CHAPTER 252: WELCOME TO DÚN SCÁITH

Professor Novalyn Riven Thunderwing halted mid-stride. She turned to Raijin with a flash of anger... her patience already worn thin. From yesterday afternoon until now she had been in her office on the first floor, attempting to comprehend a new skill and failing again and again. Hungry, tired and frustrated, she had rushed to the library seeking precedent or guidance. Raijin’s shout interrupted the last thread of focus she had left.

Normally strict and uncompromising, Professor Nova despised rule-breakers. Now, disturbed and confronted with a possible offender, fury rose quickly under her composure.

"Who is Cadet Eleanor?" she hissed.

"That’s me, Professor." Eleanor rose and answered politely.

Raijin glowed inwardly with triumph. Fortune had finally handed him an opportunity to avenge his humiliation. He had lost to Eleanor in the Tower of Legends... fair, he admitted, but the sting of defeat to a mere werewolf annoyed him to the end. Today, he had the opportunity to strike back.

"Why have you entered our library?" Professor Nova demanded. "Do you not know it is forbidden to enter a school library unless you are a student? Have you not read the guidebook?"

"Yes, Professor. I know the rules. I had permission from the reception to enter the library," Eleanor replied calmly.

Eleanor’s mind raced for a solution. "How can I prove I’m enrolled in this department? I’m a visiting student, yes, but still a student. There’s no physical ID to show. Shall I go downstairs to fetch the receptionist? This Raijin... now a dragon, yet he still behaves like a snake. In the end, no one escapes their genes," she thought.

Professor Nova’s voice tightened. "The reception has no authority to grant library access to students of another school. Either you lie, or the receptionist is in league with you. Tell me the truth. If you lie, the punishment will be far harsher."

Eleanor said, "I don’t know how to prove to you that I really am a student of this school. I only just enrolled as a visiting student, and the receptionist told me I could use the library to catch up with the class."

Professor Nova paused, slightly taken aback. "You are saying... you are a visiting student? Correct? When did you awaken your bloodline?"

"Yesterday," Eleanor replied.

At once, Raijin interjected, his voice laced with disdain. "Professor, she’s a werewolf... and not from the Lychos clan. I know it for certain. She possessed a mind-related bloodline. Her middle name is Elizabeth. If you don’t believe me, ask Ignatius. He’s a Lychos." He pointed towards Ignatius, who had been doing his best to stay unnoticed in the confrontation.

"Who permitted you to speak while I was talking?" Professor Nova snapped, her tone sharp as lightning. Still, she turned her gaze to Ignatius and asked, "Is that true?"

Ignatius gave a reluctant nod. "Yes, Professor."

Before Nova could say more, Eleanor spoke up quickly. "Professor, I am not lying. You can ask the receptionist. I don’t know any lightning spells yet... otherwise I could demonstrate one to you."

"No need," Professor Nova cut her off. "What is your cadet number?"

"659, Professor," Eleanor answered at once.

Professor Nova tapped the device on her wrist. "Show me the course list of Cadet 659."

A glowing screen flickered into existence before her eyes.

[Status: Cadet]

Cadet Name: Eleanor Elizabeth Raynor

Cadet Number: 10156659

Institution: Ascendance Academy of Midgard

Race: Werewolf (Alpha)

Bloodline: Mind Reaver (Level-1), Thunderbolt (Level-1)

Cultivation Level: Awakened

Mandatory Course:

1. Basics of Cultivation

2. Introduction to Supernatural Ethics & Law

Major Course:

1. Department of Combat (School of Mixed Martial Arts)

Optional Course:

1. Fundamentals of Psionics

2. Wilderness Survival

Visiting Course:

1. Department of Core Magic (Lightning School)

Professor Nova checked the course list and found the Lightning School listed under Eleanor’s name. Though reassured that the cadet had not broken any rule, her anger only deepened.

She turned sharply towards Raijin. "What is your cadet number?"

"601, Professor," Raijin replied.

Her gaze moved to the other two. "And yours?"

Ignatius answered, "587, Professor."

"598," Marsha murmured.

Professor Nova lifted her wrist device before her chest and commanded, "Deduct two hundred points from Cadet 601 for causing a nuisance and disturbing a professor. Deduct fifty points from Cadet 659 for escalating a misunderstanding with fellow course-mates. Deduct ten points each from Cadet 587 and 598 for failing to stop fellow cadets from creating a nuisance in the school library."

With that, she strode deeper into the library, leaving the bewildered cadets staring after her in stunned silence.

Ignatius muttered miserably, "What did I do? I barely have any points left."

Marsha said nothing, burying her head in her book as though nothing had happened.

Raijin’s fury simmered, but he dared not speak. He knew if he uttered even a word, the professor might hear... and punish him further. The grinding of his teeth was the only sound betraying his rage.

Eleanor, unruffled, checked her points.

[Status Screen]

Cadet Name: Eleanor Elizabeth Raynor

Cadet Number: 10156659

Institution: Ascendance Academy of Midgard

Race: Werewolf (Alpha)

Bloodline: Mind Reaver (Level-1), Thunderbolt (Level-1)

Cultivation Level: Awakened

Academy Points: 5106

"Sure, fifty points gone. But the good thing is that arrogant Raijin lost two hundred. He might even be in negative points now," she thought.

Sensing that lingering here might invite further drama with Raijin and perhaps another deduction should the professor reappear... Eleanor rose, placed the books neatly back on their shelves, and walked out of the library.

She went straight to the Core Magic Department and applied for a slot with the Origin Thunder Seed. Task done, she found herself with nothing pressing, so she headed early to the School of Mixed Martial Arts.

Instructor Arrichion had not expected her this early today. He was in his meditation chamber, seated in darkness as always.

Eleanor did not disturb him. She drifted instead to the shelves, pulling down handbooks she had once ignored. They contained the recorded experiences of past fighters... human and supernatural alike. Once, such writings had seemed dry and irrelevant. But after weeks under Arrichion’s tutelage, immersed in countless styles of combat, she found herself reading with newfound appreciation. The struggles and insights of those warriors spoke to her now.

While she was engrossed, Arrichion emerged from his meditation. He had sensed her arrival earlier but chosen to finish his practice, confident she would begin training on her own. Yet, to his mild surprise, she was sitting quietly, absorbed in study. That silence had held him longer in meditation than he intended.

Seeing him, Eleanor immediately set the book aside, rose, and bowed. "Instructor."

"You are early," he said.

"Yes. Today my scheduled Wilderness Survival class was cancelled."

"Good. Because I intend to bring you somewhere else... and since you’re here, we can go earlier."

Curious, but Eleanor remained silent.

"Follow me," Arrichion instructed as he strode out through the school’s main door.

They climbed down the first floor and stopped at the end of the corridor before Room 101. A sign hung above: Head of Department.

Arrichion scanned his wrist device, and the door slid open. He entered without pause, Eleanor close behind. The door sealed shut behind them.

Inside, he led her through to an inner chamber. At its centre stood a teleportation door, yet unlike the ones Eleanor had seen before, this one felt... inert. It radiated no energy at all. Instead, it seemed like an ancient structure asleep.

Arrichion stepped up to its frame, laid his hand on one side, and the dormant gateway stirred. A low hum filled the room as soft white light bloomed, spilling outward until the whole arch shimmered with translucent brilliance.

"Follow me," Arrichion said. And with that, he vanished into the glow.

Eleanor inhaled sharply, then stepped after him.

As soon as she stepped through the teleportation gate, Eleanor felt she had crossed into another world. The air was thin and cold, salted with stone and sea, so sharp it was like drinking from an ancient, fathomless well. The familiar hum of the academy’s magic was gone. In its place lay a silence so heavy it pressed against her eardrums... broken only by the distant, mournful cry of a bird and the endless rush of wind, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

She stood frozen, her feet rooted where she landed. Before her stretched a landscape that looked like carved by giants and long abandoned by time. A high plateau of dark granite sprawled beneath her, shrouded in a low, icy mist. Just a few paces ahead, the ground fell away in a sheer drop into a churning, iron-grey sea whose horizon vanished into haze.

And there, across a vast and terrible chasm, rose the fortress.

It was no mere structure but an extension of the mountain itself... a nightmare of black stone clawing its way into a bruised-violet sky. Towers speared through low-hanging clouds. Walls flowed down like frozen waterfalls, smooth in some places, savagely jagged in others. No banners stirred, no hearth-smoke curled, no lights glimmered. It stood in utter stillness, less built than grown, its geometry both alien and purposeful, as if the mountain itself had chosen to shape it.

A narrow bridge of the same black stone arched across the void, connecting the plateau to the fortress’s gaping entrance: a dark maw that seemed to swallow what little light the world had left.

Dread coiled tight in Eleanor’s stomach. The wind tore at her robes, biting deep, but the chill that gripped her came from within, burrowing into her soul. She felt like nothing more than a fragile speck of life standing before something immense, ancient, and utterly alone. Every instinct screamed at her to retreat from the edge... yet a terrible, awestruck fascination rooted her to the spot.

Seeing her awestruck, staring at the castle without blinking, Arrichion said, "Welcome to Dún Scáith."