Chapter 663: Back Into The Rhythm
A week and a half passed.
By then, the academy had fully returned to motion.
What had once been the loose, drifting atmosphere that came after graduation and the brief rest period had long since given way to structure again. The newly promoted second and third years had already been pulled back into the rhythm of academic life, and for the first years, the novelty of enrollment had started to wear thin beneath the reality of schedules, expectations, and discipline. The grounds no longer felt like a place caught between endings and beginnings. They felt alive again—ordered, noisy at the right times, demanding by nature.
Mornings resumed their usual pattern of students moving in waves between buildings, uniforms and casual conversations blending with the sharper voices of instructors who had little patience for lateness. The first years, still not fully accustomed to the scale and pace of the academy, no longer wandered around with the same wide-eyed uncertainty they had arrived with. They now moved with more purpose, though traces of awkwardness still lingered in their steps and in the way they interacted with the older students.
For Liam, the change in pace came with no real complaint.
He simply found himself returning to it.
Class after class, day after day, he slipped back into the cycle as if he had never left it at all.
That did not mean the routine felt exactly the same.
It didn't.
After his Ascension, even the smallest parts of ordinary academy life had come with subtle differences. His body no longer responded to effort the way it once had. His senses remained sharper. His control over himself—his movements, his breathing, even the quiet stillness with which he carried himself—had become more refined over the course of that week and a half. The first few days back had required some adjustment, especially during practical lessons, where restraint mattered just as much as output. But once he found the balance, he settled into it with the same cold efficiency he applied to everything else.
By now, he had gotten used to the classrooms again.
The lectures.