Over the following days, a strange routine established itself in the Northern Forest.
Every afternoon, Janica Faelover would arrive at Ed’s camp.
She never asked for anything, and Ed never offered.
She would simply sit on a designated wooden stump for an hour, escaping the suffocating praise and expectations of the academy, finding immense comfort in Ed’s absolute, cold indifference.
Once she caught her breath, she would quietly thank him and leave.
It was shortly after Janica had left on the day before the Joint Combat Exam that the atmosphere in the camp drastically changed.
Ed was sitting by the fire, sharpening his knife.
Suddenly, his ki senses screamed.
A massive, localized drop in air pressure hit the clearing, heavy enough to suffocate a normal person.
With his current fragmented core, Ed couldn’t see spirits clearly, but his hyper-refined senses from his past life allowed him to perceive a massive, blurry silhouette descending from the sky.
It was a giant wolf composed entirely of swirling, violent winds.
“You’re too loud,” a sleepy voice muttered from the branches of a nearby oak tree.
Ed didn’t flinch.
He looked up to see Lucy Mayrill, the white-haired archmage, shifting uncomfortably on the branch where she had been napping.
She lifted the brim of her oversized witch’s hat, her piercing eyes glaring at the massive wind wolf.
“Tell him yourself,” Lucy grumbled at the spirit.
A second later, she sighed, clearly annoyed.
She looked down at Ed.
“Hey.
The blonde guy with the dead eyes.”
Ed looked at her calmly, his hand resting near his knife.
“What.”
“The High Wind Spirit hovering in front of you—the giant wolf—is talking to me, since you obviously can’t see her clearly,” Lucy relayed, yawning mid-sentence.
“She says you feel unnatural.
Like a fragile leaf wrapped in heavy blood and ancient authority.
She wants to make a deal.”
Ed didn’t change his expression, but his tactical mind raced.
A High Spirit in a beast form.
Merilda.
Janica’s contracted spirit.
“Go on,” Ed replied evenly, staring directly at the blurry, shifting mass of wind.
“She says her contractor, the pink-haired girl, is going to break under the pressure of this academy soon,” Lucy continued lazily.
“She wants you to intervene and help her when that happens.
In exchange, she will owe you a favor, and the wind will not be your enemy.”
Having a High Spirit owe him a favor was a tactical asset of the highest tier.
It was an offer a king couldn’t refuse.
“Tell the spirit I accept the terms,” Ed said.
“But I do things my way.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the familiar mechanical hum vibrated in his skull.
[Hidden Condition Met: Pact recognized by a High-Ranking Spirit.] [Your innate connection to natural mana has been stimulated.] [Reward: Skill Acquired – ‘Spirit Affinity’ (Lv.
1).
Visual and auditory communication unlocked.]
A sudden, cool sensation washed over Ed’s eyes and ears.
The blurry silhouette of wind instantly snapped into sharp focus.
Standing before him was a majestic, towering wolf made of pure cyan energy, its glowing eyes staring at him with a mixture of awe and caution.
“The pact is sealed, human,” Merilda’s voice echoed directly in his mind now, deep and ancient.
“It is,” Ed replied, looking the giant wolf directly in the eyes without needing Lucy’s translation anymore.
His voice carried the heavy, unyielding aura of King Grey.
“Remember your end of the bargain, spirit.”
Merilda shivered, her winds faltering for a fraction of a second under his kingly gaze.
Without another word, the giant wolf dissolved into the breeze.
Up in the tree, Lucy raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised that the boy could suddenly see the spirit, but she was too lazy to care.
She just pulled her hat over her face and went back to sleep.
The next day, the academy arena was blindingly bright, the stands packed with screaming students.
Ed stood in the shadows of the competitor’s entrance, observing the matches.
The announcer’s magically amplified voice boomed across the stadium.
“First Match of the Block!
First-year Taylee McLore versus First-year Lucy Mayrill!”
Ed watched as Taylee, the supposed protagonist destined to save the world, stepped onto the platform.
The match was a slaughter.
Taylee fought with grit.
He shouted about his unyielding will, gripped his practice sword tightly, and charged with everything he had.
It was the classic, desperate struggle of a hero.
Lucy didn’t even draw a weapon.
She looked half-asleep.
She merely waved her hand dismissively.
A barrage of advanced elemental magic—fire, ice, and lightning—erupted with zero casting time.
The sheer density of her mana shook the foundations of the arena.
Taylee’s sword was blown out of his hands, and a massive shockwave sent him crashing into the arena wall, knocking him unconscious instantly.
The match lasted exactly eight seconds.
The stadium fell dead silent before erupting into terrified cheers for the white-haired archmage.
Ed analyzed the scene with the cold eyes of a veteran commander.
Taylee has stamina and raw drive, but his technique is garbage.
He relies entirely on emotion.
Lucy, on the other hand…
is a walking natural disaster.
Her output is monstrous, but she lacks martial discipline.
A glass cannon.
“Next Match!” the announcer’s voice echoed again.
“First-year Ed Rothtaylor versus First-year Princess Penia!”
Ed stretched his neck until it popped.
He walked out into the blinding light of the arena.
A wave of boos and insults rained down from the upper tiers.
He ignored them completely, his analytical eyes scanning Princess Penia as she stepped onto the platform.
Her stance was proud, water mana already coalescing around her bare hands in a potent, pre-cast defensive aura.
“You may have evaded expulsion, Rothtaylor,” Penia declared, her voice carrying over the crowd.
“But in this arena, politics cannot save you.
I will show the academy your true worth.”
“Begin!” the referee shouted.
Penia didn’t waste a second.
She chanted rapidly, summoning three large, swirling spheres of highly pressurized water.
“Aqua Torrent!” she commanded, launching the heavy liquid projectiles directly at Ed.
Ed didn’t blink.
He didn’t need a massive shield.
Applying King Grey’s martial footwork, he channeled a microscopic fraction of wind mana into his calves.
Step.
Ed vanished from his starting position.
The water spheres slammed into the stone floor where he had stood a millisecond prior, creating a massive crater and a cloud of mist.
Penia gasped, her eyes darting around.
“Where—?”
“You cast too slowly.
And your vanguard is completely exposed,” a cold voice whispered directly into her left ear.
Penia spun around in a panic, thrusting her hands forward to cast a close-range water blast.
But she hit empty air.
Ed was already inside her guard.
With a calculated, minimal movement, Ed swept his left foot behind her ankle, collapsing her stance.
As she stumbled backward, Ed raised his right hand.
He didn’t chant.
He simply compressed the ambient wind into a razor-thin, invisible edge at the tip of his index finger.
He stopped his finger exactly two millimeters from her jugular vein.
The stadium fell into a horrifying, absolute silence.
One second he was in the line of fire, and the next, the Princess was off-balance with the ‘trash’ of the academy holding a lethal, invisible blade to her throat.
Penia could feel the unnatural, freezing sharpness of the condensed wind.
If he moved his finger a fraction of an inch, she would die.
“Checkmate, Your Highness,” Ed murmured, his golden eyes devoid of mercy.
“As I told you.
You don’t know how to play the board.”
He dispelled the wind blade instantly, took a step back, and raised his hand toward the stunned referee.
“W-Winner!
Ed Rothtaylor!”
There were no cheers.
Only the terrifying realization spreading through the faculty and the students: the young master of the Rothtaylor family hadn’t been ruined.
He had been unleashed.