The day after Jered's class change began with an unusual calm at Dawn Academy. Morning rays poured through the stained glass windows of the central tower, once again casting vibrant mosaics across the white marble halls. Birds chirped outside, but inside the air was tense. Whispers spread like wildfire among instructors and students alike. Something was stirring. Something powerful.
Jered, now the proud bearer of the Dauntless Warden class, had spent the morning meditating, feeling out his newfound powers. Though a support-type tank hybrid, the class was far more than he'd expected. He could feel it resonate with his heartbeat, a steady rhythm of fire and purpose. The sacred flame, "Dauntless," pulsed at his side, warm and calming.
Tashi, the eccentric teacher with a beard long enough to braid into runes, had returned to his quarters with a rare satisfied smile, humming an old tune as he sipped his tea and updated some scrolls. To him, helping Jered was a minor joy, an opportunity to balance out Vasra's cold ambition with a touch of intuition. What he didn't know was that his actions had unknowingly lit the fuse to a storm.
---
Dean Vasra's Office - Earlier That Morning
Inside the grand chamber of the Dean of Dawn Academy, the silence was almost suffocating. Walls of tomes, relics, and ancient weapons towered around Vasra, who stood like a statue of judgment in front of his window, watching the students from above. His crimson robe embroidered with golden runes rustled as he clenched the scroll in his hands.
It was the registry scroll. It listed every class change within the academy.
Then Jered's name appeared.
Before he had been eager—hopeful even. His younger brother was finally eligible. Vasra had planned for this moment meticulously. He had sought a hidden legendary artifact, one buried deep within the vaults of the family's ancestral stronghold. A gift for Jered. A class worthy of the name their family bore. But what greeted him on the scroll shattered all that.
Class Assigned: Dauntless Warden (EPIC)
"Epic..." Vasra whispered, voice dark with disbelief.
The item used was not what he had prepared. Instead, it read Dauntless Flame. A sacred flame, yes, but not one from the Vasra Vault. The registry stated the source.
Donor: Instructor Tashi.
Fury surged through him.
It was not just that Jered had received a different class. It was that Alex, his younger brother, a purple system awakener who had never received the recognition he yearned for, had once defied tradition and offered his own blade, a well-worn greatsword,at the age of seven. The family had supported him. They had granted him access, training, and materials. But all for naught. Despite their efforts, Alex awakened the Berserker, a brutal gold-rank class. The family viewed it as a disappointment, not because of lack of support, but because the results did not match their lofty expectations. Their pride was wounded, their reputation questioned.
Vasra had vowed not to let the same disgrace fall upon Jered.
And now, the carefully planned surprise had been ruined.
Worse Tashi, of all people, had stolen the moment.
---
Tashi's Quarters
The air in Tashi's chambers had a scent of cinnamon and sulfur. Scrolls hovered mid-air, enchanted to shelve themselves, while soft incantations glowed in chalk-like markings on the floor.
Without warning, a thunderclap tore through the room. One of the hovering scrolls exploded into ash.
Tashi barely had time to turn when the marble floor cracked, runes flickered, and the space itself split open ripped apart like parchment.
"TA—SHI!!" a voice bellowed from beyond the rift.
Vasra stepped through, fury manifest in every step. His robes shimmered with flowing runes, his eyes glowing with chromatic pulses of temporal energy.
The protections, the spatial cloaks, the arrays, all had been torn apart.
Tashi, unfazed, stood up slowly, brushing off flakes of burnt parchment.
"You finally found a way through, eh? I thought the Dean of Dawn had better manners."
"You robbed my brother of his legacy!"
Tashi took another sip of his tea.
"Oh, you mean Jered? Gave him the Dauntless Flame, yes. You're welcome."
"I was going to give him a legendary class," Vasra growled. "You stole his chance."
Tashi blinked.
"Legendary, was it? So you wanted to make him another symbol? Another puppet bound by expectations? I gave him a class that suits him. Not your pride."
The temperature dropped. Time twisted in the air. Wind howled through the cracks in space Vasra had left behind.
"Then I will teach you," Vasra said coldly, "what happens to those who sabotage my will."
Tashi's tea cup clinked as it landed on the table.
"Finally," he said, cracking his knuckles. "I thought you'd never say it."
With a flick of his fingers, Tashi rearranged the runes on the floor. Reality twisted.
Both men vanished, reappearing in a sealed dueling realm—an arena suspended in void, used only by the elite.
---
Inside The Dueling Realm.
Floating islands of shattered earth, glowing rivers of mana, and a dome of violet sky framed their battleground. Here, power could be unleashed freely, safely away from innocent eyes.
Vasra raised both arms and time itself slowed. Chrono-rings shimmered into existence behind him, and celestial runes of space aligned like constellations above. His class: Chrono Arcanist, a caster who wielded time and space.
Tashi, in contrast, stood calmly, his presence like a rock amidst a hurricane. He summoned forth his weapon, the World Needle, forged from rare Celestium; a metal said to be older than stars. His class: World weaver, master of the world's flow and renewal.
Vasra blinked forward, bending distance to his will. The moment he reappeared, time fractured and five versions of himself struck simultaneously. Tashi, calm, spun the World Needle in a graceful arc. With a single sweep, all illusions shattered, time corrected.
"You've learned to manipulate echoes," Tashi said. "But I work with absolutes."
Vasra snarled. "You meddled where you should not."
"And you tried to control what should grow free."
Chrono-spheres appeared behind Vasra. Each ticked with impossible precision. With a snap of his fingers, they unleashed distortions, gravity reversals, temporal paralysis, displacement bursts.
Tashi responded in kind. With gentle steps, he drew sigils of healing across the sky. They bloomed into shields of light, radiant pulses that absorbed, dispelled, and redirected. The World Needle danced between aggression and grace, binding the wild energies Vasra released.
They clashed again and again. Time slowed, space cracked, and the world healed.
This was not a duel of dominance.
It was a battle of philosophies.
And neither side would yield.