“This,” Halden announced proudly, tapping the lumpy shape with his chalk, “is our glorious Empire of Velhraine.”
Ray exhaled slowly through his nose. Glorious. Right.
The chalk screeched as Halden circled the potato with unnecessary zeal. “As all of you should remember from your primary tutors, our Empire was unified nearly five thousand years ago by the legendary Five Pillars.”
Ray slumped deeper into his seat. Around him, the other noble children had assumed their standard formation: backs straight, quills poised, and expressions bright with that artificial, "yes-I-am-very-interested" glow they had been trained to perform since infancy. It was a theater of academic enthusiasm.
Ray, however, did not sparkle. He wasn’t a lore guy. He wasn't a "listen to the teacher talk about ancient corpses" guy. He was a strategy guy. A combat guy. A "teach me something that actually makes me stronger" guy.
He hadn't felt this level of sheer mental agony since he was a toddler. Learning about history was cool when the world was new, but now? Now it was just boring background noise. In his head, Ray was frantically hammering the [Skip Cutscene] button, but the dialogue box just kept scrolling.
Professor Halden cleared his throat dramatically—the kind of theatrical inhale that signaled he was about to enter his favorite part of the curriculum.
“First! Sylvas Draegor—the First Emperor! Ancestor of our current ruler, His Majesty Emperor Aurelius Draegor!”
He slapped the chalk against the board with the force of a dying mammoth. A burst of white dust exploded outward, drifting through the air like a sad little snowstorm. Ray blinked through the cloud, biting back a laugh. If Sylvas Draegor could see this dusty depiction of himself, Ray thought, he’d conquer the classroom out of pure spite.
Halden continued, full of crinkly-eyed admiration: “A visionary ruler! A man of unmatched charisma and strategic genius!”
Ray doodled a stick figure of Sylvas getting stabbed in the back. He labeled it: Empire Speedrun: Any%.
“Second! Alaric Vaustel—King of Bram! Architect of imperial military doctrine!”
Ray’s eyes wandered to the window.
“Third! Seren Lysandra, the Archsage! Builder of the Dawn Roads! Lightweaver extraordinaire!”
Ray pictured a beam of holy light smiting him out of this classroom. Please. Anytime now.
“And fourth!” Halden’s voice rose, swelling like a bard at a festival. “Kael Ravenholt—Warlord of the Frozen North! Beast-slayer!”
Ray nodded. Maybe if he says it five times, Kael will appear and kill us all.
Halden spun around for his grand finale. “And lastly—Thalan Nyxaris, the Grand Curator! Architect of the first Great Library!”
A few noble students leaned in with exaggerated awe. Ray finished a doodle of Thalan aggressively shushing a screaming peasant under the caption: The Great Library: Silence is Mandatory (And Death is Final).
“Together, these Five Pillars forged the empire we cherish today!” Halden beamed, arms wide.
Ray stared blankly at the board. The only thing he cherished was the thought of being anywhere else. He wanted adventure. He wanted power. He wanted to be the protagonist of a legend, not the student memorizing someone else's. Instead, he was stuck in a room learning about dead people while his own Ash Circuit remained at a pathetic 0.2% synchronization.
“Ah—looks like we’ve run out of time,” Professor Halden said cheerfully. “We’ll continue after lunch with an in-depth analysis of their individual logistics!”
Ray’s soul died. He didn’t wait for a second sentence. He shot out of his seat so fast his chair clattered backward, bolted for the door, and exploded into the hallway with the joy of a man escaping a life sentence.
Lunch never tasted so much like freedom.
Ray didn’t head for the dining hall. He couldn’t—he, alongside every other Knight cadet, was banned.
Instead, he veered toward the outer training grounds, slipping past the manicured paths and into the treeline where the Academy stopped pretending it owned nature. He crouched near a sun-warmed rock and opened his worn leather satchel.
Inside wasn’t much:
- A strip of dried root he’d dug up that morning. Bitter, but it killed the hunger.
- Two fist-sized tubers roasted in last night’s embers, their skins blackened and cracked.
- A handful of sour berries he’d triple-checked for toxicity—edible, barely.
- One small skewer of meat, thin and uneven, carved from a horned rabbit he and his roommates had trapped at dawn.
No seasoning. No bread. No silver. Ray bit into the meat anyway. It was chewy, smoky, and far too tough, but it was hot, it was earned, and it was his.
He chewed slowly, listening to the wind in the branches and the distant, indignant shouts of other students discovering—too late—that survival lessons didn't come with a napkin.
“…Yeah,” he muttered around a mouthful. “I can live with this.”
It wasn’t the heroic life he’d imagined, but for the first time in days, his stomach was full because of his own calloused hands.
Ray finished the last bite and wiped his hands on his trousers. Only then did the system flicker back into view.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS — USER: RAY MELBORNE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NAME: Takahara Kenji (Ray Melborne)
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
AGE: 15
LEVEL: 4
EXP: 74 / 100
HP: 78 / 78
STM: 33 / 33
ATTRIBUTES:
? STR: 12 (+7)
? AGI: 10 (+4)
? VIT: 14 (+6)
? DEX: 7 (+3)
? INT: 12 (+1)
? WIS: 10
NEW TRAIT UNLOCKED:
ASH CIRCUIT — VEIN I: ORIGIN
A corrupted/altered Fire Vein.
Type: Unknown
Effect: ???
Stability: UNSTABLE
Resonance: EXTREME
Synchronization: 97.4%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skills — [Analyze Lv.1]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUEST: Unknown Origin — Investigate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ray stared at the glowing numbers and groaned into his palms. “So close… and still not there.”
97.4%. Three years of meditation. Three years of sweating, screaming internally, and eating roots in the dirt. He was still stuck at the final stretch—2.6% away from linking his Origin to his Foundation.
The worst part? He wasn't skyrocketing to godhood. He wasn't a "cheat-code" protagonist yet. His stats were respectable, even impressive for a fifteen-year-old, but they weren't enough to overshadow the true monsters of the Academy. He was just "slightly above average." He was a high-tier cadet in a world filled with legends.
If there was a silver lining to the last three years, it was the family tree finally thinning out.
Garret had graduated after Ray’s first year—thank the gods—and was now stationed with the Wall Guard. His daily bullying had been a nightmare, but his absence was a blessed, quiet peace. Isolde, however, was finishing her final year. Which meant Ray had to attend her graduation ceremony.
He exhaled, staring at the canopy. “Great. Another event full of nobles, stiff collars, and judgmental glares. My absolute favorite.”
Still… despite the pressure, despite the agonizingly slow progress, and despite the weight of that last 2.6%—he was on the threshold.
Ray clenched his fists, feeling the faint, ashy heat beneath his skin. This was the year. He would break through the Foundation Vein. He had to. Because if 97.4% felt this heavy, he couldn't imagine what 100% would do to the world around him.
Rian hadn’t moved for hours. While Ray ranted about the impending doom of Isolde’s graduation ceremony, Rian remained a statue.
Ray tossed a pillow at him. “Dude, we’re talking about Isolde. The sister who can evaporate a man’s confidence just by breathing. And you’re just—in rock mode?”
Harel chuckled, adjusting his glasses. “He’s been at it since dawn. Let him—”
The sentence died in the air. A deep, low hum rolled through the floorboards, like a distant rockslide occurring miles underground. Ray froze. Calen stood so fast his chair nearly flipped. “No way. Is he—?”
Rian’s breath deepened. It sounded weighted. Lines of muted amber light began tracing themselves up his forearms, glowing like cracks in sun-baked earth. A pulse rolled outward—dense and pressurized. It was the kind of force that made Ray’s knees want to buckle, like standing too close to a mountain that had suddenly decided to move.
Harel gasped. “He’s connecting! He’s CONNECTING!”
Rian’s eyes opened. They weren't bright; they were deep, like polished river stones shot through with golden veins. Calen immediately lunged into a celebratory chokehold. “FOUNDATION VEIN, BABY! EARTH USER UNLOCKED!”
Rian coughed, dazed, staring at his hands as the orbiting dust finally settled. “…It feels… heavy,” he murmured. “Like my body is made of packed soil instead of bones.”
Ray didn't hear the cheering. He could only stare at his friend’s hands.
Rian—the loud one, the guy who occasionally forgot to chew his food—had reached the Foundation. And Ray?
Synchronization: 97.4%.
It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. It was a cold, suffocating pressure. A rising quake in his chest that whispered: If you don’t break through soon, you’re getting left behind.
Because Rian wasn’t the first. Calen had connected two months ago—wind now swirling around him whenever he grew impatient. Harel had followed shortly after, mastering the soft ripples of the Mirrorwell.
Even Rowen Vernhard had broken through three months ago, and he made sure to mention it during every meal, every lecture, and every trip to the bathroom.
Ray’s throat tightened. Three of his closest peers and his worst rival had all crossed the finish line. He was standing one hair’s width from progress, yet he was still stuck in the mud.
The Academy’s brutal deadline loomed over him like a guillotine. One month left. If he didn't link his Origin to his Foundation Vein by then, he’d be dismissed. Cast out. His "main character journey" wouldn't end in a blaze of glory; it would end with a quiet walk to the front gate.
Ray’s palms grew damp. The 2.6% felt like a mountain he couldn't climb.
The graduation auditorium loomed ahead, draped in the heavy, proud banners of the Empire. Students moved in bustling streams—laughing, adjusting uniforms, and buzzing with the frenetic energy of a milestone reached.
Ray walked with his roommates, but his mind was trapped at 97.4%. He told himself it didn't matter. He told himself he was fine. But then he saw her.
It had been two years. He had told himself Elaine would look the same. He was wrong.
Elaine stood near the entrance—older, sharper, and impossibly composed. Her raven hair fell in a sleeker, darker curtain down her back. Her blue eyes had deepened, becoming colder but wiser, like someone who had spent those two years dissecting the world’s secrets piece by piece. Power emanated from her in quiet, rhythmic waves.
Ray’s breath caught in his throat. “…Whoa,” he whispered.
But she wasn't alone.
Walking beside her was a man Ray had never seen before. He was tall and impossibly well-groomed, moving with the effortless grace of someone who believed the entire world was merely his stage. The name slipped through the crowd like a quiet, chilly shockwave: Cassian.
Cassian looked sculpted from pure aristocracy—platinum hair swept back like a crown and silver-gray eyes angled like a knife. When he looked at Elaine, those eyes glittered with a predatory, hungry interest. When they flicked to Ray, it felt like being assessed as a minor stain on an otherwise perfect rug.
Ray felt his stomach plunge into his boots. “…Who is that guy?”
“You don’t know?” Calen leaned in, his voice barely a murmur. “That’s Prince Cassian Draegor.”
Harel added with a solemn nod, “The Emperor’s second son. He’s already completed his Foundation Vein. Some say he’s nearing the Core.”
Ray choked on his own breath. “What—WHAT?!”
Rowen Vernhard, who had materialized just to ensure Ray’s day stayed miserable, smirked. “Careful, Melborne. That man is out of your league in every possible category: blood, power, and especially… aesthetics.”
Ray didn't even have the energy to snap back. His entire world had narrowed to one horrifying truth: Elaine Avery—his fiancée—was standing next to a man who looked like the Final Boss of romantic rivals. And the worst part? Elaine was speaking to Cassian with a polite warmth Ray had never seen her use.
“…I’m so screwed,” Ray whispered.
“Completely,” Calen agreed, patting his shoulder. “Utterly,” Harel confirmed.
From across the hall, Elaine finally noticed him. Her blue eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter. Cassian followed her gaze, and for the first time, the Prince looked directly at Ray. It wasn't hatred; it was the look someone gives an insect they've just noticed on the floor.
Ray straightened his back reflexively. He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt like he had just walked into a high-level zone without any gear.
The system didn't PING, but it didn't have to. Ray knew the name of this new arc: “Love Rival: Impossible Difficulty.”