The air in the Grand Assessment Hall of the Valerius Imperial Magic Academy crackled with a mixture of nervous energy and suffocating arrogance. Sunlight streamed through colossal stained-glass windows, each depicting a legendary Archmage of the Aethelgard Kingdom in a moment of world-altering glory. The light painted shifting rainbows on the polished marble floor where hundreds of fifteen-year-old aspirants stood in tense, silent rows.
They were the future of the kingdom—or so the ones born with silver spoons in their mouths believed.
In the back row, leaning against a cold pillar with his arms crossed and a look of profound boredom on his handsome face, was Kael. While others fidgeted, adjusting the cuffs of their brand-new, tailored uniforms, Kael's standard-issue tunic was slightly rumpled. While they stared at the floating assessment orb with wide, hopeful eyes, Kael's gaze was distant, as if he were watching a particularly slow-moving snail race.
'Three thousand years I spent orchestrating the symphony of cosmic chaos,' a voice echoed in the depths of his mind, a voice that held the weight of dying stars and shattered thrones. 'And now I'm standing in a line, waiting for a glowing rock to judge me. The irony is… exquisite.'
Kael smothered a yawn. This was his choice, after all. As Xylos, the Calamity King, the Demon Lord of a thousand ravaged realms, he had achieved everything. Absolute power. Absolute knowledge. And with it, absolute, soul-crushing boredom. Victory was meaningless when defeat was impossible. So, he had risked it all on a single, forbidden reincarnation spell, a cosmic gamble to be reborn without his titles, without his armies, into a world where he could, perhaps, feel something genuine again.
The spell had worked. A little too well. He'd been reborn as Kael, an orphan in a grimy commoner district of the Imperial Capital. It was certainly a change of pace. The daily struggle for a loaf of stale bread had been… novel. For a week.
Now, he was here, at the entrance exam for the kingdom's most elite academy, simply because it was said to have the best library and, more importantly, the most comfortable beds in the provided dormitories. A comfortable place to nap was a worthy goal for a retired Demon Lord.
"Next! Marcus von Adler!"
The head instructor, a stern-looking man named Professor Alistair, called out the name. A young noble with slicked-back blond hair and a sneer that seemed to be a permanent facial feature swaggered forward. His uniform was ostentatiously embroidered with the golden eagle of the Adler family.
"Look, it's Lord Marcus!" a nearby commoner girl whispered, her voice a mix of awe and fear.
"They say his family's mana core is one of the purest in the kingdom. He's a shoo-in for Class A." her friend whispered back.
Kael watched with mild amusement. The 'Adler' family. He vaguely recalled, from his pre-reincarnation studies of this world, that their ancestor was a minor knight who got lucky during a goblin subjugation three centuries ago. 'Ah, the fleeting glory of mortals. They build legacies on such fragile foundations.'
Marcus placed his hand on the large, crystalline orb floating at the center of the hall. It pulsed with a soft, white light.
"Channel your mana," Professor Alistair instructed, his voice flat.
Marcus smirked, closing his eyes. A moment later, the orb erupted in a brilliant, sapphire-blue light. The light was intense, flooding the hall and causing several students to gasp. Numbers began to swirl within the crystal's core before settling.
[Mana Capacity: 8,820. Purity: 92%. Affinity: Water (High-Grade). Rank Potential: Gold.]
A wave of murmurs washed over the hall.
"Incredible! That's almost High-Noble level!"
"A Gold-Rank potential at fifteen? He truly is a genius!"
Marcus drank in the admiration, his sneer deepening into a smug smile. He turned his gaze towards the commoner section, his eyes filled with disdain.
"Hmph. A level of power you mud-blooded peasants could never hope to comprehend. You're wasting the academy's time just by breathing our air."
Several commoners flinched, lowering their heads. The nobles chuckled in agreement. The instructors did nothing; such was the accepted social order.
Kael merely raised an eyebrow. 'This one is loud. Loud and fragile. Like a decorative vase. The kind that makes a satisfying sound when it shatters.'
The procession continued. Nobles stepped up, producing impressive scores in the thousands, their results announced with pride. Commoners followed, their scores mostly in the low hundreds, their results met with silence or quiet pity. The gap was a brutal, uncrossable chasm.
Then, a new name was called, and a hush fell over the hall.
"Seraphina Valerius."
A girl with hair the color of molten fire and eyes like polished gold stepped forward. Her posture was perfect, her every movement exuding an aura of innate authority. She was beautiful, but it was a cold, unapproachable beauty, like a flawlessly crafted statue of a goddess of war. This was the scion of the family that founded this very academy.
She didn't place her hand on the orb. She merely held it a few inches away. With a flicker of her gaze, the orb didn't just light up—it ignited. A torrent of incandescent crimson energy swirled within it, so potent it seemed to warp the air around it. The light was blinding, and a palpable heat washed over the front rows.
The numbers inside spun so fast they were a blur, climbing higher and higher before settling with a final, resonant thrum.
[Mana Capacity: 14,500. Purity: 98%. Affinity: Fire (Royal-Grade). Rank Potential: Diamond.]
The hall erupted. Even Professor Alistair's stern facade cracked, his eyes wide with shock and awe.
"Diamond-Rank potential! A true monster of a generation!"
"As expected of Lady Seraphina! She is the pride of our kingdom!"
"I feel honored to be in the same room as her!"
Seraphina showed no emotion. She simply gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod and returned to her spot, ignoring the fawning praise as if it were buzzing flies. Her golden eyes swept across the room, dismissing every single person there as beneath her notice… until they briefly passed over Kael.
For a fraction of a second, their eyes met. Kael, still leaning against his pillar, gave her a lazy, unimpressed half-smile.
Seraphina's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. The sheer audacity! Who was that commoner? To look at her, Seraphina Valerius, with such… casual disregard? It was like a bug looking at a dragon and deciding it wasn't interesting enough to scuttle away from. She filed his face away, a minor irritation to be dealt with later.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of pompous displays, it was Kael's turn.
"Kael!" Professor Alistair called, his voice already laced with dismissal. The name had no noble "von" or "de" attached. Just… Kael.
Kael pushed himself off the pillar and ambled forward, his footsteps silent on the marble. His relaxed gait was a stark contrast to the rigid, military-like posture of the nobles.
"Another commoner," Marcus von Adler said loudly to his friends. "Let's see if he can even make the rock flicker. I'm betting a score of fifty."
"Generous, Marcus. I'm betting twenty," another noble snickered.
Kael ignored them. He reached the orb and placed his hand on its cool surface.
"Channel your mana," Alistair said, already looking at the next name on his list.
Kael closed his eyes. He didn't have a "mana core." What he had was a connection to the infinite, churning abyss of Chaos—the raw material of creation and destruction. Reaching for a sliver of that power was like an ocean trying to pour itself through a single grain of sand. He carefully shaped a minuscule, harmless wisp of that energy—an amount so infinitesimal it wouldn't even be considered an atom in the grand scheme of his true power—and let it touch the orb.
For a moment, nothing happened. The orb remained dark.
The nobles began to laugh.
"Hah! Nothing! Zero!"
"He doesn't even have a mana core! Why is he even here?"
Professor Alistair sighed, a look of annoyance on his face. "If you are unable to produce a reading, you are automatically disqua—"
CRACK.
A tiny, hairline fracture appeared on the surface of the crystal orb. It spiderwebbed outwards with an audible creak. Then another. And another. The soft, internal light of the orb flickered violently, like a dying candle in a hurricane.
Professor Alistair's jaw dropped. "What in the…?"
The numbers inside the orb, instead of rising, went haywire. They flashed erratically— 7, 99,999, -45, ERROR, NULL—before the entire display glitched and settled on a single, stark digit.
[Mana Capacity: 0]
Then, with a final, mournful groan, the light inside the orb died completely. The Valerius Assessment Orb, a priceless artifact that had measured the potential of heroes and kings for five hundred years, had gone dark. A thin wisp of black smoke curled from the cracks.
Silence.
Absolute, deafening silence.
No one was laughing now. Marcus von Adler's mouth was hanging open. Seraphina Valerius, for the first time, leaned forward slightly, her golden eyes narrowed in intense, analytical confusion. A score of zero was one thing—a sign of being utterly mundane. But to break the orb? To make it display nonsense before settling on zero? That wasn't mundane. That was an anomaly. An impossibility.
Kael pulled his hand back, looking at it with fake surprise. "Huh. Must be broken."
Professor Alistair stared at Kael, then at the dead orb, then back at Kael. His mind was racing. Was it a flaw in the artifact? Or did this boy do something? No, that was ridiculous. He was just a commoner. It had to be a malfunction. A very, very expensive malfunction.
"Your… your reading is zero," Alistair finally stammered out, his voice shaking with anger and confusion. "Report to the back. We will proceed with the second phase of the examination while we procure a replacement orb."
Kael gave a small shrug and walked back to his pillar, ignoring the hundreds of stares now fixed on him. They were no longer looks of derision, but of bewilderment, suspicion, and for a select few, a spark of intense curiosity.
'Oops,' Xylos's ancient voice rumbled in his mind. 'It seems even a whisper of my true nature is too much for their primitive toys. How… amusing.'
Phase two was combat assessment. The students were led to a massive training ground dotted with arenas.
"Your opponent will be a Standard Combat Golem," a burly combat instructor with a scarred face announced. "It is magically fortified to the strength of an average Silver-Rank knight. Your goal is not necessarily to defeat it, but to show us your combat aptitude, your spell-casting ability, and your nerve under pressure. You will be graded accordingly."
One by one, students entered the arenas. The nobles, with their powerful spells, managed to damage the golems significantly, earning high marks. Marcus von Adler, eager to reclaim his pride, unleashed a barrage of high-pressure water jets, forcing the golem to its knees before his mana ran out. He received a top grade.
Commoners struggled, mostly dodging and weaving, trying to survive the golem's relentless onslaught.
Then came Seraphina. She entered the arena, and the air itself seemed to grow hotter. The golem charged. She didn't even move.
"Incinerate," she said, her voice calm and clear.
A pillar of swirling fire erupted from the ground, engulfing the golem. The sound was a deafening roar. When the fire vanished a second later, the golem was a heap of molten slag, its stone body melted and warped beyond recognition.
The instructors gave her a perfect score without a moment's hesitation. She was in a league of her own.
Finally, it was Kael's turn. His name was called, and a fresh wave of whispers followed him.
"It's the orb-breaker."
"What can he do with zero mana? Throw rocks at it?"
"This will be pathetic. Or hilarious."
Kael stepped into the arena, the afternoon sun casting a long shadow behind him. The new combat golem, a ten-foot-tall construct of enchanted granite and glowing blue runes, locked its crystalline eyes onto him. It stomped the ground, a clear show of intimidation.
Kael just stood there, hands in his pockets.
"Begin!" the instructor yelled.
The golem charged, its heavy footsteps shaking the very ground. It was a terrifying sight, a moving mountain of pure force bearing down on a single, unmoving boy. Students gasped, expecting to see him flattened. Seraphina watched, her arms crossed, a critical glint in her eyes. She wanted to see what this anomaly was truly made of.
The golem's massive stone fist, glowing with raw power, swung towards Kael's head. It was a blow that could shatter steel.
Kael didn't dodge. He didn't cast a spell. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets.
Just as the fist was a foot from his face, he sighed. It was a quiet sound, barely audible, but it carried an impossible weight.
And in that instant, the world seemed to bend around him.
For Kael, time slowed to a crawl. He wasn't manipulating time; he was simply perceiving it as it was, a flowing river he could observe at his leisure. He watched the fist approach, a clumsy, brutish application of force. It was powered by mana, a language he knew better than its wielder.
He let out that small sigh, and with it, he released another infinitesimal mote of his [Void Energy]. It wasn't an attack. It was a command. A statement of absolute authority whispered into the fabric of reality.
The command was simple: 'Cease.'
To the onlookers, what happened next was incomprehensible.
The golem's fist, an inch from Kael's face, stopped dead. Not slowed, not deflected. It stopped as if it had hit an invisible, unbreakable wall. But there was no impact, no shockwave. All the momentum, all the magical energy powering the attack, simply… vanished.
The glowing blue runes all over the golem's body flickered violently. The light in its eyes sputtered. It was as if its very soul, its animating force, had encountered a concept so alien and so absolute that it could not compute. It encountered an apex predator of existence.
The golem shuddered. A crack appeared on its fist. Then its arm. Then its torso. The cracks didn't look like damage from an impact. They looked like the artifact was being erased from reality, bit by bit.
Kael took one hand out of his pocket and casually flicked the golem's massive, frozen fist with his index finger.
BOOM.
The golem didn't just break. It disintegrated. It didn't explode outwards; it imploded inwards, collapsing into a fine cloud of gray dust and glittering, powerless mana particles. The dust settled softly on the arena floor around Kael, who stood perfectly still, a single speck of dust landing on his nose.
He wrinkled his nose and brushed it off.
"Done," he said, his voice laced with the same perpetual boredom. He turned and started walking out of the arena, leaving behind a scene of utter, dumbfounded shock.
The entire training ground was dead silent. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. The instructors stared, their mouths agape, clipboards forgotten in their hands. The students, noble and commoner alike, looked as though they had just witnessed a god descend and swat a fly.
Marcus von Adler was pale, his earlier smugness completely gone, replaced by a primal fear.
Elara Vance, the silent swordswoman who had coolly dispatched her own golem with precise strikes, gripped the hilt of her sword so tightly her knuckles were white. Her icy blue eyes were wide, fixed on Kael's back with a burning intensity. That wasn't a technique. That wasn't a spell. It was… something else. Something absolute.
And Seraphina Valerius… her perfect, composed mask had finally shattered. Her fiery eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. She had destroyed her golem with overwhelming power. But this… this was different. He hadn't overpowered it. He had unmade it. With a sigh and a flick of his finger. The sheer, contemptuous ease of it was more terrifying than any pillar of fire.
The anomaly was no longer just an irritation. He was a profound, terrifying, and utterly captivating mystery.
As Kael reached the edge of the arena, the head combat instructor finally found his voice, though it cracked with disbelief.
"Grade for… for applicant Kael…" He looked at his notes, which were now useless. He looked at the pile of dust that was once a ten-foot-tall golem. He looked at the boy who looked like he was ready for a nap.
"Combat assessment… Pass. I guess."