Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 17: Spotlight
The trial hall made the word public feel personal.
Noah stepped through the Annex door and felt the attention hit him like a physical pressure. The room was larger than the spar ring and colder than the Glass Lab, built for distance and observation. Tiered seats rose along three walls. The fourth held a long table where faculty and house staff sat with tablets and clipboards like the future could be itemized.
In the center, the course waited.
It wasn’t dramatic.
That was how you knew it was dangerous.
Low platforms. Narrow beams. A set of hanging rings. A chalked circle with faint sigils embedded in the mat.
Somebody had designed it to look like a conditioning drill.
Somebody had designed it to classify you.
Noah took his place with the other Mirror students.
Masking wrapped tight around him, draining in the background. Not fast enough to panic.
Fast enough to matter.
FOCUS: 93/106
He kept his expression still.
He’d been seeded.
He’d been noticed.
Now the ladder wanted a clearer label.
His gaze found Sienna in the seats, off to the side where she could see everything without being centered in anyone else’s story. She met his eyes once.
Nothing flashy.
Just there.
Noah let himself breathe.
The announcer for the night was the same bored woman with the tablet from seeding.
“Showcase trial,” she said. “Single run. Clean completion beats speed. If you fall, you fall. If you bleed, you bleed somewhere else.”
The room gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
Noah’s stomach tightened.
Clean completion beats speed.
He could do that.
He had built his entire survival plan around it.
Then the woman continued.
“We are seeding the next docket.” Her gaze swept the room. “If you want to be overlooked, you are late.”
Noah held still.
Yeah.
He was late.
Names were called.
Students ran the course one by one.
Noah watched with Read the Room at the edge of his attention and hated how useful it was. The tiny tells. The way some people performed confidence for the audience and others performed struggle to seem less threatening.
When his name finally came, the hall shifted.
Noah stepped onto the mat.
He could feel Dahlia Crowne’s attention without seeing her.
He could feel Cassian’s too, a sharp, curious line from somewhere in the seats.
Noah bowed to the officials because that was the rule.
He didn’t bow to the crowd.
“Begin,” the woman said.
Noah moved.
Not fast.
Clean.
He took the first platform with a controlled hop, landed soft, and kept his pace even. He didn’t sprint. He didn’t hesitate.
He let them see the one tell he could live with.
Competence.
Not miracle.
The beams demanded balance more than speed. Noah used the new steadiness in his body, the way Grace had rewritten his ankles and hips into something that listened to him faster. He kept his arms loose and his gaze forward.
The rings swung when he grabbed them.
Cold metal. Chalk dust.
He pulled himself through without the flashy muscle-up someone like Cassian would do.
Just up.
Just through.
His breath stayed quiet.
Breath Discipline (R2) did its work, turning anxiety into oxygen.
Noah hit the mat again and headed for the chalked circle.
This was where people slipped.
Not because it was difficult.
Because it was designed to punish ego.
Noah slowed half a step.
Pattern Sight sharpened at the edge of his vision.
The circle’s sigils looked normal.
Too normal.
Noah’s skin prickled.
He stepped into the circle.
The world tilted.
Not dizzy.
Wrong.
Pressure snapped around his ankle like a hand.
Noah’s foot caught.
He felt the trap activate.
He could yank free.
He could force it.
He could show output.
And everyone would have their story.
His Focus dipped hard.
Masking tightened.
His mind went very quiet.
The overlay flashed in crisp white.
WARNING: ACTIVE INTERFERENCE
Then, as if it had been waiting for a reason, it expanded.
LEVEL UP AVAILABLE
Noah swallowed.
Not now.
The trap pulled again.
His knee threatened to buckle.
The hall went very still.
Noah made a choice.
He would give them a tell.
But he would choose it.
He forced his hand steady and allocated fast.
LEVEL 10 REWARD: +2 AP, +1 SP
ALLOCATE: MYT +1 ALLOCATE: WIT +1
The change landed like a heavier anchor in his hips and a cleaner edge inside his head.
The skill prompt followed.
Noah didn’t let himself think about whether this was a gift or a trap.
He spent it.
ARCANA: VEIL STEP (R1) — UNLOCK (1 SP) SKILL UNLOCKED: VEIL STEP (R1)
Information snapped into place.
Not a tutorial.
A sensation.
The Veil wasn’t just a filter.
It was a surface.
And for a breath-long moment, there was a seam he could put his foot through.
Noah exhaled.
He didn’t yank.
He didn’t fight.
He stepped.
It felt like moving through cold water that wasn’t there.
The pressure on his ankle released with a soft, wrong click inside his bones.
Noah appeared a half-step to the left.
To anyone watching, it looked like a stumble recovered.
To Noah, it felt like he’d cheated physics by exactly as much as he could still pretend was luck.
Masking flared.
Stress spiked.
He kept going anyway.
Noah finished the course with his pace still even, his face still blank.
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