#... TEACHERS’ LOUNGE ... AFTER THE TEST...

Every student or group of students had an inspector assigned to them. A spy. A professor hidden in the shadows, watching every step they took, from their very first move to the last crystal they collected.

After the final bell, they returned to the meeting room, mentally organizing reports, filtering observations between what mattered and what could be discarded.

The U-shaped table was full. A single lantern burned at its center.

"Now let’s move on to the names that appear in multiple reports," the Strategic Analysis professor said, opening her notebook.

"Haru Mizuki and Armand Cassius," the Magical Behavior professor said. "They were the first to demonstrate that they had discovered the loophole of disqualification as an independent variable."

"I’m certain Genials figured that out too," another professor argued.

"Then why didn’t he use it?"

Silence.

"Ego, perhaps," the professor suggested. "Look, he found the two rarest crystals on his own. The first one in the sewers, ahead of both Haru and Armand. He barely used his fragments. He didn’t even need outside help to compete at that level."

"But you’re forgetting Elegantius Junior," a third interrupted, his voice more animated than usual. "He exploited a different variable. Hoarding fragments was a problem up to a certain point, but he realized he could intentionally overload the system."

Pause.

"He accumulated so many that patterns started forming on their own. Some completed automatically. Others simply revealed what was missing to complete them."

"And who exactly is this Haru?" The question came from the farthest corner of the table, from a voice that hadn’t spoken until now. "Which noble house does he belong to?"

"It says here he’s Isabela Valtherion’s personal bodyguard."

"He outplayed Genials," someone said, almost impressed.

"What are you implying?" another replied coldly. "That a mere bodyguard is more brilliant than a Genials?"

"Easy. Easy..." The professor raised her hand. "We’re not here to argue about who’s better."

It was always like this. Some professors wanted to train the most promising students, to be recognized as the mentor of extraordinary talent. The rivalry between them had existed long before any current student was born. They fought by proxy, always through the pupils they chose to defend.

Eldrath worked that way at every level.

"There are still four tests left," Father Elias said, speaking for the first time during the meeting, his calm voice cutting through the murmurs. "What’s this year’s proposal for the second test?"

"The Tribunal," the professor answered, closing the notebook on the first test.

The room fell silent, the silence of people who already knew exactly what that meant.

... CENTRAL COURTYARD ... MORNING...

Some external and internal students had slept right there, leaning against columns, wrapped in their cloaks, too anxious to return to their rooms and miss the announcement.

Haru and Golden were among those already awake, sitting on the steps, exhausted, bruises still visible on both of them.

Genius had slept alone in Room 217.

The bell rang, different from the usual one, longer, announcing that it was time to reveal the rankings.

The supervising professor stepped into the center of the courtyard. A scroll in his hand. Expression neutral.

"Good morning," he said, his magically amplified voice reaching every corner of the courtyard. "The first evaluation test of Astraeus Eldrath Academy has come to an end."

Pause.

"Before the results, there are a few revelations that may explain what you’ve experienced over the past two days."

He raised one hand. A simple gesture.

And from the shadows of the columns, the trees, the high corners of the bleachers... figures emerged. One by one. Dressed in neutral gray, their hoods hiding their faces. Around eighty in total.

Collective murmurs spread through the crowd.

"Every one of you was observed," the professor said. "Not for what you achieved. But for how you achieved it."

He pointed toward one of the gray figures, who pulled back the hood, revealing a face too young to be a senior professor, yet too old to be a student.

"Resident evaluator. Assignment: document behavior under pressure without interfering."

Absolute silence now.

"The Living Map was never about the crystals," the professor continued. "The crystals were merely the excuse. What we truly evaluated was how you treat people when you believe no one important is watching."

A long pause.

"Who lies without necessity. Who betrays in advance instead of out of genuine necessity. Who sacrifices allies as disposable resources. Who discovers loopholes in the system and uses them with purpose instead of merely for advantage."

He looked around slowly, deliberately.

"Astraeus Eldrath does not train obedient soldiers," he said. "It trains architects. And architects must understand the structure before breaking the rules, not afterward."

"The rankings," he announced.

The scroll unfurled in the air, expanding like a magical hologram, names appearing in order, glowing gold as they were read aloud.

"First place overall: Haru Mizuki."

Murmurs. Most people didn’t recognize the name.

"Second place: Genius Genials."

More murmurs, different this time. Genuine confusion. Some knew him because of his reputation with electricity. Most did not.

The professor paused, sensing the confusion before anyone voiced the question.

"Some of you are wondering why this order doesn’t directly reflect crystal points," he said. "Allow me to clarify."

He gestured again. The scroll expanded further, now displaying not only names, but parallel categories.

CRYSTAL POINTS:

1st — Haru Mizuki: 2,847

2nd — Golden Elegantius: 2,103

3rd — Armand Cassius: 2,100

4th — Lilithine d’Elias: 1,997

5th — Isabela Valtherion: 1,903

6th — Kirathia Vex’ara: 1,903

[Other Names]

...

13th — Genius Genials: 95

TRUE EVALUATION:

1st — Genius Genials

2nd — Haru Mizuki

3rd — Seline Orphéne

4th — Armand Cassius

5th — Lilithine

6th — Golden F. Elegantius...

[Other Names]

"Genius Genials finished the test with ninety-five points," the professor continued. "The lowest score among the top twenty. And yet he still ranks second overall in the true evaluation."

He paused, letting the weight of it settle.

"Because he accomplished something no other student did. He completed the test without ever consulting the physical map that had been distributed. He calculated everything through pure deduction, movement patterns, other people’s behavior, and location logic."

He looked around.

"He discovered two of the academy’s three rarest crystals, lacking only the fragments needed to unlock the third one, which consumed his entire final night."

"This isn’t about quantity," he said, his voice more serious now. "It’s about how the mind processes a problem. Astraeus Eldrath doesn’t measure only results. It measures the path that led to them."

He looked toward Haru.

"Mizuki took first because he combined both: high crystal points and a mindset that understood the game behind the game from the very beginning. He recognized the loophole surrounding disqualified variables, relied on physical knowledge instead of purchased information alone, and built a functional network of trust even when that trust eventually broke."

"But Genials climbed nearly to the top with less than half the resources anyone else in the top ten possessed," he continued. "That’s exactly the kind of mind this academy exists to find."

The murmurs changed once again. No longer confusion, but genuine recognition spreading among the students who understood what that truly meant.

"Third place: Seline Asteriel Orphéne."

More surprise. No one had seen her openly competing, yet she had clearly done something the evaluators valued without the rest of the academy even noticing.

"Fourth place: Armand."

"Fifth place: Lilithine."

Murmurs rose among the Cathedral students. Saints rarely appeared in combat or strategy rankings.

"The Saint?" someone asked aloud without meaning to.

The professor didn’t answer directly. He simply continued reading the list.

The rankings went on, names and numbers passing by, most recognizable, some unexpected.

"Sixth place: Golden Elegantius."

Golden, sitting on the steps, raised an eyebrow.

"Sixth?" he muttered to Haru. "I was second in crystal points."

"Points aren’t everything," Haru replied, repeating, without irony, exactly what they had just heard.

"That’s irritating," Golden said, though without any real anger.

On the opposite side of the courtyard, Armand heard his own name without showing any particular expression. It wasn’t where he wanted to be, but it also wasn’t where he’d expected.

"Genials with ninety-five points," he thought. "While I, with a carefully built strategy and mobilized resources, end up here."

"Interesting criteria."

Golden turned toward Haru.

"Top ten in the entire academy," he commented, still processing the ranking.

"I understand," Haru said.

He looked into the distance toward Genius, hood lowered, posture discreet, yet physically present.

Genius looked back.

"He literally beat the test without needing the map the rest of us received."

"I needed physical knowledge, a network of trust, Golden, the Chinese man, weeks spent working as a janitor."

"He needed only his own mind."

For two seconds, across the entire crowd, the two locked eyes, without approaching each other, without making any obvious gesture that anyone else could notice.

Genius discreetly raised two fingers.

Two.

Ready for the second test?

Haru understood.

"I’m ready," he thought.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod in return, invisible to anyone who wasn’t specifically watching.

But behind that gesture, another thought lingered.

"He’s more dangerous than I imagined."

"Not because he’s stronger."

"Because he thinks in ways I can’t completely predict." He remembered the letter in the sewers. "And that’s exactly the kind of thing that should worry me."

"But it only makes me want to see what he’ll do in the next test."

"The second test," the professor announced, drawing everyone’s attention again. "Will begin shortly, but a recovery period is mandatory."

A dramatic pause, the kind Eldrath’s professors seemed to practice deliberately.

"This year’s challenge is called... The Tribunal."

Confused murmurs spread through the courtyard.

High above the academy, a man had literally watched the entire test unfold through Viper Eyes.

The void was different. Neon. No golden throne, no God sitting in a posture of authority.

Here, the space was colder, floating gray stone suspended in emptiness, a God sitting on a table instead of a chair, legs swinging lazily. He resembled Anubis, jackal head, lean human body, the relaxed posture of someone who had seen this happen thousands of times before.

"Normally, in battleground games..." the man said, watching the floating magical panel before him, "...you have this mechanic. When you die, you can watch your squad keep playing until they’re eliminated too... or until they win and everyone returns to the lobby together."

Pause.

"But in our case, there is no lobby. We die. That’s it."

"And you don’t want to know what’s beyond this place?" the God asked, his dry voice carrying genuine curiosity mixed with the boredom of eternity.

"No," the man answered without taking his eyes off the panel.

He focused again, the image shifting to show Seline speaking to Haru days earlier.

"So that’s the kid who killed your avatar," the God said. "Kaelthar."

"Seems so."

"And your squad, Viper Eyes, has no idea."

"Not a clue," the man confirmed. "Only I, dead over here, know that he’s a Gamer, that he’s responsible for my death, and that he’s with the Kitsune Goddess..."

"Tough luck."

"For the kid, of course." He smiled faintly, without real amusement, more in anticipation than anything else.

"Another battleground mechanic," the man continued. "Under certain conditions, or with certain items, it’s possible to revive a member of your team."

"Here in Aethelgard, they use the Token," he said. "It’s only a matter of time before my people find one."

He stood, his posture changing, a decision made.

"And then they’ll kill the kid."

The image on the panel changed. No longer a memory, but the present. Real time.

Viper Eyes walking toward the announcement of Test One together with the rest of the academy.

"Seline, Blandina," Rex asked. "Have you two figured out how you’re going to bring the boss back?"

Seline, walking down the hallway, answered without slowing.

"It’s incredibly rare to find a Token," she said.

Blandina interrupted. "The plan is to earn Eugen’s trust and then go straight to the palace to get the Token."

"Nah..." Seline interrupted, walking beside her. "You just like that NPC. There are plenty of ways to get a Token."

"What?" Blandina turned toward her. "The others are guarded by creatures and locations way above our current rank. For now, I’ll stick with the easy one. If that fails, then we’ll move on to the next."

Blandina looked up at the sky, an automatic gesture, as if she knew exactly where "Kaelthar" was watching from.

"You seeing this, you bastard?" she said to the empty sky. "Do you have any idea how much work it is when you die right at the beginning?"

On the other side, Kaelthar smiled, watching through the system, seeing his own squad arguing over how to bring him back.

"It’s only a matter of time," he said to no one in particular.

Then he sat back down, not on a chair, but in the empty void itself, and waited.