The Return Of The Exiled Villain

Creaaaaaaak!!!

A stone rose behind her.

It did not come from the steps, but from the yard itself, as if the ground had been holding it under the students’ boots the whole time and had only now decided they were allowed to see it.

The monument was taller than three men and narrower than a door, carved from a single piece of pale bone that had no business looking that clean in a city this dark.

Crimson veins ran through it.

They pulsed once, then went still, waiting.

The yard understood before she explained.

”...Bone check.”

Vael’Zira heard it and did not bother pretending she had not.

”Yes. The Bone-Checking Monument. This is the first test. It is also the test that sends most of you home before the sun moves.”

She walked down one step. The Archduke’s pressure eased just enough that the younger students remembered how to breathe.

”You will place your hand on the stone and send your Demonic Energy into it. You can’t use a technique, a house art, or even a borrowed crystal. You need to the demonic energy that flows directly from your core. The monument will answer with four things: your age, your race, your present cultivation, and your talent.”

A few heirs straightened at the last word. Talent was the part that made families send children across the abyss with gifts and threats.

Vael’Zira continued as if she were reading a list of ingredients.

”Talent is divided as it has always been divided. Low, Mid, High, Top-tier, Heavenly, and finally, Divine.”

The last two words changed the air.

Even the students who had been whispering about an incubus behind a princess went quiet for that.

”Low talent may live a long life and still die ordinary,” she said.

”Mid talent may become useful to a house. High talent may become a problem for a house. Top-tier talent is the lowest this academy accepts. Heavenly talent is rare enough that the instructors will stop pretending they are bored. Divine talent...” Her mouth moved, almost a smile, almost not.

”Divine talent is a rumor that sometimes walks into this yard and makes the old ones remember why they still teach.”

A boy in Emberveil colors swallowed hard enough to be seen.

Vael’Zira’s slit-gold eyes moved across the crowd.

”If the monument reads below top-tier, you fail. There is no second attempt nor family petition. There is no ’the stone was wrong.’ The stone is older than your entire bloodline, so if it says you do not belong here, you do not belong here.”

Someone in the back started to speak and thought better of it.

”Cultivation will be shown as well,” she said.

”Do not confuse realm with worth. I have watched Peak Monarch fail this stone and Saints’ heirs pass it. I have also watched the opposite. The monument does not care what you paid to look strong in the street.”

’...This can be a problem.’

[Don’t worry... I can help with this~]

Jasmine grinned.

At those words, Gray nodded.

’I believe you.’

The yard had already decided what the stone would say about him.

That was useful.

People who had already decided were easier to disappoint.

The princess did not look at him.

Vael’Zira lifted one hand. Instructors stepped out from the dark colonnade behind the monument, ten of them, then twelve, then more, until the steps held a line of professors in academy black.

Their auras were not uniform.

They were strong... strong enough that some pressed against Archduke and stopped just short of matching the headmistress.

One of them had no visible wings and still made the nearest students lean away.

”These are your instructors,” Vael’Zira said.

”They will watch the monument. If one of them takes an interest in you, they may name you as a prospective assistant.”

That started the second wave of whispering.

Prospective assistant.

An assistant belonged to a professor’s work, their research, their vault access, their protection, and their expectation.

It was a leash that came with meat.

Vael’Zira let them whisper for three seconds, then cut it.

”Do not celebrate early. A professor’s interest is not admission. If you are named, you still complete every remaining test. If you fail a later trial, the offer dies with your failure. We do not keep half-made tools.”

One of the Ashrend twins smiled like that rule had been written for other people.

”The order is simple,” the headmistress said.

”You approach when your token is called. You place your palm on the bone. You endure the reading. You step aside. If you collapse, you are carried off the grounds. If you try to feed the stone someone else’s energy, the stone will take a piece of you and the inspectors will take the rest.”

A few students looked at their own hands.

Vael’Zira turned her head toward the monument. The crimson veins brightened once, like something tasting the air.

”Begin with the priority lines. Houses first, then the rest. The academy can be old, but definitely not patient.”

The inspectors started calling names.

Instantly, the house banners moved.

The yard split the way yards always split when rank was allowed to stand in front of hunger.

Crimson Moon.

Ashrend.

Nethar.

Sable Fang.

Emberveil.

Veyth, farther back than Cael would have liked, which meant the alley in Vhar’Zul had traveled faster than his pride.

The princess walked when her line was called.

Gray stayed two steps behind, as instructed, and listened to the stonework.

The first heir was an Ashrend twin.

He set his palm to the bone as if the monument should already know him.

Swish...

The veins flared white-red, and slowly, letters burned into the air above the stone, sharp enough for the yard to read.

[Age: Eighty-eight

Race: Abyss-Born Demon.

Cultivation: Late Monarch.

Talent: Top-tier.]

The yard exhaled.

Top-tier was the door.

An instructor on the left, a woman with ash-gray horns, marked something on a slate and did not step forward.

The second twin followed.

[Age: Eighty-eight

Race: Abyss-Born Demon.

Cultivation: Peak Monarch.

Talent: Heavenly.]

That changed the weather.

Two professors moved at once.

The ash-horned woman and a broad man whose aura sat near Archduke. They did not argue in the yard. They only looked at Vael’Zira. The headmistress did not look back.

The heavenly reading was enough. The boy would finish the other tests, and then the academy would decide which hand got to close on him.

”Prospective assistant,” the broad man said, loud enough to be official.

”Ashrend. If you complete the remaining trials.”

The twin bowed as he had expected it.

Nethar’s third daughter went next. The stone took longer with her, and the letters came up slower, as if the monument wanted the yard to wait.

[Age: Seventy-two

Race: Night-Vein Demon.

Cultivation: Mid Monarch.

Talent: Heavenly.]

A third instructor, the one with no wings, spoke without raising his voice.

”Nethar. Prospective assistant. Complete the rest.”

She nodded once.

The Sable Fang young master put his beast-core story on the stone and got back what the road had not proved.

[Age: one hundred and one.

Race: Abyssal Beastblood.

Cultivation: Early Monarch.

Talent: Top-tier.]

No professor moved.

Emberveil’s claimed son drew High talent and a murmur of disappointment from his own people.

He stepped away with his jaw locked, already dead to the academy and not yet willing to leave the yard.

Then the inspector called a name that made the Veyth section stiffen.

”Cael Veyth.”

Cael confidently walked towards the monument before setting his hand on the bone hard, as if force could improve the reading.

[Age: one hundred and twenty

Race: Court Demon.

Cultivation: Early Sovereign.

Talent: High.]

High...

The monument did not care about his house, his protectors, or the scene he had tried to make in Vhar’Zul.

The yard made a sound that was not quite laughter.

Cael stared at the letters as if they had insulted his mother.

An inspector pointed to the fail line. Cael did not move until one of his protectors touched his shoulder.

Even then he looked across the yard, found Gray, and let the look sit there long enough to promise a later problem.

High talent meant... out.

The academy had just told House Veyth that a coat and a ring were not a door.

More names, and more readings.

Most of them died on High or Mid.

A Hollow Bell girl who had already been inside the inner walk still took the stone because the rule said everyone took the stone.

Heavenly.

Two professors marked her without speaking. She walked off as if the yard were a corridor she already owned.

Vessa’s token was called somewhere in the ordinary line.

Gray saw the flash of violet hair, the short figure bouncing once on her heels, Riven behind her looking like he wanted to be a book.

Vessa slapped her palm onto the bone with no ceremony at all.

[Age: forty-two

Race: Lesser Horned Demon.

Cultivation: Early Saint

Talent: Top-tier.]

”YEES!!!”

She made a noise that was too happy for the yard.

Riven closed his eyes before sighing in relief.

No professor moved for her either, but the door had opened, and Vessa turned just long enough to find Gray in the priority shadow and grin as the monument had personally complimented her cooking.

Riven’s reading came up Mid.

He stepped toward the fail line without arguing.

Vessa’s grin broke, then she grabbed his sleeve anyway, as if she could drag a failed talent into the academy by stubbornness.

An inspector instantly separated them.

That was the first quiet cruelty of the day.

Then... the princess’s name was called.

She walked over and set her hand on the bone.

The monument flared deeper red than it had for the twins.

[Age: fifty-six

Race: Crimson Moon Royal Demon.

Cultivation: Early Monarch.

Talent: Perfect Heavenly.]

The yard had expected that and still went still.

Heavenly on a royal bloodline was a sentence the capital already knew. Three instructors marked her.

Vael’Zira did not.

The headmistress already had her.

”Crimson Moon,” said the wingless professor.

”Prospective assistant, should the remaining trials be completed.”

The princess took her hand back.

”I heard.”

Then the inspector looked at the token in his hand as if it had been written in a joke.

”Gray.”

The whispers returned on cue.

”The incubus that came with the Crimson Moon Princess.”

”Watch the stone embarrass him.”

”Peak Saint. Mid talent if he is lucky.”

Gray walked to the monument.

The bone was cold.

Up close, it smelled faintly of old marrow and iron.

He put his palm on it and sent Demonic Energy in...

The veins crawled under his hand.

The letters burned.

[Age: —

Race: Incubus.

Cultivation: Peak Saint.

Talent: —]

The first blank made the nearest students lean in.

The monument flickered.

For a moment, the talent line tried to write something and then smeared, as if the bone had reached a word it did not like saying in public.

Vael’Zira’s eyes sharpened.

One of the professors took a step closer.

The letters resolved, slower than they had for anyone else.

[Age: twenty

Race: Incubus.

Cultivation: Peak Saint.

Talent: Top-tier.]

Top-tier.

Enough just to enter...

Just high enough that the fail line could not have him, and low enough that half the yard could still tell itself the princess had dragged in a curiosity.

No instructor spoke his name... though everyone was intently looking at him, like he was some kind of prey.

That was fine.

Gray took his hand off the stone.

The princess’s shoulders eased a little, then locked again, as if she had not meant to care whether he passed.

Vael’Zira looked at the monument, then at Gray, then at the line still waiting.

”Top-tier stands,” she said.

”The first test is not finished until the last palm leaves the bone. Those already marked will wait on the inner steps. Those who fail will leave by the west gate. Do not congratulate yourselves. The monument only told us you are worth measuring.”

She turned her head toward the professors.

”If you want an assistant, you want a finished one. Remember that when the next trials start thinning this yard.”

The ash-horned instructor closed her slate.

”How many trials remain, Headmistress?”

Vael’Zira’s wings shifted, a small dark movement against the red sky.

”Enough,” she said.

”The bone told you what they are. The rest will tell you whether they can stay alive with it.”

The students nodded slighly.