The horror of the video didn't silence the hallway for long. For the students Sephorae had trampled on during his days as an arrogant prince—upperclassmen he had humiliated in duels, commoners he had looked down upon—the footage wasn't a tragedy. It was retribution.
"Look at him," a voice sneered. It was Jax, a third-year student whose nose Sephorae had broken the previous semester. Jax stepped forward, his face twisted in a cruel grin. "The Vespera prodigy, screaming like a pig. You're not a monster, Sephorae. You're just meat."
Sephorae stood motionless in his white cloak. Inside his mind, the world was a shattered mirror. He heard Jax's voice, but it sounded distant, like audio playing in another room. Piece A fits with Piece B, he thought, his internal monologue cold and rhythmic. Ignore the noise. Focus on the reconstruction.
A tall shadow fell over him.
Selene Vespera stepped through the crowd. At 5'11", she stood an inch taller than her brother even with his growth spurt. Her face wasn't filled with the disdain of their father, but it wasn't soft either. She looked pale, her eyes wide with a deep, unsettling disturbance. She had seen the video. She had seen the blood. She wasn't crying—Vesperas didn't cry in public—but she looked sick to her stomach.
"Seph?" she asked, her voice tight and low. She reached out but stopped just short of touching his white cloak, as if afraid he might shatter. "Sephorae, look at me."
He didn't turn. He stared straight ahead, the silver mask reflecting the overhead lights.
"Sephorae," she said, louder this time, demanding an answer to quell her own rising panic. "Are you okay? Say something. Tell me that video was fake. Tell me you're still in there."
She moved in front of him, blocking his path. She searched the eye slits of the mask, looking for a spark of the brother she knew. "Sephorae! Answer me."
He simply stepped around her. He didn't use magic; he just walked past her with a slow, rhythmic gait, as if she were a statue. He didn't answer. He couldn't. If he acknowledged her voice, the precarious focus holding his mind together might snap.
Selene stood there, her hand hovering in empty air. She didn't weep, but her jaw tightened, and she stared at his retreating back with a look of profound unease.
The Echoes of the Past
As Sephorae began the long walk to the Great Hall for the evaluation, the gauntlet continued.
Lila was waiting near the atrium archway. She looked sick, her hands clutching her bag tight. "Sephorae," she called out. "I... I didn't know. Nobody knew."
He walked past her without breaking stride.
Nathaniel Brightmore, the Academy's golden boy, stood by the doors to the Great Hall. His expression was grave, his brow furrowed with genuine disturbance. As Sephorae approached, Nathaniel stepped forward, raising a hand.
"Vespera," Nathaniel said, his voice deep and serious. "You don't have to do this right now. The faculty... they can wait. You need medical attention."
Sephorae moved past the "Hero" as if Nathaniel were a ghost, his white cloak trailing behind him on the marble floor.
The Judgment
The Great Hall was cold. Vice Principal Kaelen stood by the dais, looking stern. Lounging in the central chair was Chairman Valerius. The Chairman, a man only in his early thirties with a reputation for absolute ruthlessness, watched Sephorae approach with fascinated, sharp eyes.
"Sephorae Vespera," Kaelen announced. "You are here to verify your mana capacity. If the core is destroyed, expulsion is immediate."
The gallery was packed. Jax and the other victims of Sephorae's past brutality were front and center.
Sephorae stepped up to the dais. He felt the mental fracture in his mind widen. Mana circuits... non-existent, his internal monologue ran. Human core... pulverized.
He placed his single hand on the crystal.
The Impossible Error
The stone remained dead. Gray. Lifeless.
"He's empty!" Jax shouted from the balcony. "The cripple is dry! Go home, trash!"
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Selene, standing at the back, turned her head away, her expression grim.
But then, the Demonic Arm woke up.
It didn't speak to him yet. It didn't teach him how to move yet. It simply reacted to the machine's intrusion. The Awakening Stone tried to pull mana, but instead, it pulled from the Void Source of the arm.
The crystal didn't glow. It turned Vantablack—a darkness so deep it looked like a hole in the world.
The machine began to whine. The needle on the pressure gauge didn't drop; it spun all the way around, vibrating so fast it became a blur.
The holographic screen above the dais flickered.
RANK: C...
RANK: B...
RANK: A...
The crowd went silent. The numbers were climbing too fast.
RANK: S...
RANK: SS...
Chairman Valerius sat up, his eyes wide.
The machine let out a high-pitched shriek, sparks flying from the base of the pedestal as the internal mana-fuses blew out. The screen flashed one final, impossible reading in blinding red letters:
RANK: SSS+
Then, with a loud crack, the screen died, and the orb returned to a dull, cracked gray.
The Denial
For a second, there was absolute silence. Then, Jax burst out laughing.
"It's broken!" Jax yelled, pointing at the smoking pedestal. "He fried the circuit! There's no way he's SSS! The machine glitched because he has zero mana!"
The tension in the room broke. The students nodded, laughing along. It made sense. A cripple with a destroyed core couldn't be an SSS+. The machine had clearly malfunctioned due to the lack of input.
"A critical error," Vice Principal Kaelen said, waving smoke away from his face, looking annoyed. "The sensor loop failed. It couldn't find a reading so it cycled to the maximum integer. Typical."
He looked down at Sephorae with disdain. "Since the machine cannot read you, and we know your core is destroyed, we will default you to the lowest tier until you can prove otherwise manually. Rank: F."
Chairman Valerius leaned back in his chair, the fascination fading from his face. "A pity," he murmured, believing the glitch theory like everyone else. "Fix the machine, Kaelen."
The Silent Exit
Sephorae pulled his hand back. He didn't care about the letters. He felt the arm pulsing against his chest, a dormant beast waiting to be woken up. It hadn't taught him how to fight yet, but he knew the potential was there. He just needed a place to learn.
He turned to leave.
Jax and his crew were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. "SSS-Plus?" Jax wheezed, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "You really are a joke, Vespera. Even the machine is mocking you."
Sephorae stopped. He looked at Jax. He felt a twinge in his muscles—a desire to move, to strike—but he didn't know how. Not yet.
"Don't ignore me!" Jax yelled, stepping closer.
Before Jax could shove him, a hand clamped onto his wrist.
It was Nathaniel Brightmore.
"That's enough, Jax," Nathaniel said, his voice hard. "The machine broke. Leave him alone. There is no honor in kicking a man who has lost everything."
Jax ripped his arm away, scowling. "Whatever. He's a waste of space."
Sephorae didn't thank Nathaniel. He didn't look back at the disturbed Selene. He adjusted his white cloak and walked out into the twilight.
He needed isolation. He needed silence. And most of all, he needed to find the Luxurious Practice Rooms. The arm was heavy with memories that didn't belong to him, and he knew that once he was alone, the real lesson would begin.