As said before, the Hero Academy admits every race under the sky—mostly human—and splits into branches, each leaning like a pine in different wind.

Martial Arts, where blades sing like cicadas and sweat falls like summer rain. It’s grind and grit, the kind of path that sculpts you like riverstone.

Magitech, Raven’s home turf, a forge where sparks turn into Constructs and arcane devices. In the late Silver Era, magitech airships, Dimensional Cannons, and roving wizard towers rose like iron mountains.

Magitech Applications, the street-lamp to Magitech’s lighthouse, studies improvements to magitech magic itself. It’s the craft of weaving new functions, like mist veils and face-shifting glamours, soft as moonlight and sharp as a needle.

Potioncraft, with compulsory alchemy like bedrock. It chases the nature of elixirs the way roots chase water—brews for healing, underwater breaths, recipes for forging magic swords, even quick-set building compounds like growing stone.

Prophecy, which eats talent like a fire eats dry wood. Few students, stranger lectures, and topics vague as distant thunder—finding paths, pointing futures. I don’t get it, and that fog never parts.

Mythos, where the clergy polish their halos like mirrors in a shrine. The gods here stand arm in arm like a ring of mountains, calling themselves guardians of the world, and they don’t punish mixed flocks like jealous flames.

Destruction, the pure-offense track, the old-school mage’s road. A note on why it stands alone like a lone peak: not all Destruction spells are magitech. Different races pick what fits, like birds choosing trees.

If you want Draconic, no one stops you. The Primordial Nine Races share knowledge like passing torches at a festival, and call it honor. Wisdom belongs to Wisdom God Haydon, and to all living things, like rain belongs to the earth. New research spreads wide as migrating geese. We even have dragons who wear human skin as resident professors. If your hands can’t catch their sky, no one can help you; credits won’t land, and you might repeat a year like a leaf circling a whirlpool.

With the Silver Era this united, how’s a Demon King supposed to invade? It’s like trying to split granite with a reed.

After the Golden Era, we couldn’t read the Sorcerer Emperor’s relics, so the river of civilization broke into separate streams. The Primordial Nine Races drifted the same, and the unified magic of the Golden Era fell out of tune, like a cracked bell.

So dragons forged Draconic magic like fire forging scales, elves grew natural magic like moss on stone, and humans—no talent and no physique—invented magitech magic like weaving bridges across a gorge.

We couldn’t commune with elements worth a dawn breeze, so we used magic arrays to channel them like aqueducts, or sealed mana circuits into devices, standing in for other races’ direct command like a clever lever.

The Demonfolk don’t bother with ladders when they’re born with wings. It’s like you walk without thinking, while a tree would call that a miracle.

Too strong is a lonely mountain. Kidding—mostly.

Also, the Silver Era isn’t a game book. Fire and frost fall under physical attack, like hailstones that bruise.

Summon a fireball, and it harms by shockwave and heat, like a storm and a forge working together. It’s still the physical domain, just not a sword-cut on flesh.

So here it’s physical attacks versus conceptual attacks, a river versus the idea of a river.

Conceptual attacks are like the Shadow erosion I used before, a blade from the realm of ideas. That’s high art, used by few, the kind of trick Grand Magi keep like knives in sleeves.

“So I’m actually running the Hero template now…”

“What’s wrong?”

Stini poked her head around my back like a curious cat, maid outfit wrinkled like paper after rain—elegant clothes don’t survive a sprint.

“Nothing. Did you find the newcomers?”

We nursed our wounds a while. We still dragged ourselves to class like lanterns in wind—attendance matters for leveling—but we had to ditch the internships, or the wounds would open like old scars.

Now that the cuts had knit like bark over a branch, we planned to grind those missing credits in one go. A big dungeon run, maybe, like a storm to wash the slate clean.

It’s a bad loop, though. Get hurt, fall short on credits, take a higher-tier run, get hurt again. Still, none of us wanted to peck at small tasks like sparrows.

“So priority one is no casualties. At least, no broken-bone, coma-for-a-week kind of mess.”

“Then I’m counting on you, Andor—our mage-warrior hybrid,” she sang, voice sweet as spring water.

She tilted her head and slide-hugged my neck, hair brushing my cheek like soft grass. She was petite and flat as a lake without waves, so my back felt nothing. Her scent was green and young, a mix of leaves and hormones, not bad as a field after rain.

But it tickled like feather snow. Off, off!

Stini’s mouth dipped like a falling petal.

“Her Highness takes the heavy hits. Beg the princess. My role’s a mage.”

We were forming up to challenge the Tower of Final Stars, a high-tier dungeon standing like a black needle against the sky. Dungeons are usually Golden Era relics, or places where a Demon King dies and leaves his grudge like frost, or natural rifts claimed by accumulated monsters like ants claiming a fallen sweet.

Whichever the cause, they’re rivers of monsters.

If a Demon King sits a dungeon, that’s top-tier, a storm inside a mountain.

There’s no A-rank or B-rank stamped on the door. At the Adventurers’ Guild, you take what you dare like picking berries or vipers. There’s only rating and bounty, stars and gold, and if a fledgling signs up for a dragon hunt, no law stops them jumping off that cliff. Still, the Silver Era is kind, and the counter clerk will warn you like a bell in fog.

This Tower of Final Stars… I didn’t expect so many stars on the board, and the bounty glints like sunlight on steel.

“We don’t need to fuss. This tower alone can buy back all our missing credits,” Stini said, eyes bright as lanterns. “Even if we get hurt, the recovery time’s covered.”

Don’t set ‘serious injury’ as the starting line, thanks. Before launch, let’s not plant bad flags like nails in wood.

“When we clear it, let’s get married… That’s the line, right?”

“Not even close! Now I’m sure we’ll lose someone this run!”

An ill omen, like a black crow at dawn.

“Hey, marry me or not? Don’t dither like a man with cold feet,” she snapped, tongue suddenly sharp as a paper fan’s edge.

“I know you want to play, but I’m busy. Go. Find Vega.” I used the tone you use to tease a puppy, and, somehow, it worked on Stini like a charm bell.

“Cold-hearted. A gorgeous girl proposes, and you still complain?”

“That’s not a romantic proposal. That’s a mistress forcing a married man to come clean. I keep wondering—who feeds you this crooked lore?”

“Mm… Dad and Mom?”

Augustus, if you couldn’t kill a Demon King, I’d tie you to a stake and light it like a winter bonfire.

There’s no Inquisition in the Silver Era. But the FFF squad shows up in every timeline like weeds in spring.

Wait. By that logic, aren’t I in danger too?

“Vega, Vega! Stop washing dishes. Ward the house against fire first.”

Stini suddenly remembered, eyes flashing like flint.

“Speaking of fire wards, Dad used to cast them once a year. After Mom left, he does it monthly, like rain on a leaky roof.”

I used to respect the Hero Augustus, a tragic star in a dark sky. The more I spend time with Stini, the dimmer that star looks. They say meeting greatness shows the human side, like a king with muddy boots.

No. This feels like like repels like—two scoundrels passing on a narrow bridge, trading sneers like stones.

“Ahem. Back to business. Did you find the newcomers?”

Standard six-person adventuring party: Warrior for main damage, Knight for shield and wall, Archer for distance and kiting, Assassin for interrupts and killing blows, Mage for big-area artillery and buffs, Cleric for blessings and healing. Sometimes you add a Support, like a prince’s guard or a maid, a shadow behind the torch.

By profession, I’m a Shadow Sorcerer. But in the Eastern Frontier, monster tides roar like the sea, and when my mana runs dry, I draw steel. I can fill Mage and moonlight as a Warrior.

Stini is a Hero. A Hero is a Hero, a jack-of-all like water filling any cup.

Gloria stands with one foot in Warrior and one in Knight, the strongest in close-quarters, a mountain with fists.

Raven is a Construct crafter, a kind of Mage. She’s a researcher whose eyes are stars. She just took Construct Combat as an elective to teach and learned while teaching; her power’s jumped like bamboo after rain. I’m more eager for her little black-tech toys.

Versatile Lady Vega likes twin short blades, a Support who takes no slot, and she can step into the Assassin’s shadow.

All told, we skew heavy on melee, a forest of spears.

Stini swings the Holy Sword up close, Gloria uses hand-strikes like iron wind, and I like a plain blade for quick results. Call me a melee mage, ha. Raven’s sword lessons also cut clean as clear ice.

Range isn’t a big gap. Stini and I both have distance tools, and Raven can craft a magitech cannon like a thunder drum. What I really want is a high-level Cleric. In the war with Yakfarro, we lacked timely healing, and the wounds piled like snow, so we spent a long season in the Goddess of Life Shrine.

Right now we’re short an Archer and a Cleric.

It’s not a dealbreaker. The Guild lets teams choose their fate, like boats choose rivers. And the few of us can solo Academy professors like chopping bamboo. We’re enough for the Tower of Final Stars.

“Let’s pray the newcomers aren’t too weird,” I said, eyeing the horizon like a weather-vane.

“Relax,” Stini said, tossing a wink like a pebble across a pond. “They’re exactly your type.”

Hey! What type do I like? Besides female, I’ve no idea myself. Say it out loud, like thunder before rain!

“You—”

Before I could ask, someone knocked. Thump-thump, like fists on a drum.

“Open up! Newcomers here!”

“Easy! This is our door. Break it and you pay!”

I jumped up to open, hoping the faces outside weren’t the start of a storm.