The dormitory for Class 1-C was located in the "Grey Wing," a section of the campus that looked less like a hero's sanctuary and more like a repurposed industrial warehouse. While the students of Class 1-A enjoyed luxury suites with mana-density regulators and private training chambers, we were packed into rooms that smelled faintly of cleaning fluid and damp stone.
I didn't mind. In fact, I preferred the anonymity of the Grey Wing. It was the only place in the Academy where the Eye-Scribes didn't hover twenty-four hours a day.
I sat on my narrow bunk, the springs creaking under my weight. My roommate, a boy named Tarin, was currently trying to magically sharpen a pencil and failing miserably. Tarin was a "Utility Type" with a Gift called Molecular Friction. On paper, it sounded powerful; in reality, he could barely generate enough heat to warm a cup of tea.
"You're the guy who stayed in the Gravity Field for 45 seconds, right?" Tarin asked, his tongue poking out in concentration as the pencil tip snapped for the fifth time.
"Something like that," I replied, staring at the ceiling.
"Man, you're lucky. I nearly puked my guts out at 20 seconds. The proctors looked at me like I was a bug they forgot to squash." He sighed, finally giving up on the pencil. "Welcome to the dregs, Manas. Class 1-C. The class of 'Could-Have-Beens' and 'Never-Will-Bes'."
"I like the quiet," I said.
"Quiet? Just wait until tomorrow. The 'Hierarchy Duel' starts. The Upper Classes come down here to 'scout' for lackeys. Basically, they beat us up to show us our place in the food chain."
I closed my eyes, accessing my Mental Map. The Academy was massive, but my Intelligence stat allowed me to overlay the blueprints I'd memorized from the novel with the real-time feedback of my senses. I could feel the heartbeat of every student in the Grey Wing.
Wait.
My map pulsed. In the basement of the Grey Wing, three floors below the laundry room, there was a void. A room that wasn't on the official blueprints. And within that void, five biological signatures were gathered.
Their heartbeats were unnaturally slow. 50 beats per minute. 45.
Cult of the Fallen.
In the novel, the Cult didn't just attack from the outside; they were the rot within the foundation. They recruited the disenfranchised—the students who felt abandoned by the system. Class 1-C was their primary hunting ground.
I stood up.
"Going for a walk?" Tarin asked.
"Just getting some air," I said.
I moved through the corridors with Concept: Silence draped over me like a cloak. To anyone passing by, I was a ghost. My footsteps made no sound on the cold stone, and my heat signature was suppressed to match the ambient temperature of the walls.
I reached the basement. The air here was thick with the smell of stagnant water and old magic. I found the hidden entrance—a brick wall that required a specific sequence of mana pulses to open.
I didn't have the sequence. But I had Ideogenesis.
Concept: Permeability.
I didn't break the wall. I simply imagined that for the duration of my passage, the atoms of the stone and the atoms of my body were compatible. I walked through the solid rock as if it were a hanging curtain.
Inside, the room was lit by flickering violet candles made of demon fat. Five figures in hooded robes stood in a circle around a ritual circle etched in dried blood.
"The seeds are planted," a raspy voice whispered. "The girl Vance is arrogant. The Aether girl is unstable. But the boy... the one with the red hair. He is the anomaly."
"Stark?" another asked. "He is a C-Rank. Why does the Master fear him?"
"He has the 'Hero's Spark'. It defies the Rank system. We must eliminate him before the First Trial."
I watched from the shadows, leaning against a damp pillar. So, the Cult was already targeting Stark. If they killed him now, the world would lose its primary meat-shield for the Demon King's arrival.
"And what of the others?" a third voice asked. "The Varma boy?"
My heart skipped a beat.
"A non-entity. A C-minus with high vitality but zero combat instinct. We will use him as a vessel for the first Abyssal Parasite. He is handsome enough that the girls will let him get close before he turns."
I nearly laughed. They wanted to use me as a vessel? Me? The guy with a level 50 core and a literal reality-warping power?
One of the cultists pulled out a glass vial containing a writhing, black maggot. The Abyssal Parasite. It was a Grade C curse that could turn an unsuspecting Awakened into a mindless puppet.
"I will infect him tomorrow during the Joint Drill," the leader said. "He won't even feel the sting."
I've seen enough, I thought.
I could have killed them all right there. A single flick of the Architect's Needle would have turned that room into a butcher shop. But if I did that, the Academy would go into high alert. The "Hidden Extra" would be the prime suspect. I needed them to think their plan was working while I dismantled their network from the shadows.
I stepped back through the wall and returned to my dorm.
The next morning, the sun rose over the Capital like a golden coin. The students of Class 1-C were gathered in the Main Arena for the "Joint Combat Drill."
This was the first time all classes—A, B, and C—would train together. It was officially a "learning experience." In reality, it was a public execution.
"Look at them," Elara Vance whispered to her followers as we lined up. She was dressed in high-grade enchanted armor that shimmered like dragon scales. "They look like they're heading to a funeral."
Her eyes scanned the C-Class line and paused on me. She frowned, her memory of the train incident still bothering her, but my Wallflower concept was still active. She shook her head and looked away.
Sara von Aether stood apart from everyone, a ten-foot radius of frost marking her territory. She didn't look at Elara. She didn't look at the instructors. Her lilac eyes were fixed on the back of the line. On me.
I gave her a tiny, imperceptible nod. She narrowed her eyes, then looked at the ground.
"Alright, listen up!" The Head Instructor, a scarred veteran named Commander Gantz, roared. "Today, we practice 'Tag Combat'. One student from Class A will face three students from Class C. The goal is to survive for three minutes!"
It was a humiliation ritual.
The first few matches were brutal. Stark was put in a group with Tarin and another boy. They were pitted against a B-Class noble. Stark did surprisingly well, using his wooden sword to parry high-level fire spells, but Tarin was blasted into the dirt within seconds.
"Next group!" Gantz shouted. "Elara Vance versus... Manas Varma, Kael, and Jiro!"
I stepped forward. Kael and Jiro were shaking. They were commoners who had barely scraped into the Academy. Elara looked at us with a mixture of boredom and annoyance.
"Try to stay standing for at least thirty seconds," she said, drawing her rapier. "I don't want to get bored."
As we took our positions, I felt a sharp, cold presence behind me. I didn't turn around. My Mental Map showed the Cultist—one of the students from the basement meeting, disguised in a standard uniform—moving through the crowd.
He was holding the vial.
The whistle blew.
Elara moved like a bolt of lightning. She didn't go for Kael or Jiro; she went straight for me. She wanted to test the "luck" I'd had on the train. Her rapier was a blur of blue mana, aimed at my shoulder.
Clang!
I parried her with a standard-issue training sword. I made sure my form was sloppy, my feet slipping on the sand. I looked like a man desperately trying to stay alive.
"You're fast," she hissed, her blade locking against mine. "But you have no weight!"
She kicked me in the chest. I let her. I flew backward, tumbling through the dust.
In that moment of "vulnerability," the Cultist moved. He was standing right at the edge of the arena. He flicked his wrist, sending the Abyssal Parasite flying toward my neck.
It was too fast for anyone else to see. A black blur, smaller than a fly.
I didn't blink.
Concept: Spatial Fold.
A microscopic wrinkle appeared in the air in front of my skin. The parasite didn't hit me; it entered a pocket of folded space and was instantly redirected 180 degrees.
The Cultist was still grinning when the parasite hit him right in the eye.
He didn't even have time to scream. The black maggot burrowed into his brain instantly. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped against the wall, his body twitching as the curse took hold of its own creator.
"Manas! Pay attention!" Elara roared, lunging again.
I scrambled up, "accidentally" tripping over my own feet and rolling out of the way of her strike.
"I'm trying!" I yelled, looking terrified.
I spent the next two minutes "panic-running." I ran in circles, tripped over Kael, used Jiro as a human shield, and generally acted like a coward. Elara was fuming. She couldn't land a clean hit because I was so "clumsy" that her calculated strikes kept missing by an inch.
Whistle!
"Time!" Gantz shouted. "Class C survived? Barely. Disgraceful, Varma! Get out of my sight!"
I bowed my head, looking ashamed. "Sorry, sir."
As I walked off the field, I passed the Cultist. He was being carried away by medics, supposedly having suffered a "sudden mana seizure." I knew better. By tonight, the parasite would have consumed his memories. I had just gained a high-level spy inside the Cult.
I sat on the bench, wiping "sweat" from my forehead.
[+15,000 XP: SUCCESSFUL COUNTER-CURSE.]
[+1,000 XP: DECEPTION BONUS.]
A shadow fell over me. I looked up. Sara von Aether was standing there, her lilac eyes cold enough to freeze my soul.
"That roll," she said softly.
"What roll?"
"When Elara lunged for your throat. You didn't 'trip'. You moved your center of gravity three inches to the left before her foot even left the ground." She leaned in, her voice a whisper. "And I saw the black spark. You didn't just dodge it. You sent it back."
I looked at her. I couldn't hide it from her. She was too observant, her own isolation having made her a master of watching others.
"Some extras are better at dodging than others, Sara," I said.
"You're not an extra," she said, her hand reaching out to touch my shoulder. This time, there was no frost. The air was warm. "You're a monster in a sheep's skin. Why?"
"Because the sheep live longer," I said, standing up.
I walked toward the locker rooms, leaving the Frost Queen standing alone in the sun. I could feel the eyes of the Principal on me again from the VIP tower. I could feel the hatred of the remaining Cultists.
The "Hidden Extra" was becoming a very busy man.