The registration hall turned out to be far busier than Lucifer had imagined, packed with hundreds of new students queuing in front of long tables, each staffed by a teacher in robes of a different color representing the track they oversaw.
Theo headed straight for the Combat line without hesitation, giving a quick wave before disappearing into the crowd.
Lucifer stood for a moment in the middle of the hall, staring at a large board mounted on the wall, listing the six main tracks and three additional ones he only now learned existed from overhearing conversations around him: Diplomacy, Monster Studies, Artefact Studies.
He didn’t know which track to choose.
He could feel something different in himself since the night of the wolves, something Beelzebub called a bottomless well, but he’d never actually been formally trained to use any kind of power.
He wasn’t drawn to swords the way Theo was.
He wasn’t sure he fit the kind of magic his books described either.
The closest thing to genuine interest he felt wasn’t listed on that board at all: a curiosity about how this world actually worked, why people believed what they believed, how it all connected.
A woman teacher in plain gray robes, bearing no track’s emblem, noticed him standing there confused for a long while and approached.
“Not sure where you’re headed yet?” she asked, her voice friendly but sharply observant.
“Not yet,” Lucifer answered honestly.
“Then you’ll need a Placement Exam before choosing a track. Plenty of new students do. Follow me.”
The placement exam room stood in a separate tower, far from the noise of the registration hall, containing only a single empty chamber, its stone floor carved with intricate symbols that glowed faintly the moment someone stepped inside.
The teacher, introducing herself as Professor Yrsa, one of the academy’s senior examiners, explained the process briefly.
A student would stand in the center of the carved circle, and the circle would read their natural resonance: their dominant type of power, their innate tendencies, the track most likely to suit them.
Results usually appeared within seconds, displayed as a pattern of colored light that an experienced examiner could read.
“Simple enough,” Yrsa said, offering a thin smile.
“Just stand in the middle. Don’t hold anything back, don’t try to direct anything. Let the circle do its work on its own.”
Lucifer stepped into the center of the circle, standing still as instructed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the carving beneath his feet began to glow, golden light spreading outward from the point where he stood, ordinary enough at first, the same thing Yrsa had seen thousands of times before with other new students.
Then the light stopped.
Not fading.
Stopping, as if something in the middle of reading suddenly realized there was nothing left to read, and instead of continuing or delivering a result, the entire carving froze in place, its light still burning but utterly motionless, like an image paused mid-motion.
Yrsa frowned, stepping closer, tapping one of the symbols with a small wand she carried.
No reaction.
“This has never happened before,” she murmured, more to herself than to Lucifer.
“Step out for a moment.”
Lucifer stepped out of the circle.
The light died out completely at once, as if it had never been lit at all.
“And now step back in,” Yrsa instructed, her voice losing some of its earlier ease.
Lucifer stepped back in.
The light flared, spreading outward exactly as before, then stopped at precisely the same point, freezing in an identical pattern.
Yrsa stood still for a long moment, staring at the frozen circle, her expression shifting from confusion to something more careful.
“You have power,” she finally said, choosing her words slowly.
“I can feel that much standing here, even if this system can’t. But whatever kind of power you carry, this system wasn’t built to measure it. This isn’t a failure on your part. This is the tool failing.”
“What does that mean for me?” Lucifer asked.
Yrsa studied him for a long moment, as if weighing how much she was allowed to tell a seven-year-old new student.
“It means,” she finally said, “you need to speak with someone more senior than me.”
Lucifer sat alone in the waiting room outside the Headmaster’s office for nearly an hour, listening to the faint sound of a conversation he couldn’t fully make out through the thick wooden door, before he was finally called in.
The Headmaster, an elderly man with a long silver beard named Archmagus Coren, sat behind a large desk covered in scrolls and small artifacts that pulsed faintly with their own light.
He studied Lucifer for a long moment before speaking, his eyes far sharper than his age suggested.
“Professor Yrsa told me about your exam,” Coren said, his voice deep but not threatening.
“Said the system froze. I’ve taught here for a hundred and twenty years, boy. I’ve only heard of that happening once before, and it happened with a student who, to put it briefly, no longer attends this academy, for reasons I won’t get into now.”
Lucifer didn’t answer, waiting for him to continue.
“I won’t ask who you truly are,” Coren went on.
“This academy’s rules have stood for ten thousand years precisely because we don’t ask. Humans, elves, dragons, even those of demon blood, all admitted without needing to fully explain their origins. That’s what keeps this place neutral.” He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled.
“But I’ll offer you something. There’s an educational track at this academy not listed on the registration board. Not every student knows it exists. Not every teacher is permitted to teach there.”
“Zero Class,” Lucifer said, recalling words he’d once read in one of Beelzebub’s books.
Something flickered in Coren’s eyes, surprised but not entirely, like a man who had already suspected that answer would surface sooner or later.
“You know about it,” he said.
Not a question.
“I read a great deal before coming here.”
Coren gave a thin smile, something closer to genuine respect than mere formal courtesy.
“Zero Class isn’t for powerful students, Lucifer. It’s for students who can’t be measured by ordinary means, whether because they’re dangerous, or too valuable to be treated like everyone else, or, in very rare cases, both at once. You’d study with select teachers, in small groups, far from the ordinary classroom’s attention. You’d also lose something. Zero Class students rarely form close friendships with regular students, simply because the different schedules and locations make it difficult.”
Lucifer thought of Theo, whom he’d only just met a few hours ago, and of Sela, far away in Yeun, who had already threatened to throw him in the river if he came home acting important.
“Am I allowed to say no?” he asked.
Coren raised an eyebrow, looking mildly surprised by the question.
“Not many students offered that place ever think to refuse it.”
“I only arrived here a few hours ago,” Lucifer said, “and for the first time, no one looked at me like I was strange. I’d like to know if I can hold onto that a little longer, before I go somewhere else that makes me different again.”
For a moment, Archmagus Coren said nothing at all, simply studying the seven-year-old in front of him with an expression difficult to read.
“That,” he finally said, “is the wisest answer I’ve ever heard from a student your age.” He gave a slow nod.
“Very well. You may begin in the regular classes for now. Your place in Zero Class will always remain open, whenever you’re ready for it, or whenever the world decides you no longer have a choice in the matter.”
Lucifer felt something in his chest ease slightly, though deep down, he understood perfectly well that Coren’s last sentence hadn’t been mere polite formality.
He only hoped that decision would hold longer than he expected.