The five Calamities took their place at the podium. Before them, the hall had filled with 195 first-year cadets, servants, instructors, and the room was alive with the quiet weight of gathered expectation.

The eyes found him first, most of them, and the murmurs followed. He was getting attention, which was what he’d wanted. Not like this, though. From the podium, he could see Emerald clearly. The cadet who had started all of it.

She looked timid. Harmless. The kind of person the allegations would stick to easily, and they had. But it left Leomaris with a question he couldn’t dismiss: if she hated him so much, why not work from the shadows? A bold move like this meant only one thing. She wasn’t alone.

’I will admit, this complicates things for me. If anything happens to her, I will be the first person everyone suspects... hm, she really thought this through.’

Soon enough, the hall fell silent, and Leomaris lifted his gaze as the air parted to make way for a single figure.

She approached the podium with grace, deliberate in every step, imperious in her bearing.

Power, strength, dominance, and confidence were woven into her presence so completely that they had ceased to be qualities and become simply what she was. Nothing like the garish spectacle of lesser nobles. Something closer to absolute authority, worn without effort.

Alicia Silverbird

A fourth-year Sorcerer, one whose strength, strategy, and prowess had shaped the tides of battle, whose intellect had been beyond question since her very first year. She had never lost her position as Ace. Not once, across four years.

Now she ruled Helios Imperial Academy. One of the strongest factions at her back, capable of challenging even the final-year students. That was simply what she was.

Her peaked cap and overcoat were white, a deliberate contrast to the black worn by Leomaris and his companions.

The coat itself was embroidered with golden sigils of dominion, catching the chandelier’s soft glow as she moved. Her fabric did not billow. It commanded the air around it, settling only where she willed.

She came to a halt at the centre of the podium without apparent effort.

A moment passed, she did nothing, said nothing. Then her cool violet eyes, sharpened to the precision of a blade, passed over the cadets like the weight of final judgment.

She was measuring them, assessing each one in turn. Were the steels before her worth forging? Or would they shatter the moment pressure found them?

Then, finally, she spoke:

"Aspiring soldiers, cunning strategists, worshipped heroes, hardened war veterans, fearless citadel raiders, heirs of ancient lineages, bearers of talent and fate..."

Her voice moved through the hall like something with weight, each syllable laced with unshakable authority.

"Today marks the start of your journey. Today marks you as cadets of Helios Imperial Academy. From this moment onwards, your status and reputation beyond these walls..."

The silence came without warning, pressing against every person in the room.

"...Mean nothing. You are shaped by what this academy makes of you. Remember that."

The murmurs of uneasy cadets moved through the room like a current. Leomaris flinched. He knew where most of it was aimed and couldn’t shake the feeling that Alicia’s attention had found him too.

He knew damn well what it meant to be a cadet. This was where most legends were made, even the current king, Alastair II, had to prove himself at this academy by winning the Revolutionary War II before being recognised as a legitimate king. If a royal was a nobody within these walls, then as a Duke’s son, he was below nothing.

’These people don’t see it that way, though. They’re convinced I threatened Emerald. I’ll need to clear up this misunderstanding soon enough.’

Alicia continued. "Most of you have been pampered your entire lives. Spoon-fed. Cradled in praise. Catered to without reason."

Her voice didn’t soften. "Others had it worse, had to pull themselves through hell just to stand where you’re standing now. But here, we don’t deal in empty destinies."

"Carve your path with your own hands. Bleed through it and give it meaning. Only then will you be praised and rewarded. Abandon whatever comfort you once knew. Your shallow hometown’s prayers won’t save you, and neither will your bloodline."

She paused. The silence stretched longer than it needed to, and quite deliberately so.

"I’ve seen many cadets’ destinies shatter within these walls. Some die in portals, others are swallowed by citadels, and many never make it far enough to even step onto a battlefield... but you still have a chance to avoid that fate. Heed my words. Sometimes strength won’t save you, only an open mind will."

The light fell across her face and found nothing to soften, nothing to reveal.

"From now on, you will face a version of this world you have yet to see; a cruel, harsh, and unfair reality that may force you to question your choices.

It is never too late to quit. You can still join a university, find a stable job, or go to the towers and live as a mercenary."

She paused, watching the cold stares. After a second, she turned to the five Calamities behind her, the wind swaying her long, dark hair.

Everyone expected a few words concerning the Calamities, but her attention was fixed on the artifact behind them.

A staff member hurried over, made a few adjustments, and the lights went out. The spotlight held on the stage. Above it, everything wavered, space itself yielding, and in its place a projection took shape.

The projection swept across the academy grounds, grand libraries that held ancient knowledge, sparring arenas, towering artifact chambers, dormitories, strategic walls, and more beyond even that.

The spotlight shifted to an approaching instructor. In Alicia’s wake, nothing. She had vanished from the podium completely. As though she had never been there.

The library was the only thing on Leomaris’s mind. Solve allowed him to work through physical and psychological abilities like puzzles and claim full control once they were figured out.

That required understanding them; their core, how they worked, what triggered them. Even his body had to resonate with physical abilities to some degree. There was no better place for such knowledge than the library.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Soon enough the lights came back on, and the projection disappeared without a trace. The instructor approached the crowd, his expression cheerful, and with a graceful motion, he began introducing the Calamities.

When his name was called, the booing came immediately. Leomaris smiled. ’Back in my world, they’d have booed and thrown things. These people are remarkably generous.’

The instructor’s smile said enough, he was enjoying this, plainly.

"Now," he said, composing himself with some effort, "in accordance with tradition, we will welcome the Ace among the Calamities and the top-ranking cadet among the first years."

Alfred took his place at the podium with the ease of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.

When he spoke, Leomaris heard little beyond "me, me, and me," and the one time Alfred spared a thought for anyone else, it was to throw shade at Leomaris and Lucius over what had passed between them minutes ago.

Leomaris exhaled deeply.

’Alfred may be arrogant, but his abilities are nothing to take lightly. He was the Ace in the novel, after all.’

Pride aside, Leomaris would have allied with Alfred, but his ability made that impossible.

Alfred was a Summoner. A six-headed, twenty-foot spirit dragon at his call, each head carrying its own elemental and irregular magic. That was the problem.

The novel had a sub-arc devoted to it, Morpheus, the dragon, coming within reach of destroying the entire academy.

Powerful, yes.

But power with no leash was its own kind of liability, and Morpheus was more arrogant than Alfred himself, just as willing to defy orders as follow them. That defiance might level the academy in the future. It was why Leomaris couldn’t afford Alfred as an ally.

Warner, though, was the one he was after. Leomaris glanced toward him, the towering young man beside him, and held his tongue.

Warner’s summon, Archo, a fallen beast, carried significant setbacks and limitations. A bad bargain, at first glance. But Warner would shape it into something refined eventually.

Until then, Leomaris had no intention of being more than a good friend. Anything closer and Warner would only weigh him down.

Alfred wrapped up to cheerings that struck Leomaris as entirely unearned.

It irritated him, and not without reason, every word Alfred had spoken had quietly paved the way for his faction, and the crowd had obliged without a second thought. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

A Calamity without a faction was as useless as a blunt sword. Studies began tomorrow, and with them, the clock. The Fall of the Great Citadel arc was only months away. He needed to be ready. And more pressingly than any of it, his father would arrive within the week.

Godfrey couldn’t hear any of this, not yet, not like this. And he still needed a faction, a strong one. Which meant less than a week to clear his name. The thought alone unsettled him.

He had no idea what was coming.