Aether stepped forward slowly.
His pace was calm.
Neither hurried nor nervous.
The closer he got…
the clearer the Resonance Crystal became.
It stood nearly three meters tall.
The transparent crystal emitted a soft blue glow from within.
Surrounding it…
dozens of golden magic circles rotated slowly.
Every rune etched into its surface…
felt ancient.
As though they had witnessed thousands of people come and go.
Behind the crystal…
Serena Valen stood with her arms crossed.
Her eyes followed every step Aether took.
“Place your right hand on it.”
Aether nodded.
“Okay.”
He raised his right hand.
Slowly…
his palm touched the surface of the crystal.
…
Silence.
Nothing happened.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Several candidates began exchanging glances.
“Strange…”
“Usually the results appear immediately.”
Serena frowned slightly.
Her eyes remained fixed on the crystal.
Then…
the surface of the Resonance Crystal began to glow.
The soft blue light…
suddenly turned brilliant white.
The golden runes surrounding it began spinning faster.
WHUUUMMM—
The entire field was instantly flooded with light.
Above the crystal…
a transparent panel appeared.
However…
instead of displaying statistics…
it showed a series of words that most of the candidates had never seen before.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imperial Archive System
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Searching Identity…
…
Scanning Soul Signature…
Scanning Mana Signature…
Scanning Vestige Signature…
…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several evaluators exchanged glances.
One of the staff members whispered,
“…Imperial Archive?”
“Doesn’t that only appear…”
“…when someone’s identity has already been recorded?”
Serena remained silent.
Her expression was beginning to change.
Then, several seconds later…
the glowing panel changed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Match Found.
Archive Identity Located.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
Then…
another line slowly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imperial Cadet Archive Number
000001
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
Silence.
Absolute silence.
A senior evaluator unconsciously widened his eyes.
“…Impossible.”
The administrator who had recorded Aether’s information earlier immediately stood up.
“W-Wait…”
“That number…”
One of the Imperial officers swallowed hard.
“…ICAN…”
“…000001?”
Even Serena, who had remained composed until now…
slowly lowered her arms.
Her eyes were locked onto the glowing panel.
“The first archive number…”
she murmured.
“How is that possible…?”
Before anyone could say another word…
the panel changed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Loading Archive…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
…
…
Then…
a name appeared.
Slowly.
Filling the entire panel.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LUCIENT VON ARDENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
…
…
It was as though the entire world had stopped moving.
The wind seemed to disappear.
No one spoke.
The name…
was too famous.
Too great.
Even the thousands of candidates who had never understood the significance of ICAN 000001…
recognized it immediately.
“L-Lucient…?”
“The first Supreme General…”
“Impossible…”
“That’s…”
“That’s the name of a legendary hero from a thousand years ago…”
Some candidates even thought they had read it incorrectly.
One evaluator hurriedly rubbed his eyes.
But…
the name remained.
It hadn’t changed at all.
Then the old archive data began loading.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority
• Authority of Magic
Mastery:
Infinite Magic
(Final Stage)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority
• Authority of Destruction
Mastery:
Emperor of Destruction
(Final Stage)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Class
Duality
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Capacity
∞
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Quality
Z
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vestige Resonance
Z
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
…
…
The entire field froze.
Nobody could speak.
Even several senior evaluators appeared to have lost their words.
“Infinity…”
“…Mana Capacity: Infinity?”
“Mana Quality…”
“…Z?”
“Vestige Resonance…”
“…Z?”
“That’s…”
“Those aren’t human statistics!”
One instructor unconsciously whispered,
“A legend…”
“…really was a legend.”
Serena continued staring at the panel without blinking.
Her chest rose and fell slowly.
For the first time in years as an evaluator…
she felt something she had never experienced before.
Confusion.
Because the person standing before the crystal…
was clearly not Lucient Von Ardent.
And yet…
the Imperial Archive System…
should not have been capable of misidentifying a Soul Signature.
Several seconds passed.
Then…
the glowing panel changed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reading Current State…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority Detected…
…
Authority of Creation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Class
Unique
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Capacity
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Quality
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vestige Resonance
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mastery
Master
Middle Stage
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The silence turned into confusion.
“Master Stage?”
“He’s only just entered the academy?”
“That’s very impressive…”
“Authority of Creation?”
“A new Authority?”
Before anyone could process the information…
the entire display suddenly flickered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Comparing Archive…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive
Lucient Von Ardent
↓
Current
Aether
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Class
Duality (Unique + Mage)
↓
Current
Single Unique Class
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Authority
Magic
Destruction
↓
Current Authority
Creation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Mana Capacity
∞
↓
Current
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Mana Quality
Z
↓
Current
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Resonance
Z
↓
Current
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
…
Suddenly…
the crystal’s light turned red.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Conflict Detected.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHIIIIIN—
A high-pitched sound began coming from inside the Resonance Crystal.
The golden runes surrounding it spun faster and faster.
Several evaluators immediately stood up.
“What is really happening right now?”
“Is the Archive experiencing a conflict?”
Serena took one step forward.
Her eyes remained fixed on the crystal.
The glowing panel changed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rechecking Soul Signature…
99.999999%
Verified
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rechecking Mana Signature…
99.998%
Verified
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rechecking Vestige Signature…
100%
Verified
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Serena slowly clenched her fists.
“…Impossible.”
“They all match?”
Then why…
were the archive records and the current state…
completely different?
As though answering her unspoken question…
the Imperial Archive System displayed another message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Unable to Synchronize Archive
Attempting Current Profile Reconstruction…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The blue light turned white.
Then…
a new data window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Identity
Aether
Authority
Authority of Creation
Class
Unique
Status
Unregistered Authority
Mana Capacity
S
Mana Quality
S
Vestige Resonance
S
Mastery
Master
Middle Stage
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Special Evaluation Required
Pending Imperial Archive Approval
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aether stared at the display in confusion.
“…Did I…”
“…do something wrong?”
The red light slowly disappeared.
The entire field remained silent.
No one dared to speak.
Even the thousands of candidates who had witnessed everything…
could only stare at one another.
Aether himself looked more confused than anyone else.
He stared at the display for a few moments.
Then turned toward Serena.
“…Um…”
“Is the test over?”
Serena didn’t answer immediately.
Her eyes remained fixed on the Resonance Crystal.
On the two sets of data that had just appeared.
The old archive.
And the new profile.
For several seconds…
no one moved.
Then Serena slowly exhaled.
“…Yes.”
“Your test is complete.”
She raised her right hand.
“Officers.”
Two administrators immediately approached.
“Take the entire Crystal Resonance reading log to the Administrative Division.”
“Seal all data.”
“Not a single line is to be altered.”
“Send copies to the Imperial Archive and the Academy High Council.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
The two administrators saluted.
They quickly carried several memory crystals containing the recorded data toward the administration building.
No explanation.
No discussion.
They simply followed procedure.
Because from the beginning…
every Resonance Crystal reading was recorded and archived.
It was just that…
this time…
the report was considerably thicker than usual.
Serena looked back at Aether.
Her expression had returned to its usual calmness.
“Candidate Number 0713.”
“Return to the line.”
Aether blinked.
“That’s it?”
Serena nodded.
“That’s it.”
“Oh.”
Aether scratched his cheek.
“…I thought I broke the thing.”
Several evaluators who heard him nearly choked.
Broke it?
If that had actually happened…
half the Imperial Administration might be in a panic by now.
Of course…
nobody said that aloud.
Aether returned to the line.
Dozens of eyes followed him as he walked.
Some were filled with curiosity.
Others with admiration.
But most…
were simply confused.
“…Triple S…”
“…Master?”
“New Authority…”
“And earlier…”
“…that name, Lucient…”
Whispers began spreading through the crowd.
No one truly understood what they had just witnessed.
Not even the evaluators had an answer.
Serena raised her voice.
“Enough.”
The single word immediately silenced the field again.
“Whatever just happened…”
“…is none of your concern.”
“Focus on your own evaluations.”
“Next candidate.”
“Number 0714.”
The atmosphere slowly returned to normal.
One candidate after another continued with their evaluation.
As though what had just happened were nothing more than a minor disturbance.
However…
not everyone could forget it so easily.
Inside the Academy’s central administration building…
the memory crystals that had just been delivered began activating.
An automated report slowly compiled itself.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imperial Archive System
Incident Report
Crystal Resonance Archive Conflict
ICAN-000001
Status:
Pending Review
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Copies of the report…
were automatically sent to the Imperial Archive…
the Academy High Council…
and the Imperial Administration.
No one paid it much attention.
To them…
the most likely explanation was simply a highly unusual system malfunction.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Meanwhile…
outside the administration building…
the first-stage selection continued.
And for the thousands of candidates…
their journey at the Galaxium Imperial Military Academy…
had only just begun.
Meanwhile…
in the Southern Area…
where all female candidates were undergoing their evaluations…
the atmosphere had initially been no different.
One candidate after another stepped forward.
They touched the Resonance Crystal.
Their statistics appeared.
Some were greeted with applause.
Some sighed in relief.
Others looked disappointed by their results.
Everything proceeded normally.
Until…
suddenly.
WHUUUMMM—
The Resonance Crystal in the Southern Area began to vibrate.
Its light grew brighter.
A female instructor immediately frowned.
“…What?”
The candidates waiting in line turned toward it.
“Wasn’t the men’s area being evaluated right now?”
“Why is the crystal reacting too?”
The next second…
a glowing panel appeared across the crystal.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imperial Archive System
Emergency Synchronization
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Emergency…?”
The female instructor immediately stood.
“That’s the central system.”
“Then something happened in the Northern Area.”
Before anyone could ask another question…
the panel changed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Profile Reconstruction
Synchronization Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then…
for several seconds…
the profile that had just been processed in the Northern Area was synchronized across every Resonance Crystal in the academy.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
AETHER
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority
Authority of Creation
Class
Unique
Status
Unregistered Authority
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Capacity
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Quality
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vestige Resonance
S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mastery
Master
Middle Stage
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Special Evaluation Required
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
On the right side of the display…
a portrait slowly appeared.
A young man with black hair.
Calm golden eyes.
A handsome face with an expression almost completely free of arrogance.
His gaze was gentle.
And yet, somehow…
he gave off the impression of someone extremely dependable.
“…”
“…”
“…”
The entire Southern Area suddenly fell silent.
One candidate blinked.
“…Uh.”
“Is that…”
“A new candidate?”
Another girl unconsciously covered her mouth.
“He’s…”
“Really handsome.”
“Very.”
“Triple S?”
“Master?”
“He’s only around twenty?”
“Isn’t he some kind of genius?”
“A new Authority?”
“Seriously?”
Several candidates who had been acting indifferent until then…
now stared at the display without blinking.
One noble girl even unconsciously adjusted her hair.
“…If I had known one of the candidates would look like that…”
“…I would’ve fixed my hair earlier.”
Her friend immediately nudged her.
“You don’t even know him.”
“So?”
“There’s nothing wrong with looking.”
“Focus on your exam.”
“No.”
On the other side of the line…
several girls began whispering among themselves.
“Do you think he already has someone?”
“How would I know?”
“If he doesn’t…”
“Hey!”
“Focus on the exam!”
Even so…
their eyes kept drifting back toward the display.
One noble-born candidate murmured,
“…If those statistics are real…”
“…every Division will be fighting over him.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking about.”
“Then what?”
“…I’m curious what kind of person he is.”
Not far away…
Lyra also looked up.
The moment she saw the face displayed above the crystal…
she immediately recognized him.
“…Aether.”
The girl beside her gasped.
“Eh?”
“You know him?”
Lyra nodded.
“Yeah.”
“…We came together.”
That single sentence immediately made several heads turn.
“Seriously?”
“Really?”
“Don’t lie.”
Lyra sighed.
“Why would I lie?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Friend?”
A blonde-haired girl immediately stepped closer.
“Then…”
“…what’s he like?”
Lyra fell silent for a few seconds.
Then she smiled faintly.
“He’s a little strange.”
“…”
“Sometimes he accidentally makes people panic.”
“…”
“But…”
“…he’s a good person.”
For some reason…
saying that made Lyra smile slightly.
Several girls exchanged glances.
“Good person…”
“Handsome…”
“Triple S…”
“New Authority…”
One of them sighed in resignation.
“…We got another rival before the academy even started.”
“Rival?”
“In everything.”
At the front of the line…
the female instructor clapped her hands.
“Back to your evaluations.”
“Central synchronization is complete.”
“Another candidate’s profile has nothing to do with your evaluation.”
Even so…
even after the display disappeared…
whispers about the name Aether could still be heard throughout the Southern Area.
Lyra simply shook her head.
“…We’ve only been separated for a few minutes.”
“…and you’ve already caused another commotion.”
She let out a long sigh.
Then, without realizing it…
she smiled faintly.
“That’s just like you…”
Several minutes later…
the line began moving again.
“Candidate number 0428.”
“Lyra Everhart!”
Lyra stepped forward.
The second Resonance Crystal stood proudly in the center of the field.
Its shape was identical.
Only slightly smaller.
The female instructor stationed there nodded toward her.
“Go ahead.”
Lyra raised her right hand.
Then touched the crystal’s surface.
WHUUUM—
Blue light immediately filled the crystal.
This time…
there was no delay.
No strange message.
The glowing panel appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lyra Everhart
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority
Starshot
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Class
Marksman
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mastery
Expert
Early Stage
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Capacity
A
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Quality
A
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vestige Resonance
A
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Recommended Division
Ranger Division
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several evaluators immediately exchanged glances.
“Starshot…”
“That Authority…”
“…is incredibly rare.”
The instructor read the results again.
Then nodded in satisfaction.
“Authority: Starshot.”
“A direct derivative of Authority of the Star.”
“Its growth potential is extremely high.”
She looked at Lyra.
“You’re already at Expert.”
“For your age…”
“…that’s an excellent achievement.”
Lyra smiled faintly.
“Thank you.”
The instructor looked at the data panel again.
“If you continue developing…”
“…you may one day reach Peak Mastery.”
“Horizon Breaker.”
Several female candidates immediately turned their heads.
They had certainly heard the name before.
The highest Mastery realm for Marksman-class Vestigers.
A realm that only a handful of Vestigers had ever reached throughout history.
The glowing panel slowly disappeared.
“Your result has been recorded.”
“Proceed to the Ranger Area.”
Lyra gave a brief salute.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stepped down from the platform.
Several candidates were still watching her.
Quite a few were already beginning to regard her as one of the strongest candidates of the year.
But…
Lyra was thinking about something else.
The commotion in the Northern Area.
She glanced in that direction.
“…Aether…”
“…I hope you’re okay.”
After Aether left the platform…
Serena was still standing where she was.
Her gaze remained fixed on the Resonance Crystal as it slowly returned to normal.
The red light had disappeared.
The golden runes that had once spun wildly had returned to their original positions.
The crystal once again emitted a soft blue glow.
As though…
nothing had ever happened.
One of the evaluators approached.
“Instructor Serena…”
Serena didn’t answer immediately.
The evaluator looked at the crystal again.
“…Was that really just a system error?”
Serena took a slow breath.
“I also hope it was only a faulty reading.”
An administrator standing nearby immediately opened the archive panel.
“The Imperial Archive System should not perform an identity match like that on a new candidate.”
Another evaluator folded his arms.
“Yet the system detected an almost perfect Soul Signature match.”
“The Mana Signature and Vestige Signature were also confirmed.”
“Then…”
The administrator fell silent.
He stared at the data still displayed on the panel.
“How can his current identity be different?”
No one answered immediately.
The name still shown on the report made the atmosphere strange.
Lucient Von Ardent.
One evaluator finally shook his head.
“Impossible!”
“Lucient Von Ardent disappeared more than a thousand years ago.”
“And the person who just stood before the crystal…”
“…is clearly not him.”
Another evaluator nodded.
“Perhaps the old archive data was damaged.”
“Or there was a problem with the identity-recognition system.”
The administrator opened several older records.
“Well… the Archive can experience identity conflicts.”
“Especially if old data no longer matches a Vestiger’s current condition.”
Serena looked at him.
“How often?”
The administrator answered,
“Rarely.”
“Usually, it only happens when a Vestiger undergoes a major advancement, and the Resonance Crystal immediately updates the Vestiger’s records.”
“However, cases like this aren’t completely impossible, considering the Resonance Crystal is more than a century old.”
He enlarged the report that had just been generated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCHIVE CONFLICT REPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Identity
ICAN-000001
Recorded Identity
Lucient Von Ardent
Current Identity
Aether
Status
Conflict Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Several evaluators looked at the screen again.
“We can be absolutely certain the Resonance Crystal experienced a temporary error.”
“…Because Lucient Von Ardent is far too significant a name to belong to a new G.I.M.A. candidate.”
The administrator nodded.
“Yes. That’s what the current results indicate.”
Serena sighed.
“Then record it as an Archive Identity Conflict.”
“Understood.”
The administrator began filling out the official report.
But before closing it…
he opened Aether’s current profile one more time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CURRENT PROFILE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Identity
Aether
Authority
Authority of Creation
Class
Unique
Status
Unregistered Authority
Mana Capacity
S
Mana Quality
S
Vestige Resonance
S
Mastery
Master — Middle Stage
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Serena read through the entire profile.
“At least his new profile was created successfully.”
“Yes.”
“And his Authority?”
“It hasn’t been recorded in the Imperial Archives.”
The administrator pointed to the status line.
“That’s why it remains Unregistered.”
Serena nodded.
“Leave it to the Unique-Class evaluators to examine later.”
“Understood.”
Nobody discussed the name that had appeared earlier.
At least…
not for the moment.
One evaluator finally spoke.
“What interests me most is the Archive Identity.”
The room grew quiet again.
The administrator stared at the report.
ICAN-000001
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“That number belongs to an old archive record.”
Another evaluator spoke.
“Maybe the old data was corrupted.”
“Maybe.”
“Or perhaps there’s a mismatch in the identity-recognition system.”
“Possibly.”
Serena did not speculate.
She simply said,
“Do not draw any conclusions until the investigation is complete.”
The evaluator nodded.
“Understood.”
There was no reason to create a problem over something they didn’t understand yet.
Especially since…
the Resonance Crystal had already returned to normal.
The administrator opened the reporting protocol.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCHIVE CONFLICT REPORT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Archive Identity
ICAN-000001
Recorded Identity
Lucient Von Ardent
Current Identity
Aether
Status
Synchronization Conflict
Current Profile
Successfully Reconstructed
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The administrator read the report once more.
“All information is complete.”
He pressed a command.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Submitting Report…
Imperial Archive
✓
GIMA High Council
✓
Imperial Administration
✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A few seconds later…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Submission Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The report had been sent.
No alarm sounded.
No soldiers were deployed.
No order was issued to stop the examination.
There was no reason to do any of that.
To the Empire’s administrative system…
this was simply an Archive Conflict requiring further investigation.
The administrator closed the panel.
“Done.”
Serena nodded.
“Then continue the selection.”
“We still have many candidates.”
“Yes.”
The administrator returned to his desk.
The Resonance Crystal lit up again.
The next candidate was called.
“Candidate number 0715.”
A young man stepped forward.
He looked nervous as he stood before the crystal.
The instructor gestured toward it.
“Go ahead.”
The young man took a deep breath.
Then placed his hand against the Resonance Crystal.
WHUUUM—
Blue light immediately appeared.
A new panel emerged.
No conflict.
No error.
No ancient name from the past.
Only the data of another prospective cadet.
Serena turned her eyes away from the panel.
The selection continued.
Meanwhile…
inside the Imperial Archive system, which had been operating for centuries…
a single report had just been stored.
ICAN-000001
Archive Conflict.
Current Profile Reconstructed.
For the evaluators…
the case was temporarily over.
But the report had not truly stopped there.
It had left GIMA.
It was now moving deeper into the Imperial Archives.
Toward a much larger administrative system…
and toward people who might one day ask the question no one at GIMA had been able to answer:
Why did the Empire’s oldest archive recognize a new candidate as Lucient Von Ardent?
IS HE: HIM!?