Teleportation, Vane decided as he retched onto a cobblestone street that was cleaner than his dining table, was a highly overrated experience. It felt less like magical travel and more like the universe grabbing you by the ankles and shaking you until your soul rattled loose from your ribs.
"Welcome to Argentum," a dry voice said. "Please try not to stain the pavement. It is self-cleaning, but it holds a grudge."
Vane wiped his mouth with the back of a tattered, blood-crusted glove. He looked up.
He was not in the mud anymore.
Argentum was a city built of white marble and arrogance. The buildings soared upward, defying gravity with the casual ease of immense wealth. The streetlamps were fueled by eternal flames, not whale oil. The people walking past did not wear iron or leather; they wore silk and mana-weave so fine it looked like spun water.
Vane tried to stand. His left leg, shattered by the collapsing mansion, screamed in protest. He collapsed back against a wall, his vision swimming.
"Special Admission Vane?" the voice asked.
Vane focused his eyes. Standing over him was a man who looked like he had been ironed. He wore the black and gold livery of the Academy, and his face was a mask of professional indifference.
"I am Vane," he rasped.
"I am Steward Pervis. I have been assigned to process your intake." Pervis looked Vane up and down, taking in the shredded leather, the caked mud of Oakhaven, and the smell of dried blood. He did not sneer. A sneer would imply he cared. "You are... structurally compromised."
Pervis raised a hand.
Vane's eyes flared with violet light as his Authority instinctively analyzed the magic.
[Target Analysis]
Name: Pervis
Rank: 3 (Elite)
Skill: Greater Mending (Grade D)
'He is Rank 3,' Vane thought, his mind racing despite the pain. 'Just a steward. And he is my equal in mana density.'
A violet snap of magic hit Vane's chest. His ribs cracked back into place with a sickening pop. His leg straightened, the bone knitting together with a heat that felt like molten lead. His bruises faded.
Vane gasped, air flooding his lungs. "You could have warned me."
"Efficiency does not require conversation," Pervis said. He held out a heavy velvet pouch. "Your orientation stipend. Five thousand Gold Sovereigns. Courtesy of the Headmistress."
Vane froze.
Five thousand.
In Oakhaven, a man could buy a house for fifty. He could buy the loyalty of the town guard for a hundred. Five thousand was enough to buy the entire town and burn it down for entertainment.
Vane reached for the bag. His instinct, the instinct of a street rat who had just lost everything, screamed at him to snatch it, hide it, and stab anyone who looked at it.
'Don't,' Vane told himself. 'Kings do not snatch.'
He tapped his temple.
[Skill Activated: Courtier's Mask (Grade F)]
It was a rudimentary skill he had copied from a fallen noble's daughter years ago. The memory of her father beating her for slouching flickered in his mind--a pinch of trauma--before the skill engaged. It did not give him charisma. It did not give him knowledge. All it did was suppress micro-expressions and correct his posture. It was a skill for liars.
Vane's hand stopped trembling. He took the bag slowly, feeling the heavy, shifting weight of the gold. He did not check the contents. He simply nodded, as if people handed him a fortune every Tuesday.
"Adequate," Vane lied.
Pervis raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise breaking his mask. "Indeed. Follow me. We must render you presentable. The Academy does not admit... debris."
Three hours later, Vane stood in front of a full-length mirror in the penthouse suite of the Gilded Griffin Hotel.
The reflection was a stranger.
The blood and mud were gone, scoured away by magical cleaning charms. His hair, usually a windblown mess, was trimmed and styled. He wore a suit of midnight-blue fabric that cost more than Geryon's life. It was tailored perfectly, hiding the scars on his arms and the Grade C daggers strapped beneath his ribs.
He looked like a noble. He looked like money.
He looked like a fraud.
Vane sat on the edge of the bed. It was soft, softer than anything he had ever touched. He picked up a silver fork from the room service tray.
'Elbows off the table, Vane,' he whispered to the empty room.
It was Helena's voice echoing in his memory.
'You hold the fork like a shovel,' she used to scold him, even when they were eating rat stew in a leaking shack. 'You are not an animal. Do not let the mud get inside you.'
Vane gripped the fork until his knuckles turned white. [Courtier's Mask] hummed in the back of his mind, forcing his spine straight, relaxing his jaw. It was a cage, but it was a necessary one. If he acted like the Crime Lord of Oakhaven here, the real nobles would eat him alive.
He put the fork down. He did not have an appetite.
He flicked his finger. The air shimmered, and his personal interface hovered next to his ear.
[Status: Vane]
Rank: 3 (Elite)
Danger: Moderate (Environment Hostile)
[Authority: Usurper (EX)]
Active Slots: 0 / 4
Vane stared at the number.
Four.
This was the true nature of his Authority. Unlike a normal mage who had one innate concept, or none at all, Vane had empty sockets in his soul.
He could hold four Authorities.
Currently, all four were empty. Void.
He thought back to Gareth. The Knight had zero Authorities, yet his Rank 4 stats alone had crushed Vane. He thought back to the Grade D spear skill he had copied from Lyra. It had broken against Gareth's armor like a toothpick.
'Skills are too slow,' Vane realized.
To get a Grade S skill, like Evangeline's sword art, he would need to copy a master. But copying a skill required absorbing the muscle memory and the time spent learning it. For an S-Grade skill, that meant absorbing fifty or sixty years of training in a single second.
His brain would liquefy. He did not have the mental capacity to hold that much time.
But Authorities were different.
Authorities were innate. They were born, not learned. To copy an Authority, he did not need to absorb time. He needed to absorb the Origin Trauma. The single, defining nightmare that anchored the power to the soul.
It was dangerous. It could drive him insane. But it was instant.
'If I want to kill a Rank 4,' Vane thought, 'I cannot train for twenty years. I need a shortcut. I need EX-Rank power now.'
He needed the kind of power that made Ranks irrelevant. The kind of power that Evangeline possessed.
Four slots. Four nightmares.
'Quality over quantity,' Vane murmured.
He closed the window. He checked his daggers one last time. They were the only things he had kept from his old life. They were Grade C steel, trash compared to the artifacts in this city, but the grip felt familiar. Grounding.
He walked to the window and threw open the balcony doors.
The wind hit him, cold and thin.
He was not looking at the city anymore. He was looking up.
Floating above Argentum, tethered to the earth by massive chains of glowing mana that were thick as rivers, was an island.
It was a continent of rock and greenery drifting among the clouds. Spires of white gold pierced the sky. Waterfalls cascaded off the edge, turning to mist before they hit the city below. Dragons circled the highest peaks like pigeons.
Zenith Imperial Academy.
It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was a fortress of monsters looking down on the world.
Vane touched the Special Admission badge pinned to his lapel.
Rank 1.
Tomorrow, he would walk into that sky fortress. He would walk into a room full of Dragon Princes and Sword Saints, and he would look them in the eye and lie to their faces.
He would smile. He would use his [Courtier's Mask]. He would be charming.
And then, one by one, he would find the owners of the four strongest Authorities. He would endure their trauma, survive their nightmares, and steal their gods.
"Miller isn't here to watch my back," Vane said to the wind. "Mother isn't here to scold me."
He leaned over the railing, looking at the floating island that blocked out the stars.
"Just me and the sharks."
Vane smiled. It was not the polite smile of a student. It was the hungry, jagged smile of the King of Puddles.
"Time to feed."