The night before, Lucien’s dormitory room had looked like the site of an ice age massacre due to an accidental overflow of magic.
Reichardt had nearly summoned all the court physicians, believing his brother was dying, as Lucien’s body was too weak to handle his immense magical capacity.
The next morning, Lucien stood in front of the mirror, his face grim and his eyes still sleepy.
His official Vandimirion Imperial Academy uniform clung to his body perfectly, but his owner looked like a zombie, ready to die at any moment.
“I told you not to use ice magic carelessly!” Reichardt scolded, pacing Lucien’s room.
“You know your magical capacity is dangerous to your own physical health!” “Shut up.
You’re making me want to die even more,” Lucien grumbled as he dragged his steps out of the high nobles’ dormitory building.
As soon as they stepped into the courtyard, a brown-haired girl was already standing there waiting.
Without warning, Rose Valerin immediately performed a reverse escort gesture—bowing like a court knight while extending her right hand toward Lucien.
Reichardt blinked in surprise, dumbfounded by the girl’s behavior, which was completely unlike that of a typical noblewoman.
“Eh?
What did you do to my brother, Rose?” “Protecting valuable assets from being stressed by your ramblings, Reichardt,” Rose replied casually with a bow.
Lucien snorted softly.
Exasperated by his brother’s nagging all morning, he grabbed Rose’s outstretched hand without protest.
“Get me out of here before my head explodes.” Upon their arrival at the main reception hall, the grand room was already filled with hundreds of students from various backgrounds.
As soon as the doors opened and Lucien stepped inside, the bustling atmosphere suddenly fell silent.
No longer wearing the robes he wore the day before, the form-fitting academy uniform only further emphasized Lucien’s striking physique: snow-white hair, translucent pale skin, and a pair of ruby-red eyes that reflected the light of the crystal chandelier.
At that moment, his magnetic aura radiated outwardly, making anyone, who looked at him immediately fascinated, stunned, and suddenly filled with admiration.
Reichardt and Rose instanly stood in front of Lucien to block the hungry stares of the other students.
“Don’t you dare look at him!” Rose said sharply to a group of second year students.
“Come on Rose, you’re scaring them!” Reichardt said as he pulled Lucien’s hand towards his seat in the first year row.
After ensuring Lucien a strategic seat in the first-year row—which Reichardt and Rose could directly observe from the third-year seats—Lucien was finally able to sit down.
Beside him, a female student immediately gasped, her face flushed red with excitement at being able to sit close to the youngest Hawthorne.
“Umm…
Hello, Young Master…” the student squeaked nervously.
Lucien just glanced at her, then looked away.
“Shut up and don’t bother me.” However, Lucien’s curt reply pleased the student.
“He’s talking to me!” the student muttered to herself.
The ceremony began with a very boring welcome from the academy principal, followed by the student representatives.
When it was his turn to deliver a speech, Prince Seilas Vandimirion took the podium.
However, instead of focusing on his script, the Prince’s eyes immediately scanned the sea of audience seats, searching for Lucien’s white hair.
As soon as he spotted the figure, Seilas’ vision immediately “short-circuited.” He froze in the middle of the stage, confused by the strange pounding in his chest since the encounter in the corridor the previous day.
Meanwhile, in the audience, Lucien, who had been sleep-deprived all night due to Reichardt’s panic, began to lose consciousness.
His head bobbed back and forth, constantly nodding to fight off the drowsiness.
The sight only made Prince Seilas, on the podium, even more unable to look away, as if bewitched, to the point of nearly mispronouncing his speech.
Unbeknownst to the crowd, from the third-year student’s row of seats, a young man with jet-black hair and hazel eyes stared intently at Lucien.
He had a faint smile on his face, a cunning calculation in his head.
A round of applause broke everyone’s reverie, signaling the end of the event.
Lucien awoke with a grim expression on his face and was led along with hundreds of other students to an orientation tour of the academy.
During the orientation tour through the marble corridors and magical gardens, Lucien’s magnetic aura, unbeknownst to him, was at work again.
The surrounding students were mesmerized, staring at him in awe, but none dared to approach him carelessly.
It was here that Lucien was accidentally paired in a small group with a black-haired scholarship student named Aryosha.
Throughout the journey, the young man—Aryosha—experienced an incredibly intense inner battle.
His common sense and sense of self as a scholarship student from the lower classes screamed at him to stay away from Duke Hawthorne’s youngest son.
“He’s the highest nobleman, I’m a commoner.
I can’t be presumptuous,” Aryosha thought, shuddering in horror.
Yet, at the same time, the curse of his magnetic aura forced heus heart to surge, feeling that Lucien was the most precious person in the world, one who must be adored and protected.
Aryosha kept stealing glances at him with a flushed face, caught between the desire to be near Lucien and the utter fear of their caste.
Lucien, on the other hand, considered Aryosha a mere afterthought—somewhere between present and non-existent.
He wasn’t even aware of the scholarship student’s inner turmoil.
As the orientation tour concluded and the students were dismissed to their respective dormitories, Lucien’s steps suddenly halted at a corner in a deserted corridor.
Someone had deliberately blocked his path.
A young man with jet-black hair and hazel eyes stared at him with a sarcastic smile.
Lucien immediately recognized the physical features from the original novel: Rayland Valois, the main antagonist.
“Finally we met, Lucien Hawthorne,” said Rayland, who was standing right in front of Lucien.
Instead of panicking, trembling, or trying to escape like most transmigrators, Luciel Reed’s original soul—already thoroughly exhausted—simply snorted lazily.
Wasting no time, Lucien stared straight into those hazel eyes with an innocent expression.
“What?” Lucien asked flatly.
“Why did you stop me?
Do I owe you anything?” Hearing this blunt, completely unscriptural question from the noble, the corners of Rayland Valois’s lips suddenly twitched.
His sly grin instantly crumbled, leaving a look of disbelief on the antagonist’s face.