rear of the training yard, wooden sword in hand, watching the other squires spar. Seventeen young men and three women, all children of minor nobles or wealthy merchants, grunting and sweating under the watchful eye of Ser Aldric the Bear. Kaelen was none of those things. He was a foundling, plucked from a ditch outside the city walls fifteen years ago, given bread and a bunk in exchange for labor. That he had risen to knight-in-training at all was a miracle to everyone except himself. The son of no one, the ward of a kingdom that saw him as a stray dog taught to fetch and fight. But dogs could bite, and strays remembered every boot that had kicked them.
The power scaling of this world was brutal and unforgiving. A normal human—a farmer, a blacksmith, a cutpurse—had no tier. They were chaff, blown away by the slightest breeze of cultivation. Tier 1 was the first step: the Fledgling. Fifteen times stronger, faster, tougher than any mortal. A Tier 1 could punch through a wooden door, run for a full day without rest, and heal from a broken rib in a week. Most soldiers never reached Tier 2. Those who did were thirty times stronger than a Tier 1—a multiplicative leap that made them one in a thousand. Tier 3 was sixty times a Tier 2, and at that level a man could tear down a small house with his bare hands. Tier 4? One hundred and twenty times a Tier 3. The kingdom's champion, Ser Godfrey, was Tier 4. He was considered a demigod among mortals.
Kaelen Voss was Tier 3. He stood on the precipice of Tier 4, his core so saturated with essence that he could feel the cracks forming, the shell of his current realm about to shatter. Another month, perhaps two, and he would be the equal of Ser Godfrey. But he had learned a bitter lesson in the ditch where he was found: power advertised is power targeted. The king would not tolerate a commoner reaching Tier 4. The nobles would scheme to bind him or break him. The mages would dissect him in their towers to understand how a gutter rat had climbed so high. So Kaelen hid. He suppressed his aura, compressed his core, and appeared to the world as a pathetic Tier 1—barely awakened, barely useful, barely worth noticing.
"Voss! Stop daydreaming and get in the circle," Ser Aldric barked. The man was a Tier 2—strong enough to command respect in this backwater, weak enough to be irrelevant in the grand scheme. Kaelen had assessed him within the first week. Aldric's core rotated slowly, like a mill wheel in gentle current. He would never advance. He would die a Tier 2, remembered only by his widow.
Kaelen stepped forward, his movements deliberately clumsy. He let his left foot drag an inch too far, let his wooden sword droop, let his breathing become shallow and anxious. His opponent, a pimply noble's son named Gerold Hayworth, sneered. Gerold was Tier 1—barely—and his family's money had bought his place in the college. He wore a silver pin on his tunic depicting the Hayworth crest: a rampant fox above a crossed sword and ledger book.
"Don't hurt yourself, gutter rat," Gerold said.
Kaelen bowed his head, letting his shoulders slump. Tier 1, the world saw. A pitiful excuse for a knight-in-training, kept only because the college needed warm bodies for the border patrols. Tier 3, moments from Tier 4, reality whispered. A force that could shatter this entire yard with a backhand slap. He forced himself to remember the ditch. The hunger. The cold. The Shard.
He had found it when he was seven, scavenging for mushrooms at the edge of the Thornwood. A fragment of black crystal no larger than his thumb, buried in the roots of a dying tree. The moment his fingers closed around it, the Shard had pulsed—a heartbeat that was not his own—and then it had sunk into his palm, melting into his flesh like ice into water. For three days he had convulsed in that ditch, biting down on a leather strap to keep from screaming. The Shard had rewired his cultivation core, allowing him to absorb essence directly from the ley lines beneath the city, bypassing the natural gates that kept most mortals locked at Tier 0. By twelve, he was Tier 2. By fifteen, Tier 3. Now, at nineteen, he could feel Tier 4 like a drowning man feels the surface—so close, yet agonizingly far.
The spar began. Gerold lunged with a predictable overhead strike. Kaelen parried just slowly enough to let the blow graze his shoulder, real pain flaring. He stumbled back, gasped, then "desperately" swung a counter that caught Gerold's knee. The noble fell. Cheers erupted from the commoner squires, quickly stifled. Gerold's face burned red.
"Fluke," Gerold spat, climbing to his feet.
"Yes, my lord," Kaelen said, helping him up with trembling hands. He even brushed the dust from Gerold's shoulder. Inside, he catalogued every twitch: Arrogant. Impatient. Useful later.
Ser Aldric grunted. "Better, Voss. But your footwork is still sloppy. Ten laps."
Kaelen ran. And as he ran, he watched. The mages' tower to the east, where Tier 3 arcanists sneered at knights as brainless thugs. The noble quarters to the west, where silk-robed lords plotted over breakfast. The commoner slums beyond the south gate, where children with hollow bellies dreamed of reaching even Tier 1. He had been one of those children. Starving. Forgotten.
Not anymore, the Shard whispered in his mind. Soon, they will all know your name. And they will fear it.
Kaelen suppressed the thought. Patience. The game had only just begun.