The Broken Halo

Chapter 153: Four Pillars

The more Instructor Valdin thought about Thorgan, the deeper he frowned and the darker his expression became.

The first thought that appeared in his mind was that Thorgan had failed to arrive on time.

He did not have a list of students who failed to arrive on time, and it was only later on the Shadow Blades and guards who saved the children from certain deaths would give him the list of students who failed to arrive before the deadline and also the students’ performance in the punishment given to them.

’I have never heard of the first placed student getting late to class. This has to be the epitome of laziness and an utter disrespect for the rules of the academy.’

’I don’t care if you have a Royal Bloodline or whatever, as long as you’re a student of mine, such a behaviours would not be allowed and must be weeded out.’

Thorgan was blacklisted by Instructor Valdin, but unknown to him, Thorgan was no more.

The thought of Thorgan dying was something that would never drift into his mind because such a thing should not be possible.

How was Thorgan dead?

And how come he died before being able to attend his first day of school?

What about the clan’s security and all?

How could the first placed Year 1 Initiate die on his first day?

Questions like this and so many more would be asked the moment Thorgan’s whereabouts was unknown.

Instructor Valdin would get to know this very soon.

Clap

Clap

”Alright children. Let’s enter the academy. I’ll explain some things to you on the way.”

Instructor Valdin clapped, drawig the attention of his students toward him.

He turned, and without saying anything else, he walked toward the floating obsidian monolith.

Simon and the others followed without saying a word. They crossed underneath the beneath.

The first set of students who entered glanced at their Grave Marks then at the monolith hanging above them .

Simon raised a curious brow behind his mask, but when he passed underneath the monolith, he understood why everybody glanced at their Grave Marks after passing underneath the monolith.

The moment Simon passed underneath the obsidian monolith, he felt a heat in his right hand and just like the others, he also glanced at his Grave Mark.

’I seem to recall that there was something like this in the academy rules. That monolith records those who enter and exit the academy, and if anybody without a true Grave Mark appears in the academy, the academy would be alerted.’

The moment Simon crossed the obsidian monolith, the wind of the ravine which he was very much used to... died.

It was so sudden and it left him feeling weird because he was used to the wind of the ravine.

He felt a certain connection with it because his affinity with the wind element was high.

He was not used to this... silence.

But despite this strange feeling that not only affected him but the others, his gaze was on the academy before him.

The academy had its own atmosphere. It was heavy and controlled.

The open sky which he could normally see outside the academy vanished. It was replaced by a vast interior space that actually widened his eyes in surprise.

The inside of the academy wasn’t a hall, it was like a minor ravine city.

The entire interior of the cliff had been hollowed out into a massive vertical space that went as deep as the clan’s ravine city itself.

Its inner walls were carved into multiple tiers of platforms, halls, and suspended structures.

Bridges of black stone crossed the empty air at different heights, some were straight and narrow, while others branched into multiple paths like the veins of a living thing. Balconies clung to the curved walls, with their edges lined with figures of students and instructors of the academy.

People were everywhere.

On one level, two Initiates were fighting on a platform that kept shifting its terrain-the flat ground would suddenly turn into uneven stone, then into pillars that forced them to leap and quickly balance themselves.

On another, a group say around a formation, copying down chaos runes while an instructor watched from a tower-like room embedded in the wall.

Far below, in the darker levels, he could see faint outlines of figures running through a mist-filled area, their movements were heavy, like they were training under pressure.

At the very center was a black pillar that could be seen from the upper, middle, and lower levels. It went up and down through the entire space.

Names flickered across its surface in pale crimson light, and the names changed every few minutes.

Class rankings

Merit rankings

Achievements

Battle results

Announcements

And a few more things were shown on this central pillar. It was a structure that usually had one or two students gather around it in order to have an update on several things.

Simon shifted his gaze from the central pillar and glanced at the walkways.

Just like the walkways and bridges in their dorm, these walkways were also narrow.

If someone lost their balance or was pushed...

There were no railings.

’I wonder if there are guards or Shadow Blades that would save anybody that falls to the bottom.’

As Simon and his classmates were staring at the structure of the academy in awe, Instructor Valdin finally spoke.

”The Shadowgrave Academy is not like several academies out there. In here, there are four major pillars that encompasses what you’ll be taught.”

”There is the Mind Pillar, the Body Pillar, the Shadow Pillar, and the World Pillar.”

”Each pillar has several subjects under it, but in total, there are seventeen subjects under all pillars.”

The eyes of those who had not gone through the academy’s rules and regulations had their eyes wide open in disbelief, shock, and fear.

Seventeen subjects?

They were to survive and pass SEVENTEEN SUBJECTS?!

What had they gotten themselves into?

Many students lamented and wished they could run out of the academy due to the pressure and fear that suddenly gripped their hearts.