Chapter 78: Initiation
The next morning arrived with all the grace and subtlety of a brick through a stained-glass window.
Lucien was still floating somewhere in that delicate limbo between dream and wakefulness when a thud-thud-THUD rattled his door, followed by a voice so loud it practically peeled the paint off the walls.
“Rise and shine, first-years! Morning wash, then mess hall, then assembly! Move it or lose breakfast!”
The Warden’s voice marched down the hallway like a parade of angry drums, accompanied by more knocking, more groaning, and the muffled symphony of students reluctantly dragging themselves out of bed.
Lucien groaned into his pillow.
His limbs felt like they’d been individually hexed.
His eyes burned from lack of sleep, his mind still fogged from the sheer emotional whiplash of the day before, the ball, the food, the dance with Vaelira, and a suspiciously sentimental goodbye.
He’d barely gotten a few hours of rest before the academy’s human alarm clock decided to announce the dawn like a one-man military coup.
Grumbling something that might have been legally classified as a threat, Lucien rolled out of bed and trudged to the communal washroom.
The water was cold, the mirror was foggy, and his hair had decided to rebel in six different directions.
But after a quick rinse and a fight with a comb, he threw on his uniform and joined the zombie procession heading toward the mess hall.
The air there was warm and filled with the clatter of trays and the faint scent of overcooked eggs.
He blinked blearily at the food counters, grabbed a tray, and ended up with a modest breakfast: two slices of soft bread, a glass of milk, a scoop of scrambled eggs, and a ladleful of… something green.
It looked like vegetable stew.
It also looked like it had ambitions to be medicine.
He found an empty seat near the corner, plopped down, and began poking at the stew with a spoon like it might bite back.
That’s when he saw them, two familiar shapes approaching through the haze of sleep-deprived students.
One was waving cheerfully.
The other was chewing like he was mad at the bread.
“Morning, Lucien!”
Balt greeted, dropping into the seat opposite him with far too much energy for a person who should have been comatose less than a week ago.
Corin flopped into the seat next to Balt, looking like he had recently won a bar fight against a werewolf and decided to keep the aesthetic.
Lucien blinked at him.
Then blinked again.
“…Corin?”
The demon-boy was taller.
Noticeably so.
At least a couple inches, maybe more.
His shoulders had broadened, his neck looked thicker, and his face, while still recognizably Corin’s, was dusted with rough stubble, as if someone had taken sandpaper to a twenty-year-old.
His hair was a bit shaggier, too, and his eyes had that slightly-too-sharp gleam, half predator, half housecat staring at a laser pointer.
Also, he was currently devouring an entire loaf of bread with both hands.
Not slices.
Loaf.
Like it owed him money.
Lucien turned to Balt first.
That was the safer route.
“How’re the legs?”
He asked, taking a bite of his eggs.
Balt smiled, already halfway through his own breakfast.
“Still sore, but better. Healers say I should be walking normally by the end of the week. They’ve got this weird salve that smells like tree bark and death, but it works wonders. And you?”
Lucien shrugged.
“Mostly bruises and mental scars. I’ll live. Probably.”
“Good to hear.” Balt took a sip of juice.
“You looked like a corpse when we last saw you. All that bandages and drenched, almost pickling in healing potions. Honestly, I thought you were going to deliver a monologue and then close your eyes.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Then their eyes turned, almost in unison, to the creature that was Corin.
The demon-boy was now trying to claw his way into a boiled egg like it was a mini skull.
He was breathing hard between bites, as if chewing were a martial art.
“…Corin,” Lucien said cautiously.
“You good, buddy?”
Corin paused, looked up, and blinked slowly, like he was just remembering that social interaction was a thing.
“Yuh,” he grunted, mouth still half-full.
“Healers… fix too good. Messed up. Boosted-”
He pointed vaguely to his chest. “-the core. Healing go zoom.”
Balt leaned in helpfully.
“They weren’t really trained in demon anatomy. The spellwork they used interacted weirdly with Corin’s regenerative system. Instead of just healing the injuries, it, uh… kicked his body into overdrive.”
Lucien frowned.
“Overdrive?”
“Yeah,” Balt said, trying not to laugh.
“He basically went through a year of physical development overnight.”
Lucien’s fork froze halfway to his mouth.
“You’re telling me the healing magic aged him a year?”
Corin nodded solemnly.
“Is okay. We Demon live long. One year, two year-no big. Only skin and bones get stretch. Inside still same.”
Lucien stared at him, more alarmed now than reassured.
He leaned sideways, whispering to Balt, “His words are coming out kind of weird. You think he might’ve taken a blow to the brain?”
Balt chuckled.
“No, no. His Common just isn’t that great.”
Lucien blinked.
“What? He was talking fine during the trial.”
“Yeah, because of the band. You remember those enchanted cuffs we wore during the test? They weren’t just trackers, they had a built-in translation matrix. Helped non-native speakers smooth out their speech. Without it…”
He gestured toward Corin, who had now moved on to drinking milk straight from the jug.
Lucien rubbed his temples.
“He sounds like someone cast ‘Speak with Beasts’ and just hoped for the best.”
Balt laughed.
“It’s not that bad when he’s not talking through half a bakery. Give him a few weeks. He’s learning.”
Corin looked up, milk moustache on his face, and gave them both a thumbs-up.
“I learn fast.”
Lucien couldn’t help but snort.
Despite everything, the exhaustion, the near-death experiences, the cursed stew, they were here.
Together.
A weird trio of a brooding reincarnator, an anxious nerd with heart, and a semi-feral demon-boy.
And somehow… it felt kind of right.
He picked up his spoon and took another bite of stew, chewing thoughtfully.
“Well,” he muttered, “if this is what passes for normal now… I might survive this place after all.”
Corin belched again.
Louder this time.
Lucien glanced at him.
“Maybe.”
***
The trio finished their breakfast with varying degrees of satisfaction.
Lucien nursed the last of his milk while giving the green stew a look of mutual betrayal.
Balt, ever the polite scholar, finished everything with a quiet determination, even complimenting the texture of the eggs.
Corin, meanwhile, had eaten enough bread to construct a small cottage and now looked faintly disappointed that his tray wasn’t
refillable.
By the time the first wave of students began rising from their seats, trays clattering and chairs scraping, Lucien stretched and stood as well.
“Where to now?” he asked.
Balt adjusted his robes.
“The warden said assembly. Probably orientation or post-trial announcements. Want to follow the herd?”
Lucien glanced around the mess hall, clusters of students in various states of grogginess and nervous chatter, all moving toward the exits like sheep uncertain if they were headed to pasture or a sacrificial altar.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Let’s follow the future mages.”
They joined the slow-moving current of first-years winding through the corridors.
Lucien noted that the layout of the building was designed like a puzzle box, tight, spiraling hallways with runes etched into the walls, distant windows filtering in soft white light.
Everything felt old, purposeful, and slightly off-center.
As if the very architecture was watching them, deciding who belonged.
Eventually, the flow of students emptied into a large double-doored chamber, the doors already thrown open.
Inside was a spacious seminar room built like a half-circle lecture hall.
Tiered rows of long desks curved around a central podium, and thin beams of morning light slanted in through high arched windows.
Despite the number of students entering, the room still felt too large, its emptiness emphasized by how many seats remained vacant.
Lucien found a spot near the middle and sat down with Balt on one side and Corin on the other, the latter immediately slouching like an oversized cat.
He glanced around, scanning the room.
There were familiar faces among the unfamiliar.
Across the aisle, he spotted the hammer-wielding girl from the statue trial, if he remembered right.
She was leaning back in her seat, arms folded, eyes half-lidded with a smug kind of boredom.
A few seats away from her sat the quiet spear-wielder, whose precision and control during the battle had made him look like he’d trained for war since birth.
And further down, he recognized a few more scattered students from his group, bruised, bandaged, but clearly still standing.
But there were also plenty of strangers, students who hadn’t fought beside him.
They must have been from the other testing groups.
Some wore different styles of robes or outerwear, likely from other regions or magical traditions.
One kid had a long feather tucked behind his ear, and another had spectral tattoos swirling across his arms like living ink.
They looked strong.
Or at least strange enough to be dangerous.
Lucien felt the faint stirrings of anticipation in his chest.
Then the room went quiet.
It wasn’t gradual.
One moment there was a soft murmur of chatter, the next, silence, sudden and absolute.
Because Vaencel had entered.
The instructor strode into the room with that same dissonant presence he always carried, not flashy or flamboyant, but impossible to ignore.
He wore the same layered vestments from before, deep black and silver embroidered in geometric patterns, with a cloak that trailed like drifting shadow.
His silver-blond hair was tied back today, and his gloves looked freshly cleaned.
Two aides followed behind him, one tall and lanky, the other short and round-faced, rolling in a blackboard on wheels, the kind that folded open like a book and had smudges of chalk residue already clinging to the edges.
Vaencel reached the center podium and turned to face the students.
His sharp eyes swept across the room like a blade on a whetstone.
Lucien straightened in his seat without meaning to.
Vaencel didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.
He simply cleared his throat.
The sound was crisp, dry, and yet somehow more commanding than a yell.
“Good,” he said.
“You’re all awake. Some of you, barely.”
A few students shifted uncomfortably.
Corin let out a sleepy grunt.
Lucien elbowed him.
Vaencel folded his hands behind his back.
“Welcome to the provisional seminar for selected entrants of the Twilight Crown Academy. If you are here in this room, it means you passed your aptitude evaluation. It also means you were deemed, by various measures, to be above average.”
There was a slight ripple of pride in the air, shoulders straightening, chins lifting.
Vaencel didn’t smile.
“Do not let that get to your heads.”
The ripple froze.
“You survived,” he continued, “and for that, you have my professional acknowledgment. But survival is not excellence. It is merely the lowest threshold for progress.”
He gestured toward the board, and the aides began unfolding it.
On the surface appeared a complex diagram of interlocking names and categories: “Mystic Aptitudes,” “Elemental Affinities,” “Core Stability,” “Combat Response,” “Magical Theory,” and more.
“This,” Vaencel said, tapping the board once with a piece of chalk, “is how we are supposed to evaluated you. Each of your performances has been recorded, analyzed, and placed into preliminary classifications. This seminar exists to explain your placement, the expectations that now follow, and the dangers of being mediocre at an institution designed to weaponize talent.”
Lucien’s brow furrowed slightly.
The diagram was dense.
The structure wasn’t just academic, it looked like the blueprint of a battlefield.
Vaencel’s eyes swept the room again.
“Over the next few days, you will be sorted into courses, undergo additional assessments, and begin acclimation. You will be competing for resources. Instruction. Advancement. And yes, survival.”
He smiled faintly then.
It wasn’t cruel.
Just tired.
Like a man who’d watched many bright sparks burn out.
“You have been given the opportunity to become great,” he said. “What you do with that… is entirely up to you.”
