The journey from the obsidian ruins to the heart of the Empire ended not with a celebration, but with a cold transaction. Once the massive, white-stone gates of Grandis had closed behind them, the partnership was dissolved. Professor Elara, her mind already consumed by the secrets she had unearthed, handed Aleric a heavy pouch of gold. It was a substantial sum—hush money to ensure the secrets of the vault remained buried, and a parting gift to fulfill her promise of his enrollment.

With a final, distant nod, she ascended toward the High Spire of the Aetheria Academy, her robes fluttering in the wind. Aleric was left standing in the shadow of the great towers, a commoner with a pouch of gold and a scroll of enrollment. He heard nothing of her or the book in the weeks that followed. It was as if she had simply wiped him from her ledger once the debt was paid.

Life within the Academy was a slow, grinding monotony. Aleric was assigned a cramped room in the Outer Disciple's wing, a section reserved for those of low birth. To the wealthy students who walked the marble halls in silks and jewels, he was a non-entity—a charity case who kept his head down, appearing to the world as a boy with plain, unremarkable brown eyes. He had learned to mask the crimson glow of his sight, projecting the image of a mundane student to avoid the prying questions of the faculty.

The Academy was a place where status was everything, and status was measured by one's Aura. Every afternoon, the central courtyard became a stage for vanity. Aleric would sit upon a weathered stone bench, watching the senior students "flex" their presence. They would stand in circles, projecting their internal energy outward to create a heavy, suffocating pressure in the air.

A "heavy" Aura was what they believed a real master possessed. These children gloated about how hard they could make a commoner's knees shake with terror from just being in close proximity to them. Their eyes shut, they reveled in the "feel" of each other's presence. They sized each other up based on how strong or light a "wave" they radiated. Anyone with a thin or weak Aura was simply ignored.

However, Aleric watched their Mana.

But in reality, the world was a complex interlocking of many pieces. Where a young lordling was preoccupied with puffing out his chest in an effort to make his aura intimidating, Aleric observed the mana flowing from the boy's body in a ragged, wasteful manner. The students were so caught up in the "show" of power, in the weight of their presence, that they could not control their underlying energies.

They are fixated on the shadow of the mountain, Aleric sneered to himself. They want the world to feel their presence but are unable to grasp how to handle the power they wield. Their power is like an leaky bucket, but they are proud of how much water they are able to spill.

The isolation at the Academy was a slow poison. He lived in the library at night, but the books there too had been screened. He understood that if he stayed there, his talent would decay. He had to prove himself. He had to have a life which the Academy couldn't envision.

With the gold Elara had given him, Aleric passed the days of his leave in the lower levels of the city. He located a tailor's shop nestled in an alleyway. The tailor was an older man with hands that moved steadily and no curiosity about his customers. Aleric outlined his need: a thick hoodie and pants of common cotton with a deep, visceral Crimson dye. He also asked for a cloth mask attached to his adventurer clothes that would cover his lower face.

When the suit was completed, Aleric smuggled it back to his quarters. He waited for the moon to be high in the turrets and for the thick, overbearing Auras of the Academy to retire for the night. He donned the scarlet robes, sliding the heavy hood low over his brow and adjusting the cloth mask into place.

He stood in front of the mirror, a figure of crimson fabric in the moonlight. And as he took a deliberate breath to drop the mask that he wore for weeks, the dull brown of his eyes cleared away to reveal the piercing Crimson that seemed to shimmer from inside the hood.

It wasn't special cloth. No magic was contained within the cloaking it offered him. No dampening of his Aura. As far as any mage or guard might "sense" the air around them, Aleric presented the faint, uninteresting signature of a regular student. Even this was faint enough that it might be readily overlooked by those searching for "dangerous" foes. "They've spent their lives learning how to care for the lions," Aleric whispered, his voice ringing hollow in the silence behind the cloth mask as his red eyes blazed with an icy intensity. "They'll never realize the spider until the web is spun."

He turned to the open window. Aleric Thorne, the quiet student with the brown eyes, was supposed to be asleep. But the Red Auditor vaulted over the stone ledge and vanished into the darkness of the city below.