Year 999. 1000th Crusaders Batch.
The summer had arrived in Atlantis. The snow that had covered the whole city in a white blanket had already started to melt.
The city was built above a rock in the Atlantic Ocean, covering over five hundred square miles with a population of over two million.
From the sky, the city looked like a turtle shell, concentric rings of stone and steel spreading outward from a raised central district, each layer slightly lower than the last until the outermost edges met the ocean wind with nothing between them and the horizon.
The Atlantis Academy occupied the northernmost corner of the city, where the rock face dropped sharpest, and the wind came in without obstruction from the open sea.
It was not the most comfortable location for a school. It was, however, the most visible. On a day like today, that was the point.
Hundreds of teenagers had gathered on the academy's main grounds beneath the Awakening Crystal, a structure that rose forty feet from the courtyard floor and caught the morning light in a way that made it look like it was generating its own.
The crowd was loud, restless, electric with the specific energy of people standing on the edge of something that would define the rest of their lives.
Every one of them was about to find out what they were worth.
That was not a metaphor. In Atlantis, in the world beyond it, in every settlement and city and fortress built by people who had learned to survive by measuring each other, talent was currency.
The quality of what the crystal found inside you decided what doors opened, what doors stayed shut, and which ones were never going to exist for you at all.
The 1000th Crusader Batch. A number with weight to it. A thousand years of this exact moment, repeated with different faces.
Ragnar stood in the middle of the crowd, and the crowd stood away from him.
Towering at seven feet, his shoulders were as wide as two men. Long blonde hair fell past his collar, catching the light the same way the crystal did. His eyes were hazel, sharp, and currently aimed at nothing in particular with focused disinterest.
Sharp features that made him exceptionally handsome failed to veil the resting scowl he carried. No one dared to even glance at him, as though an invisible voice was telling them:
"Look at me, and I will break your neck."
Even a slight movement from him made the crowd shift anxiously.
Ragnar was from the Vikings. Everyone in the city respected the Vikings. Above respect, they feared them.
The Vikings were men who sailed the turbulent waters of the Atlantic Ocean and explored the deep sea that no one else dared to venture into.
They charted routes that experienced captains refused to acknowledge existed. They dove into depths that swallowed lesser men without record or ceremony.
Each Viking was crazy in a way that sent chills down the hearts of those who gazed upon them. After all, they were men who toyed with death the way children toyed with wooden swords. The difference being that children eventually put the swords down.
Vikings never did.
Although Ragnar's comprehension ability sat at F rank, the lowest the system recognised, no one dared to mess with him.
His physical power alone had reached 10. Almost double that of Dimitri, who carried a comprehension ability of B rank and spent considerable energy making sure everyone knew it.
Even if Ragnar only awakened a talent of Variant 1, it would take a considerable number of levels for anyone to even consider standing across from him.
Every Viking awakened talents above Variant 3. Anything less was not possible.
That was simply what happened when a bloodline spent centuries fighting things that even poets never dared to write about.
The principal was a man of few words.
He stepped onto the stage, looked at the crowd for exactly one second, and spoke.
"Queue up. Touch the crystal and accept the call. Do not ever reveal your Variant number if you do not want to be assassinated."
That was it.
Many talented Crusaders had lost their lives because their empty brains could not handle the arrogance that came with a high Variant number.
The outside world did not reward restraint. But it certainly punished visibility.
Even though humanity as a whole was united inside the Quantum for survival, outside its walls, the world was as corrupt as it had been centuries before.
Power invited attention. Attention invited knives in the dark.
The smart ones kept their numbers to themselves.
The dead ones had not.
Ragnar twitched his lips as he walked toward the crystal. The students parted ways for him to take the first position. He ignored their terrified expressions.
He was the first one to climb the stage.
"Just touch the crystal, Viking. Do not break it," the principal said with a smile.
"Sure."
It came out friendly. Ragnar had intended it to be friendly. Somewhere between his intention and the air, the warmth had evaporated entirely, and what arrived was sharp and flat and cold.
He extended his arm to touch the crystal and...
BAM.
...it shattered into pieces.
[Lifespan Burner.]
[Variant: 1/9 | Learner.]
[Learner: You can learn anything by burning your lifespan. The cost depends on the quality of the data and your own comprehension ability.]
'Variant 9?'
On the resting bitch face of Ragnar, a crack of awe appeared.
The most talented person who had ever appeared in Atlantis was his chef. A man who single-handedly commanded the Vikings. He had a Variant 6 talent. Ragnar was three levels above that.
What kind of absurd luck was this?
The excitement burning through his chest cooled the moment a new line of text appeared beneath the previous one.
[Lifespan Remaining: 100 Days.]
"WHAT?"
"That is exactly what I am asking you," the principal said. "What the hell did you do to my Awakening Crystal?"
Ragnar turned to look at him. That was when he remembered the crystal. He looked down at the shattered pieces spread across the stage floor and exhaled slowly through his nose.
"I told you to touch it," the principal said, his voice climbing. "Touch it. One instruction. Look what you have done. You literally clenched it as it owed you money."
Ragnar frowned.
Why was the principal talking like he had done it on purpose? Like he had walked up to a priceless institutional artifact and decided, as a personal choice, to destroy it with his bare hand on the thousandth anniversary of the founding batch?
"It was not my..."
"SHUT UP."
The word hit the courtyard like a dropped stone. Every teenager below the stage went completely still.
"You." The principal pointed a finger at Ragnar's chest, which required him to aim considerably higher than he was used to. "My office. Now."
He turned to the crowd, eyes sweeping across them with the particular viciousness of a man redistributing his anger across available targets.
"The rest of you. Continue."
Ragnar opened his mouth. Closed it. The principal was already walking. Ragnar followed in silence.
He read through his talent details as he walked, eyes tracking the system text while his body navigated the path on instinct.
The more he read, the deeper his frown settled. By the time they reached the corridor leading to the principal's office, the awe that had cracked through his expression on the stage was completely gone.
In its place, quiet and steady and growing with every step, was anger.