"May I ask what Headmaster Sorgana called me here for?"
Linen asked. The Artificer's Exam had ended long ago, and both the academy and the imperial palace had already bestowed their commendations. It seemed unnecessary for Headmaster Sorgana herself to call him here again.
"Hehe, it's nothing important. I'm just here to congratulate you, Linen."
Sorgana rested her elbow on the desk, supporting her chin, her glasses reflecting a shrewd white glare.
"Congratulations on drawing the hidden grand prize from the Selection Trial and proving your strength. As a reward, you can claim an advanced prize equivalent to this Spring Cup's ultimate reward ahead of time~"
So, it's because of that?
Indeed, he'd heard from others that Headmaster Sorgana was personally handling this year's Spring Cup, so her action wasn't too surprising.
The Spring Cup's ultimate reward was always kept secret before it was revealed, and this year was no exception. Linen couldn't help but feel a bit curious about what kind of prize this rumored Eight-Ring Arcana Master with a vast collection had personally selected.
Just as he was about to thank her, Sorgana raised her hand. A file flew out from the mountainous stack of documents, floating neatly into her palm.
"Of course, due to confidentiality rules for the Spring Cup, before accepting your prize, you'll need to sign this confidentiality agreement. Reasonable, right?"
The request sounded perfectly reasonable. Linen took the document and glanced down, unconsciously reading the title aloud:
"Student Voluntary Waiver of Spring Cup Victory Declaration?"
The atmosphere in the office instantly turned awkward and silent.
Linen lifted his head. Sorgana was still posing stylishly, but sweat had started beading on her forehead, and her hand trembled slightly.
"Headmaster?" Linen smiled slightly, calling softly.
"Waaah! Why did you actually read it so carefully!"
Sorgana immediately broke character, yanking fiercely at her twin braids.
"Normally, when the headmaster tells you to sign something, you'd sign it without hesitation, even if it's a slave contract!"
Listening to Sorgana's miserable wail, Linen felt speechless.
Honestly, if it truly were a slave contract, he'd sign without a second thought. Then Empress Mother would directly storm into the academy to have a little chat with the headmaster, and he'd probably be laughing just as merrily as Quinn.
As for this particular document, Linen had already vaguely guessed the reason behind Sorgana's move. After all, the Spring Cup hadn't even officially started yet, but if the victor had already emerged, there would be no need to hold the event. Naturally, Sorgana wouldn't allow that to happen.
However, Sorgana's attempt to trick him into signing left Linen a little unhappy.
A sudden thought occurred to him. Putting down the file, he turned to leave.
"Sorry, Headmaster. Winning the Spring Cup is very important to me—I can't simply give it up."
"Wait! Wait a minute, Linen!"
A flash of silver spatial teleportation shone. Sorgana, appearing in her childlike form, suddenly clung desperately to Linen's leg.
"Please, I'm begging you! It took me so much effort to snatch the hosting rights from those stubborn old fools! If this becomes a fiasco, I'll definitely be impeached at the next Board Meeting! Then I'll lose all public-fund vaca—I mean, research funding! It's worse than taking an Arcana Master's life! Linen, do you want to kill your own headmaster?"
It was actually for such a reason?
Linen was genuinely stunned.
He tried shaking his leg, but Sorgana, clinging to him like sticky candy, refused to budge.
He had assumed her motive was about ensuring the Spring Cup's smooth execution, never expecting it to be something so mundane.
Indeed, novels and games were full of lies. Fictional great Arcana Masters meticulously armed themselves with wit and resources for negotiations, carefully maneuvering from start to finish—but real Arcana Masters first conned their students into signing unfair agreements and then shamelessly threw tantrums when exposed.
Luckily, Linen had heard palace rumors: Sorgana had triggered a "Time Reversal" miracle while exploring ancient ruins. Although her memories and skills remained at the level of a formidable Eight-Ring Arcana Master, both her mind and body had regressed to a child's.
If Elena—who deeply admired Sorgana—were to see this scene, her scholarly Dao-heart might shatter into pieces.
Seeing the headmaster so stubbornly clinging on, Linen had no choice but to speak up: "Headmaster, of course I understand this Spring Cup is very important to you. It's also important to me. It's not impossible for me to sign this waiver, it's just…"
Sorgana instantly had an epiphany:
"You want benefits from me? You're even fleecing your own headmaster?"
Linen shook his head.
"How can this be called fleecing? Headmaster is my dear friend's idol, a pillar of the empire, the court Arcana Master my mother mentions most frequently, a majestic Eight-Ring master of Space Arcana—using such crude words like 'fleecing' is an insult to your great status. But letting a junior like myself suffer a loss for no reason—surely, someone as noble as you would never do such a thing, right?"
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Sorgana was thoroughly bewildered by Linen's circling words.
"You have to pay extra." Linen succinctly summarized.
"Th—that, I need to consider..." Sorgana immediately fell into an internal struggle.
The Spring Cup's prizes were carefully selected from her treasured collection.
Those treasures in her vault were practically her soulmates.
What appeared as a grand event to outsiders was, in Sorgana's eyes, nothing short of a NTR-fest.
And because Linen had passed the final trial, she was already forced to hand over double prizes. Now he wanted three?
This truly was more painful than killing her outright.
Though, admittedly, Sorgana already felt immense suffering.
If it were any other student who passed the final trial, she could have intimidated or bribed them into signing the agreement, resolving it neatly with everyone satisfied.
However, Linen was the son of Empress Tivira, the Bloodstained Red Dragon.
If he were to run crying to Tivira, tattling about her tricks—even if she wasn't impeached, she wouldn't remain headmaster for long.
Though many empire officials believed Tivira didn't particularly care for this son, no one dared test whether she really wouldn't mind if her son was slighted.
Was there really no other way out of this?
Just as Sorgana sank into despair, Linen sighed again:
"Well then, let's loosen the terms just a bit more. How about giving the rightful winner a small privilege—like, say, a true map of the Spring Cup trials?"
At this request, Sorgana instantly fell silent.
The request itself wasn't exactly unreasonable—but then again, it was totally unreasonable.
Linen had directly given up the claim to victory, asking only for a mere map. Viewed from this angle, she'd clearly gotten off easy.
But the problem was, the entire theme of this Spring Cup was randomness itself—letting students constantly experience the thrill and challenge of the unknown.
If Linen got the map, he'd just target the low-risk, high-reward areas, turning the whole event into his personal playground.
Sorgana's last shred of conscience refused to allow it.
Right at this moment, Linen murmured to himself thoughtfully, "I heard Headmaster's collection is among the best in the empire. I wonder if there's an artifact suited to someone at my current stage..."
"Hey! Wait! Our negotiations aren't finished yet—why are you already picking things out!?"
Sorgana instantly changed color.
"Just a general direction, Headmaster," Linen said with longing. "I promise I'll treat them well. A friend who's an Artificer once told me noble artifacts must be lovingly cared for—I'll take good care of them every day, carefully polish them, and even bathing together isn't out of the—"
"Waaahhh, stop, stop! I give up, I'll give you the map, okay?!"
Trembling, Sorgana pulled a map from her storage ring and handed it to Linen.
"This is the full trial map of the Spring Cup. The red areas are tough challenges with low rewards, the green ones are the opposite—high reward zones. Satisfied?"
Linen just smiled pleasantly and smoothly took the map from Sorgana. With this map in hand, his new backstabbing schemes would be a lot easier.
"Pleasure doing business."
With that, he turned and departed.
Left behind was a disheveled Sorgana, hair and clothes rumpled, glasses crooked, collapsed on the floor for quite some time. Only after confirming Linen had been teleported safely back to his dorm did she slowly pick herself up.
Contrary to Linen's imagination, she didn't cry or fuss about losing the map—oh no, poor me! Instead, she straightened her clothing and let out a gloomy chuckle:
"You naturally wicked little Norton dragon-spawn—don't think you can make an Eight-Ring Arcana Master compromise that easily. To think you dared threaten your headmaster!"
Sorgana floated lazily back into her headmaster's seat, crossing her short legs, triumphantly waving her bare little feet.
"He'll never suspect that the markers I told him are actually reversed—the red areas are the high rewards, and green zones will only yield rewards like passing an impossible thesis defense."
"You dare threaten me? I'll use this Spring Cup to teach you a proper lesson!"
...
The next morning, Eden Academy's Spring Cup officially opened.
Early on, contestants had already gathered at the plaza used for the previous Artificer's Exam. A new teleportation portal was set up, ready to randomly scatter entrants across the Spring Cup's trial grounds.
Around the plaza, seats were packed with spectating students, and magical screens floated overhead, projecting live scenes from within the trial area.
The Spring Cup, already famed as history's most chaotic event, stirred up a frenzy of excitement and gossip:
"So exciting! I heard this Spring Cup's trials already caused a huge upset—Golden Court's Alus failed, even though he's a Two-Ring Arcana Mage nearing graduation-level strength!"
"No way! You're making stuff up! I heard there's a freshman who actually defeated the final guardian!"
"Not making it up—I was there in person."
"I can confirm. I was the potted plant at the scene!"
"Stop interrupting! From what I know, the one who defeated Alus seems to be a princess from the royal family."
"A royal princess? Princess Quinn reached Six Rings ages ago; she wouldn't bother with academy-level events. Then it has to be..."
As time passed, contestants who'd cleared the preliminary trials gathered beneath their respective academy banners.
To better manage students and foster rivalry, Eden Academy was divided internally into four separate courts. The most famous was Golden Court, known for accepting only students with pure Arcana Mage bloodlines. Its eternal rival was Star Court, more inclusive of noble-born students. Then there was the Knight Court, caught awkwardly between the two giants and shaking daily in anxiety.
Notably, Knight Court was Eden Academy's sole court that didn't admit Arcana Mages. Its students were all knight candidates tasked with protecting mages—since mages were notoriously fragile in solo combat, the academy specially established this court to foster bonds between knights and mages early on, thus enhancing imperial combat power.
It was worth mentioning that Knight Court's students were all beautiful, golden-haired armored girls. Although mostly filling background roles in events, many spectators actually came specifically for these young ladies...
And then there was Linen's group, standing beneath the last, most conspicuous banner.
"Shia, are you scouting out opponents? The match is about to start," Elena softly reminded Hysteria, who was gazing enviously at other courts' banners.
"Huh? No way! Princess Hysteria is invincible! Elena, just stick with me!"
Hysteria proudly placed hands on hips—but her expression immediately collapsed again.
"But seriously, why do the other courts have awesome names like Golden or Star, but ours ended up with that!?"
As she spoke, Hysteria pointed upwards at their banner fluttering conspicuously in the wind. On it, two large characters read boldly: Newbie.
The largest and final court of Eden Academy was the "Newbie Court," an utter hodgepodge of foreign exchange students, commoners, and various misfits. Notably, Linen himself had been courted by all four academies during the entrance ceremony but voluntarily chose Newbie Court—a choice that had upset the other academies considerably at the time.
"Stop wasting time," Linen interrupted coolly, hearing their complaints. "The event's starting. I'll enter the teleportation portal first. See you inside."
With that, Linen was the first to step through the portal.
Elena and Hysteria quickly followed—but due to being placed in separate groups, the trio didn't appear together after teleportation.
...
Meanwhile, watching Linen step onto the field from the spectator's room, Sorgana couldn't help but chuckle darkly.
"What's amusing you, Headmaster?" a nearby female teacher asked curiously.
"Hehe... I just thought of something delightful."
Sorgana coughed lightly, regaining her composure.
Seeing that arrogant brat who dared threaten her about to taste humiliation really put her in a good mood!
The competition arena was a mist-shrouded valley, an ancient castle vaguely visible at its center.
The moment they entered, many students were instantly startled. Veteran students and elites swiftly adjusted to the atmosphere.
But three individuals were entirely calm.
"Elena, did you bring it?"
"I can't believe that guy actually handed us the one good thing he had," Hysteria muttered, scratching her head and looking over at Elena.
"Mhm, of course," Elena replied, pulling out the map Linen had given her. "Red marks high reward, green indicates high risk—Linen specifically emphasized this."
Elena's cheeks flushed faintly.
Entering the competition armed with a map felt a little like cheating.
But she couldn't help it. Facing a serious Linen… she simply couldn't refuse.