Chapter 80: Standing Tradition

The Grand Atrium of the male dormitories echoed with the heavy clash of steel, the roar of drunken upperclassmen, and the wet, thudding sounds of overconfident first-years hitting the marble floor.

The fourth-year students—the true elite of the academy—were away on their mandatory field campaigns in the frontier territories.

In their absence, the second and third-years ruled the residential halls with absolute, tyrannical authority.

And with the arrival of the new batch of examinees came the most brutal tradition in the academy’s history:

The Rite of the Broken Door.

The rules were simple.

Every first-year was automatically assigned a damp, windowless cell in the subterranean basements.

If a freshman wanted light, space, and a private training court, they had to publicly challenge a senior for their suite key.

If the freshman won, the suite was theirs.

If they lost, they paid double rent and cleaned the victor’s boots for a month.

In thirty years, no first-year had ever won a suite.

"Next!" a towering third-year named Gideon von Eisen shouted, wiping a fleck of blood from his heavy gauntlet.

At his feet lay a bruised, gasping freshman from a minor noble family, his wooden practice shield splintered into tinder.

Laughter erupted from the balconies surrounding the courtyard, where dozens of upperclassmen cheered, clinking pewter mugs of ale.

"Is that the best the new batch has to offer?!" Gideon roared, flexing a massive shoulder that glowed with a faint, earth-element mana aura.

"You commoner dogs and greenhorn patricians think passing Elysium makes you men?

"You’re infants!"

The streak of humiliation held unbroken for two full hours—until the Class of Sovereigns stepped into the ring.

Cassian von Draven, ranked ninth in the entrance exam, was the first to break the curse.

Moving with the fluid, silent grace of a striking viper, Cassian bypassed a third-year’s heavy claymore guard in under twelve seconds, placing the tip of his rapier directly against the senior’s throat before the man could even ignite his arcana.

Ten minutes later, Kaelen von Valerius—the hot-headed, seventh-ranked scion of House Valerius—stepped onto the blood-stained ring.

Kaelen didn’t bother with finesse.

Igniting his family’s signature Blazing Crest aura, he unleashed a single, explosive shoulder-tackle that shattered his opponent’s defensive ward-stone, blasting the third-year straight through the wooden doors of the atrium and into the courtyard fountain outside.

"The suite on the fourth floor, west wing," Kaelen spat, tossing his flaming gauntlet to his servant as he snatched the golden room key from the stunned senior’s fingers.

"And make sure the sheets are silk."

A heavy, uneasy murmur rippled through the upperclassmen on the balconies.

The tradition had been broken twice in a single night.

The seniors’ pride was bleeding, and the atmosphere in the atrium turned sharp, hostile, and volatile.

In the far corner of the shadowed hall, far removed from the noise and the chalk-drawn ring, Valerian sat quietly on a low stone bench.

He wore his plain, worn black coat, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted downward as his black blindfold concealed his eyes.

He had his iron sword propped between his knees, completely indifferent to the cheers, the blood, and the politics.

He was simply waiting for the crowd to clear so he could collect his assigned key to the basement and get some sleep.

Gideon von Eisen, his face red with suppressed rage over Kaelen’s humiliating victory, scanned the room for a way to restore the upperclassmen’s dominance.

His eyes swept past the high-born freshmen who stood in tight, defensive clusters—and landed square on the lone, blindfolded figure in the corner.

Gideon’s lips curled into a nasty, venomous grin.

"You," Gideon boomed, his heavy boots crunching over the broken wood as he walked toward the corner.

The atrium quieted down.

Dozens of eyes followed Gideon’s gaze, landing on the quiet mercenary.

Valerian didn’t move.

Gideon stopped five feet away, towering over the seated youth.

He drew a long, heavy steel broadsword from his hip, resting the flat of the heavy blade against his shoulder.

"You’re the rat named Valen, aren’t you?" Gideon sneered loudly, ensuring his voice reached the balconies above.

"Fourth rank on the tablet.

"The commoner stray who scavenged points while the real nobles fought the Beast King."

Kaelen von Valerius, standing near the archway with his new suite key, paused and crossed his arms, watching with a cold, amused smirk.

"Let him get flattened," Kaelen muttered to his entourage.

"A sellsword shouldn’t be sitting above House Valerius anyway."

Gideon tapped the point of his broadsword against the stone floor right between Valerian’s boots.

"I’m feeling generous, stray," Gideon growled.

"Challenge me.

"Step into the ring.

"If you somehow manage to survive three strikes, I’ll let you sleep in the dry storage room above the kitchens.

"If you lose... you kneel right here and lick the mud off my boots."

Silence fell over the Grand Atrium.

Valerian slowly raised his head.

Behind his black blindfold, his expression remained as still as marble—devoid of anger, annoyance, or fear.

"I am not interested in your room," Valerian said flatly, his voice calm and completely unhurried.

"Give me my basement key so I can sleep."

Laughter erupted from the balconies.

"He’s terrified!" a second-year shouted down.

"Look at him cowering!"

Gideon’s sneer deepened.

"You don’t get a choice, mercenary.

"In this hall, seniors command, and freshmen obey.

"Get up before I drag you onto the chalk line by your hair."

Valerian let out a quiet, barely audible breath.

He didn’t stand up with a dramatic draw of his sword.

He didn’t ignite a single thread of arcana.

He simply stood up smoothly, leaving his plain iron blade leaning uselessly against the stone bench.

"Three strikes?" Valerian asked softly, stepping into the dim torchlight.

"Three strikes," Gideon scoffed, raising his massive broadsword with both hands, his muscles bulging as his earth-element aura flared, coating his weapon in dense, brown kinetic pressure.

"And I’m going to break every rib in your—"

Gideon swung.

The heavy broadsword cut through the air with a deafening, whistling howl, aiming straight for Valerian’s left shoulder with enough force to shatter stone.

Valerian didn’t draw a weapon.

He didn’t deploy a shield.

Relying purely on micro-kinetic spatial prediction, Valerian took a fraction of a step forward—entering Gideon’s personal space inside the broadsword’s turning arc before the blade could gather maximum velocity.

TAP.

Valerian’s left palm struck the inside of Gideon’s right elbow with microscopic precision, instantly deadening the nerve and killing the momentum of the strike.

Before the massive third-year could process the sudden numbness in his arm, Valerian’s right hand shot forward like an iron piston.

He grabbed Gideon by the front of his steel-reinforced collar, shifted his center of gravity, and drove his heel straight into the back of Gideon’s knee.

CRACK.

THUD!

The floor of the atrium trembled.

Gideon’s massive, six-foot-four frame was slammed face-first into the solid marble floor with terrifying, brutal velocity.

The impact shattered the stone tile beneath his nose, spraying splinters of marble and a cloud of dust into the air.

Gideon’s broadsword clattered uselessly onto the ground, sliding ten feet away.

The entire atrium went dead, suffocatingly silent.

The upperclassmen on the balconies froze with their mugs halfway to their lips.

Kaelen von Valerius’s smirk vanished instantly, his eyes widening in absolute, disbelieving shock.

The entire exchange had taken less than two seconds.

No mana.

No martial arts stance.

Just raw, terrifyingly efficient violence.

Gideon lay groaning in a pool of his own blood, his body twitching weakly as his consciousness faded.

Valerian stood over the unconscious senior, his black coat settling back onto his shoulders.

He leaned down, unclipped the master suite key—a heavy, polished brass key marked with the numeral I—from Gideon’s belt, and tucked it calmly into his coat pocket.

He turned, picked up his plain iron sword from the stone bench, and walked toward the grand staircase leading to the top floor.

No one spoke.

No one stepped in his way.

The crowd of upperclassmen parted like the Red Sea as the blindfolded youth walked past them without offering a single glance.

The Suite of the First Sovereign occupied the entire eastern wing of the dorm’s top floor.

It was vast, quiet, and grand—featuring vaulted oak ceilings, a stone fireplace crackling with warm blue flames, a private balcony overlooking the academy grounds, and a massive bed draped in dark velvet.

Valerian shut the heavy oak door behind him, locking it with a soft clack.

He walked over to the sturdy mahogany desk near the window, unclipped the dark-mithril suppressor from his left wrist, and set it down.

The metal chimed softly against the wood.

Without the suppressor constantly binding his pathways, his three dragon cores gave a low, rhythmic hum deep within his chest, circulating warm, golden-crimson arcana through his veins.

He didn’t light a candle.

He didn’t inspect the luxury of the room.

Exhausted beyond measure—not from the fight in the atrium, but from the crushing, suffocating weight of the past three days—Valerian walked over to the wide bed and collapsed onto it.

He lay flat on his back, his arms spread wide across the dark velvet sheets, staring blindfolded up at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling.

The room was silent, save for the crackle of the hearth fire and the heavy, slow rhythm of his own breathing.

Then, the air in the bedroom grew unnaturally warm.

The sharp scent of old wood and chimney smoke vanished, instantly replaced by the intoxicating, divine fragrance of burning lotus blossoms, white-gold phoenix fire, and wild foxfire.

The dark space beside him on the wide bed shifted as the velvet mattress depressed under a light, ethereal weight.

Aurelix materialized.

She did not appear as a terrifying, fifty-foot god-beast, nor as an abstract phantom of arcana.

She stepped fully into the physical realm beside him, lounging lazily on her side upon the dark velvet sheets.

Her voluptuous, porcelain form was draped in white-gold robes that shifted like liquid sunlight in the dim firelight.

Her crimson-gold hair spilled over the pillows like silk threads, her sleek fox ears twitching slightly at the sound of the wind outside.

Fanning out behind her back, draping over Valerian’s legs like a heavy, warm blanket of fur and scales, were her nine magnificent tails.

She rested her cheek against her pale, delicate hand, her glowing golden-crimson eyes staring down at his covered face.

Valerian didn’t move.

He didn’t reach for his sword.

He didn’t even turn his head.

"You fight like a man who wants to be struck," Aurelix purred softly, her voice carrying a rich, velvety warmth that echoed in the quiet room.

She raised a pale, slender finger, trailing her dark nail lightly along the line of his jaw, stopping just short of his black blindfold.

"I watched you in the cave," she whispered, her foxlike eyes narrowing in deep, genuine fascination.

"I watched you let those weak, fragile mortals spit on your name.

"I watched you bleed your own palms raw rather than give them an excuse to hate you less.

"And tonight... you walked into that hall like a ghost waiting for someone to notice he’s already dead."

Valerian remained silent, his chest rising and falling in slow, rigid counts.

Aurelix leaned in closer, her face inches from his, her hot breath smelling of wild lotus as her nine tails wrapped tighter around his legs, holding him in a warm, inescapable embrace.

"Tell me, my cold little master..." Aurelix murmured, her teasing smile fading into something dangerously perceptive, her golden-crimson eyes locking onto his soul.

"...why do you hate yourself so much?"