Minutes slid by, and the silence held.

Every gaze fixed on Adyr as he moved across the bright, gold-sheened sand. He traced an unhurried circuit from barrel to barrel, palm brushing rims, eyes lingering on hoops and seams, noting the faint warps in the staves that hinted at pressure and swelling within.

Breath by breath, the onlookers tightened, waiting for the instant his hand would choose a lid and lift it.

"Brother, why don't you step down? It's too risky." Maruun's voice cracked the stillness. Watching Adyr like this, as if he were truly gambling, pulled his nerves taut until the warning burst out of him.

"No risk, no gain." Adyr's reply was quiet and flat, yet it carried to the far edges of the arena.

Trite or not, it was the truth. In the world of Practitioners, those without powerful backing or privileged bloodlines did not climb far by caution alone. If you wanted a higher ceiling, you paid for it with risk.

He let the tension stretch a heartbeat longer, then decided it was enough. He stopped before a barrel and squared himself to the task.

The lid was wooden, secured by two iron-colored clips. He eased them free one by one, slow and precise, letting each tongue of metal click back instead of snap. The sound was small, yet the crowd flinched as if something larger had shifted beneath the surface of things.

"I can't watch this." Several in the mixed-race group shut their eyes, unable to bear the pressure any longer, certain he was courting death.

Brakhtar Gorat kept his eyes open. He tracked every movement, hunting for a tell, a pattern, any edge of a Spark skill beneath the calm.

He found nothing. His frown deepened, carving heavier lines into his face. I thought he was smarter than Umbraen of Kharom. Was I wrong?

From where he stood, it truly looked as if Adyr was staking everything on luck.

Sparks that improved luck and fortune existed, but none had ever been seen for sale. Brakhtar knew them only from his elders' stories, and the few confirmed cases were almost always Rank 4 or higher.

The lid gave at last. From within, a soft white vapor began to rise, swelling upward in a pliant plume that unfurled like winter breath and made the light turn milk-pale where it drifted.

"Wait… is that a cloud?" Recognition moved through the Practitioners like a current. This was the nightmare from the previous trial, the thing that had killed many and left more crippled.

"He's dead now. I told him not to—fuck, fuck." Loudbark's voice broke into a bark of panic, convinced the cloud would fix on Adyr and dissolve him in seconds.

"Hold on. He made one retreat before. Maybe he can slip this one, too." Maruun forced his thoughts into order and reached for the most rational hope he had.

They braced for a lunge or a recoil. Some pictured it rushing Adyr and dissolving him at once. Others imagined it recognizing him and sliding back the way it had before, without striking at all.

What followed was neither.

The cloud finished pouring from the barrel in a continuous, seamless spill, hovered for a long breath as if weighing its options, then drifted through the air and settled at Adyr's side, quiet and compliant, like a tamed thing awaiting a signal.

Murmurs halted. Even the restless scuff of boots on sand went still. Minds ran the same tight circle: what did this mean, and how?

The answer arrived on its own, cutting through thought like a blade.

[The Third Trial has Concluded.]

Winner: Calculating… Displaying…

Winner: Adyr Hellcraft → Rank 3 Spark White Shroud awarded.

With the message, sound rushed back at once. Voices and footsteps rolled over the spectators and Practitioners together.

"What? That cloud was actually a Spark?" Someone blurted, stunned.

"White Shroud? I've never heard of it or seen one. It must be something unique, right?" More voices followed, disbelief plain.

The cloud was so strong that even Thalira, with her blistering speed, had struggled to keep up with it. Its dissolving touch was vicious. Once it brushed a target, no one escaped without losing flesh or limbs.

Thinking on its strength, many judged it among the most powerful Rank 3 Sparks, close enough to brush the threshold of Rank 4. Realizing that something like this had just been granted as a reward, a sharp burn of regret and envy lit many eyes.

Adyr also stayed where he was, looking quite surprised, a faint smile settling as he read the description of the Spark.

Now this is exactly the Spark I want to complete my third evolution.

[Spark detected]

[Name] White Shroud

[Path] Ignis

[Rank] 3

[Ability] Blink Shroud / Vibro-Melt / Shroudform

Description: White Shrouds are a cloud-kind born in the high atmosphere, in channels where fast airflows persist and a trace of humidity endures, regions lethal to most life under the crushing press of ultra-pure air. They coalesce from condensates of vaporized, vibrating aerosols and continue to feed on that resonance as long as currents and moisture remain.

Outwardly, they seem still and pallid; within, every strand of their mass hums with high-density vibration. The concentration is so intense that even brief contact is harmful, flensing flesh and nerve as if against a living sieve.

Ability—Blink Shroud / Vibro-Melt / Shroudform: Because they live in high-pressure air corridors, White Shrouds have adapted to constant pressure shifts. This body architecture grants Shroudform: a passive dispersal response that lets them evade extreme physical attacks by loosening cohesion and letting the blow pass through a clouded body.

The same architecture enables Blink Shroud: by driving their structure into high resonance and accelerating mass flow, they seem to dissolve and then reappear elsewhere to the eye—an apparent blink born of speed and vibration.

Using Vibro-Melt, it drives resonance through the target, sieving bonds at a near-molecular scale and turning flesh, armor, and organic binders into slurry. A moment of contact is enough to leave tissue semi-liquid and nerves reeling.

—

The Spark was so good that Adyr almost laughed out loud.

As an Ignis-path Spark, it not only offered a movement skill that bordered on short-range, almost teleportation-like speed, but it also possessed a defense skill that passively avoided physical attacks and an attack skill of brutal potency. Taken together, it was a remarkably versatile Spark with overwhelming power.

He didn't know its full specifications, nor exactly what would happen if he evolved using it. Even the book Liora had given him didn't list this Spark at all, which only underscored how unique it was. Still, he was almost certain that if he evolved with it, the traits he gained would multiply his overall strength many times over.

If I assume I will gain 1 physical trait and 1 innate ability, my body will probably take on the cloud's properties and pick up either its attack or its movement skill.

Adyr quickly ran the numbers in his head, mapping out the ways his body would improve, and his expectations climbed with every possibility he tested.

But before anything else, he needed to mislead the Practitioners watching him so he could use it without trouble.

***

A/N: Thanks for all your support; it means a lot for the novel. Since it's the first day of the month, golden tickets would help me a lot :]

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