Arthur held Alaric's gaze.
Beneath the placid drape of his chestnut fringe and serene amber eyes, the Autonomic Merged Processor cataloged every micro-expression with frictionless precision: the faint tension coiling around Alaric's temples, the protective slant of his collarbones, and the raw, unfeigned loyalty binding the veteran to his charge.
Preserving his gentle, saintly composure, Arthur tilted his head three degrees. His voice drifted into the cool air—soft, humble, devoid of sharp edges, yet carrying an incision of startling clarity:
"You speak as if from lived experience, Sir Ordain."
Alaric stiffened.
The quiet remark struck the veteran with the sudden precision of a needle slipping through an unfastened gorget. His breath hitched; his hazel eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter before darting downward toward the polished flagstones.
The stoic, bureaucratic composure he had worn like armor for years buckled.
"I…" Alaric swallowed hard, his vocal cords catching before grinding out a strained, quiet rasp. "...was."
Arthur did not allow the silence to cool.
He applied no predatory pressure. Instead, he leaned slightly forward against the cushions, hands loosely interlaced over his knees, his posture radiating the earnest, wide-eyed curiosity of a pastoral student attempting to reconcile historical statecraft with administrative law.
"Then you must know what a student actually stands to gain from this floor," Arthur murmured softly, his cadence measured and rhythmic. "It must be something of immense value. Otherwise, Headmaster Agellid could never facilitate such an unpredictable assembly free of opposition."
Alaric went completely still.
His scarred fingers tightened over the cold basalt coping, the dark wool of his formal cuffs straining against his forearms. He stared down into the teeming, luminescent colosseum for a long, heavy moment before drawing air deep into his chest.
When he exhaled through his nose, his voice had regained its steady, gravelly resonance.
"You're sharp. For all its rot, there are assets on that floor you can touch nowhere else. Most representatives bring bait to catch your eye—fine equipment, rare delicacies, grimoires, ancestral artifacts."
He shook his head once.
"Trinkets. The true currency down there boils down to two things: backing and information.
"You aren't lambs led to slaughter unless you choose to play the sheep. Handled properly, an Honor Class standing is immense leverage. You can negotiate your future station, secure long-term funding, and elevate your legal standing—not just for your fifth-year apprenticeship, but for decades down the line.
"That backing is survival. Out in the world, talent without support simply paints a target on your back. But when an established power stamps their seal beside your name, competing factions can't easily push you around, exploit your contracts, or suppress your research. I've seen a student," Alaric let out a dry, quiet chuckle, "a stubborn bastard who schemed, clawed, and leveraged their way all the way to Vice-Master of a Magic Tower. If you leave the right impression on someone down there, you could walk away with the backing of an authentic God-rank Mage. Once a power of that magnitude stands at your shoulder, virtually no one on this continent will dare touch you."
Arthur tilted his head, keeping his tone soft and curious. "And the information?"
"Information," Alaric affirmed, the cynical edge returning to his jaw. "You know how ruthlessly the administration throttles movement and correspondence across the perimeter. It was identical when I was a student here—ostensibly for security, but the consequence is total insulation.
"The curriculum drills you on theory, but it never shows you how the continent is actually moving. You don't see which kingdoms are quietly feuding, which Magic Towers are losing influence, or which institutions are undergoing major leadership shifts. When you eventually leave this rock for your fifth year, you step directly onto live coals. If you don't know where the fault lines run or which factions are on the rise, you can walk straight into someone else's political mess without even knowing it.
"The representatives down there live in that world every single day. Hearing from them gives you a clear picture of how things really stand out there, so when the time comes to choose a path, you actually know what you're walking into."
Arthur maintained his placid, attentive gaze, offering Alaric an understanding, docile nod as the veteran turned his eyes back toward the teaming colosseum.
Beneath the warm, saintly mask of his chestnut fringe, however, the Autonomic Merged Processor engaged with blinding clock speed.
Information.
Alaric spoke of it defensively—a lantern to navigate bureaucratic pitfalls, a survival shield to keep young prodigies from blundering into the crossfire of foreign succession wars and tower rivalries.
Yet to Arthur, the word flared with cold, predatory clarity.
Information. Precisely.
Every strategist required raw telemetry before laying an ambush. And for an operative quarantined ten thousand meters above the earth—isolated from the continental crust by ten thousand meters of dead air, quarter-hectometer basalt walls, and the sanitized ledgers of the Academic Board—unfiltered intelligence was more valuable than gold, divine grimoires, or the patron seal of an archmage.
Court gossip peddled by indolent noble scions like Matthew of House Vane was poisoned by vanity; broadsheets like the Viera Continental Gazette were crippled by sensationalism and state censorship. But the figures down on those flagstones were the living machinery of the continent. They were the arbiters, liaisons, and high-order emissaries who directed troop movements, funded border tariffs, and steered the political currents of Geenna. To extract telemetry directly from the unfiltered source was an operational advantage beyond measure.
And nestled deep within that advantage was an inescapable, lethal reality.
Arthur's perceptual aperture drifted past Alaric's broad shoulder, casting a sweeping vector across the iron stanchions partitioning the concourse.
In the second semester of Year One, Arthur had subjected the First Sector to an exhaustive, microscopic audit. Every single one of the four hundred and ninety-nine magic students and one thousand scholars had been analyzed, tested, and systematically cleared of holding Deathly-black aura or the mechanics of the Nameless Arts. His own cohort—the second-years now circling below—were known quantities. Their loyalties, vices, and threat profiles had been measured, leashed, or neutralized.
As for the fifth-years, their cohort had been deployed across the four corners of Geenna on mandatory apprenticeships long before the first explosive rune detonated in Room Twelve.
That left only the senior rings.
Arthur's gaze sharpened, slicing through the heraldic banners, velvet robes, and burnished plate armor to isolate the Academy regalia moving through the upper echelons.
Beyond the second-year boundary, scattered among the massed envoys of the third- and fourth-year sectors, stood the senior students. He counted them across the flagstones, tracking each navy uniform, silver combatant epaulette, and high-collared silhouette.
Twenty-two.
Twenty-two upperclassmen.
The master spearman who had dissolved into dry ash under his tackle; the assassin who had driven an obsidian lance through his brother's chest; the voice that had rasped with that suffocating, intimate remorse—"Forgive me, my child, for what I must do."
The ghost he had been hunting through the dark was no longer an abstraction hidden in another sector.
The Ash Mage was down on that floor.
One of those twenty-two upperclassmen.