May 2027, Phillips Exeter Daoist Academy, Earth

  The seniors of Phillips Exeter Daoist assembled on the eastern lawn before the dawn's early light. They stood in silence, their formal robes pristine and pressed. No one spoke.

  The first sliver of gold crept over the horizon.

  A horn sounded, low and resonant, its note carrying across the grounds with spiritual weight. The Grand Hall's massive doors swung open.

  The Class of 2027 banner rose.

  It climbed slowly, pulled by silk cords held by the class officers. The fabric caught the first rays of sunlight, its formation-inscribed threads beginning to glow. The design revealed itself inch by inch: a phoenix rendered in crimson and gold, wings spread wide, talons gripping a sword and shield. Around the border, empty spaces waited. The Flying Aces result would be inscribed after the playoffs.

  The memorial section was not empty.

  Two names had already been inscribed at the top of that terrible blank space. James Holloway and Diana Torres. Junior year. A military internship in the Catacombs that was supposed to be routine scouting. Their bodies had been recovered.

  Some seniors wept openly at the sight of those names. Others stood rigid, jaws clenched. James had been on the Flying Aces team. Diana had been class treasurer. They had walked these grounds eight months ago. Now they were the first entries on a list that would only grow longer.

  Two thirds of this class had already committed to military service. Direct enlistment. ROTC programs. The mandatory military commitment that came with majoring in Martial Arts or Spell Arts. They looked at those two names and understood they were looking at their own futures.

  The banner reached its full height and locked into place. For a moment, the phoenix seemed to breathe, its formation-light pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  Then the procession began.

  The alumni representatives emerged from the Grand Hall in chronological order, each carrying the banner of their graduating class.

  The first was a wizened woman whose spiritual pressure marked her as a Nascent Soul, her white hair bound in traditional style, her movements slow but steady.

  The banner she carried was over two hundred years old, its silk somehow still vibrant, its memorial section filled edge to edge with names written in increasingly smaller script. All of whom died in action, serving their country.

  Banner after banner followed. The early years showed modest memorial sections, names scattered like autumn leaves. Some classes had clearly been fortunate, their silk bearing only a handful of inscriptions even after centuries.

  Then the banners from the 1860s appeared.

  The first representative walked with a cane, his banner heavy with names. Behind him came another, and another. The Civil Sect War classes required multiple bearers, their memorial sections overflowing onto auxiliary panels that trailed behind the main banners like funeral trains.

  Students counted the names on one banner as it passed. Forty-seven. From a class of perhaps one hundred and twenty.

  The war between the Northern Unionists and the Southern Legacy Sects had been especially brutal. Sworn brother killing sworn brother. Young cultivators forced to choose between allegiance to the sect or to their country. May that tragedy never happen again.

  The crowd had grown thick around the parade route. Students pressed against the velvet ropes, many with heads bowed. Parents stood behind them, faces solemn. Even the young masters, those who rarely showed respect for anything, maintained absolute silence.

  The 1970s banners approached.

  A weight settled over the assembly, something beyond mere spiritual pressure. The banner from 1975 required four bearers. Its memorial section did not overflow onto auxiliary panels.

  It had been redesigned entirely.

  The main tapestry had been expanded, its dimensions doubled, every inch covered with names written so small they required spiritual enhancement to read. The Earth-Catacombs Cultivation War had begun. The first classes to graduate into that meat grinder had been devastated.

  Banner after banner followed, each one a testament to slaughter. Some banners were carried by representatives who wept openly as they walked. Others were borne by cultivators whose faces had gone blank, the expressions of those who had seen too much death to process any more.

  The 1990s brought slight relief. The initial Catacombs offensives had stabilized into grinding attrition. Casualties remained high, but the memorial sections shrank from catastrophic to merely terrible.

  The 2000s and 2010s were mostly blank. After the Treaty of Great Restraint, peace was finally reached, if only temporary.

  A gap appeared in the procession.

  The coffins came next.

  Seven coffins this year. Each one carried by family members in mourning whites, their faces drawn with grief that no cultivation could ease. The coffins were simple wooden boxes, unadorned, their surfaces bare except for a single nameplate.

  Atop each coffin rested a sword.

  American military tradition held that a cultivator's high school was their final resting place. This was because many military cultivators enlisted straight from graduation.

  They studied their cultivation arts in boot camps and battlefields, and when they fell, their sword returned to the halls where they had begun Qi Refinement.

  Exeter's memorial vault held untold thousands of swords from fallen alumni. When possible, families recovered the lifebound flying sword of their fallen, the weapon that had grown alongside its master from first awakening. Those blades still pulsed with residual spiritual energy, still connected to masters who no longer existed. Some had shattered and been painstakingly reassembled.

  However personal lifebound swords were rare to bring back. Many cultivators never bonded one. Many others lost theirs in the chaos of battle, the weapons destroyed or claimed as trophies by Catacomb entities.

  For those fallen, families commissioned replicas of the last sword their loved one had wielded.

  The first coffin passed the assembled students.

  James Holloway, Class of 2027. Eighteen years old. He had never graduated. The sword atop his coffin was a replica of the standard-issue sword he had carried during his military internship. The blade was pristine, freshly forged, bearing none of the wear that the original had accumulated in the Catacombs before it was lost alongside him.

  The second coffin. Diana Torres, Class of 2027. Her replica was identical to James's. Standard military issue. They had been assigned to the same scouting unit. They had died in the same ambush. Neither of the squad's original weapons had been recovered.

  The families walked in silence. Some clutched photographs. Some clutched nothing at all, their hands hanging empty at their sides. One mother had to be supported by two relatives, her legs threatening to give way with each step.

  Seven coffins this year. More than last year. Fewer than next year, probably. The war was escalating. Everyone knew it. The memorial sections on future banners would grow larger. The coffin processions would stretch longer. The names would multiply.

  The last coffin passed.

  The horn sounded again, a single mournful note that hung in the air long after the sound had faded.

  The students began to disperse to breakfast, to classes, to the nervous anticipation of a lunch that felt more terrifying than any catacomb mission.

  The banners remained.

  Row upon row of silk and memory, stretching back through centuries of service and sacrifice. The Class of 2027 phoenix hung at the end of the line, its memorial section bearing two names that should have been added decades from now.

  By this time in twenty years, the names would be spread across multiple banners.

  ---

  The 'Last Chance Lunch' began at noon.

  Tables had been arranged across the central quad, white tablecloths fluttering in the spring breeze. The kitchen staff had prepared a feast, but the food sat largely untouched.

  Seniors clustered in nervous groups, working up courage, glancing across the quad at the objects of their affection.

  The banner ceremony had done its work.

  After watching seven coffins pass, after counting the names of alumni who died in service, the usual hesitations seemed trivial. What was rejection compared to dying with words left unspoken? What was embarrassment compared to a memorial section that grew longer every year?

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  Confessions erupted across the quad.

  A young master from the Seimens family approached a scholarship girl who had tutored him through Foundations of Formations. He spoke for thirty seconds. She said yes. Their friends cheered.

  Three girls cornered a boy near the fountain, having apparently decided to confess simultaneously and let him choose. He looked terrified.

  Two seniors who had been dancing around each other for three years finally collided in the middle of the quad, both trying to confess at the same time, their words tangling together until they gave up on speech entirely and simply kissed.

  Tears flowed freely. Some from joy. Some from rejection. Some from the simple relief of finally saying what had been held back for years.

  But beneath all the confessions, another drama was unfolding.

  The jerseys.

  Seven starter positions meant seven jerseys. Each one was a treasure in its own right, and prominently displayed the player's name and number. Each starter gave it to a girl to wear before the big game tonight.

  The girls who received a starter's jersey became, for that day, the closest thing Exeter had to royalty.

  Six jerseys had already been distributed.

  Jonathan Kotch, the gunner captain, had given his jersey to a childhood friend of his. She wore it now, the crimson fabric hanging loose over her sundress, his name emblazoned across her back. She posed for photographs with obvious pride.

  The five other starters had made their choices as well. Girlfriends, crushes, childhood friends. Each recipient had posted the moment to Instagram within minutes. Comments flooded in. The jersey girls walked together, a temporary court of queens.

  But the seventh jersey remained a mystery.

  The flyer captain's jersey. The most prestigious of all seven. The position that would lead Exeter's offense, that would determine whether they won or lost, that would be remembered in the banner's Flying Aces section for centuries.

  No one knew who held it.

  The roster had been announced a week ago. Six names, and then: "Flyer Captain: L. Chen."

  The entire school had scoured their memories. L. Chen? Of the senior class there were several Chens at Exeter, but none whose first name started with L. None who played Flying Aces. None who had ever been seen at practice.

  Speculation ran wild.

  "It's a transfer student," one theory held. "Someone from one of the magnet schools who switched at the last minute."

  "It's a pseudonym," another claimed. "One of the other starters is actually playing two positions."

  "It's a joke," the pessimists muttered. "Tracy's lost his mind. We're going to forfeit."

  The six known starters refused to comment. When pressed, they simply smiled and said variations of "Trust Coach Tracy" and "You'll see on game day." Jonathan Kotch, was heard telling the girl he gave his jersey: "He's our secret weapon. That's all you need to know."

  This only intensified the mystery.

  Tom Wheeler sat at a table near the edge of the quad, picking at a sandwich and half-listening to his friends debate the identity of L. Chen.

  "Maybe it's Leo Chen, in our class," someone suggested. "You know, the one who's never been at school? Remember, he could already fly a lifebound flying sword at the first day this year."

  Tom snorted. "That L. Chen is my roommate. Trust me, it's not him."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he literally never leaves our room." Tom shook his head. "I'm serious. He came back from some meeting with Coach Tracy a few weeks ago and never left the room."

  "Just plays Elden ring during his free time. He spends his time trying to beat Malenia gearless. I told him it was pure masochism." Tom remembered Leo's response, delivered with that strange calm he'd developed over the past months.

  'It doesn't hurt that much. Real death is way more painful.'

  Tom had decided not to ask what that meant.

  "So definitely not your roommate then."

  "Definitely not."

  Across the quad, the jersey girls posed for another round of photographs. Their Instagram posts had already accumulated thousands of likes. Comments tagged friends, demanded details, asked the question: Who is L. Chen?

  Freshman, sophomore, and junior girls milled through the crowd, many wearing their own replica jerseys. These were mass-produced versions, available for purchase at the school store, bearing the names and numbers of their favorite starters. It was a declaration of allegiance, a way to participate in the homecoming festivities without being chosen directly.

  The most popular jerseys were obvious. Jonathan Kotch's name appeared on hundreds of underclassmen. He was rich, handsome, single, and loved dating girls without much family background. The other starters had their fans as well.

  Scattered through the crowd, a few girls wore jerseys that read simply: "L. CHEN" with a question mark where the number should be.

  They were fans of a mystery. Or maybe to embarrassed to wear a jersey of a real person.

  The lunch hour wound toward its end. The confessions slowed. New couples walked hand in hand toward the afternoon's events. Rejected suitors nursed their wounds with friends and promises that there would be other chances.

  And somewhere, in a dorm room on the far side of campus, Leo Chen sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes closed, his attention split between lifebonding with his newly re-inscribed flying sword and preparing for a challenge that made the upcoming playoffs seem almost trivial.

  He remained unaware of anything about jerseys or tradition, or even the big game.

  Malenia awaited.

  ---

  The afternoon sky darkened with cultivators.

  They came from all directions, tens of thousands of alumni streaming toward Exeter on lifebound flying swords. The first wave appeared as distant specks on the horizon, barely visible against the afternoon blue. Then more appeared behind them. And more. And more.

  The stream had no end.

  Students poured out of buildings, abandoning afternoon activities to watch. The central quad filled within minutes, necks craned upward, hands shielding eyes against the glare of sunlight on steel.

  "Holy shit," a freshman whispered. "There's so many."

  There were always so many. Every year, the return of alumni demonstrated exactly what Exeter meant, what it produced, what it fed into the machinery of American cultivation and military might. But knowing this intellectually and watching it unfold were different experiences entirely.

  The sky filled.

  Foundation Establishment alumni arrived first, their swords humming with refined qi. They flew in loose formations, hundreds at a time, their blades catching the sun and scattering it into prismatic chaos. A river of steel and light, flowing endlessly toward the academy.

  "I counted three hundred," a sophomore said. "Just in that group. And there's..."

  He trailed off. Behind the first wave came another. Behind that, another. The horizon had become a solid mass of approaching cultivators, their spiritual pressure building like a storm front.

  "Every year," a senior murmured, her voice thick with something between pride and terror. "Every year I forget how many of us there are."

  The Core Formation alumni appeared.

  The sky shuddered.

  These were cultivators who had survived decades of service. Each one radiated spiritual pressure that pressed down on the assembled students like a physical weight.

  They flew in tighter formations, their movements synchronized with military precision. When three hundred Core Formation alumni banked in unison over the eastern fields, the displaced air created a thunderclap that rattled windows across campus.

  "The network," a faculty member said to no one in particular. "This is why we are hear."

  It was. Every cultivator overhead represented connections, relationships, debts and favors accumulated over decades. It was now plainly shown, displayed proudly in an endless stream of cultivators on lifebound flying swords.

  Even the scholarship students, even those without family names or cultivation heritage, felt the weight of what they were witnessing.

  This was what it meant to graduate from Exeter. This was the machinery they were joining. This was the tide that would carry them forward or crush them beneath its weight.

  The Nascent Soul alumni did not participate. Their presence alone would have overwhelmed the festivities, their spiritual pressure crushing to anyone below Core Formation. They watched from the memorial hall, ancient figures whose classmates had mostly passed into the banner's memorial sections, content to let the younger generations have their moment.

  But even without the Lords, the display was staggering.

  A junior started crying. No one commented. It happened every year. The sheer scale of the return broke something loose in students who had spent their academic careers focused on individual achievement, on the small competitions of classroom and dormitory.

  This was bigger. This was the current they would join, the river that flowed from Exeter's halls into the battlefields of the Catacombs and beyond.

  The stream continued for over an hour.

  Wave after wave of alumni descended upon the academy. The landing field, expanded specifically for this event, began to fill.

  Cultivators touched down in order of graduation year, their swords dissolving into spiritual storage or shrinking to belt-worn size. The earliest graduates clustered near the memorial hall. The more recent classes spread across the central fields.

  Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. The count became meaningless. There was simply no end to them.

  "My grandfather is somewhere in there," a scholarship student said quietly. "He told me to watch for him..."

  He strained his head to search. His grandfather, a respected Gold Core Superior was up there somewhere. He was flying in this stream, adding his blade to this river of steel and light.

  The student stood a little straighter.

  The Flying Aces formations drew particular attention.

  Each returning team flew together their movements choreographed by years of muscle memory. They cut through the larger stream like arrowheads piercing cloth, their starters at the apex leading the wedge of former teammates behind them.

  The Class of 2022 team swept overhead, five years removed from their championship run. Eighty-seven cultivators in tight formation, led by five of their original seven starters.

  Their flyer captain, now a lieutenant serving in the New York Catacombs, executed a barrel roll that drew cheers from the crowd. His gunner followed suit, and the signal cascaded backward through the formation, fifty-seven swords spiraling in sequence like a steel ribbon unfurling against the sky.

  The crowd roared.

  "Four of those starters are stationed together in in the New York Catacombs," someone said. "They requested it as a condition for enlistment."

  This was common. Flying Aces teammates often served together, their trust built through competing together in their youth. The military encouraged it.

  Older teams followed.

  The Class of 2015, who had lost in the semifinals, flew forty-three strong. Three starters led them, the other four either fallen, stationed too deep in the Catacombs to return, or otherwise preoccupied.

  The Class of 2008 came next, their championship banner still hanging prominently in the Grand Hall. Fifty-one cultivators came from their team of over a hundred. Six starters led the formation, flying with the precision that had won them the title nineteen years ago. The crowd's cheers doubled in volume.

  The Class of 1990 followed, and the cheering faltered.

  Thirty-two cultivators. Down from nearly a hundred. Only two starters at the apex, their formation adjusted to fill the gaps that thirty-two years of military service had carved into their ranks. They flew in silence, their swords dipping as they passed the memorial hall.

  Each team that passed overhead told a story.

  The Class of 1987 broke something in the watching students.

  Seventeen cultivators. Two starters. They flew the old patterns anyway, their formation spread wide to maintain the spacing designed for a hundred, their swords tracing choreography that ghosts should have filled. The gaps were everywhere, great empty swaths of sky where teammates had once flown.

  Their flyer captain and lone surviving fellow starter led the remnant in a slow pass over the memorial hall. Seventeen swords dipped in unison. Somewhere on the silk inside, over eighty names waited, teammates who had answered the nation's call and never returned.

  No one cheered.

  The early war years passed overhead in increasingly diminished formations. Teams that had graduated a hundred strong returned as dozens, as handfuls, as pairs. The mathematics of attrition made visible, painted across the afternoon sky in steel and absence.

  The landings continued for hours.

  The field had become a sea of cultivators, their combined spiritual pressure creating a haze that made the air itself feel thick. Flying Aces teams clustered together, nearly a hundred strong in the recent years, barely a dozen in the war-ravaged classes.

  Old teammates embraced. Former starters clasped forearms with the reserves who had filled their positions when wounds or death required it. The school renewed itself, connections strengthened, bonds reaffirmed across the gaps where friends had fallen.

  The students watched their predecessors with a mixture of awe and determination. In a few days, many of them would take the military commission.

  In a few decades, they would be the ones returning, adding their swords to the endless stream, their own formations growing smaller as the years claimed their teammates.

  This was Exeter.