Edward Libertis loved those with talent.
He knew he had been born into a blessed environment.
The sole heir to the vast Libertian Empire, which ruled the continent.
A father worthy of admiration, a mother of gentle warmth.
Retainers of unwavering loyalty.
And on top of all that, a talent that had reached a total of three Circles—wind, lightning, and fire—before he had even enrolled in the academy.
Everyone called him a genius.
But Edward alone knew he was not a true genius. He had been given the ability to learn and master anything quickly, yet nothing he touched ever reached the absolute pinnacle.
And so Edward loved those with talent.
Because people always yearn for what they themselves were never given.
That was why he had approached Aiolette Drnaris. The witch of the Drnaris Ducal House, who had set the empire buzzing even before she set foot in the academy. And indeed, the rumors had not been wrong.
No—the rumors hadn't even come close to grazing the hem of her talent.
He had felt it the instant he saw her.
This woman is the real thing.
She carried within her a mana so vast it made him question whether she was truly the same species as himself. And despite possessing that absurd, brute-force mana, she had demonstrated in the classroom standoff earlier a precision of control that swept aside the others' mana in a single stroke.
That Edward would take an interest in someone with such overwhelming talent was, in a sense, inevitable.
…Though Aiolette, for her part, had apparently had no idea who he was.
And what she had just shown in the test had cemented that impression into absolute certainty.
When Aiolette finished the test and returned to her seat, Edward began drifting closer, angling for another chance to forge a connection with her.
But the look in Aiolette's eyes as she returned was anything but ordinary. The moment she spotted Edward standing near her attendant Gladia, her gaze turned sharp in an instant.
It was not a look one directed at the heir to the empire.
*So Aiolette Drnaris is rather fond of this maid.*
Edward reached that conclusion quietly. But his sole interest remained Aiolette's talent—the attendant who had come along with her was entirely outside his concern.
He dismissed Gladia's presence as inconsequential and took one step closer toward Aiolette.
A chill.
A murderous intent—cold and precise as a blade sliding beneath his chin—ambushed him without warning.
"…!"
Edward's body locked up as though he had been plunged into ice water. In the grip of a fear that wouldn't even let him breathe properly, Gladia passed him without a glance and walked to Aiolette's side.
Only then did Edward understand with perfect clarity who had owned that killing intent—the intent that had just closed around his throat.
In the middle of a training hall packed with students, a killing intent so precise it had been delivered to him and him alone, like a needle finding its mark.
*…Birds of a feather. That maid is no ordinary person either.*
Breaking out in a cold sweat, Edward stood frozen—and as if he no longer existed at all, Gladia and Aiolette began chatting between themselves, perfectly at ease.
Watching himself be treated as completely invisible, Edward understood. It was a wordless order to leave.
If he pressed forward without reading the room, there was no telling what that feral young duchess and her enigmatic attendant might do to him. In the end, Edward had no choice but to quietly remove himself.
Yet a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
He was a man who genuinely loved those with talent—and knew how to respect them. If those with such overwhelming, extraordinary gifts did not wish for his company right now, he had no intention of forcing his way across that line.
*Well. No need to rush. Academy life is long.*
Today was not the only day.
There would be no shortage of opportunities to forge a connection with those captivating talents.
Swallowing the curiosity and reluctance quietly simmering inside him, Edward turned and slipped away without a word.
***
Even after my young mistress set the new high score, the test continued.
Oh—as a side note, I chased off that sixty-five-pointer the moment she came back to her seat.
Watching him sidle closer with the clear intention of talking her ear off further, I could tell that if left alone, he would only exhaust her with his pestering.
She was already tired from exerting herself, and I wasn't about to let some insufferable nuisance drag her down.
Anyway, he talked far too much, so good riddance. My ears could finally breathe again.
Why couldn't he just go play with his own little entourage instead of latching onto us?
Completely beyond me.
But honestly—when is it my turn?
Most of the students seemed to have finished by now, and my name still hadn't been called.
I mean, I understand the professor calls names in whatever order she likes, but this is getting ridiculous.
Am I going to be an old woman by the time she gets to me?
My young mistress had long since stopped sitting upright and was in the process of becoming one with the floor.
Now, my lady—you are, nominally at least, the daughter of a ducal house. Lying on the floor is perhaps a touch…
Left with no choice, I let her use my lap as a pillow for what felt like the better part of an hour.
"Next. Gladia."
Finally. My turn.
She really did save me for last.
I helped my young mistress sit up, then walked to the front and stood before the scarecrow.
"……That maid barely has any mana at all."
"Isn't she the one who's always following Drnaris around? Did she just give up on the test entirely?"
"She doesn't seem to be able to see, either. How did she even get into Stellar Academy?"
Gazes converged on me from all sides.
The students filling the training hall wore expressions caught between bewilderment and curiosity.
Well, that made sense. While the World's Trial was active, my mana was suppressed to its absolute minimum—from their perspective, I would look not just ordinary but downright feeble.
Somewhere in the crowd, I sensed the eyes of the male student currently sitting at the lowest score light up with hope.
If I didn't produce the lowest score, he'd be packing his bags—so I probably looked like his last lifeline right about now.
Not that things would go the way he hoped.
*Shhk.*
[Trait ⟨Sword Saint⟩ activates.]
[⟨World's Trial⟩ is nullified.]
I opened my eyes and looked ahead.
The moment my eyes opened, the entire world carved itself into my vision with breathtaking clarity.
The instant the blade was fully unsheathed, mana crackled through every inch of my body, and with it came the sensation of omnipotence—the feeling that I could cut through anything.
As I reclaimed the light, the languid air that had wrapped around me reversed in an instant. The mana that had been all but nonexistent surged without limit, pounding fiercely from my Core.
At the same time, the scarecrow before me came into sharper focus.
Waves radiating from dragon scales wrapped the scarecrow in layer upon layer, like armor, and within that armor the scarecrow's core pulsed in real time—the trajectory of its mana circulation laid bare to my eyes.
But no matter how sturdy the armor, every suit has a gap.
Through the transparent ripple of mana revealed by Heart-Sight and the Sword Saint's vision, I found it—the single knot where all those countless threads converged.
I slowly raised my sword.
I didn't detonate mana in a flashy display like the others, nor did I crush it under sheer brute mass the way my young mistress had.
I simply—
*Cut.*
The moment that intention took shape, the world slowed, and blue lines flooded my vision.
A stillness like being the only thing moving in a world where time had stopped.
With those lines filling my sight—as if inviting me to follow them—I swung along the thread that led straight to the scarecrow's core.
A strike of extreme precision, drawing on both Heart-Sight and the Sword Saint.
If I were to give it a name… yes.
*Heart-Cutter.*
*Shhh—*
A quiet slash that didn't even part the air passed softly across the scarecrow's midsection.
Even after the blade had come and gone, a strange silence hung over the training hall.
The students around me exchanged uncertain glances, baffled by the limp, effortless-looking swing I had just shown them.
The last-place male student, who had been privately toasting his own reprieve, was just beginning to let the corners of his mouth curl upward—
*Thud.*
"…Huh?"
Someone's short, startled sound.
The scarecrow, which had been standing perfectly intact, slowly slid apart at the middle.
The cross-section was smooth as a mirror.
Every student in the training hall turned to stone.
Among them, I caught a glimpse of my young mistress—arms folded, smiling as though this were the only natural outcome—and let a quiet smile of my own answer hers.
*Shhk. Click.*
Into that stunned silence, I slid the sword back into its cane-sheath without delay.
Leaving it out too long wasn't good for it. Conservation was important.
As the blade settled smoothly into place, the full light that had filled the world snuffed out in an instant. The familiar, suffocating darkness crashed back over my vision—but the satisfied smile stayed on my lips.
At that moment, the scarecrow's upper half, which had toppled to the floor and lay in two pieces, began to exhale a thin curl of acrid smoke.
Then, from the mouth of the fallen scarecrow, a mechanical sound emerged—like a final death rattle.
[…100 points.]
*Thud. Crumble.*
With those words, the light of mana that had lived in the scarecrow's eyes went out completely.
"……"
Silence.
The kind of silence that pressed down on the entire training hall as though every student inside had forgotten how to breathe.
The last-place male student's knees buckled beneath the weight of despair—and just like that, Stellar Academy's first class came to a close.
***
"That concludes today's session. The student in last place should return to the dormitory and begin packing immediately."
Elahim dismissed the students, coldly brushing aside the boy who clung to her.
She did not move from her spot until every last student had filed out of the training hall.
Once the heat of all those gathered prodigies had drained completely away, a strange chill was all that remained.
*Tap. Tap.*
Elahim, alone now, walked slowly across the floor.
She stopped at the spot where Gladia had stood. Before her lay the scarecrow's remains—upper and lower halves perfectly separated, tumbled apart in ruin.
Elahim crouched and picked up the cross-section of the bisected scarecrow.
"…Indeed."
Her gloved fingers traced the mirror-smooth cut, and her eyes gleamed with excitement.
A custom magical instrument crafted by Rustil from processed dragon scales.
It was an impenetrable wall by student standards—though at Elahim's level, she could shatter it whenever she pleased…
"But not like this."
Elahim murmured quietly.
If she had simply applied force, reducing the scarecrow to scrap metal would have been trivial.
She could have detonated mana recklessly and vaporized it whole, or crushed it to pieces under overwhelming mass.
What Aiolette Drnaris had shown earlier fell within that same category. But the slash Gladia had just left behind existed in an entirely different realm.
"Not a single drop of power wasted."
The cross-section beneath her fingertips was so smooth it was almost unsettling.
A trace of something that had slipped in along the grain, as if it had always been that way. The Core inside the magical instrument had been bisected in a perfect straight line, without a hair's breadth of deviation.
In truth, the caliber of this year's incoming students was good enough to be called historically exceptional. Under normal circumstances, clearing fifty points on this test would have been a challenge for any first-year.
The test had been nothing more than a way to knock the new students down a peg—and yet, setting aside Aiolette's ninety-eight points, there had been no shortage of prodigies flashing genuinely sharp talent.
Watching them, Elahim had privately concluded that this year's batch had some worthwhile toys, that the Golden Generation label wasn't just empty flattery.
But this was on a different level entirely.
*Gladia.*
She had seemed like a worthless nobody—someone whose mana she could barely even sense. And yet she had been hiding something frightening.
The memory of that cold, razor-edged killing intent she had felt in the brief instant of the swing sent a crawl of goosebumps across Elahim's skin.
How many of the students had noticed the weight contained in that slash?
Even Elahim—who had crossed more killing fields than she could count—had tensed for a split second, and the strike hadn't even been aimed at her.
So that monstrous old hag hadn't told her to watch for nothing.
"This year's batch is going to be far more unhinged than I expected."
*Thud.*
Elahim dropped the scarecrow's remains to the floor. A dull sound rolled through the quiet training hall and slowly faded.
…Afterward, Elahim—who had ruined a custom magical instrument while trying to humble some first-years—was docked three months' pay.
Served her right. Absolutely served her right.