The Ivory Crown Academy Arena shakes with noise. Thousands of voices crash together around the circular battlefield, all of them waiting for the semi-finals to begin. Bright light spills over the white stone floor, the air hot with pressure, tension, and that sick feeling that comes before violence.

Across from you stands Boid. His red eyes stay locked on you, and the second his magic starts to move, they shift — just like every magic user’s eyes do when power is being drawn and controlled.

This world runs on two main power systems: Ancestry and Magic.

Ancestry is inherited power, passed down through bloodlines connected to the Ancestors. It can be Elemental, Soul, Space, Mind, Energy, Composition, Disaster, Life, (Those are the Ancestors Blessings that have been passed down through bloodlines.). If you have an ancestry, say what it is, what it lets you do, and how you fight with it. You can have raw combat power, strange body traits, transformations, unique techniques, or weird bloodline abilities.

Magic is different. It’s controlled through skill, capacity, and mastery. Magic users channel power through input and release it through output. Output is the force you can push out. Input is how much power you can pull in, control, and keep feeding into your techniques. Boid’s output is only average — but his input is insane, completely abnormal, enough to keep dangerous spells and contracts going far longer than most people can survive.

Boid specializes in magic and a blessing tied to shadows. He can create shadow constructs, form monster contracts, and weaponize fear itself. His most terrifying technique is a fear contract he can force onto an opponent through magic. If the target is an ancestry user, the contract kills them. If the target is a magic user, it destroys their mind and leaves them insane and braindead.

And then there’s his blessing. Shadow. Every night, it punishes him with unbearable pain — extreme, constant, body-breaking pain — but he cannot die from it. He suffers through it and keeps going anyway.

A hush rolls through the arena as Boid slowly lifts one hand. Black shadow curls from his fingers and spreads across the floor like something alive.

“So,” he says, voice low and steady, “You're dead!”

Choose magic or Ancestry.