Elise woke up with a yawn. Ahh, another flawless morning for a flawless little mage like herself. First thing, she checked her core—yep, still working like a charm. That technique was doing its job even in her sleep, drawing in mana all night without her lifting a single mental finger.

Basically meditation without the boring sitting-still part. Let the lesser folk sweat through their desperate rituals—Elise simply existed and got results. Must sting, being mediocre.

"Good morning, Miss Elise," the maid said, stepping into the room like she owned the air she breathed. "You're up early today."

Early, huh? Elise squinted toward the window. The cold curtains flitted in a faint breeze, and the sky outside still wore its gloomy pre-dawn colors. She usually rose with the first rays, like the perfectly timed machine she was. Waking up before that? Unscheduled. Annoying. And Elise didn't do off-schedule.

The slight hiccup in her routine put a little crack in her mood, but it patched right up the moment she glanced back at the maid. "I was messing around with my bodily mana—probably threw my rhythm off a bit."

The maid gave a soft little laugh like she was allowed to have opinions. "You should give yourself a break, young miss. You're already the youngest in town to reach Yellow Core in record time, and it hasn't even been that long since you broke into low yel—"

"Yeah, none of that matters," Elise snapped, slicing the conversation mid-sentence. She didn't need another peasant-tier sermon about 'shoulds' and 'expecteds.' That kind of talk was based on data collected from the flailing masses. Not her. Elise wasn't made from the same baseline garbage.

After some useless small talk, Elise left the maid to do what she did best: clean up after her betters. The woman had tried to fuss over her hair or some other irrelevant detail, but Elise had already walked off.

Well, it was early. Might as well step outside and see what kind of pathetic attempts the world was making at waking up.

Randall mornings started early, apparently. The enforcers were already out and about, clad in their edgy black-and-green uniforms, swinging around those shiny enchanted sabres. Not a regular sight—at least not before the Netherbeast mess.

And fuck, what a glorious dumpster fire that was. Everything pried from Father's clipped updates painted a masterpiece of moronic tragedy. Incidentally, also when that particular filthy stain vanished. Elise's lips curled, a razor-slash of a smirk. Ugly memories buzzed at the periphery – persistent gnats. She mentally swatted them into oblivion. No. Not today. Not ever, ideally.

She kept walking, mana flickering through her veins, testing how it pulsed and responded to her will. Every core rank-up brought with it more mana—more fuel, more power.

What used to be a dozen spells she could throw around on a full mana pool had now tripled. The Path of the Winter Salamander she walked was primarily a Light pathway—heavy on illusions, light on actual firepower. Sure, she had excellent control over illusions now, but offense was almost nonexistent.

She could pick up Light-based offensive spells on her own, sure. But that meant Father hemorrhaging a vulgar mountain of coin just for the privilege of accessing the manuals.

Pathways skipped that whole headache. Once you started walking one, it was like the universe handed you the damn syllabus—spells and skills just fell into your lap. You learned by walking. That's why studying your own path wasn't just some academic jerk-off; it was mandatory.

That's how Elise had learned most of her illusion magic. Sure, cities like Alcoa and Randall had records of common spells, but if you understood your path deeply enough, you could build something new. Unique. Original.

And of course she did. She was Elise—gifted, genius, perfect. The moment she hit Yellow Core, she didn't just get stronger—she invented her own spell. A way to turn illusion magic into a weapon.

Her triple affinity—Light, Dark, and Water—meant that while a Path was locked to one, she could still twist the others into something useful. Optimization was an art, and she was the damn artist.

She twirled her fingers, and glowing runes sparked to life. A moment later, flame burst up across her body—an illusion made from Water and Light magic. She spotted a squirrel twitching on a branch nearby. Awake. Convenient.

One casual flick of her hand, and the flame covering her vanished. A second later, the squirrel ignited.

It shrieked, a raw sound of pure neural betrayal, tumbling off the branch. Its tiny body convulsed, muscles spasming like live wires dumped in acid. Elise applauded, eyes gleaming with vicious delight as it thrashed in the dirt. What fortune for the vermin—first creature graced by her newborn spell.

After a minute of exquisite suffering, she severed the connection. The squirrel, utterly unharmed physically, scrambled up and bolted like its fur was still smoldering. Disappointing. She'd craved more data. But that was the spell's elegant cruelty: it bypassed flesh. Cooked the brain. Made nerves scream fire where none existed.

Light magic wasn't known for mental tampering, so she guessed the water affinity was pulling that weight. The more she dug into how each element actually functioned, the more obvious it became: no one around her knew shit. Not her teachers, not the books—they all skimmed the surface. None of them had a clue what was actually going on underneath.

That fascinated her. It was her research. She'd forge something so devastatingly brilliant, it would blast open the doors of a premier magic tower.

…Maybe even Avalon Academy.

Of course, they didn't do entrance exams or open applications. You got in by being scouted—or getting a rare recommendation. Father was already elbow-deep trying to work his way through contacts.

And if anyone could buy her passage through those hallowed gates, it was him.

Oh, the sheer, dizzying potential if they deigned to choose her. Avalon Academy? Please. They'd be grovelling with gratitude to have perfection stride through their sanctified doors. A flawless mage. Triple affinity. A brain that actually functioned. Unlike the intellectual refuse they doubtless dredged up from lesser gene pools. Elise smirked as she strolled on.

After subjecting a few more squirrels to vital research—purely for scientific rigor, naturally—the first feeble sunbeams finally slithered over the horizon. Time evaporates when you're marinating in your own transcendent intellect. She dissolved the illusion spell, then paused.

Waited.

Waited for the squirrel to prostrate itself in gratitude for witnessing her genius.

It didn't. Like its predecessors, the ungrateful rodent bolted as if she hadn't bestowed upon it a front-row seat to revolutionary magic. Filthy, witless parasites.

Not that she was angry. No, Elise getting mad over rodent-tier beings was beneath her. She just smiled instead—smiled with the serene superiority of someone who knew exactly where the world stood. And where it crawled.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

With her mood pleasantly intact, she set off toward her next destination: Old Shopkeeper Mekhael. The only guy in this dungheap town who sold halfway decent alchemy materials. Illegally, of course—but that just made him even more useful. A little blackmail here, a little reminder there, and poof—discounts. And Elise deserved all the discounts. Every last one.

On the way, she caught sight of some of the low-tier clowns from her class. Mostly guys, a couple of sweaty girls, all dragging themselves along with weights strapped to their limbs. Father mentioned it the other day—some new governor in Alcoa threw coin at the local enforcers to get more recruits in shape. Adorable. As if bulging biceps could ever bridge the chasm to Red Core and its real rewards: reconstitution, regeneration, raw, world-bending power. But sure, let them jog in circles, deluding themselves.

She offered a languid wave. Several boys flushed crimson. Pathetic. Her grin widened. Such specimens were laughably pliable. A honeyed word, a calculated glance, and they'd happily impale themselves for the honor of retrieving her quills.

The herd shuffled past, this time murmuring, "Lady Elise." Technically, she wasn't noble yet—Father was still greasing palms or selling secrets for the paperwork. But the rabble already knelt. Nobility itself? Inevitable. Dull, yes—but inevitable. She had grander designs than chasing titles. Let Father wade through the bureaucratic sludge.

She was nearly at Mekhael's pesthole when something wrong snagged her senses.

His shop hunched too close to that house. The rotting carcass left behind after she vanished. That beastkin abomination. Elise always detoured slightly, avoiding the memory-rot seeping from its foundations.

But today… someone was standing there.

A woman. Beastkin. Long raven hair. Azure eyes. And just like that, Elise felt something inside her crack. Her heart slammed against her ribs like a caged thing. Her tongue flooded with the acrid taste she despised above all others.

Fear.

No. Fucking. Way.

She was supposed to be carrion. Declared dead. Announced, mourned, and mentally buried by anyone who mattered.

So why was that walking blasphemy standing there?

There was a reason she fucking loathed that genetic mistake.

Elise was perfection. Incarnate. Flawless. Yet every time those predator's eyes landed on her, something primal buckled. Her heart thrashed like a bird dashed against its cage, wings breaking against the bars of her own ribs.

It didn't make sense. That thing—Jade—wasn't human. She wasn't even a person. She felt like a predator. Elise couldn't explain it, couldn't rationalize it. All she knew was the visceral betrayal: legs locking, arms freezing, pupils dilating wide as a cornered doe's whenever that freak polluted her sight.

And she hated it. Hated the visceral recoil, the primal flinch. Hated what it screamed about her perfect control.

Who the fuck did that powerless, mana-dead, coreless reject think she was to make her—Elise—feel like that?

So Elise did what any rational, vengeful, pissed-off prodigy would do. She'd struck. Relentlessly. Sometimes subtle: misplaced reagents causing volatile reactions near Jade's path, destabilized floorboards over stairwells. Sometimes… less subtle. Things that might, in a lesser court, be construed as murder attempts. But who cared? She was performing civic hygiene. Peace demanded the stain's erasure.

But now, standing here again, staring at the woman in front of Jade's old house… that crawling feeling returned. That same gut-deep warning.

Run.

Her pulse kicked up. Her breath stuttered. Elise clenched her teeth, forced her heart to calm, forced her limbs to stay still. She closed her eyes, froze in place, and focused. Just a little meditation. Just enough to put the panic back in its cage.

Slowly, it worked.

She opened her eyes and looked again. The woman in front of her looked… older. Too old to be Jade. But the resemblance was there—same bone structure, same unnatural calm in the eyes. Except her horns were red instead of bronze.

A thought slithered through Elise's mind. Was this Jade's mother?

Her frown deepened. No way to be sure, but… maybe.

She tapped a finger to her temple and activated Spirit Sight—a shiny new toy she'd picked up post-yellow-core. The spell let her check the color of someone's core like peeling skin back and seeing the truth underneath.

Nothing. Not a glimmer. No core, no mana, nothing.

Just like Jade.

Elise's saccharine mask dissolved, replaced by a razor-edged grin. Finally. Interesting. Her morning wasn't salvageable… it was ascending.

She closed the distance like a conquering queen claiming territory. "Excuse me, miss?" Poisonous honey dripped from her tone. "Looking for someone?"

The woman's gaze shifted to her. That was all. Elise's heart wrenched, a physical lurch. She choked it down, muscles locking to prevent collapse. That same suffocating pressure – the invisible boot-heel Jade always pressed onto her ribs – slammed down anew.

Confirmation. No doubt. This creature was Jade's progenitor. Same worthless, coreless lineage. Reiner had mana, so the blight came from her.

Irrelevant. Elise would ensure this bitch bled for daring to surface.

The woman's expression remained carved from ice. "Yes." Her voice was disturbingly calm. "I was informed a man named Reiner and his beastkin daughter resided here. I seek him."

"Ohhh, what a pity," Elise sighed, her voice a shard of glass wrapped in silk. "He resigned from the enforcers months ago. Took up adventuring. Last whisper was an escort contract deep past the Wilds of Vraal'Kor. Miles beyond nowhere."

The woman didn't even blink. "An adventurer, huh…"

Elise tilted her head, a viper feigning curiosity. "Assuming you belong out in the festering wilds too, miss? Beastkin aren't exactly… welcome here. Friendly tip?" Her voice oozed faux concern. "If you linger, maybe don't advertise your stain. Wouldn't want the enforcers mistaking you for… well, cage fodder."

The woman raised a single, deliberate eyebrow. "Cage... fodder?"

Elise's smirk was pure arsenic. "Wouldn't be your first rodeo in a kennel, I'd wager? You reek of the untamed dirt. People whisper letting your kind off-chain tends to end… messily." She bared her teeth. "Bloodily."

The woman mirrored Elise's head tilt, utterly placid. The calm was a physical slap.

"Thank you for your… concern, young lady," the woman replied, her tone glacier-smooth.

Elise's eyelid spasmed. "Are all beastkin spineless floor-mops, or is that just your genetic defect?" she hissed. "Spare the pedigree report—you're Jade's carbon copy. So you're the bitch that whelped her."

Her smile returned, sickly sweet and radiating malice.

"Sucks to be you. Your daughter's rotting. And your husband—Gods know what deranged lack of standards made him mount something like you—is conveniently vanished too. So, reiterating for the cognitively impaired…" She leaned in, millimeters from the woman's unnerving stillness, voice a poisoned whisper. "Leave. Now. Miss."

The smile held. Her composure didn't. Elise hated her—a corrosive loathing mixed with the same animal terror Jade had inspired. That primal, marrow-deep dread slithered back, whispering she was meat before an apex predator.

And the woman just… existed. Calm. Implacable. Jade's same infuriating, silent arrogance. Like violence was background static.

Before Elise could unleash another corrosive volley, the woman spoke. Flat. Empty. Deadly.

"How did you know her?"

Elise's grin turned feral, a carrion-dream. "Intimately. Loved shoving her muzzle in the mud. Even on her final day, I drowned her in a steaming mountain of actual beast-shit." A brittle, glass-shard laugh escaped her. "Then she died in some nameless ditch, like the garbage she was. Maybe go sniff out the corpse—oh, wait…" She leaned closer, savoring the cruelty. "They never even found enough to scrape off—"

Crack.

The air snapped. Heat detonated—a kiln door blasted open in her face. And then—

Impact.

A hand clamped her throat. Iron forged. Words died. Air strangled. Sound choked into silent, gasping nothing.

Elise's vision blurred at the edges. Not magic. Pure, brutal pressure. Cartilage groaned beneath the vise-grip. Her manicured hands flew up, scrabbling uselessly at the woman's wrist—unmoving as carved stone. Her own mana surged in panic, flickering uselessly across her skin like trapped lightning bugs.

The woman hadn't moved. She was just there. Inches away. Face still carved from ice—except the eyes. Softness incinerated. Molten. Burning with something not human. Not safe.

Elise's heart gave one final, sickening jolt.

Then it seized. Prey understanding the trap has sprung.

The beastkin leaned in. Heat vibrated under the low words. "A mouth..." Almost idle. Almost frigid. "The organ of taste. Speech. Deceit. The tongue—wet, trembling, forked or not—has ended more lives than any blade. You wag it, and doom follows. Not because words are weapons… but because they summon them. Such a foolish little soul."

Her gaze pinned Elise. "And yet… you are not mine to kill. This is the rite of passage for the Scaled Ones. My interference would stain the trial… perhaps even offend her, and Fate itself."

Something ancient churned behind her eyes. "I don't know what flavor of doom awaits you, human. But it will come. Fate has its chosen ones. It watches them. Stalks them. No moment of their life goes untouched—not even the petty things. Especially the petty things." A flicker of something like… understanding? Pity? "…Even when the Scaled Ones forgive, even when they shrug off small slights as beneath them… Fate doesn't. The moment you crossed her, you carved your name into a cycle far older than your comprehension. You registered yourself in its ledger."

Then—release. Simple. Brutal. Elise hit the cobbles, coughing, wheezing. The crushing cold vanished. Warmth bled back into the world.

The woman watched her. Something like pity in that impossible calm. Then she looked up. The sky itself seemed to flinch. "Even I won't be spared when Fate settles accounts. Vengeance collects all debts. For I was the first to wrong her."

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