We returned from the Grand Fox Sanctuary three days later, and the first thing I noticed was how quiet the capital had become.
The tournament banners were still hanging from the floating spires, but the crowds had thinned, and the people walking through the streets spoke in lowered voices. When our car emerged from the southern gate and glided toward the academy district, I saw groups of students gathered at every corner, reading the same public notice displayed on the projection crystals above the plazas. Even a few instructors had stopped on the stairs of the main lecture hall to read it.
Sally leaned toward the window. "Something has happened."
"Something has been announced," I said. "That is not always the same thing."
In the back seat, Mirael sat upright with the Void Fox curled in her lap. The young fox-kin woman had spent most of the journey in respectful silence, watching the unfamiliar city with quiet, careful eyes. Now the fox lifted her head and gave a small, curious trill, and Mirael smiled faintly as she stroked her ears.
"It says the Federation will open a new academy," Mirael read aloud, translating the glowing script on a passing projection. "A joint institution for all races. Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, beast-kin, and the dragon-blooded."
I frowned slightly. In every century of Federation history, each race had trained its young separately. The elves kept their archers in the forest academies, the dwarves their smith-warriors in the mountain halls, and the humans their military cadets in institutions like this one. There had been exchanges and tournaments, certainly, but never a school where all of them lived and studied under the same roof.
I parked the car at the academy gate, and we had barely stepped out when a messenger in the High Commander's livery hurried across the courtyard and bowed.
"Lord Sonu. The High Commander requests your presence at the Grand Nexus Palace this afternoon. He asked me to emphasize that this is an invitation, not an order."
"Of course it is," Sally murmured, a dry smile touching her lips.
The council chamber of the Grand Nexus Palace was far less ostentatious than the banquet hall. It was a long, plain room with a single circular table of dark wood, and around it sat representatives of every major race in the Federation. I recognized several faces from the tournament's VIP platforms: the elven grandmaster who had leaned over the balcony, the dwarven high-smith with his braided beard, the orc warlord whose Iron-Hide Rhino had trampled the military cadets. Beside them sat a pale dragon-blood elder and a beast-kin matriarch with a slender wolf's tail curled about her chair.
At the head of the table, the Federation High Commander rose to greet me. He was a broad, grey-haired man with a scarred jaw and the calm manner of someone who had commanded armies and survived the politics that followed them.
"Lord Sonu. Thank you for coming on short notice." He gestured to an empty seat. "I regret that we could not wait until your return, but the matter has already progressed further than I would like."
I took my seat, and Sally sat beside me with Mirael standing quietly behind her. The Void Fox settled upon my shoulder, and several of the delegates looked at her with open curiosity.
"You have read the announcement," the High Commander said. "Let me explain what it does not say."
He pressed a rune on the table, and a projection of a small, blue-green planet rose above it, wrapped in thin white clouds and orbited by two pale moons.
"The Federation has existed for four centuries," he said. "In that time, we have kept the peace between our races, but peace is not the same as understanding. Our young are raised apart. They learn to fear what they have never met, and every generation produces its own misunderstandings, its own grievances, its own small wars. Several of our border regions are already at the edge of open conflict." He looked around the table. "We cannot continue this way. So the council has proposed an experiment."
"An academy," the elven grandmaster said.
"A living experiment," he corrected. "The Concord Academy will be built on this planet, Aurelith, a small and uninhabited world at the edge of Federation space. We selected it because it is far enough from any existing territory to belong to no one, and close enough to our gate network to be reached quickly. Every race will send its best young students. They will live together, train together, and be taught by instructors from every tradition. We will observe what happens."
"And all the races approved?" I asked.
"After three months of debate," the dwarven high-smith said with a rueful growl. "Nobody voted happily. But nobody could argue that the old way was working."
The beast-kin matriarch spoke for the first time, her voice calm and measured. "There is also the question of risk, Sonu. If this experiment fails, we will have thrown the Federation's brightest young minds into a hostile environment. If it succeeds, it could change the future of every race in this galaxy."
I considered that. The idea was not unfamiliar to me. In the Rainbow Empire, I had united beings of many species under a single banner. In the Infinity Group, I had hired humans, mutants, and alien allies to work side by side. It had not been easy, but it had been worthwhile.
"Why have you invited me?" I asked plainly.
The High Commander smiled, and it was the first honest smile I had seen on his face. "Because you won the tournament without anyone knowing quite how. Because you tame beasts of every kind, and several of them do not belong to any known classification. And because the students of every race watched you walk across that stage, and not one of them thought of you as a member of any other race. They thought of you simply as strong." He folded his hands. "The council would like you to attend the Concord Academy as its first student. Not as a figurehead, and not as an instructor. As an example."
Sally covered a small laugh behind her hand. "He has just invited my husband to be the example."
"Your husband," the High Commander said gravely, "may be the only person in the Federation whom all the delegates can agree on."
I looked around the table. The elven grandmaster had the expression of someone who had lost an argument but was prepared to be gracious about it. The dwarf looked skeptical. The orc warlord was grinning, and the dragon-blood elder studied me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
"I have conditions," I said.
"We expected that."
"My companions come with me. My wife, my fox, and her attendant." I nodded toward Mirael, who inclined her head. "And my beasts may enter the academy freely. I will not leave any of them behind."
"Granted."
"And if I find that the academy is being used to harm any student, regardless of their race, I will say so, and I will expect to be heard."
The High Commander looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. "That is exactly what we need."
The following week passed in preparation. Sally arranged her family's resources so that the academy's facilities would be well supplied, a gesture the council received with polite astonishment. Mirael studied the Federation's customs with the diligence of a devoted scholar, and sent a letter to her father every evening. The Void Fox, meanwhile, spent most of her time exploring the academy grounds, and she managed to convince three separate cooks to feed her roasted wyvern.
On the morning of departure, the grand gate in the capital's central plaza opened for the first time. It was a towering arch of white stone and silver, wrapped in light, and through it I could see a rolling green valley beneath a pale blue sky. Students from every race were already gathered in front of it, each group clustered together with their own kind, eyeing the others with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
I saw the dragon-knight from the semi-finals standing with a small group of dragon-blooded cadets. He looked at me, and a flicker of discomfort crossed his face before he forced himself to nod. I returned the nod. It was a small beginning, but a beginning nonetheless.
Mirael stood beside me, her silver braid swaying in the morning breeze. "Lord Sonu, may I say something?"
"Of course."
"My father believes that the Fox Clan's future depends on the fall of the old order. I believe that this academy might be the first step toward a different one." She looked up at the gate. "I did not expect to hope for it."
"Hope is a reasonable thing to carry through a gate," I said.
Sally took my arm, smiling. The Void Fox leapt onto my shoulder, and her four silver tails brushed against my neck. Together, we stepped through the arch.
The light closed around us, and a moment later we stood on the green hills of Aurelith. In the distance, rising from a wide plain beside a shining lake, stood the half-built towers of the Concord Academy. Cranes of mana lifted white stone into place, and hundreds of workers from every race laboured side by side beneath the open sky. Above them all, a vast banner unfurled, bearing a single emblem: six hands of six different colours, joined in a circle.
It was the most hopeful thing I had seen in this galaxy.
And, as I would discover soon enough, it was also the most fragile.
Status Panel: Sonu
Host Name: Sonu (Means: Handsome)
Age: 18 Years
Current World: Marvel Universe (#2637) / Federation Space / Aurelith (Concord Academy)
Game Level: Level 9 (Genesis World experience)
System: Shop System (Sell, Purchase, Lottery)
Money & Wealth
Spirit Coins: Trillions in storage (Infinite Currency)
Shop Points: Multi-millions
USD (Earth/Marvel): $500 Billion+ (1 Spirit Coin = $500 USD)
Official Currency: Rainbow Coins (official currency of the Genesis World)
Cultivation & Power Levels
Cultivation (Energy/Spiritual): Immortal Peak Level
Body Cultivation: True Immortal Level
Soul / Spirit Cultivation: True Immortal Level
Mage Level: Class 12 (Tyrant Level)
Active Tamed Beasts
Gladehart (Level 50): HP 100,000 | SPD 7,000 | Mid-Level Support
Tyrant Tree #1 (Level 150): HP 2,000,000 | DEF 10,000 | Tank / Domain Control
Tyrant Tree #2 (Level 150): HP 2,000,000 | DEF 10,000 | Tank / Domain Control
World Tree Sapling (Level 85): HP 1,000,000 | Mana Regen +1,000/sec | Tamer Seal Anchor
Void Fox (Level 40): HP 20,000 | SPD 30,000 | Spatial Law Bloodline (4/9 Tails)
Talents & Unique Abilities
x100 (S-Rank): Multiplies the contents of any opened treasure chest by 100.
Fusion (A-Rank): Combines two or more items into superior products.
Gamer's Body: Allows direct physical transportation into games with all equipped gear.
Divine Scan: Locates hidden items, treasure chests, and threats across vast distances.
Gender Blender Skill (SSS-Rank): Ensures all recruits from recruitment facilities are female.
Key Possessions & Assets
Inner / Small World: Independent solar system, SSS-grade spiritual ecology, ocean of Amrit.
Key Divine Artifacts: Akshaya Patra, God Destroyer, Amrit, Sect Creation Token.
Vehicles & Structures: The Ring (45 km-radius halo-ring space habitat), Flying City, Rainbow Phoenix Divine Mount, custom luxury mana-core vehicle.
Factions & Territories: Rainbow Empire, Midgard Mansion.
Inner Circle & Subordinates
Companions / Wives: Sol, Ariel, Lake, Ember, Angel, Luna, Rose, Pepper Potts, Sally.
Key Commanders / AIs: Nexus, Lily, Aria, Bella.
Offspring: Sonia (Daughter with Pepper Potts).
Attendant to the Void Fox: Mirael (five-tailed fox-kin, eldest daughter of Patriarch Veyran).
Allied Faction: Silver-Moon Fox Clan (pledged to receive Sonu's support at the Main Tribe's ranking competition).
Standing: First student of the Concord Academy (invited by the Federation High Commander).