# Chapter 3: The Culling Grounds
The Culling Grounds had earned their name during the Purification War when Valerius used this same arena to execute captured Xylos-loyalists, though the Academy's official history claimed it was merely named for "culling weakness from students." Zane had watched from his fortress three hundred miles away as smoke rose from this exact location, marking the pyres where they burned his War-Mages alive. The Academy had built their training facility directly over a mass grave.
How perfectly poetic.
Dawn broke cold and sharp as first-year students gathered in the massive amphitheater carved from black stone. The arena floor stretched sixty feet across, marked with permanent scorch marks and bloodstains that decades of cleaning enchantments had failed to fully erase. Tiered seating rose in concentric circles, and the morning light caught the edges of old blade-marks in the stone_vidence of "training accidents" that the Academy preferred not to discuss.
A-Class nobles occupied cushioned seats near the observation platform, their immaculate uniforms a stark contrast to the rough cotton worn by the commoners and lower-ranked students. Class F had no designated seating. They stood in the back corner like servants waiting for dismissal, which Zane supposed was the point.
Seraphina stood beside him, her arms crossed against the morning chill. "Professor Kylus has a reputation," she murmured. "Three students have been permanently injured in his class this year alone. The Academy calls it 'rigorous instruction.'"
"The Church calls it character building," added a nervous Class F student whose name Zane hadn't bothered learning.
Zane said nothing. He was watching the observation platform, waiting.
Professor Kylus arrived precisely at dawn, his black Academy coat unable to hide the prosthetic metal arm that whirred with each movement. His face bore the texture of old burns_ire that had melted flesh before healers could intervene. War injuries. Specific war injuries from a specific battle where Xylos's forces had used alchemical fire that burned through holy wards.
Kylus had been there. In the Ashen Reach, when Xylos's Third Legion had turned Valerius's flank and nearly ended the war two years early.
The professor's eyes swept across the gathered students with mechanical precision. When his gaze passed over the Class F section, it lingered on Zane for exactly two seconds longer than the others.
"Magic without application is philosophy," Kylus announced, his voice flat and merciless. "I teach war."
His mechanical fingers drummed against a roster tablet in a rhythm Zane recognized_n old infantry cadence from the pre-Compact era. Interesting. Most war veterans suppressed their older training, preferring to forget the days before Lumina's "gift" simplified warfare into affinity-based exchanges.
Kylus had kept his old habits.
"Twenty enchanted training dummies," the professor continued as service mages wheeled the constructs onto the arena floor. Each stood eight feet tall, their wooden frames covered in glowing runic circuits that pulsed with steady light. "Your target. Your test. Your failure or success."
The dummies weren't simple constructs. Even from sixty feet away, Zane could read the layered enchantment work_ophisticated, modern, and built with the arrogance of mages who thought they'd improved on ancient techniques.
They'd actually made them weaker.
"Rules are simple," Kylus said. "Students are called in random pairs. Each gets one attack against their assigned dummy. The dummies' adaptive enchantments will scale to counter your affinity level. Scoring is based on damage speed, mana efficiency, and tactical thinking."
He paused, and his metal arm's whirring grew louder in the sudden silence.
"Failing students will receive remedial conditioning in private sessions."
The threat hung in the air like smoke. Zane had heard about Kylus's "remedial sessions"_ours in the sub-basement training rooms where the professor used captured demon-constructs as sparring partners. Students came out with broken bones and nightmares. The Academy called it "accelerated development."
"Demonstration first." Kylus gestured to an A-Class student with B-Rank Lightning affinity. "Castell. Strike your dummy."
The boy_ixteen, well-fed, confident_tepped forward and channeled his magic without hesitation. Blue-white lightning arced from his hands and struck the dummy's chest. The construct absorbed the energy, its runes flaring brighter as they analyzed the attack's signature. Within three seconds, the wood had regenerated to pristine condition.
"Adequate," Kylus said. "Next."
The demonstrations continued. Alistair val-Corvus was called and produced a pillar of golden fire that reached the amphitheater's vaulted ceiling. His A-Rank flames engulfed his dummy completely, melting surface wood into char and ash. The crowd gasped. Even the A-Class nobles looked impressed.
The dummy's auto-repair sigils activated immediately, pulling the construct back together like a puzzle reassembling itself. Restored. Perfect. Alistair returned to his seat with a smug expression that suggested he'd already won something.
"Fifteen seconds to full restoration," Kylus noted without inflection. "Score recorded."
Zane watched the repair cycle carefully. The runic circuit used a three-layer ward system: Algiz for protection, Perthro for adaptive analysis, and Thurisaz for regeneration. Standard modern design based on Church-approved spell architecture.
But there was a flaw.
The Thurisaz rune was inverted. Not deliberately_t was a common mistake among post-Compact enchanters who'd learned runic grammar from simplified textbooks rather than studying the original language. The inversion created a critical weakness during the regeneration cycle. For approximately 0.4 seconds, the dummy's entire defensive structure channeled energy away from the surface to the core sigil.
Strike during that window, at the exact junction point where the inverted Thurisaz met the Algiz ward, and the entire enchantment would devour itself.
It was the same flaw Xylos had built into every defensive ward he'd designed for his enemies to steal. A trap masquerading as innovation. And they were still using it two centuries later.
"Class F students," Kylus called. "You're next."
The alphabetical order continued. Seraphina was called and produced a respectable C-Rank flame that scorched her dummy's chest, earning a curt nod_he first approval Kylus had given any Class F student.
Other commoners followed. Pathetic displays of E-Rank and F-Rank magic that barely singed the wooden constructs. The noble section laughed openly. Even some Class F students looked ashamed.
Then Kylus consulted his roster and spoke two names that made the arena's noise cut off like a severed throat.
"Garrick Stone and Zane, no family name."
Alistair's laughter was loudest from the noble section. Garrick cracked his knuckles and grinned_ predator given permission to play with prey. The setup was obvious. Deliberate. They'd arranged this pairing specifically.
Zane walked onto the arena floor. The bloodstained stone was cold beneath his boots. Garrick stood fifteen feet away beside his own dummy, already channeling his B-Rank Earth affinity with the casual confidence of someone who'd never faced real danger.
"Try not to embarrass yourself too badly, trash," Garrick said loud enough for the crowd to hear. "I'd hate for your death to be boring."
Two dummies were positioned. Garrick went first.
He slammed both palms into the ground with theatrical force. His B-Rank Earth magic created a seismic shockwave that cracked the arena floor and sent stone spears erupting through his dummy's torso. The construct shattered into splinters. Impressive power. Wasteful technique. Zero finesse.
The dummy's runes flashed. The auto-repair sigils activated. Within three seconds, the construct had fully regenerated.
"Adequate power," Kylus said flatly. "Wasteful execution."
Garrick's grin faltered slightly, but he stepped back with a swagger that suggested he didn't care about the critique.
Now Zane's turn.
He stepped forward to his dummy while retrieving a balanced throwing knife from his belt_ne of three he'd purchased from a slum blacksmith using the last of his entrance fee money. A "commoner's weapon" that drew immediate jeers from the noble section.
"Is the Mana-Null going to stab it?" someone called out.
"Does he think this is a bar fight?"
"Just let him fail so we can move on."
Zane ignored them. He stood motionless before his dummy, studying the runic pulse pattern with eyes that had designed the original language these fools had corrupted. The construct's runes cycled in perfect three-second intervals: Algiz flaring for defense, Perthro dimming as it detected no magical signature to analyze, Thurisaz glowing as it maintained baseline repair readiness.
In the observation platform above, Professor Kylus's mechanical arm stopped drumming. His war-trained instincts were suddenly alert as he watched Zane's stance_erfectly balanced, weight distributed for precision rather than power.
That stance. That exact weight distribution. Kylus had seen it before.
Twenty years ago. On a battlefield. Right before half his squadron died.
Zane began his approach at a measured walk. Not a charge. Not a scramble. A walk. The dummy activated its response protocol as he entered combat radius, its wooden limbs moving to intercept.
Zane watched the Thurisaz rune specifically. Counting. Three seconds of standby. Flash of bright activation as micro-damage self-repaired. Then the 0.4-second dim phase as energy flowed inward to the core.
He waited. Standing just outside the dummy's strike range. His body language completely calm.
The Thurisaz rune flared bright.
Zane moved.
He threw the knife during the rune's peak brightness, the blade crossing fifteen feet in the exact timeframe it took for Thurisaz to begin its energy backflow to the core. The knife struck the precise junction point where the inverted Thurisaz rune met the Algiz ward on the dummy's chest.
The dummy's entire runic circuit exploded.
All three runes shattered simultaneously as the inverted Thurisaz created a feedback loop that consumed the Algiz and Perthro enchantments. The wooden construct collapsed into inert pieces, its core sigil cracked and smoking, while Zane's knife remained embedded in the exact center of the destroyed rune.
The arena was completely silent.
For three heartbeats, no one moved. No one spoke. Then a single Class F student began clapping_ncertain if this counted as success or catastrophic rule-breaking.
Professor Kylus stood abruptly. His mechanical arm's whirring was suddenly loud in the silence. His scarred face had drained of all color.
He remembered. A battlefield outside the capital. Xylos's War-Mages using this exact technique_unebreaking strikes targeting inverted defensive sigils_o destroy an entire company of Holy Knights in under a minute.
The technique that had cost him his arm.
**