The grand gates of the Imperial Fate Academy closed behind him with a low, echoing hum — as if sealing Riven inside a different world entirely.
The outer campus buzzed with life: noble-born prodigies with glowing tomes, armored warriors boasting loud laughter, and winged beasts carrying luggage for high-class students. Riven walked among them like a shadow, ignored and invisible.
Perfect.
He pulled out the scroll again.
"Room 00X – Assigned Dormitory."
A strange label. All other students were assigned to Dorms A–Z based on Class, Rank, and Power Level.
But Room 00X?
It wasn't on any map.
He approached a student directory orb and placed his hand on it.
The orb flickered… then crackled with static.
"Student not found."
Riven smirked behind his half-mask.
So they gave me a room even the system won't acknowledge.
The building was hidden behind the old library — a forgotten path covered in vines and broken lanterns. No guards. No enchantments. Just a rusted door with three numbers carved by hand:
"00X"
He pushed it open.
Dust danced in the dim light. The room was massive — bigger than most dorms — but half-collapsed, the walls cracked, symbols faded. It looked abandoned… and yet, the air felt charged.
A sigil pulsed in the center.
Old magic. Forbidden magic.
This room wasn't assigned to me by mistake.
He stepped closer, and the sigil responded — not with hostility, but recognition.
"...You've returned."
The voice was feminine, ancient, and echoed through the air like wind through a ruined cathedral.
A floating light appeared. A projection?
No — a being. Bound to the room.
A spirit.
"Your soul matches the anomaly mark," it said. "You died here once, long ago. Before the timeline was reset."
Riven's breath caught.
He had always felt it — the sensation that this academy was more than it seemed. And now, proof.
He had been here… in a life the world had already forgotten.
The sigil suddenly flared, and the room's shape shifted. Walls repaired themselves. A crystal chandelier reignited above. Tomes emerged from the floor, shelves refilled, and a window revealed the academy towers from a higher vantage point than even the headmaster's office.
This isn't a dorm, Riven realized. It's a vault. A sanctum.
And it was now his.
He sat in the center as the room acknowledged him with a final pulse.
[Unique Space Acquired – Fate-Class Room 00X]
[Effect: Hidden from all academy detection]
[Bound only to: Riven Morgrave]
[Bonus: Access to sealed relics and Fate Echoes unlocked by anomaly signature]
For the first time in this life… Riven let his mask slip just slightly. A grin curved his lips.
"So you hid this from the rest of them, Fate? Let's see what else you buried."
Outside, the world believed Riven had nothing.
Inside Room 00X… he would awaken everything.