The Imperial Road stretched ahead of them in a long, sweeping ribbon of stone—clean, bright, and meticulously maintained. Sunlight shimmered across the surface, reflecting the sheer wealth of the central provinces. They had re-hitched a pair of fresh horses at the last village to avoid looking like lunatics; pulling a carriage by hand into the heart of the Empire was a bit too much "eccentricity" even for Lucien’s plans.

  Sebas sat on the driver’s bench, his posture straighter than it had been in years. His hell had finally ended. His legs felt like solid iron, and his Vein of Insight hummed with a quiet, refined power. He was no longer just a butler; he was a weapon in a suit.

  As they reached the shadow of the Empire’s Wall, Lucien looked up. The massive, jagged grey silhouette loomed over them like a silent judge.

  A sudden, violent surge of emotion hit Lucien, nearly stealing his breath. This place. This very ground. To the common eye, it was a paradise. He turned his gaze toward a verdant hill nearby, covered in lush trees with fruit heavy on the branches. Children were playing in the fields, their laughter carried by the wind. Couples walked in leisure, and a young pair sat under a sprawling oak tree, enjoying a quiet picnic.

  Lucien’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the side of the cart. He had died on that exact spot.

  In the timeline that was, that hill hadn't been green. It had been a wasteland of gray ash and charred bone. He and his Teacher had stood there, back-to-back, surrounded by the ruins of a burning Empire. He could still feel the phantom sensation of Ray Melborne’s blade—the Ashborne—cutting through his chest as the world turned to cinders.

  "Young Master, are you alright?" Sebas asked, noticing the boy’s deathly pallor.

  "I’m alright," Lucien said, his voice sounding as though it were coming from the bottom of a deep well. He didn't look away from the picnicking couple. "I was just looking at my grave."

  Sebas blinked, the cryptic response sending a chill down his spine. He opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but the look in Lucien’s eyes—a mixture of ancient melancholy and cold, simmering rage—stopped him. He simply nodded and flicked the reins.

  The cart rolled through the massive gates of the Wall. The transition was jarring. They left the peace of the countryside behind and entered the roaring heart of the Capital.

  The streets were a chaotic theater of status. Gilded carriages with family crests jostled for position, their drivers shouting insults at anyone beneath their station. In the center of it all stood the Empire's Royal Academy, a sprawling complex of white marble and obsidian that seemed to radiate magical pressure.

  Lucien then turned to Sebas here. He gave him the rest of the money. Go to this inn here. The westom inn and station the cart nearby," Lucien commanded, his emotions now locked behind a steel door. "The Written Exam begins shortly. I have a seat to take."

  "And your 'secret weapon', Young Master?" Sebas asked, adjusting his spectacles as he looked at the thousands of nervous examinees swarming the gates.

  Lucien hopped down from the cart, smoothing out his simple but clean tunic. He looked toward the grand entrance, where the high-born sons and daughters of the Empire were gathering.

  "It should be inside already," Lucien whispered, a predatory glint returning to his eyes.

  "Inside," Sebas whispered, his voice tight. "The secret weapon is inside?"

  "Yes, inside," Lucien said, not breaking his stride as they neared the massive, iron-reinforced doors of the Examination Hall. "Don't bother questioning it. Just start looking around the perimeter and return here in an hour. Ray Melborne should be arriving by then."

  Sebas tensed, his hand instinctively twitching toward the hidden dagger at his waist. "Young Master, if I am to see that man—"

  "Relax," Lucien interrupted, his tone chillingly casual. "He should just be a brat right now. He hasn't become the monster that burned the world yet. Just go and enjoy what the Empire has to offer."

  Sebas nodded, though his jaw remained set. He melted into the crowd, he was scanning every face, never truly letting his guard down.

  Lucien stepped into the hall. The scale of the room was immense, a cathedral of academia with tiered rows of obsidian desks. As the room filled with the nervous energy of hundreds of high-born students, Lucien waited patiently. His eyes weren't on the gilded heirs or the shimmering sigils; they were on the door, waiting for a specific set of spectacles and a stack of books.

  Then, his target entered: Zack Bellmont.

  In the previous life, Zack was the legendary "Scribe of the Void," a brilliant commoner who had aced every written exam with a perfect score. Elaine had head-hunted him within his first week at the Academy, and from that moment on, Zack had become the only man capable of feeding the "Void"—which was the employees' name for Elaine’s bottomless, soul-crushing pit of administrative demands. He was the engine that ran her logistics, a boy who could draft three treaties, a supply manifest, and a formal declaration of war before lunch, all while weeping silently into his inkwell.

  Lucien moved. He didn't approach Zack directly; instead, he became a ghost in the machine of the crowded room. As Zack moved toward a seat, Lucien subtly shifted his weight and blocked Zack from entering the middle rows. He stood in the way of a prime middle seat, letting a boisterous noble take it instead.

  When Zack tried for a second spot, Lucien flicked a small stone at a nearby student's ear.

  "Hey! Watch it!" the student barked, turning to blame the person behind him. A loud, petty argument erupted instantly. Zack, a boy who was pathologically conflict-averse, flinched and backed away from the noise.

  Exactly as planned.

  Lucien "guided" the panicked genius toward the back, right to a specific desk by the tall windows. Zack sat down, huffing with relief at finding a quiet corner. Lucien smirked, taking a seat exactly two rows over and one back—in the center of the hall, far from the proctor’s direct line of sight.

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  The Proctor, a stern man with a monocle, stepped onto the podium. He began a long, droning list of instructions, threatening immediate expulsion for any use of unauthorized sigils or hidden scrolls. Or any type of cheating that will go against the academy's integrity.

  Lucien ignored him. He focused entirely on the angle of the sunlight hitting the glass next to Zack.

  The Academy boasted that their windows were specially treated to prevent reflections, a security measure against cheating. But in the world of physics, there is always a reflection—it’s just a matter of the observer’s capability.

  The test began. While others scratched frantically at their parchments, Lucien activated Equilibrium. He sacrificed his sense of smell and dampened his hearing, funneling every ounce of focus into his visual processing.

  The "non-reflective" glass suddenly shimmered. Through the microscopic imperfections in the enchantment, a ghost-like image appeared to Lucien. He could see Zack’s parchment as if it were laid out directly in front of him. He watched the "Brainiac’s" hand fly across the page, answering the most complex questions on Imperial Law and Mana Theory with effortless speed.

  Lucien’s quill was a blur, dancing across the parchment in a frantic mimicry of the genius sitting by the window. Zack Bellmont was a beast; the boy was tearing through the "impossible" theory section with a speed that would have been terrifying if it weren't so useful.

  I really am a natural test-taker, Lucien thought, a dark thrill of amusement buzzing in his chest.

  When Zack finally stood up, his chair scraping against the stone floor, Lucien’s own hand cramped as he finished the final line. He had captured the foundation—the perfect, logical skeleton of the exam. Now came the fun part.

  As the "Scribe of the Void" handed in his papers and shuffled out, looking like he’d just survived a physical assault, Lucien stayed behind. He began to systematically dismantle and rebuild his answers. He didn't want to be Zack’s twin; he wanted to be his superior.

  He crossed out Zack’s standard explanation of Energy-conductivity and replaced it with a revolutionary theory on Resonance Frequencies—something that wouldn't be peer-reviewed for another decade. He adjusted the math on sigil-crafting, adding a "speculative" footnote about equivalents in energy-to-matter conversion. It was just enough to look like a brilliant, intuitive leap rather than a blatant copy.

  As he worked, a strange sensation prickled the back of his neck. He flicked his gaze to the side.

  A few rows over, a boy with messy black hair and dark, intense brown eyes was staring at him. He wasn't looking at Lucien's paper—he was looking at Lucien. His lips were moving in a low, frantic mumble, but the words were lost in the scratching of quills around the room.

  Lucien didn't care. In this room full of future corpses and rivals, one more strange boy was a distraction he couldn't afford. He polished his final answer—a scathing critique of the current Imperial border defense strategy—and stood up.

  He walked to the front of the hall and placed his parchment on the Proctor’s desk. The Proctor didn't even look up, but Lucien knew that once those pages were graded, the name Lucien D’Roselle would be whispered in every high-ranking office in the Academy.

  He stepped out into the cool air of the courtyard, his chest expanding with a sense of triumph. The written portion was dead and buried.

  "Young Master!" Sebas appeared from the shadows of a nearby pillar, his eyes scanning Lucien’s face for signs of failure. "How was it?"

  "Aced it," Lucien said, his eyes scanning the crowd of exiting students. "Now, where is the Scribe of the Void? I want to see how he handles being in second place."

  The crowd surged toward the marble wall as the proctors pinned the parchment into place. The air was thick with the scent of expensive ink and the desperate sweat of hundreds of noble heirs. Lucien remained still, his arms crossed, watching Zack Bellmont. The "Scribe of the Void" was pacing so frantically he looked like he might wear a hole through the cobblestones, his lips moving in a silent, neurotic prayer.

  Then, the results were posted. A collective gasp rippled through the front of the line.

  Lucien’s eyes scanned the top of the list, and a slow, dark smirk spread across his face.

  1st — Lucien D’Roselle

  2nd — Zack Bellmont

  3rd — Selvarin Crest

  4th — Marlo Vantier

  The crowd around the result wall was a chaotic sea of gasps and frantic pointing. Lucien stood back, arms crossed, watching the predictable fallout.

  Zack Bellmont stopped dead. He stared at the board, his eyes bulging behind his spectacles. He had fallen to his knees, his face the color of bleached parchment. He was muttering to himself, eyes darting through the crowd like a cornered animal. Lucien knew exactly what was going through the "Scribe's" head—Zack wasn't just upset about losing; He began to scan the faces around him with a look of pure, unadulterated horror—he was looking for the ghost who had beaten him at his own game.

  Then, a piercing, high-pitched voice sliced through the noise.

  "I—I PASSED! I PASSED WITH A TWO-DIGIT NUMBER!"

  Lucien turned his head, and his breath hitched. There she was. Elaine. In his previous life, she had been a cold, towering figure of authority. Seeing her now as an eleven-year-old child was almost absurd. She had the same sharp, stuck-up features and an icy glare that promised a lifetime of headaches for anyone under her command, but in this tiny, youthful form, she looked like a doll playing at being a queen.

  Standing next to her was the strange boy from the exam—the one with the messy black hair and the dark, intense eyes that had been burning into Lucien's back.

  "Respectable? RESPECTABLE?!" the boy shouted, clutching his messy hair in a fit of melodramatic agony. "I’m in the top ten minus one! That’s basically the elite tier!"

  Lucien watched as a group approached them, led by a woman he recognized instantly: Sera Lorne. She was draped in an ungodly amount of gold and jewels, her ash-gray hair styled in a way that screamed "new money" and "old arrogance." She hadn't changed a bit; she was just as gaudy as the day she had died.

  "Young Master," Sebas whispered, his voice trembling as he tugged on Lucien’s sleeve. "Look. At the board. Eleventh place."

  Lucien’s gaze shifted back to the list. He scanned past the top names, past Zack, past the elite tier...

  ...8th, 9th, 10th— 11th — Ray Melborne

  Lucien’s heart did a slow, heavy thud against his ribs. He turned his head back toward Elaine’s group, his eyes locking onto the goofy, awkward boy who was currently bragging about his "top ten minus one" status.

  The realization hit him like a physical blow. That boy—the one with the messy hair, the loud voice, and the weirdly intense stare—was Ray Melborne.

  Lucien stared, unable to reconcile the image. He tried to superimpose the face of the "Ashborne"—the cold-blooded monster who had cut him down in a world of cinders—onto this awkward pre-teen. The man who had been a literal god of death was currently throwing a tantrum over being eleventh.

  "That's him?" Lucien whispered, his voice barely audible. "That... is Ray Melborne?"

  Lucien’s smirk returned, but this time it was sharper, laced with a dark, predatory irony. Ray Melborne didn't even know how to fight yet, but he had already lost his first battle. He had been pushed out of the top ten by a "nobody" from a border barony.

  "Sebas," Lucien said, his eyes never leaving Ray. "I think I'm going to enjoy this school year much more than I thought."