The official announcement of the frontier trial results spread through the Imperial Gifted Academy like a high-yield plasma explosion. Within minutes, every major communication channel across the central star domain was flooded with frantic, disbelieving discussions.
"Rhaevia Rythundeir?" a senior cadet stammered, staring at his glowing Optical Brain in utter disbelief. "The E-rank Guide daughter of the Rythundeir Ducal House?"
His companion shook his head violently, tapping his HoloScreen to refresh the feed. "How did she possibly manage to reach first place on the imperial leaderboard? She was supposed to be the absolute weakest freshman in this entire incoming class!"
The shocking news sent massive ripple effects through the student body, reaching senior students, elite military clans, and faculty members alike.
Inside the academy’s central command center, dozens of veteran combat instructors gathered around the enormous holographic leaderboard floating above the floor.
Rhaevia’s name remained firmly anchored at the absolute top, glowing in brilliant golden text. Her survival points continued updating incrementally as the orbital military systems synchronized the raw battlefield telemetry from Planet V-17.
A chief tactical instructor stared at the glowing numbers, his arms crossed tightly over his uniform.
"This isn’t a temporary calculation error or a glitch in the central database," he muttered, adjusting his glasses.
Another teacher shook his head slowly, carefully examining the underlying system ledger. "Her tactical points are entirely legitimate, verified by independent orbital satellites."
"Then how on earth did an E-rank Guide accomplish all of this alone?" a third instructor demanded, looking around the room for answers.
Nobody had a logical explanation to offer the group.
Unable to solve the mystery through pure data alone, the faculty immediately began reviewing every single frame of available combat footage recorded by planetary surveillance drones.
They watched the high-definition playback of Rhaevia ruthlessly executing a mutated Zerg with a piece of scrap metal. They watched her effortlessly manipulate the canyon terrain to engineer a massive landslide.
They watched her single-handedly rescue six trapped cadets from a narrow ravine. They watched her coolly organize the chaotic camp into a functioning defensive unit during the midnight Zerg assault.
The instructors replayed the feeds over and over. They watched them again, analyzing every microsecond of footage. And then they watched them again.
One senior combat instructor finally stepped closer to the holographic display, zooming in on her physical frame.
"Look closely at her footwork and weight distribution," he instructed, pointing at the screen.
The footage slowed down to microsecond intervals. Rhaevia stepped cleanly around the mutated Zerg’s sweeping strike, using the beast’s own massive momentum against it. She drove the sharp metal blade directly beneath its armored jaw, ending the threat instantly.
The lead instructor’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits.
"That fluid, lethal efficiency is definitely not an ordinary academy combat technique," he stated gravely.
Another teacher nodded in agreement, leaning forward to inspect the trajectory. "She doesn’t waste a single millimeter of movement," he noted.
"She doesn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second," a third added, mesmerized by her execution.
"She identifies structural and biological weak points almost instantaneously," the lead instructor concluded. "She fights exactly like a veteran commander who has experienced decades of actual battlefield combat."
The surrounding instructors exchanged uncertain, deeply troubled glances. A secret, highly specialized combat technique was the only logical explanation that made sense to their analytical minds.
They reasoned that she must have received classified military training from the Rythundeir Ducal House in secret. They assumed her powerful family had secretly taught her an advanced martial art to compensate for her weak rank.
Not a single person in the room considered the far more extraordinary possibility. Nobody suspected that the girl they had endlessly labeled as an E-rank Guide was actually a transmigrated general whose soul possessed something far beyond standard academy training.
Meanwhile, inside the temporary military camp on Planet V-17, Rhaevia was completely unaware of the academy’s frantic investigation. She stood inside a clean, modular medical examination area while technicians prepared routine post-trial diagnostic scans.
"Please place your right hand flat on the diagnostic platform, Cadet," a technician instructed politely, gesturing toward a glowing metal pedestal.
Rhaevia calmly followed the instruction, placing her palm onto the cold surface without hesitation.
The technician activated the diagnostic machine, tapping a sequence on his console. A thin, blue-white scanning beam emerged from the top array, sweeping down toward her palm.
For one second, the light touched her skin, and nothing happened. Then, her dormant mental energy reacted instinctively.
BZZZT!
The entire diagnostic machine violently flickered, emitting a harsh static hum. The primary holographic screen distorted into jagged lines of visual noise.
The technician’s relaxed expression instantly changed to pure shock. "What is happening?" he stammered, frantically hitting the reset controls.
Bright red warning symbols suddenly flooded every monitor in the room.
[ERROR: CRITICAL SYSTEM OVERLOAD.]
[UNKNOWN MENTAL ENERGY INTERFERENCE DETECTED.]
The scanning beam abruptly intensified, flaring with an overwhelming crimson light that blinded the technicians. A second later, with a sharp pop of fried circuits, the entire diagnostic system went completely black.
Rhaevia slowly lowered her hand, her expression remaining perfectly unbothered as she wiped a tiny speck of dust from her cuff.
The technician stared blankly at the dead console, his hands trembling in complete silence. Nobody in the room dared to speak a word.
Then, a single, glowing red warning text materialized across the emergency backup display:
[DIAGNOSTIC FAILURE - SUBJECT MENTAL CAPACITY CANNOT BE ANALYZED.]
The chief technician swallowed hard, backing away from the smoking pedestal as if it were a unexploded ordnance. He looked at Rhaevia, then back at the completely fried diagnostic unit that had been designed to process S-rank military officers without a glitch.
"Step away from the platform, Cadet," the technician managed to choke out, his voice shaking visibly. "We... we need to report this system failure to the bridge immediately."
"It seems your equipment is slightly outdated," Rhaevia remarked softly, her voice entirely flat as she turned toward the exit.
Before she could take a step toward the heavy sliding doors, the medical bay’s override chime sounded sharply.
The door slid open, revealing Major General Raevor Veyr standing in the frame, flanked by two armed adjutants. His dark eyes immediately locked onto Rhaevia, ignoring the faint trail of smoke rising from the diagnostic pedestal behind her.
"Report," Raevor ordered, his deep voice instantly cutting through the lingering tension in the room.
The chief technician scrambled forward, dropping into a deep bow. "Major General! The diagnostic scanner suffered a catastrophic overload during Cadet Rhaevia’s routine mental evaluation! The energy feedback destroyed the core processing unit!"
Raevor’s gaze shifted from the pale technician to Rhaevia, his stoic expression unreadable. Deep within his mind, his Sentinel instincts hummed with that same unsettling, intoxicating warmth he had felt during their earlier encounter.
"Is that so?" Raevor asked, taking a slow step into the room. "A standard diagnostic platform built for high-level military personnel was destroyed by an E-rank Guide?"
Rhaevia met his intense gaze without flinching. "It appears the machinery was poorly maintained, Major General. I merely placed my hand where I was instructed."
Raevor paused just inches away from her, his imposing height casting a shadow across her slender frame. The air between them grew thick with a subtle, invisible pressure as his mental pathways attempted to align with hers.
"Your file states you are an E-rank," Raevor stated quietly, his eyes searching her face for any sign of deception. "Yet every piece of data from this planet tells a different story."
"Then perhaps the military’s file system is as faulty as its diagnostic scanners," Rhaevia replied smoothly, offering him a faint, unbothered smile.
A faint flicker of intrigue passed through Raevor’s dark eyes. In all his years commanding fleets, no cadet, let alone a young noble daughter, had ever dared to speak to him with such icy composure.
"We will conduct a full neural evaluation under controlled conditions once we reach the primary star sector," Raevor declared, stepping aside to clear the doorway. "Until then, Cadet Rythundeir, you are restricted to the primary cadet quarters."
"Understood, Major General," Rhaevia said, bowing her head slightly before brushing past him into the corridor.
Raevor watched her walk away until her figure vanished down the bright hallway. He then turned back to the chief technician, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low whisper.
"Lock this medical bay down," Raevor commanded coldly. "Erase the local diagnostic logs immediately, and ensure no word of this equipment failure leaves this ship. If anyone asks, her scan was completely normal."
The technician nodded frantically. "Understood, General! At once!"
Raevor raised his hand, tapping his private comm-link interface as he walked back toward the bridge. The system prompt flashed silently before his eyes once more:
[Potentially Compatible 3S Guide Detected.]
Whatever secret this E-rank girl was hiding, Raevor was determined to uncover it himself, before her enemies in the capital realized what she had truly become.