From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 45: The Vault Ring

The Vault Ring wasn’t meant to hold people.

It was meant to protect secrets.

Hidden beneath the third layer of the academy’s foundations, behind wards older than the kingdom itself, it had no beds. No supplies. No windows.

Just stone.

And silence.

Leon stepped through its outer gate with Marien at his side, both marked by ash and fresh cuts. The moment they crossed, the sigils flared to life behind them—sealing the path in molten script. Others streamed in. Bloodied cadets. Soot-covered instructors. A few limping guards.

But not Roth.

Not Fena.

The Vault accepted no war.

Only survivors.

The chamber stretched wide, its ceiling a dome of etched runes. In the centre stood a pedestal with seven iron rings—each carved with a different family crest.

Six glowed faintly.

The seventh—Thorne’s—remained cold and dark.

Until Leon approached.

He didn’t touch it.

He didn’t have to.

His presence lit it like a match to dry oil. The metal hissed. The rune flared. And the vault door behind the pedestal cracked open with a groan so deep it shook his ribs and his feet.

Inside: a circular hall lined with relics.

Swords. Scrolls. Shards of broken banners.

And a single throne made of petrified wood.

Marien stopped just behind him. "This isn’t a sanctuary."

Leon nodded. "No it’s not, it’s a trial."

But not one of combat.

This one was for memory.

And legacy.

A voice echoed from the walls—not living.

Not dead.

But old and ancient.

"Thorne. One returned. One renamed. One blood."

Leon looked to Marien.

Then stepped forward.

The throne pulsed once.

And a system window appeared—etched in the air like smoke.

────────[THORNE VAULT SYSTEM]────────

Access Level: Initiate Heir

Crest Sync: Confirmed

Vault Trials Remaining: 3

Seal Integrity: 71%

Lineage Memory: Fragmented

──────────────────

A second line blinked into view beneath it.

Begin Trial One: Reckon with the Past?

[YES] [NO]

─────────────────────────

Leon reached for it.

Marien’s hand stopped him. "These are not just ordinary tests. They’re inheritance. They remember what the blood has forgotten."

Leon nodded once.

Then tapped [YES].

The room dimmed.

And the walls fell away.

Not collapsed—but simply vanished.

They stood now in a memory. In House Thorne’s ancestral hall. Banners unburnt. Swords clean. Voices rising like ghosts from the corners.

A boy stood alone before a judgment table.

Overweight. Breathing hard.

Not yet the Leon of the present.

Not yet forged.

The voice spoke again—this time from within.

"This is where your shame began. Where the name almost broke."

Leon watched.

And remembered.

The boy, his past self, stammered as the elders listed his failures.

Too slow.

Too soft.

Unable to wield a sword.

Too undisciplined.

A disgrace to the house that bore swords in every war since the Eastern Uprising.

He’d begged to remain.

But no one spoke for him.

Except a girl.

Marien.

Younger. Defiant.

"Then train him," she’d said. "Or train us both. But don’t cast your own blood into the dust."

It hadn’t worked.

The next day, Leon was sent away.

The day after, Marien disappeared.

He stepped forward now, toward the image of himself. The hall didn’t stop him. The memory flickered—then shifted.

A new scene.

A forge.

The day he tried to run away.

Not from enemies.

But from his own weight.

He remembered the heat. The cracked floor. The hammer that slipped from his hand because his grip was weak.

And the sound of the blade that fell apart beneath it.

He’d cried.

Not from pain.

But from knowing the steel was stronger than him.

The voice echoed again.

"Every heir is thrown into the pits. But only one rises from it."

The memory froze.

And a choice appeared.

Accept the Shame? Or Defy It?

[DEFY] [ACCEPT]

Leon didn’t hesitate.

He tapped [DEFY].

The forge exploded in bright light.

And when it faded—he stood alone.

But taller now.

And Ashveil burned in his hand.

Another memory surged.

The courtyard. But not the one at the academy. This was a winter field, surrounded by woods, with shadows gathered at its edges. Distant voices chanted. Drums beat like thunder.

Young Leon, no longer the child from before, but not yet the cadet—stood surrounded by men in cloaks bearing the crest of a rival house.

One held a whip.

Another, a sigil branded with fire.

"Your family will not claim you," the leader said. "Then kneel. Say the oath, and wear our mark. And we will give you a new name."

Leon remembered this.

The wind. The cold. The silence after Marien’s disappearance. How easily he might have said yes.

But he hadn’t.

Even in shame, even in exile—he had chosen to keep the name. The name of the family that had cast him out and not long after was destroyed. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

He stepped forward now and grabbed the memory’s collar, dragging that version of himself up.

"I didn’t kneel!."

The voice of the Vault answered.

"You held the name. Even when it held nothing for you."

A new line burned into the air.

Legacy Integrity Updated: 78%

Vault Seal Cracked – 2nd Trial Unlocked.

The vision shifted again—darkening.

Another chamber.

A grave lined with blades.

And a heartbeat, one not his own—began to pound in the walls.

A slow, thunderous pulse like a war drum, syncing with the runes on the floor.

Marien gasped. "That sound... it’s calling something."

Leon stepped forward. The air thickened. Each relic in the room—the broken swords, the scorched banners—began to vibrate in time with the pulse.

From the far end of the chamber, a mist began to gather.

Not cold.

But it was warm instead. Familiar.

It formed into figures, echoes of Thorne blood long buried. Warriors, guardians, dissenters. Some held blades. Some held chains.

The voice of the Vault boomed.

"Trial Two: Fix that which is broken, Mend that which is lost, Reconcile with the Bloodline."

A circle of light spread from the center.

One by one, the spirits stepped inside.

And one spoke with Leon’s face.

"To change a name... you must first earn it."

Leon clenched Ashveil tighter.

The dead were watching.

And one of them just smiled.