Chapter 11

This is where I am going to post to Royal Road once this books first round of edits are done

Aurelia

I closed the classroom door behind me, my posture calm and my expression carefully neutral. On the surface, nothing seemed amiss, despite the way my classmates subtly avoided my gaze, their whispers quickly dying as I passed.

I sighed. I hadn’t looked at him. I hadn’t spoken a single word. I had simply tried to be respectful, to be professional as he called it in our realm interactions. It had not turned out well. Of course, the very first class I had after confirming his presence was one in which he also sat.

I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding—and with it, a ripple of cold mana slipped free, sharp and glacial. It was a faint tremor, but potent, adding to the pervasive chill I knew I had already unintentionally released in the classroom.

It wasn’t intentional. I hadn’t meant to let my aura slip, to project such raw frustration.

But that girl—with her perfect blonde hair and absurdly large chest—had simply walked up and asked Zane to lunch as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence. As if she could just command his attention. He was my friend, even if he didn’t know it. Who did she think she was, making such a blatant claim?

The problem was, my aura had slipped out, and it had spread through the room like frost chasing shadow, thin and biting, subtle as snowfall—yet heavy enough that it was probably suffocating for most others present.

I was still irritated. I needed to calm down, and more urgently, I needed answers.

I didn’t go far. Just one floor above the quad, back to my locked private lounge. I keyed the glyph, stepped inside, and sealed the door with a firm hiss of mana.

“Lacey,” I said, lifting my communicator.

My assistant’s voice came through instantly. “I just sent the full report, my lady. It’s waiting in your private cache. I also was able to get access to the Arcane Emporium footage. I have never seen someone with such refined sword technique. His job is Swordsman.”

I opened it.

The holo-display expanded from my crystal, forming clean data rows across a floating pane of light. My eyes skimmed the top.

Name: Zane Myles Age: 20 Class Year: First Job/Class: Swordsman Major Declared: Healer? Designation: Applicant 114-A Starting Tier: Cadet – Tier 1 Background: Provincial region designation 77-K Parents: Deceased. Cause:Officially classified as an unresolved spell pollution event. Further detail locked/unknown.

I blinked. His parents were dead. No wonder he was so serious all the time, burdened by a maturity that felt far beyond his years. He was twenty, a bit older than you generally see for a first-year college student. But raising two younger children while managing to qualify for a Tier I scholarship? On a provincial applicant slot? The sheer burden of it settled over me, a stark contrast to my own privileged existence.

I kept reading, letting the detailed personal and financial data expand.

Family:

• Siblings: Two

  • Jordan Myles, Male, Age 13

  • Lila Myles, Female, Age 15

• Current Guardian: Zane Myles (legal)

  • Note: The family situation appears complicated, with estranged relatives and almost no information available about his maternal grandparents.

• Financial Status: Scholarship-approved. Dual academic-track. No known sponsors.

  • Note: The report confirmed he worked to take care of his family.

Then came his system evaluation. His System Sync Level was recorded at a surprisingly low 42%, and his Fate Thread Complexity at 57. The system had designated his Class Bias as a Balanced Combatant - Basic Swordsman. Then came the raw numbers:

• Strength (STR): 43 — Above average, certainly swordsman compatible.

• Agility (AGI): 51 — Quick reaction time, no surprise there given his speed.

• Vitality (VIT): 39 — Needs physical conditioning, though he took Korrin's shock spell like nothing.

• Intelligence (INT): 44 — Solid arcane foundations, yet he never casts conventionally.

• Willpower (WIL): 48 — Stable, good potential for glyph usage. That much was obvious in the fight.

• Charisma (CHA): 32 — Mildly withdrawn personality. Accurate, frustratingly so.

• Perception (PER): 46 — Strong situational awareness. He sees everything.

• Luck (LUK): 10 — Registered as low variance. Interesting. A fatalist, perhaps?

• Soul Integrity: 61 — Within safe operational bounds. What did that even mean in a real-world context?

• Mana Capacity: 18 (180) — Was this a glitch? A mana capacity of 18 would be low, but the (180) in parentheses… this could be the highest level ever recorded for someone under the age of 25. My own mana capacity, the highest recorded of my generation, barely nudged 89.

• Divine Sync Ratio: 21% — Not compatible with divine contract protocols. A strange, specific flag.

• Elemental Affinity: 0 — He literally didn’t use any elemental magic? Was that possible? I had seen him generate lightning in the realms, but perhaps that was a mana technique, not an affinity.

The data was incredibly perplexing. I narrowed my eyes. I tapped the field, pulling up the diagnostic chart. The system insisted the data wasn't corrupted. It was simply... strange. His basic stats were average for our age, and well below my own in everything except what seemed to be a wildly glitching mana capacity reading. This didn’t make any sense. The SwordWannabe I knew literally surpassed me in almost everything—Strength, Agility, Vitality, Intelligence, Perception. His sword technique was undeniably better too, though I would never admit that to him, but it wasn't so much better that it would make up for the vast difference in our base stats.

It simply didn’t make any sense.

His zero Elemental Affinity was listed. That actually tracked. I had never seen him use an elemental affinity, even if he had cast some spells that resembled elemental effects, like lightning.

Finally, his Soulforce method—how he used his sword technique with his mana—was completely unregistered.

My pulse quickened as I kept reading through the official Tower Records.

Official Tower Records:

• Spellcasting Evaluation: Minimal

• Formal Training: None logged in Tower Registry

• Combat Certification: None

• Realm Access: Open

• Discipline Violations: None

And yet—

The footnotes began to multiply from his official Arcane Emporium Record, each one a stark contradiction to his otherwise blank profile.

• Unclassified movement technique observed

• Projectile conjuration using unregistered skill

• Soulforce Method unrecognized

• Potential skill recognition: Capable of externalizing force fields, glyphs, and compression bursts without skills utilization.

• Sword Style unconfirmed.

I leaned back slowly. He was controlling his Soulforce Method completely by will without the System. Will-working, or channeling mana directly without the usual System intervention, wasn’t completely unheard of, but it wasn’t really done anymore. It was ancient, dangerous.

But why do it that way? He had a system; everyone did. You had to have a system to move around a modern city, to interact with even basic tech. Was he so integrated with his system that he was bypassing the usual delays? Was the System somehow handling his spells, processing the runes instantly, invisibly at the speed of thought? Or was his AI so advanced that it was completely seamless? Given his financial background, that seemed incredibly unlikely.

I felt like a jerk the moment I thought that, judging him based on circumstance.

The footage I’d reviewed now played back in my mind under a new lens. It was that magic obeyed him like it instinctively knew who was in charge.

I turned back to the siblings section.

Jordan. Lila.

His file included photos—he’d listed them as dependents. A small note scribbled in, detailing provincial ID tags and grocery credits used as collateral.

He was raising them.

Without formal training, he had achieved a mastery in combat sufficient to challenge and even defeat me in our realm spars, using only body strengthening and mana injection—techniques I, with all my resources, could not replicate.

A magic and sword prodigy.

Wow.

Not only that, in the defense of someone he did not know, he had already shattered a noble’s wand who was four years his senior and very powerful.

I took a deep breath.

My fingers hovered over the communicator.

I could call Lacey. Send someone to covertly test him. Leak his name and the anomalous data to the wider academic network. Watch what happened next.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I whispered to myself, almost smiling.

“So it is you.”

Zane Myles.

I said his name out loud, testing it.

It sounded... intriguing. I stared at the floating report long after the final data tab faded. The room was quiet—sealed with a pressure ward I’d cast on instinct. My teacup, untouched, sat on a levitating tray, cooling into uselessness.

Zane Myles.

I whispered the name again. This time, it felt… heavier.

I stood slowly, crossing to the edge of the balcony and letting the city breeze drift across my skin. The academic tower of New Liora shimmered below, its spires aglow with afternoon runelight. Students milled through walkways, unaware of the storm building three stories above their heads.

How was I supposed to talk to him?

I’d seen firsthand how he responded to status. He didn’t freeze, or grovel, or simper like most lowborns. He avoided it—shut down completely. It was written into the report, visible between every line: independent. Withdrawn. Never asked for help. Never joined a club. Didn’t even use the free counseling resources his scholarship granted.

He wouldn’t approach me. Not as Aurelia Vael Taranis—noble, gorgeous, famous, sword-goddess. That wasn't the name or identity I'd built for myself.

I couldn’t approach him as PrincessFlyer either.

Not after I’d spent six months fencing alongside him in the Crucible Realms, keeping our conversations strictly about technique and theory, hiding everything except the one thing that mattered: our shared love for the sword. To reveal my identity now would betray the very anonymity that had allowed our connection to form.

I returned to the data feed and flipped back through the personal file. There had to be an angle.

Something real. Something human.

I found it tucked at the bottom of the sibling record.

Volunteer/Work Permit:

• Status: Approved

• Current Posting: Central Verge Community Arts & Combat Initiative (CVCACI)

• Function: Assistant Swordsmanship Instructor

• Time Commitment: 3 days/week, 5–8 PM

• Location: District 8, Union Hall Annex—Recreation Quadrant

• Tier: Public Use / Open Enrollment

My breath caught. He taught swordsmanship at a recreational combat center? The irony was almost humorous.

I leaned forward.

Where did he find the time? I had never seen his style. I knew he wasn’t trained by any tower. There was no master-grade mentorship; Lacey’s report would have said so. And he had no formal lineage.

There was only one answer. Zane Myles had built his sword style.

Himself.

Probably in sweat and repetition. Perhaps while teaching children or exhausted day laborers trying to defend themselves after dark.

And the guy still had time to qualify for a scholarship at The Nine Pillars.

Had time to come to defense of those weaker and shatter a noble’s wand like it was kindling.

I closed the report and stood. My reflection glinted in the warded mirror near the lounge doors—flawless skin, perfectly pressed uniform, a walking symbol of everything he’d spent his life avoiding.

I couldn’t show up as myself.

He’d never let me in.

But this… this was my opening.

“Lacey,” I said aloud.

“Yes, Lady Aurelia?”

“I need some clothes.”

There was a pause. “I am pretty sure you have clothes on, My Lady.” Lacey’s voice held a hint of surprise.

I rolled my eyes.

“I need some plain clothes. With no crest. No identifying marks of any kind. Something suitable for martial training, not aristocratic display. I’ll also need you to keep my guards off my back while I enter the Verge after dusk.”

Another pause. “Lady Aurelia, with respect—why?”

I smiled faintly.

“To investigate a unique tactical anomaly. One with no prior combat license and no standardized casting theory—and yet, who can shape mana by instinct and cut with intent like it’s music.”

“...You mean the boy.”

“A unique tactical anomaly,” I said, correcting her.

“The one you nearly suffocated in class?”

I ignored that, my smile widening slightly. “Just send the set.”

Lacey hesitated again.

Then: “I’ll prepare a bag discreetly. Shall I summon a decoy for your usual evening study route?”

“Obviously,” I confirmed.

I closed the line and turned back toward the window.

I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say when I saw him in that dingy community center.

But for the first time since I’d arrived at New Liora, I wasn’t bored.

I was profoundly interested.

And in that moment, I realized something I hadn’t expected:

I might’ve just found my ultimate philosophical case study. Because if I could figure out how he worked—how someone like Zane Myles existed—I might finally understand something greater than legacy, status, or power. I might actually learn something real.