“Present!” The one called answered bright as a bell, then dipped her head like a stone sinking. Her violet eyes, beautiful yet dim, slid to the lake’s skin and dared not touch Lance ahead.

The leading mage frowned, like a crease over still water. He didn’t understand what broke the air.

He planted his staff like a sapling and stepped closer, gaze measuring. “Mrs. Waltz, you’ve done nothing wrong. Raise your head.”

“...Yes.” She lifted her face slow as dawn. Unlike her evasive, dulled eyes, her twin earrings flashed like frost under the morning glow.

Fulin knew what that meant. In the eyes she showed the world, the Lance once warm in her gaze turned to ice.

The knights knew what earrings meant here, too. Compliments fell like tossed petals. “Mrs. Waltz, you’re truly beautiful.”

They said it for calculation, not warmth. The Silkworm Clan might pay their bread one day, and a few sweet words were seeds for a future harvest.

On any other day, she would’ve returned the courtesies, even if her heart was stone. But now—

“Lance, I—” She jerked her head up, words rushing like a river breaking banks. She wanted to explain, to say the world wasn’t what it looked like.

What met her was a stranger’s greeting, cold as a blade’s flat. Lance bowed lightly and said, “Mrs. Waltz, you look beautiful.”

In that instant, the whole world in her eyes cracked like thin ice. An unfeeling giant blade split it clean in two, and Lance stood on the far bank, his gaze receding like a winter sun.

She tried to speak, a thousand words a flock of birds beating at her ribs. But pain pricked her ears, and every syllable vanished like breath on glass—unseen, unheard.

Before Lance, she chose to bow her head. She chose the long road of guilt, a stranger’s path without footprints.

“Thank you for the compliment, Sir Blazing Fire Knight.” Her voice was barely a thread in the wind.

Winter wind howled like wolves. Cold bit to the bone. The sky hung gray as ash, and the lake lay flat as a mirror.

The leading mage stood apart, like a reed in its own current. He coughed softly and kept calling names. “Next—”

“Stephen, Unyielding Knight. Present or not?”

“Present!” The old rival’s answer snapped like a taut string.

The Frost Knight suddenly raised a hand. “Report!”

“This isn’t a knight order,” the handsome knight’s spear-straight posture made the mage feel shabby by comparison. “You can relax.”

But the man insisted on steel. The mage had to nod. “Go ahead.”

The Frost Knight set his right fist to his chest, stance squared like a tower. “What are the selection standards for recommended knights?”

“Why ask that?”

The Frost Knight looked at the leader, then slid his eyes toward Mountain Wind and Lance. He spoke plain. “Why are a pervert and a freak on the recommendation list?”

“A pervert and a freak?” The mage’s eyes went wide, shock like a spark on dry hay.

“First, the pervert,” the Frost Knight said, his tone still clipped, his glance slanted toward Mountain Wind. “His knight’s blade is a killer’s blade. Under the Vanilla Duke, he killed and killed, numbers like sand. He took joy in it. As long as he could kill, he’d take any order...”

“He’s a murderous pervert. A knight without a speck of code. The Academy values its name like a banner. How will such a man win hearts?”

People stared. A mere Charge Knight dared butt heads with an Earth Knight, and even stranger, the latter acted like wind through pines—he didn’t hear a thing.

“Makes sense.” The mage nodded, ripples flattening.

“Then the freak! He...” The Frost Knight almost jabbed Lance in the nose, then turned back to the mage. “A knight should be low-key and solid, yet he craves trumpets and flags. He’s greedy and thin on honor. He’s no different than a mercenary, yet he happens to have Battle Aura not inferior to the Rose Knight...”

“It’s hard to imagine he won’t cause trouble in the Academy.” He closed like a door.

Lance wanted to argue, heat rising like steam, but Mountain Wind stayed silent. He held his tongue, and before the Rose Knight, he didn’t want to waste a single word.

“Mm. That’s a problem.” The mage nodded again, as casually as dust.

“But I don’t have the final say,” he added, voice flat as a stone. “I’m just here to run your entrance test.” He turned with a swish of robe. “If everyone’s here, follow me. Part of the Experimental Wing is a living labyrinth. Don’t get lost.”

They moved as one, boots ticking on stone, leaving the Frost Knight at the tail, silent as frost. His stare burned at Yuna’s back like ice under sun.

Basement Level Three of the Experimental Wing. Space here warped as if a crooked mirror ate the walls, the stain of corruption nibbling at the edges, yet passersby flowed like it was nothing.

The knights had never seen such sights. Their gazes kept snagging on the kaleidoscope of twisted light, like fish biting glitter.

“Are there monsters here?” Lance asked, voice easy as a breeze.

“There are.” Shoulders tightened like drawn bows, but the leading mage’s tone stayed mild. “Not in the shallow layers. Level 6 and below are abandoned. Monsters start appearing from Level 6 downward.”

“Abandoned floors?” Mountain Wind asked, lazy as a cat in sun.

“Yes.” The mage halted, then traced a living map through the air like a bright river, and started walking again. “The Experimental Wing is a bottomless dungeon. No one knows where it ends.”

“Floors we haven’t claimed, we call abandoned floors.” He let the words fall like pebbles.

“I see.”

The Frost Knight asked next, breath steady as a metronome. “Why not claim more floors? Wouldn’t using them all be better?”

The mage shook his head, a leaf dismissing rain. “It’s not as simple as you think, knight.”

“And we don’t need that many floors,” he added, like banking a fire.

“Why not?” The Frost Knight pressed, voice a steady hammer. “If war washes up to the royal city, these spaces could shelter refugees.”

The mage cut him a side look, sharp as a knife’s glint. “Are you implying the Heavenly Spirit Empire will lose?”

Eyes darted around like startled birds. The Frost Knight denied it at once. “No. I mean no such thing!”

“I only think they should have purpose,” he said, tone cool as shade. “Not sit as breeding beds for monsters and corruption.”

The mage neither agreed nor denied, and finally spoke the bare truth. “Every floor here is a miracle of warding arts. With the Mages’ Association’s current craft, we can expand to, at best, Level 6. Go any lower...”

Talking carried them into the testing hall on Basement Three, air cool as a cave.

“We’re here.” The mage stopped and faced them, like a judge before a scale. “We’ll begin with your mana test. First, we measure your mana strength.”

He pointed to a device, metal and crystal joined like bone and sinew. “Place your hand here. Based on your mana, the weights will rise under Levitation. The height on the staff marks your mana strength.”

Eyes gathered on the strange engine like moths on a lamp.

The leader had two apprentices with him. One read a name like a bell. “Mr. Stephen, you first.”

“Understood!” Stephen answered with vigor and set his hand on the crystal globe as instructed.

The other apprentice worked the device. The crystal began to glow like a waking ember, and the linked weights on the other side started to float.

“It’s rising!” someone cried, voice skipping like a stone.

For many, this was the first spell-engine they’d seen. Awe flickered across faces like lightning.

The weights rose because the crystal drank mana like a thirsty root. Stephen, a knight, soon ran dry.

When the weights reached a point and held like a bird on a wire, he lifted his hand off the crystal at once.

All eyes fixed on the hovering weights. From the floor, it was a low climb, no higher than an ankle.

“Mm, let me see... In terms of mana, you’re an ordinary man.”

“A thousand apologies!” Stephen bowed low, spine a drawn bow.

At first the two apprentices sneered at a knight without mana, disdain like vinegar. One look from the leader smoothed their faces like a palm over dust.

“This isn’t your fault... Next!”

Several knights stepped up in a row, some strong as rams among Charge Knights. Results matched Stephen’s. Ordinary. Without meditation, they’d stored no mana, like jars left empty.

A few minutes later, it was the Rose Knight’s turn.

“Mrs. Waltz,” the leader had to observe the dance of etiquette, tone respectful as he gestured to the globe. “Let’s see your mana strength.”

“No problem.” She wasn’t used to that title. It took her a few seconds to lift her heavy head, like lifting a helm from water.

The Rose Knight placed the hand with its wedding ring on the crystal. In its light, the weights climbed like birds into sun.

“What—!?” someone gasped, a flute-note of surprise.

The weights rose higher than people expected. The distance wasn’t small. They almost reached the top of the lower calf.

Both apprentices focused hard as hawks. The leader came close to check the marks, eyes ticking. After comparing again and again, he said, “Mm... Mage apprentice level.”

A chorus of admiration broke like rain.

“So this is a genius knight...”

“I heard she was a Charge Knight who also trained spells. I didn’t think...”

“The Silkworm Clan’s star is going to burn bright.”

Voices buzzed like bees.

“Next, Mr. Klein!”

Silence fell at once. Among the eleven, the Mountain Wind Knight alone was an Earth Knight.

They watched the man leaning in the corner. He stretched like a lazy wolf. “So boring. I’m about to fall asleep.”

“My turn, right?” He confirmed as he drifted to the crystal.

Mountain Wind set his hand down. The crystal flared like sudden lightning. Under Levitation, the weights raced up the staff like a startled hare.

“Incredible!” one apprentice yelped, eyes shining.

The climb slowed, and hearts beat hard like drums. They held their breath and fixed on the final rise.

At last, the weights stopped at knee height—by Doran’s average height for a seventeen-year-old male, right at the joint.

“Mana strength of a novice mage,” the leader smiled, verdict smooth as silk. “You must meditate often.”

The Frost Knight’s face soured, color draining like wine in snow.

Mountain Wind shrugged. “Draw-blade training tempers the mind. Maybe I spent my youth meditating.”

“Youth?” The mage blinked at Mountain Wind. The man looked barely past thirty, lazy beard and all.

“I’m fifty.” He sighed it like wind through pines.

The leader eyed the Earth Knight’s body with honest envy, a frame that seemed to refuse time. “Must be nice, being a knight...”

Other knights looked on with the same envy and a glare of worship, but Mountain Wind froze the air with one line. “Heh. I’m heading to the front soon.”

Silence stretched for a long minute, a gray sky with no birds. Then the murmur returned.

“Next, Mr. Lance!”

Lance sauntered out like Mountain Wind, steps easy as a breeze. But his Battle Aura wasn’t famed, and the Maple City knights watched with curled lips they hid fast—polite steel under rough leather.

They judged the road and the water, and the nearest boat got the oars. Recommendation slots favored the local dock, and Lance looked too young, like dew on grass.

“A slacker knight,” someone muttered, low as a snake. Laughter rustled, then died quick. Even rough men remembered the gate they stood at.

Lance stepped to the front.

“Just put my hand on it?” he asked, calm as still water.

An apprentice nodded. Lance placed his hand on the crystal globe.

The globe didn’t light at first. The air turned awkward, a held breath.

Then the glow swelled, brightening like dawn punching through cloud. It steadied at the same brilliance Mountain Wind had shown.

“That’s insane!?” someone blurted, even before the weights rose, wonder snapping like ice.

When the light held, the weights began their climb. They rose at a steady pace, slow as a lantern’s lift. Tension drew everyone tight, and the leader’s eyes widened like a pair of moons.

“He’s the same as Mountain Wind!?” a knight clicked his tongue.

The result shouldn’t have shocked, yet Lance was too young. At sixteen, he looked like a blade not yet oiled, and suspicion followed him like a shadow.

The leader’s neutral mask shifted. An unfriendly smile tugged his mouth, like a knife held sideways. He asked Lance, “Kid, how many years have you meditated?”

Behind the crowd, the Rose Knight shook her head hard, a warning fluttering like a trapped moth. Don’t say it.

But Lance answered true. “Not long. About half a year.”

“As expected of Master,” Yuna whispered, admiration soft as falling snow.

The words hit the air, and it tightened like a noose. Hostility pooled like dark water.

The leader’s voice went cold as iron. “Mana strength of a novice mage takes at least seven years of meditation. You claim half a year. Do you know what that means?”

Lance grimaced. “What does it mean?”

“It means you aren’t human. Guards—seize this Night Disciple!” The mage’s shout cracked through the hall like a whip.