Director Gregory Vane let out a long, slow sigh, his fingers releasing my bronze transit token as he realized my cold military wall wasn't going to fracture. He didn't press the interrogation any further, recognizing the uselessness of threatening a youth who possessed the unnatural, steady focus of a seasoned combatant. Instead, he rose heavily from his mahogany chair, turned toward the massive stone wall behind him, and pressed his palm against a hidden runic groove.
With a low, mechanical hum, a massive, backlit glass display map flared to life, projecting a glowing tactical overview of the entire continent across the darkened office.
"Look at this, Astraeus," Director Vane murmured, his hand gesturing toward the sprawling, illuminated borders. "This is the true physical geometry of Aethelon—the reality that the United Vanguard Government wraps in pretty lies to keep the civilian populations from descending into utter panic. We operate on a strict thirty-seventy defensive split. Humanity is entirely cornered, trapped inside the thirty percent safe territory known as the Defiant Blue Valley. Every inch of our frontier is secured by fifty-meter-high Iron Wall checkpoint perimeters, lined with heavy automated defensive arrays."
He tapped a glowing red expanse that bled across the remaining seventy percent of the map, the light casting long, bloody shadows over the desk.
"Everything beyond those iron perimeters is a wild, untamed wasteland completely overrun by ancient apex predators and anti-matter horrors corrupted by the Abyssal Lattice," Vane explained, his voice lowering into a grave baritone. "The world system enforces strict boundary lines right outside our local outpost gates. We maintain regulated Leveling Zones where lower-tier monsters are intentionally permitted to breed, allowing fresh students to cultivate Experience under military supervision. But past those perimeters lie the Forbidden Zones. Entering a Forbidden Zone without an elite, high-echelon strike force is an immediate suicide sentence. The monsters out there carry dense, mutated cell structures that make them completely immune to baseline physical weapons."
Vane tapped a minor glass switch on the edge of his desk, causing a faint, ethereal projection of gold runes to materialize in the air, mimicking a live frontier scan.
[Crag-Stalker]
Level: 14
Echelon: Second
HP: 1,200 / 1,200
"When your sight locks onto a threat in the wild, the planetary law strips away the mystery," Director Vane said, pointing to the floating letters. "It hands you its true name, its evolutionary maturity level, its Echelon grade, and its live physical Vitality pool. A Second Echelon beast at level fourteen is a mature predator. If you fail to read those metrics before you engage, your shortsword will bounce cleanly off its hide. And out in those zones, a dead monster isn't just an experience packet; it is a physical asset. But the world system is not a simple vending machine. Monsters only carry a strict ten percent chance to house a harvestable mana core or high-value anatomy parts like eyes, claws, and hooves. The elite academies treat Monster Anatomy as a mandatory, surgical discipline for a reason. If a student slips or executes a sloppy skinning angle in the field, they permanently destroy the material's Echelon Grade, ruining its market value. Pristine components are the lifeblood of our economy, bought by high-tier Profession Awakeners—Blacksmiths who melt bones for attribute-resistant armour, Enchanters who forge spatial artifact rings, and Alchemists who process glands into permanent stat-boosting extracts."
He stepped back to his desk, tapping his index finger against the open parchment scroll where my faked Fifth Echelon profile was recorded.
"Because the official Adventurer Guild Post Boards rank missions from F-Rank up to SSS-Rank, independent Awakeners use those public contracts to earn raw wealth, shifting from Bronze to Silver, Gold, and Platinum coins," Vane rasped, a cold, bitter edge cutting into his tone. "Our currency operates on a strict hundred-fold conversion law. One hundred Bronze coins make a Silver; one hundred Silver make a Gold; one hundred Gold make a Platinum. An unawakened commoner spends their entire life counting Bronze pennies, while the high noble houses deal casually in Platinum wealth. The imperial syndicates tax forty percent of all public Guild payouts, hoarding the highest-Echelon mana stones to fuel their own dying family bloodlines. They intentionally keep commoners blind, uneducated about skill masteries, and starved of wealth. Instead, they hand the masses diluted, low-grade Starlight slag fuel to power their stoves and lamps, using the civilian population as a dependent, disposable front-line buffer on the battlements."
I kept my posture relaxed, my facial features remaining completely unreadable. Externally, I played the part of a quiet commoner absorbing the information for the first time. Internally, my mind was already rapidly calculating my future routes through those exact Forbidden Zones, using the coordinates I memorized from my past life to bypass their corrupt tax nets.
"Furthermore, Astraeus," Vane said, his voice dropping to a low whisper as he looked down at the parchment scroll. "A high-tier initialization like your faked Gold-Rank Sword Resonance profile doesn't just open your mana channels. It instantly triggers a hidden soul-condensation phase within your core space. Right now, a companion egg is already siphoning your internal mana core to begin its mandatory five-day gestation loop. Inside the gates of the Imperial Institute of the Defiant Valley, where you are heading, the rules are as strict as a military marshal's decree. The administration enforces an unyielding boundary: crippling another student's Mana Core is a capital crime. If a student intentionally shatters another's core or ruptures their unsealed veins, they are court-martialed and dropped into the Forbidden Zones to die."
Vane leaned closer, his eyes locked onto mine. "These companion beasts are highly intelligent entities with independent survival instincts and distinct feral gestures. They move on their own initiative. Once your countdown hits zero on day five, the gestation tracker behind your eyelids will permanently transform, displaying its live level and Echelon authority. If your attributes are too weak to command its respect, its primal instincts will override your orders in the heat of battle. Because of that absolute boundary, arrogant noble heirs cannot simply crush people with raw violence inside the gates. Instead, they enforce the brutal Law of the Jungle. They use structural and economic oppression, utilizing their family proxies within the faculty and senior student ranks to manipulate gravity room allocations and seize high-paying mission boards, forcing commoners into submission. That countdown inside your heart will continuously drain your energy, triggering a severe biological fever that will test your physical endurance during the carriage transit. Take your passport, clear my gates, and survive the journey. Your transition phase has officially begun."
I stood up, sliding my bronze token and the carriage passport securely beneath my woollen cloak. I gave Director Vane a single, disciplined nod, keeping my expression perfectly neutral as I turned on my heel and marched cleanly out of his office. The heavy oak doors clicked shut behind me, the sudden release of tension in the vaulted corridor allowing the newly unsealed energy inside my chest to expand. A deep, cold weight anchored itself right behind my sternum as my physical Mana Core initialized its mandatory five-day gestation countdown. My dark hair was still pristine, my irises were completely clear, but as my boots crossed the black marble floor to find Lysander, the countdown to the capital had officially hit zero.