Two weeks.
That's how long it had been since I opened my eyes in this world and realized I was no longer me, but Phasnovterich Vecria Argemenes. Even after fourteen days, the name still tasted weird on my tongue. It was long and overly aristocratic, like someone stitched too many syllables together just to flaunt.
Un those two weeks, I hadn't exactly been living some thrilling second life like one would expect from an otome game's transmigration story. I was buried in books, studying. Apparently, Reversa University, one of the grand jewels of Altera Earth's education system, had seen fit to start me off with what the game would've called "tutorial units." Politics, geography, history, economics and such are all the boring first-year courses that nobody cared about unless they wanted to survive noble society.
Lucky me.
As one of the heirs of House Argemenes, I had to take them with no excuses. Everyone in a House was expected to learn how the world turned, how borders were drawn and how to manipulate a political meeting as skillfully as a battlefield. And since I wasn't about to out myself as some imposter, I played along, pretending like I hadn't just been dropped into this world by some cosmic being.
The funny part is that it was too easy.
Reversa's educational system was trash, just like I remembered from Masquerade of Dreams: Shattered. Everyone here from commoner, genius to idiot was being shoved into the same mold. We were all training to be Officia Fluxers.
That was the dream job here. That was the kind of career that had parents selling their organs just to shove their kids into Flux academies and pray they survived long enough to make it to a university like this one. And yeah, the pay was insane. Officia Fluxers weren't just civil servants. They were the backbone of nations. They were doldiers, researchers, guardians, ambassadors and so on. They were people who could bend the world's Flux into weapons, shields, machines and even miracles. Entire governments were built around their strength. In short, any occupation in Altera Earth had a requirement for you to become an Officia Fluxer.
But getting to become an Officia Fluxer was hell. There were only three paths.
One is to get into a Flux university like Reversa, which is the best route. You would spend three years honing your Flux, building connections and traveling the world under government sanction. By the time you graduated, the world would practically bent over to try to hire you.
Two, be directly recruited by your government. Sounded good on paper but in reality, it was a gilded cage. You would never see the world or use your Flux outside of your country's borders. You would be nothing but a tool or a patriot with a leash.
And three is to get recruited by one of the Twelve Houses. Now that was tricky. If you had even a drop of House blood, you were, you'd be classified as a House Fluxer, someone born to wield the power of lineage. But if you didn't? Even if a House hired you, you were still just an Officia Fluxer. A glorified retainer, actually.
Still better than nothing, though.
So yeah, that is why Reversa was such a big deal. It was a gate to a future most people would kill for. Only one percent of Altera Earth even made it into a Flux high school, and fewer still climbed the ladder to Flux universities. If you hadn't gone to a Flux Academy for high school, you can kiss your chances goodbye. Reversa didn't even glance at ordinary high school graduates.
That exclusivity made Reversa one of the top three Flux universities in the entire world. It's a shining beacon sitting on its own private island in the middle of the Atlantis Ocean. Yeah, they call it "Atlantis" here. Don't ask why. Maybe the developers made it that way to sound cooler than Earth's boring old Atlantic. You didn't just "commute" to Reversa. You also didn't hop a bus or grab a train. This place was isolated, surrounded by endless ocean, designed to be unreachable unless you already proved yourself. The only way in was to claw your way up the system, graduate from a Flux Academy (which is a high school) and earn your slot here. It was the kind of setup that bred elitism, envy and desperation in equal measure.
I had already gotten in courtesy of my shiny new identity as Phasnovterich Vecria Argemenes. As an Argemenes heir, the door had been wide open. However, being handed privilege doesn't mean the system is any less rotten. The University Arc in MoDS has always been infamous for this. Students weren't learning so much as they were being sorted. Flux techniques were spoon-fed. Practical combat dumbed down. The rich kids used their names to boast and the Commoners bled themselves dry just to keep up. Everyone was scrambling for the same prize that ewe the Officia certification.
It was a joke.
Which is why in the past two weeks, I didn't bother chasing anything flashy. I knew the plot. I knew the way things were "supposed" to go. And while everyone else was either partying on their stipends or drowning themselves in training halls, I was buried in books. This world wasn't a game anymore. It was real. Power didn't just come from flashy Flux battles. It came from knowing who pulled the strings, which borders would collapse first and which Houses had blood feuds waiting to explode.
In MoDS, the University Arc was circus of love triangles and rivalries. But I was treating it like a war council. And if I was going to rewrite this story, I had to start by rewriting myself. Two weeks of nothing but studying had fried my brain and now it was time to put it all on the table in the First Evaluation Test.
Every semester at Reversa has two of these damned things. The first one happens just two weeks after admission. It was basically a wake-up call to weed out the slackers. The second came near the end of the semester and was longer, meaner and straight-up unfair. But this first one? It mattered the most. It slapped rankings onto everyone like a giant tag on your forehead telling the entire university if you were a genius or just another breathing paperweight.
That is why I have been hitting the books nonstop. It wasn't even that the material was hard. Most of it was basic. It was the pressure. See, the First Evaluation Test wasn't just about grades. It was about power. The top scorers got three golden privileges that could shape your entire future:
One, they get to leave the damn island. Students who aced this test got sent across the world on practical missions. They were like internships. Survive them and your résumé was already too high to get any job.
Two, they gained access to facilities normal students would kill for. High-tech training rooms, libraries with restricted tomes, you name it. If you ranked low, good luck sweating it out with the common facilities everyone fought over.
Three, you would be noticed. Passing gave you a 50% chance of being hired by any government or Faction before graduation. Pass it twice in your first year and congratulations, you basically locked in a career. Stakes were high. Fail, and you'd spend the rest of the year as nothing more than some extra in someone else's story.
In the original Masquerade of Dreams Shattered, the protagonist was the star of this act. She is an academic genius and the one who helped Thales Erdict, the first male lead, on her back during this exam. Together, they pulled off top ranks and kicked the plot into motion.
But things are different now.
I'm not on good terms with the Thales. In fact, I need to get closer to him. It sounded ridiculous but it's the truth. Without him and their original teamwork, I'm sure if I can secure the grade I needed. And if I don't get that grade, I won't get the first Fluveheart, which is a crucial piece needed to evolve my atom shaped weapon into a monstrous upgrade. Without that Fluveheart, my progression would stall, the arc would slip and everything I'd built so far would go down the drain.
No pressure, right?
The morning of the test, the entire campus buzzed like a beehive. Some students were already pale with stress, pacing back and forth like they were on trial. Others strutted around as if the test was beneath them. A bunch had already given up. I could see it in their eyes, the ones who came to Reversa thinking "Flux University" was just some rich kid party.
I kept my expression passive. On the inside, though? I was nervous.
The lecture hall they stuffed us into was massive. The seating stretched to the back wall, glowing panels overhead that made everything feel cold with rows of desks lined the floor, each with its own Flux suppressor device meant to keep students from cheating with Flux and so on. Everyone knew the test was supposed to measure our brains, not our Flux.
I took my seat, my eyes flicking across the room. Verdamona sat two rows down, her head tilted. Thales was slouched at the far end, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
The examiner stepped up, her expression stone cold.
"Begin."
The moment the papers hit the desk, the room shifted. There was silence. There was just the scratching of pens and the shallow breaths of a thousand plus students trying to claw their way to the top.
I stared down at the first page.
What the fuck?