Acrid smoke spiraled into the frigid night, masking the pulverized crater of Level Four. Arthur stood at its precipice.
All evidence of the elixir now survives only within my mind, his intellect processed, cold and detached. And my Manaheart. He gripped the black fabric over his chest. Beneath his ribs, a new furnace roared. It lacked the chaotic, synthetic burn of the Sivanamine; instead, a deep, rhythmic thrum of boundless mana circulated through his core, anchoring him with profound stability. Turning from the ruin, he dissolved into the floating city's shadows long before the perimeter guards could mobilize.
Weeks melted into the ambient stillness of the Year-end Break. Yet, the quiet inside William Sinclair's office remained entirely manufactured.
Arthur entrenched himself behind a barricade of leather-bound tomes at the polished mahogany desk. Encyclopedia of Interhuman Cultures, A Brief History of the Six Death Zones, and Dictionary of Ancient Scripts and Tongues sprawled across the surface. At the epicenter sat Cedric's logographic grimoire, its obsidian cover and gold engravings catching the lamplight.
He wasn't reading. Amber eyes glazed over, staring through the table into an intense, unfocused void. The Autonomic Merged Processor hummed at peak capacity. Bypassing the friction of internal monologue, he absorbed the peripheral data of all six texts simultaneously, searing structural syntax and historical timelines directly into his unblocked memory.
Brass hinges whined.
Bio-electrical friction snapped back online. Arthur blinked, dragging his irises back into sharp focus.
William Sinclair breached the sanctuary. He had traded his navy-green uniform for a pristine white lab coat, a row of heavy medals pinned to his breast clinking with rhythmic weight as he moved.
"Welcome back, Mr. Sinclair," Arthur greeted, snapping his gaze toward the door for only a fraction of a second before locking back onto the logographic script.
Sinclair hung his coat on the oak rack, pausing to appraise the towering stacks of literature dominating the workspace. "Quite the fortress you've constructed." A theatrical edge of amusement colored his voice as he paced around the desk, leaning against the edge. "I know you're eager to utilize the techniques I've taught you. You're entirely free to spend these two months of break however you'd like. But, Cedric, it shouldn't be the only thing you do. Almost a month has passed since the semester ended."
"I dedicate several hours between study sessions every day to social activities with friends and acquaintances." Arthur maintained an unbothered, flawless politeness. "I am enjoying the break."
Sinclair laughed—a bright, melodic sound devoid of malice. "You should still go out!" he teased, swatting lightly at one of the open dictionaries. "The Academy leaves the Manderjik Federation in two days. The Eastern Swamp hosts a grand majority of organizational headquarters. There is plenty to experience."
Before Arthur could formulate an argument based on optimized time-management, Sinclair stepped behind the chair. With a sudden, surprising burst of leverage, the unawakened genius hauled Arthur upward and physically steered him toward the exit.
"I'll review these books for you while you're out," Sinclair insisted, easily parrying Arthur's half-hearted attempt to plant his boots. "I will translate them into more efficient vehicles for the transportation of information."
"Mr. Sinclair, the grimoire requires—"
"Have fun!" Sinclair chirped, shoving Arthur over the threshold and pulling the heavy oak door shut behind him.
The lock clicked.
Arthur froze in the empty corridor, staring at the brass doorplate. The frictionless logic engine spun, parsing the uncharacteristic physical intervention.
Mr. Sinclair is never wrong, he concluded silently, adjusting the high collar of his uniform. He recognized a plateau in my cognitive load. I will exploit this excursion.
He turned on his heel, navigating the sprawling, empty corridors of the student wards. After clearing several stringent security checkpoints, a heavily armored guard wrapped a stark white band around Arthur's left bicep—the visual clearance for a sanctioned excursion off the flying island.
Arthur descended the boarding ramp and stepped onto the soil of the Manderjik Federation.
The city hit him as a sensory avalanche. Stripped of the Viera Kingdom's aristocratic rigidity, this metropolis lacked noble crests and segregated wards. It sprawled as a chaotic, meritocratic grid of hardened stone and cutthroat commerce. The Mage Association's Central Magic Tower pierced the heavens with its crystal apex, while down on the streets, battle-scarred mercenaries flooded from the Adventurer Guild Plaza, their boisterous laughter cutting through the market din.
Eleven months since I last stepped foot in the outside world, Arthur noted, his amber eyes tracking the chaotic flow of pedestrians. I left the ground as a powerless boy relying on borrowed time and cheap tricks. I return with a manufactured core, my hands stained by both enemies and allies. He navigated the bustling markets until the cobblestones gave way to packed earth. Before him lay a massive river—an impossible expanse of rushing, dark water, so wide and violently churning that the opposite bank vanished beyond the horizon.
A deafening cascade of river water shattered the peace.
A gargantuan, four-legged amphibious beast launched from the churning depths, its jagged maw snapping toward the docks. Instantly, a dozen burly mercenaries blurred into motion. Battle-axes caught the fading sun; high-tier wind blades shrieked through the air. Within three seconds, the beast crashed back into the shallows, thoroughly dismantled before its claws could even strike the cobblestones.
The adventurers hauled the massive carcass ashore, cheering raucously over their bounty.
Arthur watched the celebration, his expression entirely barren. The world marches on, he thought, detached from the cheering crowds. It spares no time for the fallen. That burden falls to me.
He turned westward, tracking the bruised oranges of the sunset. My brother, he promised the fading light. I will avenge you. No matter the cost.
Then, the atmospheric pressure plummeted.
Ambient noise vanished, swallowed by a terrifying, low-frequency hum. Arthur snapped his attention back to the river. The current had ceased its horizontal flow. A massive sheet of dark water stretched upward, defying gravity to form a liquid barricade hundreds of feet high, severing his line of sight to the horizon.
I miscalculated, his intellect processed in a millisecond. This current descends from the Dragon Mountains. The Adventurer Guild's apex taxonomy remains incomplete. The mana density is suffocating—and the displacement angle dictates a strike speed beyond my physical limits.
He glanced left. The boastful adventurers had already scattered, correctly identifying a completely unmanageable threat.
A single strike. I only need to weather a single strike until the Association vanguards arrive. He severed his internal monologue, relinquishing control to pure instinct. Necrotic, deathly-black aura flooded his skin, devouring the ambient moisture. He lowered his center of gravity, hand hovering over his hilt, waiting for the leviathan to break the wall.
The strike never fell.
The liquid barricade did not crash; it hummed with a deep, resonant familiarity. Arthur exhaled, extinguishing the anti-magic aura instantly.
"Riveryn?"
The towering wall cascaded downward, parting gracefully as the Emperor-rank Water Spirit glided toward the bank. The majestic, ethereal entity drifted forward, extending a fluid appendage to brush Arthur's left arm.
A blinding sapphire flash consumed the riverbank.
When his vision cleared, the spirit had vanished. The river churned its natural course. Arthur rolled up his black sleeve, staring at the pale skin of his left arm.
The calcified forgery he had agonizingly painted with Petrifying Ichor was gone. In its place, branded seamlessly into his living flesh, rested seven solid black rings, spaced with exact fifteen-millimeter precision around a flawless geometric crest of water.
An authentic Emperor-tier blessing.
A dazed, unsettled expression parted his facade as an overwhelming surge of elemental authority anchored itself to his Manaheart.
"I nearly forgot..." Arthur whispered to the rushing tide. "...I am the Saint."
Academy Requalification Exam: 100.0/100.0
Year One: Complete