The morning light cast long shadows across the Primordial Academy's training grounds, bathing the marble pillars and vast open field in a warm, golden hue. On one of the tallest pillars, Dawn stood with his arms crossed behind his back. His gray eyes swept over the gathered students below, calm yet commanding. Beside him, Princess Luna watched in silence, her interest piqued.
"Everyone," Dawn's voice rang out, crisp and unwavering, "stop. Release your halos."
A beat of confusion passed through the students. Some exchanged uncertain glances. But instinct, sharpened by months of brutal training, kicked in. One by one, halos began to bloom over their hearts, shining into existence.
The field lit up like a rainbow.
A fiery red halo shimmered around a boy with wild hair, the color deep and aggressive. A cool blue radiated from a girl with a quiet demeanor, her stance fluid like water. There were shades of emerald green, bright yellow, haunting violet, and even a rare silvery white. Each hue reflected something unique—personality, affinity, or mental construct.
The number of halos varied. Most had reached three to five. A few, through sheer will and grit, bore seven. One ambitious girl with a relentless training ethic showed eight, causing a subtle wave of awe.
Dawn nodded. "Beautiful, aren't they? But fragile."
Luna turned her head. "What do you mean?"
He stepped forward slightly. "These halos reflect inner strength. But strength without pressure is brittle. They've only endured inner resistance. What happens when the force pressing down is external?"
Luna's brows lifted slightly in realization. She asked, "And you want me to... test that?"
"If you would." Dawn stepped back and gestured with a slight bow.
With a small smile, Luna floated off the pillar and landed with grace at the center of the grounds. Her expression was serene, but her power was undeniable. She closed her eyes—and released.
Twelve halos burst into view, luminous and blinding. They shone with terrifying clarity, each one a testament to a threshold broken, a wall shattered. The pressure they radiated was unlike anything the students had ever felt. It dropped like an avalanche.
The training field was thrown into chaos.
Many stumbled back, their halos flickering and vanishing. A few dropped to their knees, gasping for breath. The stronger ones gritted their teeth and held on, but even they shook under the weight of Luna's transcended presence.
From above, Dawn watched in silence. Luna, too, looked over them—not unkindly, but as one watching a fire test steel.
"This," Dawn said, his voice calm, cutting through the tension, "is the pressure of the world beyond these walls. Meditate within this pressure. Learn to hold your will steady even when crushed. A halo that remains in adversity is a halo that will grow."
Instructors hidden on higher vantage points exchanged glances.
"Incredible," one whispered. "To use a transcended being as a training tool... it's mad."
"Mad," Instructor Aeliana murmured, "or brilliant."
"It is effective," Valeris commented with a slight smile but something just didn't feel right to him. He couldn't quite gradp at what it was.
On the training grounds, while everyone else strained under Luna's aura, there stood Dawn—still, composed, unmoved. Standing mere steps from a transcended form, and yet, his aura didn't waver. If anything, his presence seemed to stabilize the area near him.
The training continued. The pressure didn't relent. And in the eye of the storm, Dawn remained still, like the anchor of the entire academy.
---
As the twelve transcendent halos bloomed around Princess Luna—each shining with a brilliance that carved light itself into form—the entire training ground fell silent. The colors pulsed in harmony, a celestial chorus of gold, violet, teal, crimson, and silver that rippled through the air with awe-striking clarity. One by one, students buckled under the weight. Halos flickered and collapsed, bodies dropped to one knee, and breath hitched in throats.
Yet, standing beside her on the high pillar, Dawn didn't flinch.
He didn't feel pressure. No suffocating weight. No spiritual dread or mental crushing.
What he felt was something else.
It was yearning.
A silent, gnawing ache deep in his bones, like watching the stars from a locked cell. His gaze was fixed on those halos—not as an admirer, but as someone who saw a summit he could not yet reach. His own three halos lay dormant within him, steady and sharp, but they were blades of iron beneath a sky of starlight.
I've already come so far, he thought.
A part of him itched to reach out, to absorb that glow, to become what she was. But he knew—knew in a cold, exacting way—that he was not yet ready. The light of the transcended wasn't something to be grasped, only earned. And earning it demanded more than talent. It demanded fracture. It demanded becoming something new.
He said nothing. Just watched, unblinking, as Luna's radiance surged like the tide. The students around him began to stir, still trembling under the weight. A few glanced up, and one finally said aloud what they all now felt in the back of their minds.
"Wait... why isn't he affected?"
That question rippled, soft at first, like a spark in dry grass. Then louder.
On the instructor's ledge above, Valeris finally caught the tsense of unease he felt and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. "He stands beside a transcendent halo and does not bend. Why?"
Even Luna turned her head, sensing it—his silence, his stillness. Her expression shifted from amusement to curiosity.
But Dawn didn't meet her gaze. His own was still fixed on the halos, burning themselves into his memory like a promise he refused to let go.
One day, he told himself.
I'll stand in that light, not beneath it.