Golden Griffon Academy

The **Golden Griffon Academy**, also known as **Huryole** or the "Cursed Training Ground", was a lost city of the Griffon Kingdom and its secret 7th Great Academy created by Mad King Arthan Griffon.

## Features

### Cursed Object

Sevenus Hystar was both the Headmaster of the academy and the cursed object that controlled the lost city down to its slightest detail. Arthan had imparted Hystar the command to not harm his descendants directly or indirectly. Having no trust in a cursed object that he considered nothing but a tool, Arthan had also left the command that were Hystar to be aware of any threat to the royal blood, the Headmaster had to protect them even at the cost of his life. This way, even if Hystar set up a trap or divulged some information that led to a threat to Thrud's life, he was bound to be the only victim of his plotting, no matter how convoluted.

Arthan's slave spells forced the Headmaster to obey and to treat those that carried the same blood as the Royal heir as royalty and the masters of the Golden Griffon, such as Jormun Nidho.

### Power Core

After Thrud reclaimed control of the Golden Griffon, she brought it up to the standards of the modern runes. Supposedly impossible, the Mad Queen succeeded by thoroughly studying the dozens of bloodline legacies she had seized. She combined several different Forgemastering arts with the one she developed during her 700 years of research and the power from her pregnancy. She used the Dominance from Arthan's Sword, Life Maelstrom, and the power of her baby to not just take control of the academy's power core but also temporarily integrate it as a part of her body. Dominance replaced the mana of the living legacy with her own, Life Maelstrom gave the power core enough power to resist damage that otherwise would destroy it, and the baby brought Thrud's prowess beyond even a bright violet-cored Awakened's.

Thrud channeled the violent bursts of mana that each contractions to destroy small parts of the power core at a time and then regenerate them while exploiting Domination to force the ancient runes to turn into their modern equivalent. Once the power core recovered from the damage, it had no memory of its previous status and considered the new runes as if they had always been a part of its enchantments. With each bit of the power core that she destroyed and regenerated, the lost academy grew stronger and granted the Living Legacy new spells and abilities.

### Systems

* The lost city was a living labyrinth that periodically rearranged itself at fixed intervals, making any old map useless. It was built on multiple levels and all the rooms were shuffled every time the labyrinth rearranged itself. Inside the borders of Huryole, all the creatures the labyrinth spawned could not die, its inhabitants seemingly forced into a seemingly unbreakable cycle of death and rebirth and giving it the other moniker "deathless city." Every time a monster was killed, it was sent back to square one near Huryole's core. Additionally, all the things inside the city were enchanted by a spell that alerted the cursed object whenever someone tried to take something, causing a rumbling like an earthquake.
* Flight was useless, the city walls couldn't be affected by earth magic, dimensional magic was sealed, and destroying the walls to make haste only made the Living Legacy that "protected" Huryole angry.

### Unwavering Loyalty Array

* Made all academy inhabitants submit to the owner's will. The Golden Griffon had its own army, comprised only of powerful mages with centuries of battle experience and study of magic. It also only took a brief stay inside Huryole to enslave intruders, swelling their ranks.
* The master of the academy possessed complete control over the enslaved, needing but a thought to tear apart their whole body, mind, and core. The array could also forcibly Awaken enslaved, even those with unrefined bodies - putting them back together over and over, fixing their body in a way that complemented the body refining and making them stronger for it. The power of the Golden Griffon collected the bits of the body that exploded with each failed transformation and sewed them back together before the mana core could fade. However, the subject's suffering was twofold - once when their flesh turned upside down in the attempt to get rid of the impurities and the second when the array restored it. Arthan had made sure that the process was efficient, with no care for how much pain it inflicted.
* However, Dragons have such a strong vitality that even the slave spell didn't last long on them.

### Immortality Array

* The cursed academy granted upon its students an immortal body that healed even when ground to dust, keeping them prisoners and driving them insane. The students endlessly fought for everything, from food to the right to sleep. Undead were the only ones capable of building long lasting alliances among themselves simply because they couldn't feed upon each other. Emperor Beasts, humans, and plants, instead, freely consumed their kin. Guilt was a meaningless word in Huryole since victims were reborn in a few hours.

## Golden Griffon Army

### Divine Beasts

* Iata
* Ufyl
* Xondar

### The Forgotten

The **Forgotten** were the previous students of the Golden Griffon who had been trapped inside the lost academy before Thrud's arrival. For centuries they sharpened and polished their skill to the utmost limit. Each one of them is a fierce opponent with hundreds of years of battle experience and no care for their survival. They fight the whole time while being famished, wounded, and sometimes even maimed. Despite Thrud's and Sevenus' best efforts, their sanity remained forever lost. Nothing of their personality remained, only mindless creatures who followed their most basic urges, requiring Thrud to keep them under the Unwavering Loyalty array and its slave spell just to keep them from harming themselves or others.

Unlike the other Great Academies, Huryole lacked a forest, but made up for it by hosting all kind of creatures, both living and undead. Despite their lack of nourishment, the undead had impressive combat prowess. Every one of their movements were flawless, allowing them to dodge attacks by just shifting their stance. Nothing except for enchanted weapons and spells could destroy the physical form of those who remained trapped in the lost academy for too long. The remains of the destroyed inhabitants were sucked inside a small Gate before being reborn in a random spot of the city during the next cycle.

### Awakened Army

The apprentices from all races that Thrud brings with her became Awakened who devoted their time helping her to study the many bloodline legacies that she liberated with the aim to create a powerful breathing technique and unique spells to benefit her entire army instead of a single individual. Unbeknownst to them, when they voluntarily submitted to the Unwavering Loyalty array in order to survive their Awakening, Thrud questioned each one of them and then ordered them to forget all about it, allowing her to know their strengths and weaknesses along with where their loyalty lay.

### Altered Beasts

**Altered beasts** were subjects of Thrud's early experiments with Ambrosia created using newborn undead from the Eclipsed Lands. They consisted of discontent lesser Guardianlings from the Council whom she lured with promises of attaining their Guardian ancestors' powers.

* Pretion
* Tark
* Menia
* Kunia
* Zogh

## Appearance

From the outside, the lost city looked like a giant stone dome. The only entrances were located at the ground level and breaking the dome made the cursed object turn the academy into a rampaging golem. Through the city gates lay a kitchen with one way in and out. The following room was a long corridor leading to a single door. Both of its side walls were covered by huge paintings perfectly lined up that act as surveillance for their depicted locations. Inside the academy all doors stayed closed until someone opens them and each room is soundproof.

The **Gardens of Madness** are one of the largest areas spanning several hundred meters with countless doors, covering an area as big as a small village. As it is one of the few areas that can sustain plants and thus food, it is also one of the most dangerous. Those who reach the Gardens never leave until killed and react to any intruder with extreme prejudice. After being full for a while, the humans, magical beasts, and undead become afflicted with madness and trapped, with only a few able to come to their senses.

## History

Arthan Griffon created the academy in the hopes that one of the creatures from the forest held the secret to immortality. However, something went wrong and instead of subjugating the creatures, the academy's power core gained sentience and unleashed its prisoners against the academy staff. The Golden Griffon has resisted centuries of attempts to destroy it even back when it was filled solely with mindless monsters and without a master.

Centuries after the Mad King's passing, his daughter Thrud Griffon reclaims the lost city as her own. She uses the Sword of Arthan to force entry into the lost city before the power core recognizes her energy signature as being of Arthan's blood, and she assumes control of it. She provides the Headmaster with blueprints and magical resources to upgrade the facilities to modern standards. A little over three months after Thrud's arrival, the lost city undergoes a complete makeover. The outdated teaching equipment is replaced with state-of-the-art tools and the once empty classes are now filled with students.

## Ranger Policy

Like with most lost cities in the Kingdom, it was a Ranger's duty to cull the inhabitants and reset their power before they become too strong. In Huryole's case, however, the number of creatures that spawned and their power was fixed. Even the monsters had a hard time finding their way out of the city and the Ranger only had to kill those who managed to reach the external barrier before they could breach it. Rangers were allowed to take for themselves whatever they recovered from it. This was because this way the Rangers were more likely to kill the creatures trapped inside its forest, and in the event they did find something valuable, the Kingdom would snatch it away before they could start researching its nature.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chapter 1445: Freedom and Prisoners (Part 1)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 1541: New Life (Part 1)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 1566: Awakened Madness (Part 2)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Chapter 1540: Family Care (Part 2)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Chapter 620: Raid (Part 2)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Chapter 954: Raiders of the Lost Academy (Part 2)
7. ↑ Chapter 621: Loot (Part 1)
8. ↑ Chapter 1196: The Devil You Know (Part 2)
9. ↑ Chapter 1411: Golden Dragon (Part 1)
10. ↑ Chapter 957: Sometimes They Come Back (Part 1)
11. ↑ Chapter 1417: Paying Your Dues (Part 1)
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 675: Conflicting Desires (Part 1)
13. ↑ Chapter 1487: Means and Ends (Part 1)
14. ↑ Chapter 1446: Freedom and Prisoners (Part 2)