Gearblood: The Clockwork

At Blackspire Gear Academy, humans, horned Kethran, stone-skinned Ondrel, and half-built Hollowborn fight for rank, for survival, and for the Bond. When a cadet and their companion connect, the ancient Forge-Heart forges them a Gear: a living weapon unique to them, carrying a Mystic Art no one else can wield. Eighteen-year-old Ian Vane Black has never been answered. He is Tier-Null, the lowest rank, a moving target in live-fire drills for the rich and powerful. He has only his dead grandfather's martial art, Black Vane Style, and a nine-inch clockwork knight named Ser Brasswick who has never spoken a word. Then Ian spends his last thirty-nine credits on the worst lot at the salvage auction, a burned gold knight nobody wanted. His blood wakes the royal core sleeping inside it, and Brasswick is reborn as an eighteen-inch golden-platinum royal knight who kneels, speaks, and calls him *"my king."* Ian's blood is Gearblood, the last living line of House Vane, the Starfire Crown that the academy's founders burned out of history. Now Ian fights on every front: - pilot bouts against rivals who want him broken - companion clashes and Gear duels in front of the whole academy - deadly delves into the Undervaults for level-up, skill, spell, and rare martial art orbs, weapons, armor, and monsters to capture for ingredients or as new companions Ian can do what no one alive can: fuse orbs and open the sealed ones. But every Mystic Art he unleashes and every orb he fuses spreads silver starfire lines under his skin. At ten percent, they never fade. The Directorate is watching, a masked order called the Closed Eye is hunting him, and the blood test at the Registry is seven days away. His grandfather's rule was simple: *the storm breaks the tree, but the vane only turns.* Ian is about to find out how hard the wind can blow.

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