Mana ranks were a measure of the quality and quantity of mana possessed by an individual. As one went higher up in mana ranks, access to superior quality of mana allowed them to do things even the most skilled at lower ranks could never do.

An example of this was the manifestation of physical aura achieved by Justiciars through their Rank 5 mana refined through the Body aspect bias they naturally held. Between the ranks of Elite and Sentinel, there was a true gap, bigger than any before it. It was the gap between the physical and the mystical.

Before Sentinel, mana behaved according to the laws of physics most of the time. However, after that threshold, it began to break those constraints, albeit limited for now. It followed the laws of magic.

And that was the current state Vane's spear was in right now.

Vane did not have Aura. He was not close to Rank 5. However, the silver mana formed from Silver Fang, coating the tip of his spear, began to vibrate with something more. Something deeper. Vane had perfectly learned the Argent Horizon from Senna, but he had learned it from the point of view of physics. That was how Senna had taught it to him, since he was only an Elite.

But Vane had continued to advance since her death.

In the crushing cold of the Cathedral, the technical diagrams in Vane's mind began to blur. They were replaced by the raw, unfiltered sensations of Senna Valerius at her peak. He felt the phantom pressure of her hands on his shoulders. He felt the way her mana didn't just flow through her marrow, but burned with a specific, unyielding intent.

'It is not just about the angle, Vane,' Senna's voice echoed in the back of his mind. 'Physics is the language of the world. Magic is the language of the soul. You have the grammar. Now, speak.'

Vane tightened his grip. He stopped thinking about the lever-action of his wrists or the kinetic friction of the air. He thought of the furnace of his own ambition. He thought of every night spent in the dirt, every scar earned from a noble's "mercy." He poured that heat into the Silver Fang.

The matte silver mana on the spear-tip surged. It did not expand. It became denser, vibrating at a frequency that began to hum in harmony with the cathedral's iron.

[Argent Horizon, 1st Form: Quicksilver Thrust — Refined]

Isaac felt the shift. He didn't just sense a higher output; he sensed a change in the nature of the threat. He raised his hand, curling his fingers to compress the ten meters of air between them into a solid wall of spatial distortion.

Vane lunged. He didn't use the Quicksilver Thrust as a simple physical vector. He used the silver mana to "bite" into the distorted space. The spear-tip didn't just push against the barrier. It vibrated with a rejection logic that forced the spatial folds to unravel.

The sound was like a thousand sheets of glass shattering at once. Vane's spear pierced through the mile of "compressed" distance in a single heart-beat. Isaac's eyes widened, the flat white of his gaze flickering with surprise. He was forced to do something he hadn't done since the evaluation began.

Isaac moved his feet.

He pivoted backward, his boots scraping against the frost. The silver spear-tip hissed past his neck, the proximity of the Silver Fang actually severing a few strands of his silver hair. The spatial barrier he had relied on was not just bypassed; it was physically punctured.

"You're not just moving, Vane," Isaac noted. His voice was sharp now, the boredom completely replaced by a cold focus. "You're starting to impose your own rules."

Isaac clapped his hands together. A localized temporal field erupted, designed to slow Vane's internal clock to a standstill. But Vane was already ahead.

[Skill: Internal Pulse, Grade B]

Vane pushed the skill beyond its safety limits. He didn't just optimize his heart rate; he used the pulse to shatter the temporal shackles before they could fully settle on his skin. He swung the spear in a wide, punishing arc.

[Argent Horizon, 2nd Form: Lunar Deflection — Refined]

Instead of just deflecting the cold, Vane's spear caught the ambient frost and spun it into a silver vortex. He slammed the butt of the spear into the ground. The resulting shockwave was not a physical blast, but a mana-pulse that tore through the ice binding Ashe, Valerica, and Isole.

"Go to the gate!" Vane ordered. He did not look back. He kept his spear leveled at Isaac's throat, his entire body glowing with a faint, silver luminescence.

The girls scrambled toward the elevator. They saw the blood running from Vane's nose and the way the silver motes danced around him. They didn't argue. They knew that Vane was holding the door to their survival open with his own life.

The gates of the descent elevator groaned open. They stepped inside, the iron doors beginning to slide shut.

"Vane!" Ashe yelled, her hand outstretched.

"Focus on the next floor!" Vane shouted back. "I'll see you at the end of the labyrinth!"

The elevator gates slammed shut. The sound echoed through the Cathedral, leaving the two of them in a tomb of ice and iron.

Isaac looked at the closed elevator, then back at Vane. He wasn't looking at Vane's Rank 3 mana anymore. He was looking at the way the silver mana was beginning to condense into a thin, translucent film across Vane's shoulders. It was the precursor to a Sentinel's armor. It was the sign of a soul that had begun to transcend the physical constraints of the Elite rank.

Isaac realized the weight of what he was seeing. A boy from the slums, trained by an exile, was standing on the threshold of the mystical level. He was reaching for the door to Rank 4 before any of the high-born geniuses in the academy.

Vane stood his ground. He didn't look like a commoner. He didn't look like a student. He looked like the logic of the abyss itself, standing in the middle of a winter he refused to acknowledge.

'I see it now,' Isaac thought. 'The physics have become the art.'

Isaac's lips curled. The regal detachment was gone. The clinical interest was gone. He looked at Vane and felt a genuine, terrifying surge of joy.

Isaac smiled wider.

"The door is right in front of you, Vane," Isaac said, his voice dropping into a register of pure delight. "I wonder. Do you have the strength to turn the handle, or will the winter freeze your hand before you can open it?"

The silver light and the blue frost met in a silent, violent pressure, the true duel finally beginning in the ruins of the cathedral.

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