Five hundred years of sleep had done nothing for the taste in my mouth. It tasted like copper and failure.
I stood before the towering obsidian gates of the Argentum Citadel, the premier academy for the magically gifted on the continent. The structure itself was an insult to physics—a massive spire piercing the clouds, humming with enough ambient mana to make the hair on my arms stand up.
In my previous life, as General Aethelgard, I had besieged fortresses like this. I had shattered their wards with armies of battle-mages and bathed in the blood of demon kings.
Now? Now I was Kaelen Vance. Seventeen years old. The third son of a declining barony in the boonies. My mana capacity was painfully average, my physical constitution was pathetic, and my family was barely above the poverty line in noble terms.
I flexed my left hand, staring at the pale, unblemished skin. My mind knew exactly how to execute the Void-Blade technique—a spell that required precise mana shaping to cut through reality itself. But when I tried to summon even a spark of the necessary energy, my veins burned like they were filled with acid. The pathways weren't developed. The hardware couldn't support the software.
"Pathetic," I muttered, adjusting the uncomfortable collar of my standard-issue grey uniform.
"Right? It's totally insane!"
I glanced to my right. A boy with messy brown hair and robes that were slightly too big for him was wiping sweaty palms on his trousers. He looked like he might vomit at any moment.
"The mana density here," the boy squeaked, mistaking my disgust for awe. "It's suffocating. I'm Tobias, by the way. From the Outer Rim territories. You?"
"Kaelen," I said shortly. I cataloged him instantly: Low confidence, erratic mana signature, probably an earth-affinity mage based on the mud drying on his boots. Cannon fodder in a real war.
"Move it, losers. You're blocking the path to greatness."
A shoulder slammed into mine, hard. It wasn't enough to knock me over, but in this frail body, it stung. I didn't stagger, thanks only to centuries of ingrained balance reflexes.
The offender was a tall youth with slicked-back blond hair and a uniform that had clearly been tailored to fit perfectly. He was flanked by two larger, brutish-looking students who chuckled in his wake. His aura reeked of unearned confidence and volatile fire mana.
"That's Jax Thorne," Tobias whispered, shrinking away. "His family practically owns the northern mines. He's already tipped to be Rank C right out of the gate."
Thorne. I recognized the name. His ancestor had been a competent supply logistics officer in my army. It seemed his descendants had grown arrogant in peacetime.
"He has poor footwork," I noted dryly.
Tobias stared at me. "What?"
"Never mind. Let's just get inside."
We were herded into the Grand Auditorium, a cavernous hall that could easily hold five thousand people. The ceiling was a domed fresco depicting the "Great Peace"—a sanitized, inaccurate version of the war I had died fighting.
More than a thousand new students milled about on the main floor. The air was thick with nervous energy, teenage hormones, and the chaotic clash of hundreds of untrained mana signatures. It gave me a headache.
I scanned the crowd, analyzing threats out of habit. There were a few standouts. A girl with silver hair stood perfectly still near a pillar, her eyes closed, radiating an icy calm that felt dangerous. A massive boy near the front, easily seven feet tall, had skin that looked suspiciously like granite.
But mostly, I saw sheep waiting for the slaughter. They had no idea what real power looked like.
A deafening gong echoed through the hall, instantly silencing the chatter.
The lights dimmed, save for a single spotlight focused on the raised dais at the front of the hall. The faculty stepped out from behind velvet curtains. They were powerful, certainly. Most were likely veterans of border skirmishes.
But then, the air in the room changed.
It wasn't a sound. It was physical pressure. It felt like the atmospheric gravity had suddenly tripled.
Tobias gasped and dropped to one knee, clutching his chest. Around the hall, hundreds of students did the same. Some openly retched as the oxygen seemed to be squeezed from the room. Even the arrogant Jax Thorne was hunched over, his face beet red, sweat dripping onto the expensive stone floor.
A lone figure walked onto the center of the stage.
He didn't look like a warrior. He looked like a scholar, dressed in simple black robes with silver trim. He had neatly trimmed grey hair and wire-frame glasses. He held a cane, though he walked with perfect, predatory grace.
Lord Valdor. The Headmaster. The Apex.
He stopped at the lectern and surveyed the sea of groveling students with mild disinterest. He hadn't cast a spell. He was simply existing, letting his natural aura wash over us without restraint.
It was a test. A culling.
My new knees buckled. My lungs burned, screaming for air that felt too thick to inhale. Every instinct in Kaelen Vance's seventeen-year-old brain screamed at me to submit, to get down on the floor and beg the predator not to eat me.
No.
The thought rose from the deepest, oldest part of my soul. I had stood against a Dragon Sovereign while my armor melted to my skin. I had looked a Demon Lord in the eye as he tore my battalion apart.
I did not kneel.
I bit the inside of my cheek, using the sharp pain to focus. I locked my trembling legs. I forced my spine straight, vertebra by agonizing vertebra. My nose began to bleed, a warm trickle running down over my lip, but I forced my head up.
I looked toward the stage.
Lord Valdor was speaking, his voice calm but amplified to boom through the hall. "Welcome to Argentum. Many of you were the strongest in your villages. The smartest in your towns. The most promising of your bloodlines."
He paused, letting the crushing weight increase slightly. A dozen more students fainted.
"Here, you are nothing. You are clay. You are fuel."
His eyes scanned the crowd, slipping past the kneeling masses. And then, for the briefest fraction of a second, those terrifying, ancient eyes locked onto mine.
He didn't smile. There was no nod of approval. But his gaze lingered on me—the skinny, bleeding boy standing amidst a field of flattened peers—just a moment longer than anyone else.
"If you wish to be more," Valdor finished, the pressure suddenly vanishing, leaving the hall gasping for air like drowning victims, "then climb. The Zenith awaits."
He turned and walked off stage before the echo of his words had faded.
I wiped the blood from my nose with the back of my hand, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
The war had changed. The weapons were different. But the battlefield... the battlefield was exactly the same.
Thanks for reading my new novel. Hope you enjoyed the first few chapters. Leave a review!! Give some power stones for support. Hope you Have a nice day.