Kael woke up staring at a ceiling painted with intricate gold-leaf murals of ancient Academy heroes.
He blinked, the heavy fog of exhaustion slowly lifting from his brain.
He was lying on a massive, ridiculously soft mattress with silk sheets.
The air smelled like lavender and expensive healing incense.
This definitely wasn’t the sterile medical wing, and it certainly wasn’t his damp, drafty F-rank dorm room.
The translucent blue screen immediately popped into his field of vision.
[Host has awakened.
Caloric reserves: 40%.
Structural integrity: 85%.] [Congratulations.
Your strategy of ‘standing perfectly still because you were too tired to move’ has been widely misinterpreted.] [You now have a cult following.]
Kael groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means you are the most dangerous person in the Academy right now.”
Kael turned his head.
Mori was sitting in a plush leather armchair by the window, a towering stack of digital data slates resting on the mahogany table next to her.
She looked exhausted, her dark eyes shadowed, though she was sitting as rigidly as ever to protect her injured side.
“Where are we?” Kael asked, slowly sitting up.
He noticed he was wearing a set of high-end, unmarked silk sleepwear.
“My private suite in the Sunspire wing,” Mori said flatly.
“It was the only place I could stash you where the upper-year nobles wouldn’t try to poison your IV drip.
Do you have any idea what you did out there?”
Kael rubbed the back of his neck.
“I threw my jacket at a guy and then took a nap.”
Mori didn’t smile.
She picked up one of the data slates and tossed it onto Kael’s lap.
“That is the official incident report filed by the combat instructors,” Mori said.
“Valerius Dravon is in the critical care ward with third-degree magical burns.
Mori leaned forward, her intense gaze locking onto him.
“But that isn’t the problem, Kael.
The problem is what happened after.”
Kael looked down at the slate.
There was a paused holographic projection of his fight with Sebastian hovering above the screen.
“Play it,” Mori ordered.
Kael tapped the screen.
The hologram sprang to life, showing Sebastian launching the lethal, highly compressed wind blade directly at Kael’s throat.
Kael watched himself.
The system was right.
He hadn’t just looked calm; he looked completely, terrifyingly bored.
The Kael in the hologram didn’t flinch, didn’t widen his eyes, and didn’t raise his hands.
He just stood there as the blade sheared a single lock of his hair and shattered the stone wall behind him.
“Do you know what the instructors are saying?” Mori asked softly.
“They are saying you calculated the exact trajectory, barometric pressure, and mana density of a B-rank attack in a fraction of a second, and determined it would miss you by a millimeter.
They think you let it hit the wall just to completely break Sebastian Pembroke’s spirit.”
Kael stared at the hologram.
“I literally couldn’t feel my legs.”
“Nobody knows that!” Mori snapped, standing up and pacing carefully across the thick rug.
“The lower ranks are treating you like a god.
The E-rank servants and the D-rank provisionals think you’re leading some kind of revolution.
And the aristocracy?
The A-ranks?”
Mori stopped, looking down at him.
“They are terrified of you.
The prevailing theory in the high-born lounges right now is that you are an unregistered A-rank assassin sent by a rival guild to humiliate the Academy.
Nobody believes you’re actually an F-rank anymore.”
Kael let out a long, slow breath, handing the slate back to her. Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
“So, my cover is blown.
What happens now?”
“Now,” Mori said grimly, “you have to fight in the finals.”
“Against who?”
“Nobody,” Mori replied.
“The other finalist in the provisional bracket saw what you did to Valerius and Sebastian Pembroke.
He formally forfeited twenty minutes ago.
You won the tournament by default, Morgan.”
Kael paused.
“Okay.
So I won.
I keep my spot at the Academy.
Sebastian is locked up.
Seems like a decent outcome.”
“You don’t understand,” Mori said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“The reward for winning the provisional tournament isn’t just a trophy.
The winner is drafted into the Main Bracket.”
Kael’s blood ran cold.
The Main Bracket.
The one reserved entirely for A-ranks, hand-picked prodigies, and the absolute elite of the Academy.
“Tomorrow at noon,” Mori said, her eyes filled with a grim, calculating dread.
“You are scheduled to fight an A-rank.
And because they think you’re secretly a master assassin hiding your true power, there won’t be a referee in the sand to save you.”
The blue screen flared brightly beside Mori’s head.
[Calculated odds of surviving an A-Rank opponent: 0.0001%.] [Recommendation: Begin drafting your Last Will and Testament.
I have provided a standard legal template in your sub-menu.]