Chapter 45: The Reactions

Chapter 45: Chapter 45: The Reactions

As the boy’s cold voice echoed out of Water-Mirror Seventeen, a dead hush fell over the velvet pavilions atop the northern cliff.

?For a while, all hundreds of noble lords and ladies simply stared at the screen.

On the projection, fifteen sons of the capital’s elite families lay groaning in the mud with twisted knees and broken ribs, while the ten-year-old boy from the outer kingdoms stood over them without a single wrinkle in his dark cloak.

?Then, a middle-aged nobleman in the third pavilion knocked over his silver table and leaped to his feet, his face looking ugly shade of purple.

?"Bramwell, my son!"

"Proctor, are you looking this? My son’s ribs are caved in! That little lunatic nearly beat him to death with an iron scabbard!"

?Viscount Morlan’s outburst acted like a spark in a powder keg. All across the middle tiers, a dozen other lords and ladies jumped up from their cushioned seats.

They looked furious and humiliated.

?"That’s my nephew lying in the water! His jaw is completely dislocated!"

?"He shattered my boy’s kneecaps on purpose! Did you see how he aimed straight for their joints?! Those children won’t be able to hold a sword for months!"

?"What a vicious little monster! How dare a wild brute from some backwater subordinate kingdom lay a hand on the heirs of the Imperial capital?!"

?Within moments, the outrage boiled over. Over thirty aristocrats marched down to the front railings of their pavilions, glaring straight across the platform toward the high stone dais where the Academy’s faculty sat.

?"Elder Vaelen! Chief Instructor Wane! This is supposed to be an entrance examination, not a butcher’s yard! That Noiré brat has the temperament of a rabid beast! We demand that you send the proctors in to drag him out of the forest immediately and expel him from the examination!"

?"Yes! Disqualify him at once! If the Imperial Academy admits an unhinged savage who cripples fifteen fellow applicants in broad daylight, none of our children will be safe inside the dormitories! Strip him of his points and throw him in the Ministry dungeons!"

?In the highest pavilion, Duke Von Draken smiled and signaled a servant to bring him a fresh goblet of wine.

He seemed very satisfied.

?Down on the faculty dais,

?Several administrative elders and senior teachers moved uncomfortably in their chairs, wiping cold sweat from their foreheads as the furious shouts of the nobility rained down on them.

Anxiously, a thin bespectacled man leaned toward the white-bearded scholar, whispering:

?"Elder Vaelen, this is bad! Viscount Morlan oversees the Ministry of Revenue’s tax allocations, and at least eight of the other fathers shouting over there belong to Duke Von Draken’s faction in the High Court. They hold immense sway over the Academy’s annual funding."

Another senior instructor muttered: "He’s right, the boy didn’t kill anyone, so he technically didn’t break the rules, but crippling fifteen capital heirs at once in front of their parents is going too far. Perhaps we should have Proctor Ronin deduct two hundred of his points as a disciplinary warning, just to calm the Great Houses down?"

Chief Instructor Wane looked at them with disgust.

?"Calm them down? Are you losing your spine, Henrik?! Everyone with a healthy pair of eyes saw what just happened on that mirror! Those fifteen little cowards ganged up on four exhausted kids and threatened to break their arms and legs first! The Noiré boy didn’t even draw his blade!"

?"We know that, Wane, and you know that. But when have the capital nobles ever cared about fairness when their own flesh and blood are the ones bleeding in the mud? Look at them. If we don’t give them some kind of concession right now, they will march straight to the Imperial Court tonight and freeze the Scholar Tower’s supply lines!"

?Even Elder Vaelen’s smile had faded into a heavy frown.

As much as he admired Aegon’s outstanding brilliance, offending fifteen noble houses backed by a Duke was a political nightmare that none of the department heads had the authority to easily brush aside.

?Seeing the hesitation on the teachers’ faces, Viscount Morlan sneered and raised his voice even louder.

"Well, Elder Vaelen?! Are you going to expel that wild brute, or do the 16 families standing here need to reconsider our endowments to the Academy this year?!"

?Just as the pressured administrators opened their mouths to compromise, a clear, resonant chime rang out from the ancient bell tower rising behind the northern cliffs.

?Dong.

?The sound was not loud, yet it carried a vast pressure of pure mana that instantly silenced every shouting voice on the platform.

The air above the faculty dais shimmered, and a single golden scroll woven from condensed light materialized in midair.

?Every teacher on the dais immediately stood up and bowed their heads in deep respect. Even Duke Von Draken’s smile stiffened slightly up in the royal pavilion.

?It was a direct voice-seal from the Supreme Dean of the Imperial Academy, the Empire’s sole Ninth-Circle Archmage, who had been watching the examination from his secluded tower.

?The golden scroll unrolled by itself, and a calm, aged voice echoed clearly across the entire canyon platform.

?"It seems a few years of peace have made the lords of the capital both blind and shameless."

?At those first words, Viscount Morlan and the thirty shouting aristocrats’ blood drained from their faces.

?"I saw everything. Your sons stood in front of my Scrying Beetles and bragged about breaking that boy’s collarbones and legs to steal his badge. Yet the moment they run into someone stronger and get their own teeth kicked in, their fathers stand on my cliff and cry like grieving widows?"

?Viscount Morlan opened his mouth, his lips trembling, "L-Lord Dean, the boy was far too cruel..."

?"Cruel?" the Dean chuckled coldly from the scroll. "Had Aegon Noiré drawn that sword at his waist, you would be picking up 15 corpses right now instead of nursing a few broken knees. He showed your sons mercy by using his scabbard, and you dare call him a brute?"

?The golden scroll turned slightly toward the faculty dais.

?"Vaelen. Wane. And the rest of the instructors on the platform. Listen well."

?"Yes, Lord Dean!" the teachers answered in unison.

?"The Imperial Academy was founded by the First Emperor to forge weapons for the Empire, not to babysit pampered porcelain dolls.

So do not engage with these nobles’ tantrums, and do not deduct a single point from that child’s badge. If any lord here wishes to withdraw their family’s funding over this, have the clerks return their gold immediately and ban their bloodline from taking the entrance exam for the next twenty years. Let the test continue!"

?Poof.

?The golden scroll dissolved into a shower of sparks, leaving the entire northern cliffside in pindrop silence

?On the faculty dais, Chief Instructor Wane let out a booming laugh and sat back down in his iron throne, while over in the third pavilion, Viscount Morlan and the other outraged fathers slowly sank back into their seat.

Their faces turned red with humiliation, bit not dared to utter another word.

Duke Von Draken crushed the wine cup with his fingers.

"This bastard of a Suprmeme Dean. I swear, one day I will make him leave the Academy on foot."