Silarias took a heavy, threatening step forward, cutting off the armored guard’s path directly with his upper body. The copper gauntlets around his fists ground loudly as he clenched his hands. The amber flames inside his pupils flickered dangerously. Without hesitation, he grabbed Solomon by the shoulder of his golden cloak and pulled the newly minted director aside to the edge of the rotating platform with a short, forceful yank.
“Solomon, fix this. Now,” Silarias whispered urgently, his voice drenched in a raw, unyielding seriousness that vibrated with suppressed energy. “Do not let those guys lay their claws on Miki and Ren. I vouch for them personally. I will protect them with my own life if I have to, but they stay with us. No discussion.”
Solomon slowly turned his head toward Silarias. His neatly trimmed beard and sharp facial features did not give an inch, but deep within his dark eyes shone a fleeting, approving spark.
“You protect them with your life?” Solomon muttered in a low tone that vibrated like a heavy bass frequency through Silarias’ chest. He cast a sideways glance over his shoulder at the two children, who were frantically hiding behind Renuardo’s broad back. “Do not forget that you too are needed for what is to come here, Silarias. Do not waste your strength on unnecessary confrontations. Mmm… perhaps the Oculus simply indicates nothing when they stand before it. They are children, after all. Their Power Level is probably too low to trigger the internal mechanism of the gem anyway.”
Solomon spun on his heel and took a single step toward the two armored guards.
The gold-gray aura floating like a mist around his figure condensed within a fraction of a second into a wall of pure physical pressure. The air in the immediate vicinity became so heavy that the marble tiles under the guards’ boots began to crack with a dull crunch. A suffocating atmosphere swept over the platform.
“Retreat,” Solomon spoke icily. The absolute authority in his voice sliced through the noise of the arena like a sharp knife. “The children remain with my party. Ensure the process continues before I decide to personally and forcefully reform the security of this hall.”
The two guards froze in place. Their eyes behind their copper visors widened in fear. With a mechanical movement, they slammed their fists against their steel chest pieces so hard that the metal echoed, after which they backed away with fast, nervous steps.
Miki let out a sigh of relief and squeezed the hand of little Ren, who slowly began to breathe again. Renuardo offered an approving nod to Silarias and stood in a protective stance in front of the two little ones, while the entire group remained waiting in a tight formation at the side of the walkway.
Meanwhile, the queue of candidates moved steadily forward toward the floating eye.
Kaelid, who was still panting heavily from his sprint through the corridors, quietly joined the back edge of the group with a sweaty face. The fabric of his clothes was damp, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His chest heaved up and down, but his eyes stared feverishly at the rotating rings of gold and obsidian around the Oculus Castaway.
Just ahead of Kaelid stood a small group of sharply dressed, haughty nobles from the eastern provinces. One of them, a boy with a silk cloak, a diamond brooch, and a gold signet ring on his finger, turned around with a mocking chuckle.
“Look at that worthless heap standing there,” the noble student snapped, pointing with a contemptuous glare at Silarias, Renuardo, and the children. “First they drag tiny, defenseless toddlers to the most elite combat academy in the Ward, and now they have been standing there like idiots for minutes, holding up the whole process. Look at them… every single one of them looks younger, weaker, and more inexperienced than the average first-year drifter!”
The noble clique around him burst into mocking laughter that was amplified by the acoustics of the dome. Remarks and dirty looks flew in Silarias’ direction.
But the noble boy turned abruptly toward the master of ceremonies standing beside the platform. The smirk on his face gave way to a bright red rage. He folded his arms arrogantly, chest out, and roared over the noise of the grandstands:
“Stop letting those idiots on the side waste our precious time! Show them how a real nobleman does this! TEST THEM NOW!”
Silarias could no longer bear watching everyone around him analyzed down to the smallest detail while he had to watch from the side like a statue. The rage boiled beneath his skin and the amber flames in his eye sockets flared wildly. With a large stride, he leaped right in front of the eye, causing the marble tiles under his boots to splinter with a dull crack.
“Choose me then! Examine me!” Silarias shouted aggressively, slamming his copper gauntlets together with a loud bang. The copper spurs around his wrists crackled with suppressed energy.
However, the Oculus Castaway ignored Silarias completely. The giant floating eye turned its lens with a short, grinding sound, right in front of Vulkan’s face. The rings of gold and obsidian around the lens began to tilt at high speed and emitted a sharp, purple beam of light.
“Mmm… peculiar,” the eye spoke, while the purple beam began scanning Vulkan’s fiery contours and dissecting the boundary of his aura. “Vulkan… you are special. A soul forged by pure fire, but…” The Oculus stopped halfway through its sentence, the internal copper gears creaking loudly. It let out a raspy, raw laugh, after which the lens swung its focus directly to Valeria. “Aha! You are together! Brother and sister! The unbreakable bond of blood and flame, what a magnificent spectacle!”
Without giving the brother and sister a chance to utter a word, the lens swung on to Snicky. The mechanical eye moved uncomfortably close to his face. The floating mirror rings contracted, came to an abrupt halt, and the purple glow in its depth extinguished almost immediately. The voice of the Oculus changed on the spot. No admiration, but a cold, unyielding, almost dangerous tone.
“Mmm… I… um… you must leave,” the Oculus spoke tightly and distantly. “I do not know how you got in here and what you think you are doing, but you must leave immediately.”
Before Snicky could even stammer out a protest, two armored arena guards charged forward. Their heavy boots thundered on the marble floor. With brute force, they grabbed Snicky by his shoulders and dragged him away toward the dark corridors behind the rear portal.
The Oculus turned imperturbably onward to Renuardo. The rings spun at full speed again, blowing out warm steam. “Ah! A beast tamer of the old tribe! Good to finally welcome someone of your honorable people into these halls again.”
Next, the floating lens aimed at Zax and Bonk, who stood stiff and tense beside each other.
“Mmm… much regret I see,” the Oculus muttered, while the purple glow pulsed softly over their figures. “Much guilt… but the time has come to make amends. The potential is definitely there.”
Zax and Bonk clenched their fists and nodded with rock-solid determination at the mechanical eye.
But then, the lens finally floated directly in front of Silarias’ face.
The Oculus Castaway fell dead silent instantly. The rotating rings stopped so abruptly that the copper cogs slammed through violently. The floating eye lost all magical buoyancy, dropped to the marble floor with a dull thud, but shot back up into the air within a fraction of a second with a rapid purple flash. A shockwave of energy blew Silarias’ hair backward.
“A BEASTHUMAN?!” the Oculus roared, while the entire mechanism began to vibrate and shake from overload, making the windows in the high dome rattle. “AND AN X-TIER RARE?! There exists absolutely nothing higher than this!”
The entire arena exploded into a deafening uproar. Thousands of students and professors on the grandstands leaned forward, pointing at Silarias and shouting wildly over one another.
“X-Tier?! What on earth does that mean?!”
“Is he a lost god?! A reincarnation of the First King?!”
“That is impossible! Beasthumans have never reached that class, right?!”
The wildest suggestions and theories flew through the hall, but not a single one came close. The Oculus kept staring feverishly at Silarias and visibly began to lose control. The mirror rings spun so fast that the copper parts became glowing red and sparks splattered across the floor.
“Director! Look!” the Oculus exclaimed. The eye buzzed and began to amplify Silarias’ energy stream further and further. Lines of ancient text and glowing runes began projecting themselves straight into the air. “More and more information is unlocking! Look at this origin…”
“Yes, do not say everything, Oculus!” Solomon interrupted him directly with a powerful voice. The gold-gray aura around his figure blazed up, his hand already resting on his sword hilt.
But before the Oculus could obey, the situation was rudely disrupted by the arrogant nobleman from before. He stepped forward with a red face, pointing furiously at the group.
“YES YES! BUYING TIME!” the noble money boy roared with an overstrained voice. “If you were wrong about him just now, you could be wrong about those worthless kids too! TEST THEM!”
One of the other noble boys beside him immediately joined in to act tough. He crossed his arms and looked mockingly at Silarias. “Pff, AS IF THEY CAN CATCH UP TO US! We are already at half a million in Power Level and we are only going up!”
The entire clique of nobles began cheering loudly, shouting “YES! TEST THEM!”
The Oculus Castaway let out a deep sigh that echoed through the hall, slowly floating toward little Ren and Miki. As the lens was aimed at the two little ones, the eye began to tremble strangely. It seemed as if the magic inside the mechanism became emotional; the purple flame hesitated, and the eye simply did not know what it was looking at.
But the measurement was abruptly interrupted.
“Mister Oculus… mister?” a soft voice sounded.
Miki and little Ren took a step forward, politely extending their small hands toward the floating eye. “We are Miki and Ren.”
The Oculus Castaway lowered its lens slightly, speaking in a soft, almost regretful tone. “Even if I wanted to, little heroes… it is not possible. I have no physical hands to shake your hand.”
Miki and Ren looked at each other. Miki raised her eyebrows and gave Ren a very clear hint with her eyes.
Ren thought for a second until a lightbulb went off.
Without hesitation, Ren pulled off his cloth glove and threw it enthusiastically into the air.
“CATCH!” Ren called out.
The Oculus dismissed its purple beam and caught the glove telekinetically in midair. The empty glove filled with a transparent purple glow and began behaving exactly like a real hand.
The entire hall fell silent in an instant. Even the shouting nobles held their breath.
The floating hand moved through the air, descending calmly to the level of the two children, extending its fingers.
Ren and Miki grabbed the floating glove, shaking it very neatly one by one.
“Miki,” the girl said with a slight bow.
“And I am Ren!” the little boy said proudly.
At almost the exact same moment, a loud whining sound of hinges echoed in the background.
BOOM!
The heavy academy doors slammed shut with a bang. The shockwave made everyone in the hall look up at the gate… and then at the spot near the platform where the arrogant nobles had just been shouting.
The spot was completely empty. Not a trace left of the money boy or his friends. The hall understood the message from Solomon and the academy all too well: anyone who mocks the evaluation and the GOATS vanishes without pardon.
The Oculus Castaway floated softly up and down. Its rasping voice sounded almost emotional through the soulbound connection, drenched in an ancient longing.
“Behold…” the Oculus whispered. “The evaluation is complete. But… we can do nothing. A GOAT has not been chosen at this academy for so long that there are no longer even mentors who can instruct them…”
FLASH!
A golden lightning bolt pierced the space, lighting up the entire hall. Out of nowhere, a figure appeared right in the middle of the platform, clad in a floating cloak covered in glowing aether runes.
With a loud bang, the stranger slammed the end of his magical staff onto the marble floor. A golden shockwave swept away all the steam in the hall.
“DAVINCI CORAZON DA ETHER!” the man roared with a broad, theatrical chuckle, removing his hat and making a deep, courteous bow. “At your service!”