The confident smirk that habitually graced Giovanno Lucci's lips vanished the moment the elegant figures of Augustus and Epicure, representatives of the Magicae Apicem Arcana, exited the classroom.
The air they left behind, thick with the scent of refined power, seemed to mock the shabby reality of his current life. His classmates, buzzing with anxious whispers about the impending final exam, were oblivious. They would go home to warm meals, soft beds, and parents who worried about their futures.
Giovanno had none of that.
He moved through the crowded hallways, a ghost among the living, the chattering voices a dull drone against the relentless hum of his own grim reality. The "apex" title he held in this school, the one he so fiercely protected, was a fragile, glittering lie. Once the school day ended, Giovanno shed the mantle of the arrogant prodigy and donned the cloak of a specter.
His home was not a home at all, but a skeletal remains of one: an abandoned house squatting on the forgotten fringes of the city. Two years. Two years he had endured its decaying embrace. The roof sagged like a broken back, leaking rain in a dozen places to form glistening puddles on the warped floorboards. The windows, long since shattered, were boarded up with scavenged planks, plunging the interior into a perpetual gloom even during the day. Dust motes danced in the sparse beams of light that dared to pierce the cracks, illuminating the layers of grime that coated every surface.
The walls, stripped of their plaster, revealed the raw, splintered bones of the house. The biting wind of winter howled through every crevice, an unwelcome guest that seeped into his very bones, making sleep a shivering battle against the cold. In the summer, the stagnant air hung heavy, a humid blanket that offered no escape.
There was no plumbing, no electricity, just the constant, gnawing chill and the oppressive silence broken only by the scuttling of unseen creatures in the shadows. His bed was a pile of threadbare blankets in a corner he had painstakingly cleared, a meager comfort against the unforgiving floor.
This wretched existence was a constant, searing reminder of the void left by his parents. They had been sorcerers, not famed like those from the Magicae Apicem Arcana, but strong enough to carve out a life. Until they weren't. Until the whispers turned to confirmed reports: they had perished in a dungeon, their Arcana Vitae extinguished by some unknown horror. Their death had not only orphaned him but plunged him into this silent, crushing poverty. With no one to turn to, he had to fight.
He remembered a particular night, nearly a year ago. A furious storm had lashed the city, an angry drumbeat against the flimsy walls. The rain had become a deluge, turning the warped floorboards into a treacherous, slick surface.
He'd woken to a sickening drip-drip-drip on his face, followed by a sudden, icy cascade. A section of the ceiling, weakened by rot, had finally given way, showering his meager bed with splintered plaster, cold rainwater, and a scattering of something that felt suspiciously like dead insects. He'd scrambled away, shivering, clutching his blankets, and spent the rest of the long, dark hours huddled against a different wall, listening to the house groan and weep around him. He hadn't cried. He hadn't screamed. He'd simply sat there, trembling, knowing that this was his reality, and the only escape was the power thrumming beneath his skin.
He'd tried, countless times, to inject some semblance of life into the crumbling structure. The first few nights in the house, he'd desperately tried to ignite a small orb of transmutatio-infused energy from his palm. He'd focused, poured his Potentia into the spell, envisioning a warm, steady glow. But the feeble spark always died out, guttering into nothingness after a few precious seconds. The house, it seemed, devoured light. The darkness was too vast, too absolute, for his budding power to conquer. He could tear clothes and reshape objects, but he couldn't banish the oppressive gloom that clung to every corner of his desolate existence. It was a stark, humbling limitation, a constant reminder that even his formidable talent had its bounds when pitted against the sheer, overwhelming misery of his circumstances.
His continued education, the very foundation of his ambition, was a twisted charity.
Every year, without fail, the school fees were settled, a silent transaction he never questioned. There was no note, no message, just the cold, impersonal confirmation from the administration that his tuition was covered. An unknown benefactor paid his school fees, a faceless patron whose motives he neither understood nor cared to question. It was a lifeline he clung to, a means to an end. Curiosity was a luxury he couldn't afford; survival was paramount.
But a lifeline wasn't enough to feed a growing boy, nor was it enough to maintain the illusion of a normal life.
Necessity, a cold and unforgiving master, had birthed a darker, more pragmatic skill. For two years now, Giovanno had used his Transmutatio ability not for grand displays, but for petty theft under the cover of night.
He remembered his first time, a shivering, desperate night born of gnawing hunger. He'd approached a baker's shop, the sweet scent of bread torturing his empty stomach.
His heart had hammered against his ribs, but the hunger had been louder. With a concentrated surge of Arcana Vitae, he'd focused on the iron lock. It didn't break; it softened.
The rigid metal of the tumblers had momentarily yielded, reshaping just enough for the ancient bolt to slide open with a whisper-thin click. He'd slipped in, snatched a few loaves, and melted back into the shadows before the metal hardened, reforming the lock as if untouched. No alarm, no broken glass, just a silent, elegant violation.
That night was the first of many. His Transmutatio, a power meant for shaping reality, became a tool for subterfuge.
He learned to subtly alter the perception of weary night guards, making himself blend into the background as just another shadow.
He could temporarily soften brick walls just enough to pry out a loose stone, or transform the texture of cobblestones beneath his feet to muffle his footsteps into silence.
He wasn't after riches, only what he needed to survive: food, a new pair of shoes when the old ones gave out, the occasional warm blanket
. Each successful venture reinforced the chilling truth: his unique talent, the very thing that made him the apex in the classroom, also made him an exceptional thief in the darkness. It was a grim secret, a stain on the pride he so carefully projected during the day.
The "apex" was also a phantom, and the bitter taste of that truth was a constant companion in the miserable, scraped-out existence he called home.
Yet, each stolen meal, each moment of warmth, was a small victory, a defiant middle finger to the cruel hand fate had dealt him. This life of shadows and stolen moments was not his destiny; it was merely a temporary, agonizing bridge.
Every meager gain, every calculated risk, was a step towards the true apex, towards the gates of Magicae Apicem Arcana.
That night, however, as Giovanno slipped through the broken front door of his abandoned house, a new, impossible darkness greeted him. Not the familiar gloom of his unlit home, but something alien, unnatural. A shimmering, inky void had torn open just meters from his dilapidated stoop, throbbing with a malevolent, silent energy. It was a dungeon.
He froze, every muscle screaming at him to flee. He had never received any prior teaching on dungeons; his school's curriculum didn't touch on such existential threats. All he knew, all that mattered, was that this was what had killed his parents.
They had vanished into such a tear in reality, consumed by the horrors within. Their home, the very city of Roris Marini, had always been safe, protected by a powerful spell cast by the old king of sorcerers, a shield against such incursions. But that shield, it seemed, had flickered.
The vortex pulsed, a silent maw inviting him into the abyss that had claimed everything.
His hand instinctively went to his side, where a stolen, mundane knife rested. Utterly useless
. He felt the cold prickle of fear, a sensation he rarely allowed himself to indulge.
Though his every instinct screamed at him to investigate, to confront the thing that had orphaned him, a deeper, more primal terror held him rooted to the spot. He was powerful, yes, but this… this was beyond anything he understood.
He didn't dare enter. Specific dungeon lessons were provided only for college students—a terrifying reminder of how far he still had to go to truly avenge his past, to truly become an apex that could face down even the world's most dangerous threats.