The provisional locker room was dead silent when Kael pushed through the heavy iron doors.
Dozens of D-rank and E-rank students were scattered across the wooden benches, wrapping wrists or nervously checking their gear.
The moment Kael’s boots hit the concrete, every single head snapped toward him.
Nobody spoke.
The usual murmurs of fear and anticipation had completely evaporated.
The crowd parted like water, leaving a wide, empty path to Kael’s locker.
They looked at him the way people look at an unexploded bomb.
He was an F-rank.
He was the absolute bottom of the Academy’s barrel, a bureaucratic error that was supposed to be scrubbed out in the first round.
Instead, he had just put a C-rank kinetic brute into a coma with a single, open-handed slap.
Kael walked to his locker, ignoring the stares.
He sat down on the bench and began unwrapping the frayed tape from his knuckles.
His hands were shaking slightly.
Resonance Strike had worked perfectly, but it had completely drained his minuscule F-rank mana pool.
Combined with the caloric deficit from Adaptive Regeneration, Kael felt like hollowed-out glass.
He needed food, and he needed it ten minutes ago.
The iron doors slammed open, hitting the concrete wall with a sharp CRACK.
Instructor Toris stormed into the room, his face a mottled, furious red.
Two academy guards flanked him.
Toris didn’t look at the other students; he marched straight toward Kael’s bench.
“Stand up and empty your pockets, street rat,” Toris spat.
Kael didn’t move.
He continued slowly peeling the tape off his left hand.
“Is there a rule against winning too quickly, Instructor?”
“There is a rule against concealed artifacts in the arena!” Toris leaned over him, his voice echoing in the quiet room.
“F-ranks do not generate enough mana to bypass a C-rank’s density field.
You used a localized stun-stamp.
Or a paralytic needle.
Strip the tape, Morgan.
Now.”
Kael let out a dry sigh.
Then, he stood up, raising both empty hands.
He turned his pockets inside out.
A single piece of lint fell to the floor.
“Go ahead,” Kael said, his voice completely deadpan.
“Check my boots.
Maybe I hid a catapult in there.”
Toris grabbed Kael’s hands, violently inspecting his palms and wrists for any sign of a concealed weapon or magical burn mark.
There was nothing.
Just the bruised knuckles of a kid who had hit a steel wall.
“I don’t know how you rigged it,” Toris hissed, leaning in close so the rest of the room couldn’t hear.
“But you made a mockery of a high-rank student out there.
The administration doesn’t like trash pretending to be gold, Morgan.”
“I hit him in the chest, Toris.
If Vane forgot to breathe, that’s a biology problem, not a cheating problem.”
Before Toris could respond, a slow, mocking clap echoed from the shadows near the showers.
Sebastian stepped into the harsh lumen-light.
He was dressed in a pristine white silk shirt, his B-rank golden crest gleaming on his collar.
The academy guards immediately stepped back, deferring to the noble, and even Toris straightened his posture.
“Instructor Toris,” Sebastian said smoothly, his eyes locked entirely on Kael.
“Leave us.
I need to have a word with my sparring partner.”
Toris hesitated, then gave a sharp nod and practically sprinted out of the room, taking the guards with him.
The provisional students didn’t need to be told; they grabbed their gear and scattered, fleeing the locker room until only Kael and Sebastian remained.
Sebastian’s charming smile melted off his face the second the door clicked shut.
He walked slowly toward Kael, his eyes dark with raw malice.
“You think you’re clever,” Sebastian whispered.
“You think finding a cheap trick to drop a meathead like Vane changes the hierarchy of this place?”
“You sent a slow, heavy brawler against someone you already knew relies on evasion,” Kael replied coldly, leaning back against his locker.
“Your strategy is as predictable as your ego, Sebastian.
You played yourself.”
Sebastian’s jaw clenched.
The air in the room suddenly grew heavy as B-rank mana began to leak from his pores, warping the light around his shoulders.
“The first round was a random draw,” Sebastian sneered, taking a step closer.
“But the rest of the bracket is manually assigned by the committee. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
And I just had a very expensive conversation with the committee head.”
Sebastian tapped his own gold-plated data slate.
The screen flashed, and Kael’s next opponent registered on the locker room’s digital display board above the door.
Match 12: Kael Morgan (F-Rank) vs.
Jaxen ‘Viper’ (C-Rank).
“Vane was slow,” Sebastian whispered.
“Jaxen isn’t.
His evolution is Frictionless Acceleration.
He moves faster than sound, and he uses twin daggers.”
Sebastian’s lips curled into a devious smile.
“Just wanted to give you a heads-up, as a friend.
Not that you stand a chance anyway.
There’s still more than enough time to forfeit and go scrub the floors where you belong.”
Sebastian reached out, patting Kael patronizingly on the shoulder.
He turned and walked toward the exit, pausing just before he pushed the door open.
“Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, Morgan.
In two hours, Jaxen is going to bleed you out on the sand.”
The door slammed shut.
Kael stood alone in the quiet locker room.
He stared up at the digital display board.
Frictionless Acceleration.
A speedster.
His Faster Brain would allow him to process Jaxen’s movements, but processing speed didn’t matter if his physical body was too exhausted to react.
The blue screen flickered into existence, casting a pale glow across Kael’s tired face.
[Host’s social skills remain aggressively terrible.
Calculating probability of surviving a supersonic dagger attack with current caloric deficit: 1.2%.]
[Recommendation: Raid the academy cafeteria.
Or write a very apologetic letter to the B-Rank female.]
Kael let out a sharp exhale, grabbing a clean uniform jacket from his locker.
He didn’t need to write a letter.
He just needed to figure out how to catch lightning in a bottle.