Classes continued as usual after that day inside the Nexus Academy.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
And before Rio truly realized it—
two entire months had already gone by.
The academy slowly settled into routine once more. Training sessions became harsher, lectures became more advanced, and the competition between cadets only intensified as everyone adapted to academy life.
Yet throughout those two months—
Rio never stopped training.
Whether it was swordsmanship under Ron Graves, mana manipulation under Elise, or the private lessons every Sunday with Aurelia Ravenshade herself, his growth had become almost monstrous compared to when he first entered the academy.
Inside his dorm room, Rio sat quietly on the sofa while faint evening light entered through the window.
Astravax remained curled nearby in the form of a black cat, sleeping peacefully as usual without a care in the world.
Rio stretched his arms slightly before opening his status panel.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ STATUS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Rio Valen
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Core & Energy
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mana Core: SSS− (Unstable)
Mana Capacity: B+
Mana Control: B+
Core Stability: B+
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physical Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: A−
Agility: A+
Endurance: B+
Vitality: A−
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mental Attributes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Intelligence: B−
Perception: B+
Willpower: A+
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Affinities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Fire — SS+
Water — SS+
Ice — SS+
Lightning — SS+
Light — S+
Darkness — S+
Space — SSS−
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Combat
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Sword Styles: Heavenfall Execution, Lumen Quietus
Adaptability: SS−
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traits
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Artificial Core Host]
[Multi-Affinity Vessel]
[Unstable Existence]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bonds
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dragon of Eternal Stars — Astravax (1%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The panel slowly disappeared.
Rio leaned back slightly.
Compared to before, his growth had been absurd.
Every stat had finally reached the B-ranks while several physical attributes had already crossed into A-rank territory. His mana control had especially improved rapidly after training under Aurelia.
Though—
his Space affinity still remained almost impossible to understand completely.
Just thinking about it gave him headaches.
Soon his phone vibrated lightly beside him.
Rio glanced at the caller ID.
Lyra.
He quickly accepted the call.
"I managed to gather information regarding the Valen Family," Lyra spoke calmly from the other side. "Though the details were sparse. The Astryx Empire naturally keeps noble records heavily secured."
Rio's expression sharpened slightly.
"Thank you."
"No worries," Lyra replied softly. "Also… try calling the guild master once in a while."
Rio blinked.
"She may not express herself properly," Lyra continued, "but she does worry about you."
A faint awkward smile appeared on Rio's face.
"…I see."
"I'll contact her sometimes."
The call soon ended.
Rio immediately opened the files Lyra had sent over.
The Valen Family.
One of the First Order families of the Astryx Empire.
The sword of the empire itself.
The current Duke of Valen—
Lucivar Valen.
An SS-Rank Swordmaster renowned across the continent for mastering nearly every known aspect of swordsmanship.
Rio silently continued reading.
Lucivar Valen married Helena Evermont as his first wife. Together they had one daughter—Lucinda Valen and a son named Rio valen.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
There was barely any information beyond that.
Only vague mentions regarding the exile of Rio Valen.
Nothing about his past.
Nothing about his childhood.
Nothing useful.
Then Rio froze.
"…Wait."
He reread the file again.
No brother.
Only an elder sister.
Then—
who exactly was the person Rio had seen inside those fragmented memories before?
That figure.
That dream.
Rio slowly placed a hand against his forehead.
The more information he uncovered—
the less everything made sense.
"…Looks like I'll eventually have to visit the Astryx Empire myself."
Only then would he truly understand who Rio Valen originally was.
His eyes slowly shifted downward toward the final tab remaining in his status panel.
[Bond — Astravax: 1%]
Rio sighed deeply before glancing toward the black cat sleeping lazily nearby.
Professor Elise had explained before that spiritual contracts strengthened alongside mutual understanding and trust between summoner and spirit.
The stronger the bond—
the greater the power both sides could draw from one another.
Rio stared silently at the sleeping cat.
Astravax lazily opened one eye.
[Why are you staring at Me again, mortal?]
Rio's mouth twitched slightly.
"…Haah."
Building a relationship with the Dragon of Eternal Stars—
was probably going to be the hardest thing he had ever done.
...
The academy auditorium buzzed with endless murmurs as students filled the massive hall once more. Hundreds of cadets sat gathered beneath the towering silver chandeliers while discussions echoed endlessly across the room.
Confusion.
Curiosity.
Excitement.
Everyone seemed to have their own theories regarding why they had suddenly been summoned here again.
Rio sat quietly beside Leon and Clara near the middle rows.
Leon leaned lazily against his chair, clearly uninterested in whatever announcement was about to happen, while Clara looked around curiously at the restless crowd.
"Do you know why they called everyone here?" Clara whispered softly toward Rio.
Rio glanced toward the stage.
"…Not really."
A lie.
He knew exactly what today was.
In the original story, this was where the first real turning point of the academy began.
The outside missions.
The moment where students stopped playing around inside classrooms and were finally exposed to the actual world beyond the academy walls.
Soon—
silence descended across the auditorium.
Aurelia Lioren stepped onto the podium.
Her mere presence alone quieted the entire hall instantly.
The Headmistress stood calmly beneath the lights, her long black hair flowing faintly while those void-like eyes swept across the gathered students.
"Good morning, students."
Her voice echoed clearly throughout the auditorium.
"You have now officially spent over two months within Nexus Academy."
No one dared interrupt.
"During this time, you have experienced various forms of combat training, mana development, theoretical studies, and spiritual synchronization."
A slight pause followed.
"However…"
Her gaze sharpened slightly.
"The academy exists for one purpose."
"To prepare humanity for the world beyond these walls."
The atmosphere grew heavier instantly.
"Therefore," Aurelia continued calmly, "the academy has decided it is now time for your first external mission."
The entire auditorium erupted into murmurs immediately.
Excitement spread across the students instantly while several cadets exchanged nervous glances.
Some looked thrilled.
Others—
worried.
"Quiet."
One word.
The entire hall fell silent again.
"You will not be undertaking these missions alone," Aurelia explained. "Each mission team will consist of five students accompanied by an assigned assistant proctor."
"The proctor's role is to observe, guide, and intervene only if the situation surpasses acceptable danger thresholds."
Rio silently listened.
Just as he remembered.
"The assigned proctor will not reveal themselves unless absolutely necessary," Aurelia continued. "If you require direct intervention from your proctor, it likely means your mission has already failed."
Several students stiffened hearing that.
"These are not simulations."
"These are real-world operations."
Aurelia's eyes slowly swept across the hall.
"And because of that…"
Her voice became colder.
"There exists the possibility of death."
Silence.
Complete silence filled the auditorium.
The playful excitement from earlier vanished almost instantly.
Some cadets swallowed nervously.
Others looked more determined instead.
Meanwhile—
Rio simply closed his eyes briefly.
This was where things truly started becoming dangerous.
Aurelia continued speaking calmly.
"Each group will also be required to appoint one leader through majority vote."
"The leader will hold authority over strategic decisions during the mission."
"Your performance, efficiency, adaptability, and overall contribution during these missions will directly affect your academic evaluations and future rankings."
A slight pause followed.
"So I expect all of you…"
Her void-like eyes narrowed faintly.
"To take this seriously."
Soon every cadet's academy watch vibrated simultaneously.
Small blue holographic screens emerged above each device.
Mission assignments.
Team formations.
Locations.
Objectives.
The atmosphere inside the auditorium shifted instantly as students hurriedly began checking their assigned groups.
Clara quickly opened hers beside Rio.
Leon lazily glanced down at his own.
Meanwhile Rio silently stared at the glowing screen appearing before him.
Because he already knew—
this mssion would not go the way the academy expected.
Rio lowered his gaze toward the glowing holographic screen hovering above his academy watch.
The list of names slowly appeared one after another.
[MISSION TEAM — S CLASS]
Noctis(S-Class) — Rank #1
Silver Ryker(S-Class) — Rank #3
Reina Emberheart(S-Class) — Rank #5
Tristan Vaelthorn(S-Class) — Rank #22
Fiora Grimwald(S-Class) — Rank #45
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rio's eyes narrowed slightly.
"…What a lineup."
Beside him, Leon clicked his tongue after checking his own screen.
"Tch. Looks like we got separated."
Clara seemed slightly nervous while reading hers.
"I-I think my team looks okay…"
Rio barely listened.
His focus remained on one particular name.
Reina Emberheart.
A faint sigh escaped him internally.
After these past two months, her condition had only worsened despite how perfectly she hid it on the surface. The darkness consuming her had become far deeper than before.
And now—
they had been placed on the same mission team.
Troublesome.
Meanwhile murmurs spread rapidly across the auditorium as students began reacting to their groups.
"The top ranks got mixed together…"
"Wait Silver and Noctis are in the same team?"
"That's unfair…"
"Reina Emberheart too?"
Several students looked toward Rio instinctively.
At this point, despite his relatively unknown background, the academy had already begun acknowledging him as one of the monsters among the first years.
Especially after the spirit manifestation incident.
Aurelia's voice echoed once more across the auditorium.
"Students belonging to S-Class will naturally be assigned the highest difficulty missions."
The murmurs quieted slightly.
"The mission difficulty varies according to class ranking."
"D-Class will receive the safest and simplest assignments."
"C and B-Class will handle low-threat operations."
"A-Class cadets will begin handling moderate-risk encounters."
Then—
her eyes sharpened faintly.
"As for S-Class…"
A faint pressure spread across the auditorium.
"You will be deployed into environments where genuine combat capability is expected."
"No academy can create elites while sheltering them from reality."
Some students visibly paled.
Others looked excited instead.
Silver Ryker remained completely expressionless several rows away as he stared at his mission details calmly.
Beside him, Reinheart Verilian grinned slightly.
"How interesting."
Darius Whitemere simply adjusted his gloves silently.
Meanwhile Reina Emberheart sat alone near the back rows.
Her smile remained calm.
Perfect.
Beautiful even.
Yet Rio noticed the subtle tremble in her fingers.
The faint darkness beneath her eyes.
And for a brief second—
he felt Astravax lazily open one eye from within his spiritual space.
[That girl reeks of corruption.]
Rio's expression did not change.
I know.
Aurelia continued speaking.
"Your missions will begin three days from now."
"Prepare accordingly."
"Mission details regarding destination, objectives, and transport will be sent privately to your academy watches tonight."
A small pause followed.
Then—
"Dismissed."