Jace the Elemental

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jace asked, irritation creeping into his voice

Nova looked him up and down, her expression unreadable. "It means exactly what I said. If you had fought a noble worth anything, your chances of winning would have been nonexistent."

Her tone remained as cold as ever. "You're just an overambitious boy who thinks he's skilled because he's spent a little time training. Do you have any idea how much of our lives we've dedicated to this? How many years we've spent honing our magic, our bodies, our minds, until failure was no longer an option?

"While you were fumbling your way through basic spells, we were pushing past limits you can't even comprehend. While you were patting yourself on the back for every little step forward, we were forced to carve our progress into stone with blood and sweat. There was no 'good enough' for us. There was no room for weakness.

She stepped closer, her golden eyes like ice. "And then you show up, with a flicker of talent, thinking effort alone will make you stand at the top? That you can surpass generations of discipline and refinement just because you 'try hard'?"

She scoffed, voice laced with contempt. "You're nothing more than a delusional child playing at being strong."

"And you sister." Nova's gaze shifted to Aurora, her expression unchanging. "While I don't understand why you've chosen these defects as the members for your team, they seem to be good enough for you to stay among the top, for now." 

"Elizabeth, it's time." Kael's deep voice rumbled through the air, reverberating in Jace's chest.

Nova, no, Elizabeth, turned to face him and nodded. "From now on, I am just Elizabeth. Not your sister." Her voice was steady, detached. "I believe that was Mother's intention all along."

She met Aurora's gaze one last time, her expression unreadable. "Understand this, there will be no mercy to find with me. If you believe in a god, pray that you never have to face us."

With that, she cast a final glance at the rest of their team before turning away. Kael and the others followed without hesitation, their presence lingering long after they were gone.

For a moment, no one moved.

They all stood there, watching the four disappear into the crowd. The energy in the air felt different, heavier, charged with something unspoken.

"What… was that all about?" Ethan asked, his voice breaking the silence, confusion evident.

Aurora didn't answer right away. Her usual calmness was missing, replaced by something distant, unsettled.

Finally, she exhaled. "I'll talk to you all later."

And with that, she turned and walked away, leaving the others standing in the uneasy silence she left behind.

Selene watched her for a second before turning to the group. "She seems pretty shaken by this, I'm going to make sure that she's okay." She said before following after her.

Jace himself was still shaken up from the whole encounter, "Yeah…I'll just see you all tomorrow." He grabbed his stuff before heading back to his dorms. 

He couldn't get her words out of his head. Who was she to question his work ethic? He might not have started training as early as those stuck up nobles, but he had been working as hard as he could to achieve what he had. How dare she say that he hadn't, simply because he wasn't a noble.

But… had he been? He knew from Aurora just how hard they had to train to stay within the family. Could he honestly say that he had been training that hard all this time?

The possibility alone frustrated him. He loved training, feeling himself improve. But he had never been forced to do it, to either improve or be kicked onto the streets.

Before he had even realized it, he found himself standing in front of the training facilities, looking up at the building. He had a thought, if those stuck up nobles thought that he didn't train hard enough, that he wasn't a threat, then he would just have to train even harder, until they would be forced to acknowledge him, or they would lose underestimating him.

He entered the training arena, heading towards one of the rooms that only the rank 1 students had access to. A room that was dense with mana, allowing you to recharge mana at an accelerated rate.

Jace sat on the ground, closing his eyes and focusing into his own core. He had discovered by accident as a kid that if you expended all of your mana and then tried to cast another spell, that your body would be wracked in pain. So most people when they came close to running out of mana would stop training. However he had also discovered something else.

Your body wouldn't allow you to try and cast a second time until your mana was fully charged again. But after dealing with the extreme amounts of pain, there was a small increase to your maximum mana. The amount itself was small enough that most people didn't even notice, and those that did thought it was a one time anomaly since who would want to experience that pain again?

But as a kid, Jace had a habit of training for longer than he should, causing this to happen multiple times. Leading him to realize the fact that it happened every time. He pushed himself to use it quite a few times growing up but the pain was a lot, even for him. But now that's changed. These nobles wanted to doubt his drive to train. He'd show them that he was willing to do what others weren't.