"No."
That one single syllable hung over the entire hall like a blade. Tristan’s heart dropped straight into his stomach, appalled at what he just heard. The silence in the room was so deafening Tristan was certain he could hear his heartbeat.
Before all hell could break loose in Tristan’s mind, Liam calmly picked up his wine glass.
"The Verneuil name is not a crutch," Devil’s Bane continued, his heavy voice echoing off the stone walls. "If my youngest son wishes to attend Flamecrest Academy, he will earn his seat through the general entrance exams, exactly as Diana and his brother did before him. We do not use recommendations."
Thank God, he thought, wiping a bead of sweat from his collar. Inwardly, he was violently cursing the developers of Flamecrest Legacy. Hundreds of hours logged, and the game had never explicitly mentioned that the Verneuil family had a strict ’no recommendations’ tradition.
At the far end of the table, Omar threw his head back and laughed. It was a booming, rich sound that broke the suffocating tension in the room.
"Still clinging to the old ways, Devil’s Bane?" the Suna clan head chuckled, slicing into his roasted meat. "I admire the stubbornness, but it seems an unnecessary risk. Why subject your kids to unnecessary torture when a simple letter would suffice? Not to mention the kid doesn’t even have a core."
The banquet hall held its collective breath. A few of the branch family elders sitting further down the table exchanged venomous, knowing smirks. To them, Tristan was a cripple. Putting him in the entrance exams was a death sentence.
Liam didn’t even blink. He took a slow sip of his iced wine, his terrifying gaze remaining fixed on Omar.
"Is he?" Liam asked quietly.
Tristan felt the subtle shift in the room’s attention. Even he knew a cue when he heard one.
Reaching inward, Tristan gently tapped into his fragile, newly formed core. It was pitifully saturated, but still there. He channeled a tiny thread of that raw energy down his arm and lightly tapped his index finger against the rim of his crystal water goblet.
"Ping"
A faint, hum of essence rippled outward. The crystal glowed for a brief, unmistakable second. It wasn’t anything fancy per say, but it was still undeniable proof.
Tristan Verneuil was Awakened.
The reaction was instantaneous. Diana’s golden eyes widened in genuine shock, her perfectly composed mask slipping for a fraction of a second as she stared at her brother. Further down the table, the smirks on the branch elders’ faces vanished, replaced by pale, horrifying realization. If the mundane cripple had Awakened in the dungeon, it suddenly explained exactly how Caelan had been carried into the medical wing screaming about his eyes.
Omar Suna’s eyebrows rose. He looked from the glowing glass to Tristan, his predatory smile returning, sharper than before.
"Well, well," Omar mused, raising his glass toward Tristan. "It seems congratulations are in order. A late bloomer. Can’t say I’ve heard of that before."
Because there were so few Masters and Ascendants in the world, and even fewer willing to stake their reputation on a student, recommendation letters were incredibly rare. Still, they accounted for roughly half the incoming Academy class. The other half was made up of everyone else: anyone with sufficient funds and an Awakened core could attempt the general exams.
The announcement that the youngest Verneuil was actually going to attempt the exams sent an immediate ripple of shock through the Suna children sitting across the table.
The younger Suna boy leaned forward, looking at Tristan with a mixture of pity and morbid fascination.
"Are you really going to take the general exam?" the boy whispered, making sure his father wasn’t listening. "I heard the formats are completely psychotic. They change it every single year so nobody can prepare."
"My tutor told me people still have nightmares about the exam from three years ago," another Suna sibling chimed in, her eyes wide. "They supposedly dropped the candidates into a massive pit filled entirely with monsters. If you climbed out alive, you passed."
"That’s nothing," the boy argued. "Two years ago they handcuffed people together and forced them to fight with nothing but sticks!"
Tristan put on a perfectly practiced grimace for the kids, pretending to look suitably terrified by the rumors.
Although the second rumour actually scared him a bit.
"Don’t listen to them," a calm voice interrupted.
Tristan turned to his left. Diana was swirling the iced northern wine in her glass, her golden eyes fixed on the table, still processing his newly Awakened status. As a certified prodigy who easily passed the entrance exam, her words held weight.
"The rumors are always exaggerated by the dropouts," She said quietly, taking a sip. "The exam format itself doesn’t actually matter. It’s just a veil to panic the weak-minded. Just keep your wits about you, and only think of yourself. That’s the only way you pass."
Tristan nodded gratefully. "Thanks, Diana. I’ll keep that in mind."
"Do," she replied dryly, finally looking at him. "If you die before the first semester, I’ll have to attend your funeral instead of studying for my finals, and I really don’t have the time."
Tristan chuckled, turning his attention back to his plate. He chewed a piece of roasted meat, enjoying the rich flavors this world had to offer.
Diana was right, the entrance exams were designed to break people both mentally and physically. But while the other candidates would be walking in completely blind, terrified of what sadistic trial the Academy had cooked up for this year, Tristan wasn’t worried in the slightest.
He knew all the mechanics and routes for the upcoming exam afterall.
He took a slow sip of his wine, hiding a very dangerous smile behind the crystal rim. He was already crafting a plan to break it.