The last conversations gradually died away as the students returned to their desks. I gave the classroom a quick look and saw that no one was missing. Either people really took this place seriously, or no one wanted to spend their first day becoming known as the student who couldn’t even arrive on time.
The door opened, and a tall woman entered the classroom. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and she wore a black blazer over a white shirt, tailored trousers, and high heels. There was nothing unusual about her clothes, yet something about her felt out of place. Every step was calm and precise. She didn’t turn her head to check who was watching her because she didn’t need to. From the moment she entered, everyone was.
She didn’t move like someone who had spent her entire life behind a desk. Her shoulders were relaxed, but there was almost no sway in her stride, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other without a single unnecessary motion. Someone who knew how to move. Maybe how to fight, too.
The last whispers in the room disappeared, and from the expressions around me, I could tell I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. I glanced briefly at Victoria and Lucius. Neither looked surprised. Lucius studied the woman once, then straightened in his chair, while Victoria merely raised her chin a fraction. It was as though they knew exactly who had just entered the classroom. Maybe they even knew her personally.
Then again, it had been a while since I’d spent time around people who kept track of what happened in the upper circles.
I shifted my attention toward Finn, careful this time not to let him notice. His reaction was completely different from everyone else’s. Most of the students looked curious or nervous, but Finn looked unsettled. His fingers gripped the edge of his desk tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, and his eyes remained fixed on the woman. He didn’t even blink. It was as though he had seen her before, and the memory wasn’t a pleasant one.
The woman reached the teacher’s desk and placed a thin folder on top of it.
“Welcome to Asterion Academy.”
Her voice wasn’t deep or particularly sharp, yet it carried through the entire classroom without the slightest effort. She didn’t need to raise it; every word came out clear and firm.
“Congratulations on passing the entrance examinations.”
Her gaze swept across the class, pausing briefly on Lucius and then Victoria, though she gave neither of them any more attention than anyone else.
“From this moment on, however, your entrance exam results have no value whatsoever.”
Several surprised breaths sounded around the room. The student in front of me shifted in his seat, while someone in the first row exchanged a look with the person beside him. I stayed still. My results hadn’t been worth much before, either.
“I don’t care what rank you were admitted with,” she continued. “I don’t care what family you come from, and I don’t care how much money or influence your parents have.”
No one spoke. I doubted everyone was pleased to hear that. Several students had spent the entire morning trying to get close to people with the right surnames, and now someone was telling them it didn’t matter. Her expression remained perfectly calm.
“The only thing I care about is what you do from this day forward.”
She paused briefly.
“Asterion is one of the finest academies in this country, but not because we accept only the strongest students. Anyone with enough money and the right connections could build a school like that.”
A few faces showed hints of disagreement. The woman continued as though she hadn’t noticed.
“Our job is to recognize potential and then find out whether you’re capable of making use of it.”
The room fell completely silent.
“At other schools, teachers may focus their attention on a chosen few. Things work differently here.” She placed both hands on the desk. “If you’re willing to work, you’ll receive the same opportunity as everyone else.”
Several students in the back rows straightened slightly. Including me. I didn’t know whether I believed her. It sounded good, which was exactly why keeping some distance from the idea felt safer.
“But if you expect your name, your talent, or your previous achievements to earn you special treatment, you can forget about it.”
This time, she looked directly at the students gathered around Victoria and Lucius. Several lowered their eyes. Neither Victoria nor Lucius reacted.
“We have one rule.”
The woman straightened.
“Never give up the chance to become a better version of yourself.”
It sounded like the sort of sentence that had to be written on the walls of at least three academy buildings. Still, she didn’t say it like an empty slogan.
“If you can do that, we’ll do everything we can to help you reach the top.” She paused. “If you can’t, someone else will make better use of the opportunity.”
That sounded considerably more believable. And with that, our first class at Asterion Academy began.
For the next several minutes, she explained the basics of how the school worked: attendance, the points system, access to the different buildings, and the rules for moving around campus. She spoke quickly but precisely, and no one dared stop paying attention.
Then she opened the folder on the desk. Inside was a row of thin black devices.
“These are your academy phones.”
The devices were passed around the classroom, and when one finally reached me, I took it carefully. It was lighter than I expected. The black front was completely smooth, with no keyboard, cover, or obvious button anywhere.
According to the information we had received before enrolling, contact with the outside world was restricted during our studies. These phones were therefore our main way of communicating with other students as well as accessing academy services.
A cold sweat broke out across my skin. I turned the device over in my hands. Then again. Nothing.
I had never seen this type of phone before. A few older people in the business owned devices with physical buttons, but at least those made sense when you looked at them. This was just a piece of black glass and metal.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that most of my classmates were already navigating through the menus without any trouble. Some were checking their schedules, while others were showing each other their profiles. The student in front of me had opened the rankings before I had even figured out how to turn the thing on.
I casually ran my thumb along the bottom edge. Nothing. I tried the top. Still nothing.
Everyone else seemed to be managing perfectly well while I sat there holding a piece of black metal that refused to cooperate. I was beginning to suspect I was losing my first battle at the academy. My opponent hadn’t even moved.
Should I keep trying to figure it out myself, or ask for help? I didn’t like the second option. The first wasn’t producing results.
“Right side.”
I looked up. Finn didn’t even glance at me. His attention remained on his own phone.
“What?”
“The button.” He tapped the right side of his device with one finger.
I hesitated for a moment before running my thumb along the same edge of mine. There. A tiny raised spot.
Click.
The screen lit up.
I quickly placed the phone on the desk as though I had known exactly what I was doing the entire time. Finn smiled slightly. I couldn’t tell whether he was looking at his screen or at me, and I decided I was better off not finding out.
There were only a few icons on the home screen: class schedule, academy map, student profile, messages, and an app called Rankings. Most of the class seemed to be looking at that one.
I opened my profile. My name, photograph, and entrance rank appeared on the display. Exactly the information I would have preferred no one else to see. I turned the screen off immediately.
Before I could explore anything else, the instructor’s voice sounded again.
“You’ll have time to look through your phones later. For now, pay attention.”
Within seconds, every screen disappeared beneath the desks. The only exception was a student two rows ahead of me who tried to finish something quickly. One look from the front of the room was enough. His phone disappeared too.
Next came an explanation of the academy’s financial system. Since students couldn’t freely leave the campus during their studies, the academy had to make sure we could obtain everything we needed here: food, equipment, study materials, repairs, and even things I doubted anyone actually needed to survive, though the students from wealthier families would probably disagree.
Each of us received one thousand coins upon enrollment. The exchange rate with regular currency was one to one.
For several seconds, I stopped listening to the rest of the explanation.
One thousand.
I had never dreamed of having that much money during my life in the business. Not all at once. A successful expedition could pay well, but then came the cost of equipment, information, the organizer’s share, and the payment for whoever knew which person needed to be bribed. If anyone got injured, most of what remained disappeared into treatment.
Receiving a thousand coins without setting foot in a dungeon almost felt suspicious.
Several students visibly relaxed. Others reacted as though the amount was barely worth mentioning. A girl in the front row even looked slightly disappointed. Somehow, that managed to offend me on behalf of money that wasn’t even mine.
“The basic monthly allowance is one hundred coins,” the instructor continued. “You can earn additional funds through academic performance, practical examinations, and other contributions to the academy.”
So the initial amount wasn’t a gift. It was more of a way to give us enough time to understand how the system here worked. That made more sense.
No one told us how much the basic allowance could be increased, but judging by the interest in the front rows, the rewards had to be substantial enough to attract even students who considered a thousand coins pocket money. I filed that information away.
Money meant equipment, and equipment meant a better chance of surviving. At the academy, it probably meant better conditions too. Places like this could call their currency whatever they wanted. The principle never changed.
After finances came something everyone expected from a school.
Textbooks.
I pulled the heavy book from beneath my desk and placed it in front of me. The academy crest covered the front alongside a long title promising a complete introduction to the basic types of dungeons. I opened it somewhere near the middle.
Most of the book was devoted to magical dungeons. The pages were filled with diagrams, monster classifications, examples of formations, and lengthy explanations of mana flow, while the other dungeon types received only passing attention.
I kept turning pages. Mechanical dungeons had been given barely a few paragraphs. No detailed diagrams of traps. No descriptions of structural nodes. Not even a mention of how to tell the difference between a mechanism that was genuinely inactive and one simply waiting for someone to come closer.
Eventually, I stopped at a short sentence claiming that mechanical dungeons were so rare that an ordinary student would probably never encounter one. Either the author had never seen a mechanical dungeon himself, or he assumed none of us ever would. From my own experience, I wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.
I noticed a blank section in the margin intended for notes and briefly considered adding something. In the end, I simply turned the page.
It was the first day. There would be time to correct the textbooks later.