The journey to the Imperial Capital of Vesperia took three days by a mana-powered carriage, a luxurious, armored vehicle pulled by a pair of massive, heavily armored Obsidian Drakes.
Kaiser spent the entire trip sitting across from Elara Vance. The master assassin maid was acting as his official escort, though Kaiser suspected Isolde had sent her primarily to ensure he didn't try to flee the country.
"You've been staring at me for forty-five minutes, Young Master," Elara stated without looking up from the intricate poison-laced embroidery she was working on. "If you are attempting to divine my measurements through sheer visual willpower, I must inform you that you are calculating the bust size incorrectly."
Kaiser, who had actually been using his [Otaku's Insight] to try and analyze the flow of ambient mana in the carriage, choked on his own saliva. He coughed violently, his carefully maintained, cool demeanor shattering for a second.
"I was not—!" Kaiser wheezed, his face flushing. "I was looking at the mana core powering the carriage!"
Elara finally looked up, her piercing amethyst eyes gleaming with mild amusement behind her wire-rimmed glasses. "Of course. My apologies for the assumption. Though, a word of advice for the Academy: do not stare so intensely at the female students. Many of them possess defensive artifacts that will incinerate your eyeballs for such transgressions."
[Target: Elara Vance. Emotion detected: Amused Teasing.]
[Affection updated: 12% -> 14%.]
Kaiser rolled his eyes, leaning back against the plush velvet seats. "Noted. I'll make sure to only stare at you, Elara."
The maid did not miss a beat. "I charge fifty System Points an hour for ocular harassment, Young Master."
Kaiser blinked. Wait, did she just say System Points? No, she had said 'Silver Pieces'. His gamer-poisoned brain was just misinterpreting audio now.
Before he could respond, the carriage crested a massive hill, and the Imperial Capital came into view. Kaiser's breath caught in his throat.
It was a city of impossible geometry and breathtaking scale. Massive, spired towers carved from white marble and gold pierced the clouds, connected by glowing bridges of hard-light mana. Airships floated lazily in the sky above, while the distant, jagged peaks of the Dragontooth mountains formed a dramatic, imposing backdrop.
At the very center of the city, resting on a floating island of earth and waterfalls, was the Zenith Grand Academy. It looked less like a school and more like a fortress built by the gods themselves.
"Welcome to the meat grinder, Young Master," Elara said softly, folding her embroidery away.
The Academy gates were a scene of absolute, organized chaos.
Ten thousand applicants were gathered in the massive plaza. It was a sea of arrogant nobles in silk and enchanted armor, nervous commoners clutching cheap wooden staves, and terrifying prodigies radiating oppressive auras. Kaiser kept his disguise active—raven-black hair and sapphire eyes—blending into the crowd as just another handsome, reasonably well-off noble.
"Phase One: Written Examination!" a magically amplified voice boomed across the plaza, rattling Kaiser's teeth. "Follow the glowing paths to your designated testing halls. You have three hours. Failure means immediate expulsion from the premises!"
Kaiser joined the herd. The written exam was held in a massive amphitheater. Thousands of desks were arranged in a perfect semi-circle.
As soon as he sat down, the parchment on the desk glowed, and the questions appeared.
Question 1: Detail the theoretical sub-atomic differences between high-tier elemental fire manipulation and demonic hellfire.
Kaiser smirked. The original Kaiser had been a sickly nerd who spent his entire life in the library, and the new Kaiser was a gamer who obsessively memorized lore text. Combine that with [Otaku's Insight], which actively cross-referenced his memories to find the most logically sound answer based on world-building rules, and the exam wasn't a test. It was a speed-typing exercise.
He finished the three-hour exam in forty-five minutes.
Phase Two: Magical Aptitude.
The applicants who hadn't been unceremoniously teleported out of the Academy for failing the written test were herded into an even larger structure—the Hall of Resonance.
In the center of the hall floated a colossal, raw mana crystal the size of a two-story house. It pulsed with a brilliant, shifting light.
"Listen up, fresh meat!" bellowed an instructor, a towering man with the ears of a wolf and arms thicker than tree trunks. "This is the Resonance Crystal! You will place your hand upon the pedestal. It will measure your core density, your elemental affinity, and your maximum output! Anything below D-Rank is an automatic failure! Step up when your name is called!"
Kaiser leaned against a marble pillar, watching the applicants. Most were hovering around D or C rank, causing the crystal to glow with standard colors—red for fire, blue for water, green for wind.
"Oh, look. Another peasant trying to punch above his weight."
Kaiser turned his head. A group of three arrogant-looking noble youths had cornered a shivering, scrawny boy holding a battered grimoire. The leader, a blonde boy with a rapier on his hip, sneered, pushing the scrawny kid to the floor.
"This Academy is for the elite, trash. Not for dirt-scratchers who found a spellbook in a ditch."
Kaiser sighed heavily. The classic 'arrogant young master' trope. It's almost painfully unoriginal.
He had absolutely no intention of intervening. He wasn't a hero; he was a survivor trying to clear a death-game. Getting involved in petty squabbles was bad for the grind.
However, before he could look away, the crowd suddenly parted as the temperature in the hall plummeted dramatically. A thin layer of frost began to crawl across the marble floor.
Walking down the center of the parted crowd was a girl who looked like she had stepped out of a divine painting. She had hair the color of spun moonlight that cascaded down to her waist, and eyes that were a piercing, glacial silver. She wore an elegant, pure white uniform adorned with the crest of the Imperial Royal Family.
[TARGET ACQUIRED: Princess Valeria Vespera (The Frost Empress)]
[Current Affection: 0% (She does not know you exist. She views everyone in this room as insects.)]
[Warning: Target possesses an anomalous SS-Rank Ice Core. Extremely volatile personality disguised as icy indifference.]
Valeria didn't even look at the arrogant blonde noble. She simply kept walking, her path taking her directly through his group.
"H-Hey! Watch where you're—!" The blonde noble started to snap, turning around aggressively.
He froze. Literally.
As Valeria walked past him, a microscopic pulse of silver mana rippled from her form. In an instant, the blonde noble and his two cronies were encased in solid, jagged blocks of absolute-zero ice from the neck down. Their teeth chattered violently, their faces pale with sudden, terrifying realization.
Valeria didn't pause, nor did she acknowledge their existence. She glided up to the Resonance Crystal.
She placed her delicate, gloved hand on the pedestal.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a deafening CRACK echoed through the hall. The massive crystal didn't just glow; it erupted in a blinding, terrifying pillar of silver light that shot through the glass ceiling of the hall. The sheer, overwhelming pressure of her mana forced half the applicants to their knees.
"SS-Rank Core! Affinity: Absolute Ice!" the instructor yelled, his voice cracking, entirely forgetting his tough-guy persona.
Valeria removed her hand, her expression entirely bored. She turned, her glacial silver eyes sweeping over the kneeling crowd of applicants.
For a fraction of a second, her gaze locked onto Kaiser.
He was one of the only people still standing. He was leaning casually against his pillar, using the [Basic Abyssal Breathing Technique] to completely negate the oppressive chill in the air. His dark mana was literally eating the frost that tried to form on his clothes.
Valeria's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. A flicker of something crossed her face—not anger, but a cold, calculating curiosity.
[Target: Valeria Vespera. Emotion detected: Mild Curiosity.]
[Affection updated: 0% -> 2%.]
She broke eye contact and walked away, disappearing into the VIP section of the hall.
"Show-off," Kaiser muttered under his breath.
An hour later, the instructor barked out the name he was waiting for.
"Kaiser Warborn!"
Whispers instantly broke out across the hall.
"Warborn? As in the Blood Iron Duchess?"
"I heard her son was a crippled invalid."
"He looks normal enough, but look at him. He has no aura at all."
Kaiser ignored them, walking calmly to the massive, pulsing crystal. He stepped up to the pedestal, looking at the glowing rune inscribed on the stone.
He had a problem. His core was an E-Rank. It was a high-density, incredibly solid E-Rank, but technically, it was still below the D-Rank minimum for entry. Furthermore, he couldn't reveal his Abyssal mana. The Abyss was deeply associated with the demonic factions. If he blasted dark mana into a holy Imperial crystal, he'd be branded a heretic and executed before Phase Three even started.
"Place your hand on the rune, boy. We don't have all day," the wolf-eared instructor grunted.
"System," Kaiser thought rapidly. "Is there any way to camouflage the nature of the mana output while artificially boosting the reading?"
[Solution found: By activating the passive skill [Alluring Abyss] at 5% capacity, the Host can trick the crystalline sensors. The crystal measures raw energy pressure. The Host's abyssal aura possesses enough gravitational 'weight' to mimic a higher-tier core. However, the visual output will be unpredictable.]
"Let's roll the dice," Kaiser smirked.
He placed his palm flat against the cold rune. He closed his eyes and reached deep into his chest, tapping into the dense, bruised-purple core. He didn't push the mana out; instead, he commanded it to pull. He let a microscopic fraction of his sealed, terrifying true form bleed into the crystal.
The Hall of Resonance went completely, utterly silent.
The crystal didn't glow red, or blue, or even the blinding silver of Princess Valeria.
Instead, the light inside the crystal began to die.
A deep, swirling vortex of absolute blackness manifested in the very center of the massive gem. It looked like a tear in the fabric of reality, a miniature black hole that was actively consuming the ambient light in the room. The temperature didn't drop; the air simply felt heavy, thick, and profoundly ancient.
The instructor stumbled backward, his wolf ears pinning flat against his head, the fur on his arms standing straight up in sheer, instinctual terror.
"W-What... what is that?" the instructor stammered.
Up in the VIP balcony, Princess Valeria stood up from her velvet chair, her glacial eyes widening as she stared at the terrifying anomaly below.
Kaiser quickly cut off the flow, pulling his hand back before he accidentally shattered the priceless artifact. The black vortex instantly vanished, and the crystal returned to its dull, pulsing state.
The runes on the pedestal flashed frantically, unable to categorize the element, before finally settling on a raw, physical density reading.
"Mana Core Output... Equivalent to C+ Rank! Affinity: Unknown/Anomalous!" the automated voice of the crystal chimed.
Kaiser let out a breath, turning to face the dumbfounded crowd. He had passed the threshold.
"Well," Kaiser smiled sheepishly at the trembling instructor, casually dusting off his hands. "I guess I'm just a late bloomer."
[Target: Valeria Vespera. Emotion detected: Intense Suspicion, Fascination.]
[Affection updated: 2% -> 5%.]
The real test, Phase Three: Practical Combat, was next. And Kaiser had a feeling he had just painted a massive, terrifying target on his own back.