House of Blood

The air in Tier Four didn’t smell like mountain tea or polished mahogany. It smelled like damp wool, cheap lard, and the sulfurous tang of low-grade mana-crystals burning in rusted braziers.

Located in the subterranean bowels beneath the eastern barracks, Tier Four was a labyrinth of cold, windowless corridors carved from rough-hewn basalt. Here, eight hundred commoner cadets and disgraced low-born scions were crammed eight to a cell, sleeping on iron cots with straw mattresses.

Valerian walked down the central thoroughfare, his black cloth blindfold tied firmly over his eyes, a thick leather ledger tucked under his left arm. Beside him walked Kael, a tall, broad-shouldered commoner cadet with grease-stained knuckles and a massive, dull-edged iron claymore strapped across his back.

”They’re going to tear you apart, you know,” Kael muttered, casting a nervous glance at the crowd of students gathering along the stone balconies above. ”The Commoner Union spent three weeks negotiating for those Tier Three mana-crystal vouchers. When the news got out that Mirain Sanguis appointed a blind sellsword to hand them out, people thought it was a sick high-born joke.”

”It’s not a joke,” Valerian said evenly, his boots crunching on the loose grit covering the stone floor. ”It’s administrative efficiency. She didn’t want to come down here herself, and Casper von Valerius was busy having a temper tantrum in her office.”

Kael let out a sharp, bark-like laugh, though his eyes remained wary.

”You really shoved Scion Valerius into a wall? Word’s spreading through the lower barracks like wildfire. Half the commoners think you’re a hero; the other half think you’re a high-born lapdog sent to keep us quiet.”

”I’m neither,” Valerian said. ”I’m just the guy with the ledger.”

They reached the eastern distribution courtyard—a cold, sunken stone pit flanked by iron weapons racks and heavily guarded by four full-armored Vanguard Division instructors. In the center of the pit stood a long wooden trestle table stacked with wooden crates containing lower-tier mana-vouchers.

A crowd of nearly two hundred cadets had already gathered, their murmuring echoing off the damp basalt walls like a swarm of angry hornets. Most wore the threadbare gray tunics of commoner applicants, their hands calloused, their eyes hardened by years of harsh labor before ever reaching the Vanguard Division.

At the front of the crowd stood a young woman with sharp, angular features, short-cropped black hair, and a dark iron pike slung across her shoulders. Her arms were covered in faint, silvery scars from mana-burns, and her gray tunic bore the three-striped emblem of the Commoner Union.

Her name was Vanya—a former borderland mercenary captain turned academy cadet, and the recognized leader of the Tier Four barracks.

As Valerian stepped behind the wooden distribution table, the murmurs died down into a tense, suffocating silence.

Vanya stepped forward, her iron-shod boots clicking sharply against the stone. She folded her arms, her icy blue eyes scanning Valerian’s blindfolded face, his plain sellsword coat, and the silver crest of the Class Representative’s Office pinned to his lapel.

”So,” Vanya said, her voice carrying clearly across the courtyard. ”The Sanguis princess sends us her pet blind man to hand out our scraps.”

Valerian set the leather ledger down on the table with a soft, heavy thud. He didn’t look up.

”Eight hundred and twenty-four vouchers,” Valerian read off the open page, his voice calm, clear, and unhurried. ”Grade-C mana-density allocations for the lower training grounds. Each cadet receives three copper-tier tokens redeemable at the central vault every fortnight. Step forward when your name is called.”

A ripple of anger passed through the crowd.

”We were promised Grade-B tokens!” a burly cadet near the back shouted, raising a heavy fist. ”The high-born scions in Tier Two get Grade-A crystal beds just for having a famous last name! We fight in the mud every morning and we get copper scraps?!”

”That’s right!” another cadet yelled. ”Why is a noble’s lapdog managing commoner resources?!”

Vanya raised a hand, signaling the crowd to quiet down, though her gaze never left Valerian. She leaned forward, resting both hands on the wooden table.

”You heard them, Assistant,” Vanya said softly, her voice laced with venom. ”We don’t want copper tokens handed out by a high-born servant. We want the Grade-B vouchers promised in the original Vanguard Charter. Or does Mirain Sanguis think commoners can’t read iron contracts?”

Inside Valerian’s mind, Aurelix stretched her wings lazily.

”Ah, the classic peasant uprising,” the dragon purred smoothly. ”So much noise over a few handfuls of impure mana-rocks. Shall I set the table on fire to teach them proper manners, master?”

Stay quiet, Valerian commanded inwardly. They aren’t wrong.

Valerian slowly closed the leather ledger. He raised his head, his covered eyes sweeping over the crowd of angry, desperate faces. He saw the worn boots, the frayed cloaks, and the faint, ragged mana signatures of young men and women who had clawed their way out of poverty only to be pushed into the dark basement of the Imperial Academy.

He knew this look. He had seen it in the borderland supply camps twenty years ago, when soldiers bled for an empire that barely remembered their names.

”The Vanguard Charter specifies Grade-B allocations for cadets who achieve a Tier-Two combat rating in the entry trials,” Valerian spoke, his voice dropping into a deep, authoritative register that cut through the lingering murmurs like an iron wedge. ”Out of eight hundred cadets in Tier Four, exactly twelve of you met that threshold. The rest of you scored in the lower forty percent.”

Vanya’s jaw tightened.

”Because the high-borns had private tutors and high-density mana chambers since they were five years old! How are we supposed to bridge that gap with copper tokens?!”

”You don’t bridge it with tokens,” Valerian replied flatly. ”You bridge it with blood and iron.”

He reached into his coat, pulling out a small, velvet-lined wooden box stamped with Mirain’s personal crimson seal. He set it on the table and flipped the latch open.

Inside lay thirty dark blue, shimmering glass tokens—Grade-A Mana Vouchers, worth fifty copper tokens each.

The entire courtyard gasped. Even the four Vanguard instructors standing along the perimeter shifted their weight, their eyes widening in shock.

”Where... where did you get those?” Vanya whispered, her sharp composure momentarily cracking.

”Mirain Sanguis didn’t give you copper tokens because she despises commoners,” Valerian said, his voice cold and precise. ”She gave you copper tokens because eighty percent of Tier Four cadets burn out within three months because their mana channels can’t handle high-density cultivation without structural damage. Giving a raw cadet a Grade-A crystal is like pouring molten iron into a copper pipe—it breaks you from the inside out.”

He reached down, picking up three of the Grade-A tokens and placing them directly in front of Vanya.

”These thirty Grade-A vouchers are open-allocation,” Valerian continued, leaning slightly over the table. ”They aren’t for birthrights, and they aren’t for complaining. Starting tomorrow, the lower courtyard holds weekly un-reinforced martial trials. The top thirty cadets who improve their physical threshold without relying on artificial mana-density earn these tokens. Mirain signed off on it an hour ago.”

Silence fell over the pit once more, heavy and profound.

Vanya looked down at the gleaming blue tokens, then back up at Valerian’s blindfolded face. The hostility in her eyes hadn’t completely vanished, but it was now mixed with a deep, cautious respect.

”And who’s running the trials?” Vanya asked quietly.

”I am,” Valerian said, opening the ledger once more and picking up a feather quill. ”Now, line up. We have eight hundred copper tokens to distribute, and I don’t intend to stand in this basement all day.”

Kael let out a long breath beside him, shaking his head with a faint smile.

”You’re a terrifying man, Valen.”

”I’m a busy man,” Valerian corrected dryly. ”Call the first name.”

As the commoner cadets began stepping forward in an orderly line, Vanya took her three copper tokens and stepped aside. She paused for a moment, looking back at the blind sellsword who had just reshaped the entire power dynamic of Tier Four with a wooden box and a leather ledger.

High above the subterranean courtyard, standing on a shadowed stone archway overlooking the pit, Mirain Sanguis stood with her arms folded inside her crimson cloak.

She watched Valerian systematically sign off on each voucher, his movements precise, his calm authority keeping eight hundred restless commoners completely under control without drawing a sword or unleashing a single spark of mana.

”Fascinating,” Mirain whispered to herself, a subtle, sharp smile playing on her lips. ”Not just a borderland survivor... a military strategist.”

She turned and vanished into the shadowed corridor, leaving the basement to her new Assistant.