Rio walked on the hallways of the academy, his hand holding a cup of coffee. He sipped the cup as he reveled over its taste. Truly, one of the best things about this fantasy world was its good coffee.

"A good coffee never lets down the morning..."

Rio muttered, his body stopping at a particular door. He stared at the shut entrance infront of him — it was already the time of the exams. Thinking of the exams, his previously calm expression, hardened and grimaced.

"Nevermind..." Rio shook his head, he would just confront it when it came. But for now, as long as it wasn't there yet — he would ignore it. It was irresponsible, yes. But he didn't care.

While he was in conflict with himself, graceful footsteps suddenly echoed behind his back. A calm, beautiful voice resounded.

"Hm..? Oh, it's you Salem. Why haven't you entered yet?"

Rio suddenly sighed. What a troublesome morning. He turned his back, staring at the new arrival — to his luck, it was a beautiful woman with icy white hair. And perhaps to his bad luck, it was Maria Skye.

"...Now, now, what's with that sigh? Are you not happy to see someone as beautiful as me to cheer your morning up?" Maria asked, raising her brows in interest.

"Not at all." Rio answered, his hand holding the doorknob. While he wasn't really fond of her... It would be a lie to say he didn't find her beautiful. In fact, it was the opposite — he found her extremely beautiful, therefore troublesome.

A ex-playboy acquaintance from his past life had once told him a saying; 'Women who are the most beautiful, brings the most trouble, Salem.' and from what he had gathered about Maria Skye from the novel — she was troublesome as it gets.

Different from the soft, and angelic beauty Samantha has — Maria was very much the opposite. Cheeky, and devilish.

"Quite cold and disinterested, aren't we?" Maria chuckled, her lips curling into a soft smile as she continued. "In another matter, you sure made a mess yesterday, huh?"

"..Don't remind me of that," Rio replied, his hand twisting the doorknob. The door clicked, as he pushed it open. He didn't really want to remember what happened yesterday... It was a disaster, simply put.

Yesterday, while exploring and practicing his own void dimensional powers — he had destroyed his own training room, thereby alerting the whole security to take action. The whole academy panicked, thinking there was an attack from inside.historical

He didn't think the accident would cause an academy wide panic over it. Then again, when was the last time the academy's security ever took full action? A decade or so.

"Still, I'm quite amazed you were able to destroy the training room." Maria praised, her body walking towards the door. "Rio Salem, you really are an interesting person, aren't you?"

"...Far from it," Rio shook his head, staring into Maria's eyes. "I'd say I'm the most uninteresting person to ever exist."

"..Is that so?" Maria chuckled, returning the stare back... Those purple eyes — she found it to her taste. It was beautiful yet empty. She shook her head as she turned her back, entering the room. "...There's still a year to know for sure if you truly are uninteresting as you say so."

"I'm sure you would change your mind quick," Rio replied, staring at Maria's back. He sipped the coffee, as he walked forward — his body entering the room. Behind them, the door closed shut.

***

Inside the room, Rio felt the tense opressive atmosphere as most of the teachers stared at him in mix wariness and strangeness. It wasn't exactly a secret that he was the cause of the incident yesterday.

From beside him, Maria raised her brows on Rio's uncaring expression. It was unique in a sense — even businessmen and serial killers with the most emotionless expressions didn't hold the same feeling as Rio to her.

To her, Rio was not that of simply trying to hide his emotions and keeping them in check, but rather it seemed as if Rio lack the ability to have any emotions at all. Maria's lips curled into a smirk, she would have a fun time being in this academy.

"...Well, since everybody is already here, we can begin now."

A voice suddenly resounded from the middle of the room, shattering the tense silence. It came from a tall, intimidating figure wearing luxurious clothes. The figure's hair was blonde in color, while on his face, black sunglasses covered his eyes.

Rio shifted his eyes, staring at the figure. He had seen this man on the meeting before.

"..For starters — I'll introduce myself. I am the Deputy Head of Administration, Brandon Gungnir, the head of the Gungir House." Brandon crossed his hands to his chest, his eyes darted around the room as he paused. He continued. "..You may have heard of me already, or you may have not — not much matters to that. The only thing that matters now that you know who I am — be quiet and listen to my orders... Trust me, you wouldn't want to know what happens if you don't do so. "

His words brought everyone to a silence. The already tense, opressive atmosphere multiplied several fold, making other weak general taachers in the room sweat in fear.

Rio hummed, his eyes unflinchingly darting around the room. ...Huh, general education teachers were also here. Further to the end of the room, he saw Samantha's thin figure.

"Now that introductions are finished, we'll get straight to our objective for today," Brandon said, his hand taking out a cup of wine in the table beside him. He sipped the cup, continuing. "Today marks the first official Volund Ranking examination for this new school year... I'm sure most of you already know, but In the dawn of a new school year — every six months — First Years undergo a special examination for the academy to analyze the talents of the First Year's and pick off who deserves to stay and who doesn't."

"The useful ones gets to raise their ranks and stay, while the simply average and useless ones get their ranks lowered and 'graduate' early," Brandon said coldly, his eyes staring at the cup of wine on his hands. "It's simple meritocracy. Genius useful talents are prioritized, while average and normal talents are dismissed. Such examination had been a long tradition of Volund Academy ever since the start — because of that, the Academy had gained the reputation of being the hub and den of genius Miracle Invokers."

"The rumors are not unfounded," Brandon continued. "In each every one hundred famous Miracle Invokers mentioned, atleast half of those are alumni and graduate from this academy."

That was true. Rio nodded. Undoubtedly there were special cases that managed to rise by luck from a legacy or inheritance, but many famous known Miracle Invokers tend to be somewhat connected to Volund Academy.

"As for what we're going to do? Nothing really," Brandon sighed, shaking his head. "Right. We don't really have to do anything but observe, record the talents and handle any accidents. Simple as that. Hell, if I was allowed to not attend — I would've just slept in my room today. I'm not that interested in seeing a bunch of First Year kids fight."

"Alas, as a very responsible Deputy Head, I must attend to this event," Brandon shook his head, raising his cup to the air. "It would be a severe lost of face for our academy. After all — several guests from afar are watching this very 'special' event in hopes of getting a first pick on our students."

Rio faintly nodded. As Volund Academy was the best and most popular learning institute in the whole world — many organizations and company guilds in the Kingdom keep in touch with the academy to scout the talented ones they found interest in.

And there's also that spectrum of the nobles looking for any talented civilian students to adopt in their lineage. Rare, but not impossible. Such case usually happens when the heir of the lineage was lacking in qualities.

Suddenly, a beep echoed in the room. Brandon shifted his stare to the smartwatch on his wrist. He looked over the message, nodding as he announced:

"Alright, I just got a message back from Guile..."

In that moment, several hologram projections erupted in the room — showcasing students of Volund Academy cluelessly wander around a dimension.

"...the exams had already begun."

Brandon finished, his back turning as he stared at the huge screen on the room.

Rio stared at one hologram in particular. His gaze looking at an ordinary student no one was paying attention to. It was neither Arcuied nor Eugene, nor Amber and Xiao. The student he was watching was unfamiliar.