Thwack.

  Lucien’s wooden pickaxe cracked across the Velkryn’s skull with a satisfying crunch. The creature dropped, twitching but not dead.

  “...And that makes one hundred,” Lucien muttered, breathing hard. He pulled a half-squished bloodberry from his pocket and stuffed it into the unconscious raptor-thing’s jagged beak.

  It stirred, sniffed, and scarfed it down. A soft glow pulsed in the air.

  Taming SuccessfulNew Eidolon Acquired: Juvenile Velkryn (Level 3)Please assign a name.

  Lucien grinned, teeth bared.

  “Your name... is MyArtGrade.”

  The Velkryn twitched, tilted its eyeless head, and made a hoarse bark of a sound that might’ve been confusion. It joined the semi-circle of its new siblings, all standing in messy formation.

  Lucien turned to face them—a small army of 100 tamed Velkryns, every single one named after something petty.

  “Who’s a good FailedAssignment?” he muttered. “That’s right, you are. And you too, YouLaggedMe. Love that loyalty.”

  He wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, sweat and dirt streaking the once-fancy academy uniform. His pickaxe looked more duct-taped than crafted now, barely hanging together with twine and spite. He’d need to upgrade soon.

  But he was happy.

  For the first time since waking up in this sparkling purgatory of a game world, he felt like himself again.

  “This takes me back,” Lucien said to no one, walking along a ridge with FYDEV pacing beside him. “That guild raid on Severed Fang’s base? We hit 'em at midnight, used night-stalker Eidolons to climb their cliffs, raided their egg vault, and vanished before the arms even sounded.”

  He grinned.

  “Idiots never recovered.”

  “…Another Velkryn?” one of the nobles sighed, swirling a gss of enchanted wine. “He’s still taming those useless things?”

  “He’s been doing it for over an hour,” a professor added, deadpan. “Name after name, berry after berry.”

  “I must say,” Lady Miralune of House Estenair sniffed, “for someone from a fallen noble family, he’s found new ways to embarrass himself.”

  A chorus of polite ughter rippled through the room. Teachers, nobles, house patrons, and even a few VIP alumni had gathered in the Astral Eye—a magical observation chamber showing real-time projections of the first-year exam.

  “Pathetic,” murmured Lord Renfeld. “Taming is an outdated path. There’s a reason the curriculum no longer prioritizes it.”

  “He’s not even training them to fight,” someone else muttered. “Just collecting them like pets.”

  “I’d be surprised if he survives the second half of the trial,” another added. “They’ll be releasing greater-tier Eidolons in the next phase.”

  The projections shimmered, shifting focus to the areas of true interest—the elites.

  Field View: The “Three Bdes of Aetherion”1. Aris Valeblume – The White Thorn

  A silver-haired girl with twin rapiers glided across the battlefield, bdes glowing with pure mana. Her footwork was fwless, almost artistic. Each movement carved through corrupted beasts with surgical precision.

  “She channels her mana through nerve points,” a teacher expined proudly. “Absolute control. Elegant, efficient. Her footwork is taught in three houses now.”

  2. Kae Drayne – The Crimson Howl

  A brawler in enchanted gauntlets, Kae tore through enemies like a storm. Her red hair bzed behind her as she punched through an Eidolon the size of a boar, magic-enhanced strikes shaking the ground.

  “Raw physical power. Her affinity with kinetic magic is unrivaled.”

  “She’s reckless,” someone else said.

  “She’s effective,” corrected another.

  3. Saria Denvyr – The Warden of Frost

  Cool and silent, Saria rode a tamed ice serpent, unching bolts of frozen magic from a custom-forged staff. Her enemies froze before they even reached her, statues mid-swing.

  “She’s the strategist. Observes, isotes, eliminates.”

  Together, the three of them were unofficially known as The Bdes of Aetherion—each a routeable heroine in the game, each powerful, admired, and designed to orbit around one central figure.

  “And then, of course,” said the headmaster, folding her hands, “there’s him.”

  The room fell quiet.

  They didn’t show his face—just the aftermath.

  A crater.A ten-meter Eidolon, downed in a single spell.First-years watching in awe.

  “Top of every pcement exam. Elite magical signature. Natural leader. He has the Lightborn Affinity. A once-in-a-generation talent.”

  A teacher smiled proudly. “We don’t even need to push him. He just... is.”

  “And what of Lucien Vale?” someone asked dryly.

  A few people chuckled.

  “He’ll be expelled or dead by midterm,” Lord Renfeld said, swirling his gss again. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  The forest trembled as the Eidolons surged in.

  They came as a pack—six of them—twisted, shifting beasts that looked like something pulled from a fever dream. Each one had the elongated body of a panther, but their limbs bent the wrong way. Their skin pulsed like breathing marble, and their heads… their heads were clusters of writhing antlers with blinking, red eyes scattered across them like fungus.

  Mindstalkers.

  One of the more unpredictable corrupted types. Fast, erratic, drawn to emotional instability.

  Unfortunately for Kae Drayne, the Crimson Howl, she was currently bleeding and pissed off.

  She gritted her teeth, favoring her right leg where one of the Mindstalkers had sshed through her gauntlet pting. Mana flickered around her fists as she tried to concentrate, but the swarm circled, tightening.

  “Tch... I got sloppy.”

  She raised her fists again—but she was off-bance. Tired. And distracted. Somewhere deep down, she figured this was it. She’d get eliminated, embarrassed on broadcast in front of the entire noble council, and maybe the academy would pretend she tripped on a root or something.

  She closed her eyes.

  Then—fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip—THUMP.

  All six Mindstalkers dropped instantly, colpsed in a heap of tangled limbs and twitching antlers. Each one had a single sleep-tipped arrow sticking out of its neck.

  Kae blinked. “What the hell—?”

  Above her, something moved.

  Correction—a lot of things moved.

  She looked up just in time to see a makeshift flying ptform—a pnk of wood with rope handles—being barely carried through the air by a swarm of Velkryns. They were fpping like their lives depended on it, talons shaking, wings twitching under the weight of the boy riding it.

  Lucien Vale, sitting cross-legged like this was just another Tuesday, was already halfway through jumping down.

  “Damn. I wanted to tame the blue one,” he muttered, nding beside the sleeping Eidolons. He crouched down, inspecting the creatures with clinical interest.

  Kae stared at him, stunned.

  “Did you just—” she pointed at the sky “—ride a flock of Velkryns like an air taxi?”

  Lucien didn’t even gnce at her.

  “You’ll suffocate them if you bunch their wings too close. Learned that the hard way in Sanctum,” he murmured, dragging one of the Mindstalkers toward a nearby tree and prepping a taming colr.

  Kae gawked. “Hey. Hey! I said something to you.”

  Still nothing.

  He was entirely focused on gently stuffing a compressed bloodmoss pellet into one of the creature’s antler-faces.

  “I’m talking to you!”

  Lucien finally looked up, face deadpan. “What?”

  She crossed her arms, fuming. “I said thank you. You helped me. You should be grateful that someone like me, one of the Three Bdes of Aetherion, even bothered to acknowledge you.”

  Lucien stared at her.

  “…Cringe.”

  Kae blinked. “What?”

  “I said cringe,” he repeated, straight-faced. “You sound like a theater kid who got possessed by a social media manager.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?!”

  Lucien dusted off his hands, stood up, and called out to his flying swarm.

  “Alright, pack it up, team. I’m done with this side quest.”

  The Velkryns screeched in unison, then awkwardly descended to pick up the wooden ptform again. As Lucien climbed aboard, Kae stomped after him.

  “You can’t just—! What’s wrong with you?!”

  Lucien turned his head just slightly. “Nothing. I just have a very low tolerance for ‘main character energy.’”

  Then he vanished above the treetops.

  As the wind rushed past him, Lucien opened the system map and muttered, “Alright, now... time for phase two.”

  He knew this event inside and out. It was supposed to be a tutorial, sure—but it had a twist. A surprise threat, a third-party interference coded into the second act. An “unexpected” complication to raise stakes.

  “Usually a corrupted beast pack breaches the barrier. All the students panic. Hero boy shows up. Saves the day. Everyone falls in love with him. Cue fireworks.”

  Lucien’s eyes gleamed.

  “That’s my exit.”

  He’d fake his death in the chaos. Let everyone think Lucien Vale died in the attack. Meanwhile, he’d slip away and start building his Eidolon empire in the wilds.

  But to do that, he needed the golden boy himself.

  The one the story revolved around. The one whose presence triggered the scripted hero moment.

  “Where are you, plot device...” he muttered.

  That’s when the explosion hit.

  A thundercp of light and force rocked the canopy. A beam of gold-tinted magic tore into the sky in the distance, shattering trees and sending a shockwave across the Rift.

  Lucien’s head snapped toward it.

  “There you are.”

  He leaned forward, signaling his Velkryns to pick up speed.

  As he soared over the forest, the scene came into view: burning trees, shattered terrain, and standing in the middle of it all...

  Lucien’s brain paused.

  His eyes squinted. His jaw sckened slightly.

  “…What the hell is that design?”

  He didn’t say anything else for a full ten seconds. Just floated there, watching, confused and offended on a spiritual level.

  “…That is not a pyable model.”