Bond Master

Proving Grounds

Episode 6: The Proving Grounds

"Attention all incoming initiates. Collect your registered weaponry, verify your academic issue uniforms, and prepare for immediate disembarkation at the perimeter transit point. The transport vessel is exactly five minutes out from the outer boundaries of the Golden Divine Academy."

The brass-grilled intercom speakers mounted to the cabin ceiling crackled to life just as the morning sun hit its apex on the second day of the journey. Ren Barrett snapped his eyes open, the residual fatigue from his midnight training session instantly evaporating as the mechanical gears beneath the train carriage groaned, signaling a heavy, systemic deceleration.

Ren didn't waste a single second. Standing up from his narrow bunk, he unzipped the sturdy canvas backpack provided by the military enlistment board. He methodically packed away the travel rations he had scavenged from the kitchen car the previous afternoon—thick strips of dried Aurochs jerky, hard tack crackers, and three tightly sealed canteens of iron-filtered well water. In the unforgiving hierarchy of the Soot Stone foundries, a worker never went into uncharted territory without a packed lunch, and Ren had no intention of letting a tactical trial starve him out before he even reached his barracks.

Once his gear was secured, he pulled on the heavy, dark iron-studded spiked gauntlets, yanking the thick leather straps down until they bit deep into his forearms, locking the calcified knuckles over his hands.

Finally, he sheathed the heavy single-edged trench knife into a reinforced leather scabbard mounted horizontally across his lower back. The academy handbook featured no explicit restrictions against carrying multiple implement styles, and since the patrolling guards hadn't confiscated his modified kit during his midnight practice, Ren intended to leverage every ounce of steel he possessed.

The transport train ground to a shuddering, screeching halt, its pneumatic brakes venting a massive plume of white steam across a vast, rolling plain of wild, manicured grasslands.

Through the observation window, the Academy itself loomed in the far distance—a breathtaking, terrifying architectural marvel of whitewashed stone towers, towering granite ramparts, and humming defensive arrays that sent a constant, rhythmic tingle directly through the marrow of Ren's bones. It felt predatory, an artificial mountain designed to filter the weak from the strong.

"This is your drop-off terminal," a slender, sharp-featured officer in a pristine green military uniform announced, sliding open the main carriage doors. "The final kilometer is entirely your responsibility. I expect to see those who survive this perimeter standing at the orientation gates by nightfall. The transport will proceed to the internal garages for maintenance. Do not leave your garbage on my seats."

As the commoner recruits began to drift out of their compartments, their faces pale and disoriented from a lack of sleep and the over-taxation of their newly awakened bloodlines, Ren slung his backpack over his shoulders and stepped firmly down the iron stairs. The country air hit his lungs like a physical blow—it lacked the choking sulfur, thick coal dust, and metallic tang of the soot stone smelting sector. Instead, it smelled vividly of rich loam, crushed grass, and wild mountain flora.

Slowly, nearly a hundred newly awakened students spilled out onto the gravel embankments, blinking helplessly against the scorching midday sun. The slender officer stepped onto the train's observation platform, his crimson eyes gleaming with cold amusement as he looked down at the gathering crowd.

"Welcome to the Golden Divine Academy," the proctor shouted, his voice carrying effortlessly across the open plain via a minor vocal rune. "As a traditional welcoming gesture, the institution has prepared your introductory transit across the outer training reserves.

Every elite legacy in our nation’s history has crossed these exact fields, entering the grand gates as recognized practitioners to claim their state-funded luxury. Now, it is your turn to walk the path. But heed this single warning: these grasslands may look empty to a commoner’s eye, but the dirt beneath your boots rarely keeps a secret."

He wasn't exaggerating. As the train doors hissed shut and the massive iron engine began to crawl away along a looping, circular track that skirted the distant forest line, Ren immediately channeled his soul-force into his forearm, initializing his shared passive ability.

[Activating Shared Passive Skill: Ironclad Senses.]

The vibrant green field instantly dissolved into a complex, high-contrast matrix of ultraviolet signatures and underground thermal stress patterns. Ren's expanded peripheral vision locked onto the subterranean layers of the plain. The entire kilometer of grassland was completely hollowed out by an intricate, interconnected network of tunnels. Moving within those earthen arteries were hundreds of low-tier, Common-Grade magical entities—Verdant Earth-Mice.

Individually, the ten-centimeter-long, armored rodents were a minor nuisance. Growing up in the salvage yards, Ren had killed dozens of them using a standard leather slingshot and a pocketful of iron ball bearings.

They were notorious for using basic earth magic to compress soil into hardened stones, which they launched with surprising velocity to deter predators. In a massive, uncoordinated pack like this, they formed a classic academy hazing mechanism—an amusing senior prank designed to pelt arrogant, flat-footed new initiates with a relentless barrage of gravel until they ran screaming toward the gates.

Prey. Hungry. Crunchy.

A violent, demanding telepathic pulse erupted from the dark iron pillars of the Confinement Vault inside Ren's mind. The newborn Volden Shackle-Hound pup had awakened on its stone dais, its phantom tail thrashing against the spectral iron links as it sensed the absolute sea of biological signatures moving beneath the grass. The infant beast was starving, its predatory instincts driving it insane with the desire to crunch through the bone and essence of the tunneling vermin.

"Calm down," Ren whispered internally, adjusting the weight of his iron gauntlets. "You'll get your meal. Just let them show their heads first."

Ren stepped off the gravel embankment and marched directly into the high grass, intentionally drawing the perimeter line. He knew that trying to execute a sweeping, rotational strike with his trench knife would be suicide here; the heavy drag coefficient of [Bone-Plate Rend] would leave him stationary for too long, turning him into a fixed target for a hundred stone-throwing rodents. He needed to rely on his linear momentum solution—the compact, straight-line piercing jabs he had calibrated inside his compartment.