?The walk from the dining hall to Building One felt like standing on a conveyor belt feeding directly into a furnace.

  ?The Central Investigation building loomed ahead, a block of dark gray granite. Black-suited enforcers anchored every doorway. Marcus kept his chin tucked. Under the brim of his gaze, his mind burned through calories, stress-testing half a dozen lies for structural integrity.

  ?If Silas asks about the basement... He needed a solid defense. No breaking eye contact. Let the old man dig until he hit bedrock, then pivot.

  ?He stopped at the heavy oak door. He let out a slow breath to forcibly drop his spiking heart rate, then pushed the brass handle.

  ?The office was a climate-controlled icebox. Professor Silas sat behind a massive desk, his face bathed in the pale light of orbiting holographic blueprints.

  ?Silas didn't look up immediately. He adjusted his glasses. "Close the door, Etherno." The voice was a flatline.

  ?Marcus pushed the door until the latch clicked. His right hand stayed buried in his jacket pocket. His knuckles were white, muscles coiled tight like a compressed spring. He was ready to deploy the lies.

  ?Silas folded his hands over the desk. His gaze cut through the projections, pinning the kid. "Do you recall our conversation prior to the second assessment?"

  ?Marcus ground his molars together. He opened his mouth to lie, but Silas cut in.

  ?"What in god's name took you so long?" Silas sighed, swiping a finger to collapse the holograms. "My instructions were to report here immediately after the exam. The high-tier clearance for the Antiquities Vault expires in fifteen minutes."

  ?The temperature in the room seemed to normalize. Marcus blinked. The fortress of lies he'd just built crumbled into useless scrap metal.

  ?"Vault?" His voice rasped, the tightness in his throat catching the word.

  ?"The weapon vault," Silas said, standing and sweeping a heavy coat over his shoulders. "That pathetic iron pistol you used as a channeling conduit turned to slag during the first exam. Or did you plan to punch your way through the curriculum?"

  ?Not the basement. The sudden drop in adrenaline made Marcus slightly nauseous. Silas was just replacing his broken gear.

  ?Silas stepped around the desk and stopped. He studied Marcus’s pale face and rigid shoulders. The professor’s eyes narrowed. "What is wrong with you, Etherno? You look like you've been caught stealing copper wire. Did you start a fight?"

  ?"No." Marcus swallowed the copper taste of dry saliva. He forced his tone back to its usual gritty baseline. "Ate too much roast beef. Acid reflux."

  ?Silas shook his head. "Walk faster, it aids digestion. Move. If the quartermaster locks the system, you’ll be channeling aether through a wooden stick."

  ?Marcus let out a long, silent breath as Silas turned his back. The tension bleeding from his shoulders physically hurt. He dragged a hand down his face to reset his expression, then followed the professor out the back door.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  ?The iron cage elevator jerked downward. Heavy chain links groaned in the dark shaft. Marcus instinctively calculated the tensile strength of the grease-coated cables as they plummeted deeper into the bedrock, far below the academy's standard levels.

  ?"The Antiquities Vault is not standard issue for first-years," Silas said, staring straight ahead at the metal grate. "These aren't fresh off the central assembly lines. They are pre-war relics. Their aetheric matrices are dense... and stubborn."

  ?"Stubborn?"

  ?"Magic requires a compatible conduit," Silas explained with clinical detachment. "If you wire a high-voltage battery to a thin copper thread, the wire vaporizes. These relics possess massive resistance. If you push power through them and lose control of the current, they will drain your aether dry and start feeding on your nervous system."

  ?Another toll. Marcus rubbed his bruised knuckles.

  ?The elevator struck the bottom floor with a bone-jarring thud. The iron gate rolled up. The smell of rusted iron, aged brass, and stale, damp air washed over them.

  ?They stepped into a low-ceilinged cavern the size of a train depot. Flickering orange tungsten lights illuminated endless rows of steel shelving. It wasn't a treasury. It was a junkyard of violence. Splintered spears, warped broadswords, and trench knuckles stained with dried, blackish-brown blood.

  ?"Ten minutes," Silas said, checking a silver pocket watch. "Find a piece that reacts to your charge. Ignore aesthetics. Find something whose recoil won't shatter you."

  ?Marcus stepped off the grate, his boots kicking up a thick layer of dust. He walked past a row of ornate knight’s broadswords. Too heavy, terrible center of gravity. His mechanic’s instinct hunted for a tool. Something with moving parts, not just a slab of sharpened steel.

  ?He drifted to the deepest corner, near a stack of rotting wooden crates. The dull gleam of gunmetal caught the dim light.

  ?It rested on a piece of oil-stained canvas. This wasn't a modern polymer sidearm. It was a massive, six-inch barrel revolver. The frame was a heavy alloy of steel and green-oxidized brass. The six-chamber cylinder swung out to the side, and the grips were carved from dark, worn hardwood.

  ?Marcus reached out. His fingertips brushed the freezing steel near the hammer.

  ?Snap.

  ?A violet spark bit into his index finger. A mild electric shock shot up his forearm, making his muscles twitch. He pulled his hand back.

  ?"Good eye."

  ?Silas’s footsteps echoed behind him. The professor stopped at Marcus's shoulder, peering down at the revolver.

  ?"Valkyrie Mk. III," Silas stated. "Manufactured near the end of the First Purge. It doesn't use kinetic powder cartridges. Those six chambers are designed to compress raw ether into high-density plasma rounds."

  ?Marcus picked it up. The sheer weight of the metal forced him to lock his wrist. He pressed his thumb against the hammer and pulled it back. The mechanism was stiff with age, but the heavy cylinder locked into place with a satisfying, heavy clack.

  ?"Mechanics are sound," Marcus muttered. "The hammer spring strikes the aether charge, causing an explosive decompression out the barrel. Right?"

  ?Silas gave a small, approving nod. "You diagnose machinery quickly. A byproduct of your slum upbringing, I suppose. But be warned, Etherno... this gun demands a brutal toll."

  ?Marcus looked up.

  ?"It lacks the recoil compensators of modern firearms," Silas pointed to the wooden grip. "Every time you pull that trigger, the explosive feedback transfers directly into your radial bone. The more aether you pack into the chamber, the harder it kicks. Overcharge it, and it will snap your wrist in half."

  ?Marcus stared at his hands, still bruised and scraped from the exams. He had a low ether capacity. He needed a weapon that hit like a freight train to make up for it. This rusted piece of artillery was exactly the force-multiplier he needed.

  ?He gripped the hardwood handle tight.

  ?"I'll take it," Marcus said flatly. "If it kicks too hard, I'll just build a steel brace for my arm."

  ?Silas studied the boy. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed the professor's face before freezing over again.

  ?"Register it with the quartermaster." Silas turned back toward the elevator. "I will teach you how to fire it later... Etherno."

  ?