Zael rubbed his temples slowly.
The more he learned, the more questions appeared.
At this point, he wasn't even sure whether he was an awakener using a system or a collection of anomalies pretending to be an awakener.
The thought almost made him laugh.
Almost.
With a sigh, he dismissed the Talent Bank panel and focused entirely on Origin Dominion.
"Detailed description."
[Ding!]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Origin Dominion (Unknown)
A talent born from the convergence of multiple Authorities, Sovereign Concepts, and Origin-level powers.
Current State: Initial Awakening
Rank: Unknown
Potential: Unmeasurable
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Effects:
• Passive Authority Amplification
• Origin Synchronization
• Concept Resonance
• Domain Foundation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Warning:
Talent growth depends on the development of the user's personal Origin Law.
Current Progress:
0.00001% ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael blinked.
"...Personal Origin Law?"
That sounded important.
Extremely important.
Yet the description somehow explained absolutely nothing.
Then again, most of his strongest talents were like that.
The system seemed to assume he already understood concepts that sounded like they belonged in the realm of gods.
A small notification appeared beneath the talent.
[Ding!]
[Level 100 Milestone Reached.]
[Additional Information Database Unlocked.]
Zael immediately selected it.
Unlike skills and talents, this section appeared more like an encyclopedia.
The first entry instantly caught his attention.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Level 100 Watershed
Level 100 represents the transition from Energy Accumulation to Law Development.
Prior to Level 100:
Awakeners strengthen themselves.
After Level 100:
Awakeners begin influencing reality.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael's expression became serious.
That sentence alone explained a lot.
He continued reading.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Third Tier:
The beginning of Law Perception.
Awakeners gradually comprehend concepts aligned with their talents and professions.
Fourth Tier:
Law Manifestation.
Awakeners can temporarily project and utilize their chosen Laws.
Fifth Tier:
Law Dominion.
Awakeners establish personal domains influenced by their Laws.
Further information unavailable.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael stared at the information for several moments.
Then everything clicked.
The reason Third Tier experts felt fundamentally different wasn't because they had more mana.
It wasn't because they hit harder.
It was because they had begun touching something beyond ordinary power.
Laws.
Concepts.
Reality itself.
Suddenly the Vice Commander's overwhelming presence made much more sense.
And so did Night Sovereign.
Those people weren't simply stronger.
They existed on an entirely different level of understanding.
Which meant...
Zael's gaze shifted toward the line describing Origin Dominion.
Domain Foundation.
A strange thought occurred to him.
"Don't tell me..."
Before he could finish speaking, another notification appeared.
[Ding!]
Due to Origin Dominion,
You have gained premature awareness of Origin Law development.
Current Origin Law:
Not Established.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Requirements:
Discover your Path.
Define your Authority.
Establish your Principle.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael slowly lowered the panel.
The room became silent once more.
Discover your Path.
Define your Authority.
Establish your Principle.
The words sounded simple.
Yet somehow they felt heavier than every battle he had fought so far.
Because monsters could be killed.
Skills could be learned.
Levels could be gained.
But this?
This was asking him a different question entirely.
What kind of existence did he want to become?
For the first time since entering this world, Zael realized that raw strength alone might not be enough anymore.
The path ahead was no longer about gaining power.
It was about defining himself.
Then suddenly—
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Zael's eyes narrowed.
Someone was outside his dorm.
At this hour.
And judging by the aura...
It wasn't Lily.
It wasn't Aurelia.
And it definitely wasn't a student.
The person outside was strong.
Very strong.
A moment later, a calm elderly voice sounded from beyond the door.
"Student Zael."
A pause followed.
Then—
"The Dean would like to speak with you."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zael stared at the door for several seconds.
The aura outside remained calm.
Controlled.
Professional.
Not hostile.
But definitely powerful.
Far stronger than any ordinary lecturer.
Zael slowly stood from the bed.
The status panels disappeared one after another.
Origin Dominion.
Third Tier.
Level 100.
All of it could wait.
For now.
The Dean was calling.
That alone was enough to demand caution.
After everything that happened today, there was absolutely no chance this was a casual conversation.
"Coming."
He walked to the door and opened it.
Standing outside was an elderly man dressed in the academy's formal attire.
Silver hair.
Sharp eyes.
Tier Four at minimum.
Possibly stronger.
The old man gave a polite nod.
"Student Zael."
Zael nodded back.
"You are?"
"Dean's secretary."
The old man smiled faintly.
"Please follow me."
Zael didn't ask any further questions.
There wasn't much point.
The Dean clearly wasn't requesting his presence.
He was summoning it.
Fortunately, Zael had no intention of refusing anyway.
A few minutes later—
The two walked through the academy.
The destruction from the invasion was still visible everywhere.
Collapsed structures.
Emergency crews.
Students helping transport supplies.
Several people noticed Zael immediately.
Whispers followed.
Many whispers.
Some respectful.
Some fearful.
Some curious.
Zael ignored all of them.
Eventually they arrived at the tallest building in the academy.
The administrative tower.
Unlike the rest of the campus, this structure remained almost completely intact.
Several powerful formations covered its exterior.
The old man led him inside.
Then into a private elevator.
Silence followed during the ascent.
Neither spoke.
A minute later—
Ding.
The doors opened.
A single office occupied the entire top floor.
Large windows overlooked the entire academy.
Bookshelves lined the walls.
Ancient artifacts decorated the room.
And behind a massive wooden desk sat the Dean.
The old scholar was quietly reading a report when Zael entered.
Without looking up, he spoke.
"Take a seat."
Zael sat.
The secretary quietly left.
The door closed behind him.
Now only the two remained.
For several moments, neither spoke.
The Dean calmly finished reading the document in his hand before finally setting it aside.
Then he looked directly at Zael.
The old man's eyes were surprisingly sharp.
Much sharper than they appeared during lectures.
For a moment, Zael felt as though he was being examined completely.
Then the Dean smiled.
"A Level 100 Third Tier at your age."
He shook his head slowly.
"I've worked in education for over a century."
"You're the first."
Zael remained silent.
The Dean continued.
"You know what everyone is discussing right now?"
"No."
"They're trying to determine whether you're a genius..."
The Dean leaned back slightly.
"...or a disaster."
Zael's eyebrow twitched.
The Dean laughed softly.
"An understandable reaction."
Then his expression became more serious.
"The military wants you."
"The government wants to monitor you."
"The major factions want to recruit you."
"The research departments want to study you."
"The demons want you dead."
He paused.
"And after today, several entities that shouldn't know your name now know it."
Zael's eyes narrowed slightly.
Night Sovereign.
The mysterious observer.
Perhaps others.
The Dean noticed his reaction.
"Good."
"At least you understand the seriousness of the situation."
The old man folded his hands.
Then asked a question.
A very simple question.
"Tell me, Zael."
"What exactly are your plans from here?"
The room fell silent.