He let out a dry, humorless laugh, shaking his head at himself in a brief, self-critical gesture. "Exactly. Complaining won’t change it. The die is cast now. Everything happens for a reason. I made the mistake, and now... we’ll deal with the consequences together."
His gauntleted hand brushed against the cube-shaped AI drone hovering faithfully at his shoulder. "Hey, Hays. You there?"
"Yes, Master," the drone replied instantly. Its voice was crisp, electronically neutral, yet sohow perfectly attentive to his mood.
"Upload the final footage to the public forums," Kael said, his voice steady now despite the turmoil in his chest, taking charge of the narrative. "Title it: Killing an Ogre in Just Two Minutes The Five-Hundredth Group’s New Record. Make sure the title is suitably provocative."
"Yes, Master. Uploading now. The attention is already spiking exponentially."
The drone humd as its internal lights blinked rapidly, transmitting the breathtaking final monts of the battle to the endless waves of watchers beyond the cavern. Already, the crowd’s cheers seed to blend with the rising cacophony of online notifications accompanying the footage going live. The stunning story of their raid would ripple outward and solidify in seconds, an impossible legend impossible to contain.
Kael exhaled slowly, his gaze drifting across his companions. Selene’s victorious grin hadn’t faded. Octavia’s eyes glead with justifiable pride. Julie’s hands still flickered faintly with dissipating, silvery arcane light. They were exhilarated, basking completely in the warm glow of instant celebrity and undeniable victory.
But Kael’s eyes returned to the motionless ogre on the ground, a silent, stark monunt to his error. The cheers of the crowd faded, once again, into distant, hollow background noise. The fight was won. The record was broken. Yet in his gut, he felt the cold certainty settle in like frost on a winter night.
This wasn’t the end of the Trial.
It was only the ominous beginning of their real problems.
"With this, today’s practical training has co to an end," the teacher announced, his voice, amplified by a simple acoustic rune, echoing clearly across the vast, open-air training grounds.
Students instantly relaxed as the intense, focused weight of the morning’s exercise lifted off their shoulders. A few groaned dramatically from muscle fatigue and mana depletion, while others cheered with the sheer relief of survival. Sweat, dust, and the sharp, tallic residue of spent mana lingered in the air, a familiar miasma clinging to the heat like smoke after a pitched battlefield.
"After that display," the teacher continued, a slight, impressed nod touching his lips, "according to the new records of each group that participated..." He scrolled through the data on his tablet, the light reflecting sharply off his spectacles as he began calling out nas and scores.
Kael Vi-rel’s POV
It was a little different from the precise, slow-burn plan I originally had, granted. The speed run was an unexpected variable, one I hadn’t accounted for. But the mandatory class period still ended well, without any major political issues or disastrous injuries. That was good enough for now. Control wasn’t about perfection; it was about managing deviation.
And the major business I’d conducted this morning the real battle wasn’t bad either.
The Attribute Cube Kit had finally been released onto the open market after I gave the official go-ahead. It was a revolutionary product, and I hadn’t let it go cheaply. I had attached a critical condition: for every single kit sold, I would receive a significant, predetermined portion of the revenue for the next two to three years. Not a lump sum, but a steady stream of inco. A durable, passive financial foundation that didn’t require my constant attention.
The Mana Bomb the true item of leverage had also been successfully sold to the Crowe Group for a staggering sixty-six billion shards. A ridiculous, obscene number, enough to make entire multinational companies tremble and certainly enough to drain a corporate branch’s short-term liquid capital.
I seriously doubted the Crowe Company’s branch still had the financial flexibility to purchase anything of that sa scale for a long while. They had essentially put all their imdiate eggs in this one, volatile basket.
But then again... I knew Lindy Crowe. She wouldn’t have agreed to the deal if she wasn’t absolutely desperate to secure sothing far more important and irreplaceable than re money.
Lindy Crowe was ambitious much, much more ambitious than her calm, asured exterior suggested. She might play the role of the reliable, efficient branch leader, but behind those professional, asured smiles, she had been ruthlessly planning for sothing larger since childhood.
Her true, singular goal wasn’t simply running her local branch well.
It was taking control of the entire Crowe Group.
The deal with , the exorbitant cost, the public tie-in it was a strategic move she couldn’t afford to miss. By securing our relationship and my technology, she gained not just a massive profit stream but invaluable influence and critical leverage to push her real, long-term agenda forward against the main family.
I sighed quietly, folding my arms tightly across my chest as the teacher’s explanation on group rankings droned on in the background. My focus remained entirely internal, on the web I was weaving.
The important thing right now wasn’t the shards, which were just digits, or the bomb, which was just tal and magic.
The important thing was maintaining my delicate, newly forged relationship with both Lindy Crowe and her deeply troubled brother, Lucian Crowe.
Lucian was worth more than any fortune at the mont. He was a ticking ti bomb of imnse power and potential darkness. There was no better, more direct way to keep him from sliding completely into the abyss than through his sister’s influence. For now, he still listened to her. He still trusted her, if no one else.
That thin, almost invisible thread of familial affection was the only rope keeping him from crossing the line completely and becoming a true, unpredictable villain.
And I intended to use it, to pull him back, or at least keep him within reach.
Of course, there were other matters that required similar finesse.
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