Chapter 12: Trashy Creator
The morning air in the Eastern Sector was thick with a humid, expectant stillness that felt like the moment before a summer storm breaks. For most students at Aegis Academy, this was arguably the most significant day of their adolescent lives. With only seventy-two hours remaining until the start of the National Academy Entrance Exams, the atmosphere was a volatile, choking mix of jagged anxiety and desperate, white-knuckled hope. Today, however, that tension was centered entirely on the grand arrival of a "Beast Creator"—a prestigious, government-sanctioned professional whose specialized role was to analyze latent biological potentials and provide the definitive evolutionary blueprints required to survive the meat-grinder of the 1000-point practical exam.
Roman Dawson walked through the school's wrought-iron gates, his footsteps steady, rhythmic, and impossibly precise. He no longer leaned on his cane for physical support—his internal map was now more accurate than any sighted person's—though he kept the carbon-fiber tool in his hand as a strategic decoy for the prying, judgmental eyes of the faculty. Behind the cloudy, deceptively dim film of his eyes, the Truth-Seeking Bracelet hummed with a low-frequency vibration against his skin. It was feeding him a constant, high-fidelity stream of thermal data, structural schematics, and flux-resonance.
He didn't need to see the silk banners fluttering from the rafters or the frantic, sweat-streaked faces of his classmates. He could feel the spikes of raw flux energy in the air like static electricity on a winter's day. Students were desperately feeding their beasts last-minute, high-grade treats and unstable spirit-pellets, hoping to artificially swell their ranks and hide the cracks in their foundations. To Roman's "sight," the hall looked like a sea of flickering, dying candles trying to masquerade as bonfires.
In the absolute center of the Grand Training Hall, a man stood upon a raised dais with his chin tilted at a sharp, arrogant angle. He was draped in the heavy, ornate, silver-trimmed robes of a High-Rank Creator, the expensive fabric shimmering with active defensive runes that hummed with a defensive "don't touch me" frequency. This was Master Silas. He wasn't just any government-appointed creator; he was a renowned figure from the capital's central district, and more importantly, a close personal friend of Brent Miller's father.
"Listen closely, you lot," Silas's voice boomed, amplified by a throat-worn flux-mic. It dripped with a practiced, condescending authority that demanded immediate, subservient silence. "Evolution is not a game of chance or a hobby for the sentimental. It is a precise, mathematical science of Soul-Geometry. You are children playing with cosmic forces you do not possess the intellect to understand. Today, I will provide the paths that will keep you from catastrophic failure—if you have the basic sense to follow them without question."
Roman stood near the back of the assembly, flanked by John and Ellen. John's beast, the Star-Crushing Sword, rested silently in his soul-space, though John himself looked dangerously pale, his fingers twitching. Ellen's Sun-Flare Eagle let out a low, nervous trill from her shoulder, its golden feathers ruffling in the stagnant, recycled air of the hall.
"Don't worry," John whispered, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead. "If Silas gives us even a standard 3-star plan, we're basically guaranteed a spot in a top-fifty college. The guys from the capital know shortcuts we haven't even dreamed of."
Roman didn't reply immediately. He was busy. He had activated the Deep Scan function of the Truth-Seeking Bracelet, focusing it entirely on the "Master" on the stage. To the rest of the school, Silas was a fountain of ancient wisdom and professional integrity. To Roman's internal interface, Silas's own flux energy was stagnant—a murky, bloated pool of vanity and metabolic shortcuts. The man wasn't looking for hidden potential or the spark of genius; he was looking for compliance and political convenience.
"Brent Miller, step forward!" Silas commanded, his expression softening into a calculated, greasy smirk.
Brent walked up to the dais, his chest puffed out like a peacock, casting a mocking, sideways glance back at Roman as he passed. Silas pulled a glowing, premium jade slip from the depths of his robe. "For your Wind-Ridge Wolf, I have meticulously devised a 4-Star Evolution Path: The Gale-Force Wolf King. It will maximize wind-blade frequency and grant the high-tier 'Howl of Despair' ability. With this blueprint, the Practical Exam will be a mere formality for you, young man. Your future is already written in the stars."
The hall erupted in hushed, envious gasps that sounded like the rustle of dry leaves. A 4-star plan was exceptionally rare even in the elite capital circles. It was clear to everyone present that Brent's father had called in a massive, expensive favor to ensure his son's absolute dominance.
Silas then turned his attention to John and Ellen. He spent less than a minute glancing at their beasts' external vitals before dismissively handing them standard, mass-produced 3-star jade slips. "Solid, dependable paths for the middle-class. Follow them to the letter, and you won't embarrass the Academy's reputation."
Finally, Silas's gaze landed on Roman. The hall went into a sudden, vacuum-like silence. The "Blind Scion" was a frequent target of schoolyard ridicule, and Silas's eyes held a special kind of professional disdain—the look a master craftsman gives to a pile of scrap wood.
"Roman Dawson," Silas said, his voice dropping to a cold, flat tone that carried to every corner of the room. "Out of a lingering respect for this school's request—and at the helpful nudging of my dear friend, Mr. Miller—I have briefly looked at that... biological anomaly you call a beast."
He didn't offer a jade slip. Instead, he reached into a side pocket and tossed a cheap, thin piece of yellowed parchment toward Roman. It fluttered through the air like literal trash, landing in the dirt at Roman's feet.
"I have devised a 2-Star Plan: The Iron-Bark Serpent. It focuses entirely on the Wood element, effectively sealing off those volatile, dangerous 'glitches' in its mutated system. It will turn your snake into a sturdy, albeit slow, defensive tool. It's the only humane way to keep it from self-destructing during the stress of the exam."
Roman didn't reach for the paper. He didn't even look down. "A 2-star plan?" Roman asked quietly, his voice cutting through the snickers of Brent's lackeys like a razor. "My beast is a stabilized mutation of Wood, Lightning, and Water. Your plan completely discards the Lightning and Water cores. It would effectively lobotomize its elemental potential just to make it 'easier' for your grading rubrics to handle."
Silas laughed, a dry, grating sound that lacked any real mirth. "Tri-elemental?" Silas stepped forward to the edge of the dais, his long shadow falling over Roman. "Boy, your 'trash beast' is a genetic accident. It is a chaotic mess of conflicting energies that shouldn't even be biologically viable. Trying to balance three elements in a Rank 1 creature is not just difficult; it's a death sentence for the beast. It is pure, arrogant wishful thinking for a student of your... limited standing and shattered resources to dream of such complexity. You should thank me on your knees for giving you a path that keeps it from exploding into a puddle of gore in front of the examiners."
Brent sneered, crossing his arms over his expensive leather jacket. "Listen to the Master, Roman. He's trying to save you from the embarrassment of your green worm turning into a pile of scorched wood. Just take the scrap and pray you can at least get a job as a city gardener."
Roman felt the Truth-Seeking Bracelet grow uncomfortably hot on his wrist. The Deep Scan was flashing a crimson, high-priority warning as it analyzed the 4-star plan in Brent's hand and the 3-star plans held by his friends. The system wasn't just providing data; it was revealing the hidden "poison" hidden in the medicine.
"I reject the plan," Roman said.
The silence that followed was deafening. Even the birds in the rafters seemed to stop fluttering. Silas's face turned a deep, bruised shade of purple. "You... you reject it?"
"I will handle my beast's evolution myself," Roman continued, stepping over the discarded parchment as if it were a common puddle. "A creator who sees a rare mutation as a 'genetic accident' instead of a sovereign opportunity isn't someone I trust with my partner's future. You aren't building sovereigns, Silas. You're building obedient toys for a failing system."
"You arrogant, sightless little brat!" Silas hissed, his professional mask finally cracking to reveal the petty tyrant beneath. "You'll be lucky to even reach Rank 2 with that attitude. You are throwing away your only chance at a future!"
Roman didn't look back. Instead, he leaned toward John and Ellen, his tone urgent but low, vibrating with an authority they had never heard from him before. "John, Ellen... don't use those plans."
John blinked, startled, clutching his jade slip as if it were a lifebuoy. "What? Roman, this is a 3-star plan from a Master Creator! It's my only shot at a top-fifty college. My parents sacrificed everything for this slip."
"It's a gilded cage," Roman whispered. "John, that Rock-Sword path focuses entirely on 'Density,' but it ignores the sword's spiritual flexibility. By the time you hit Rank 3, the blade will become too brittle to handle the resonance of your own flux. It will shatter against a real opponent. It's a short-term boost for the exam that will ruin your weapon for life."
He turned to Ellen, whose eagle was shifting uncomfortably. "And yours—the Sun-Flare plan. It uses 'Force-Feeding' of fire-stones to artificially boost the Eagle's heat output, but it will burn out its internal flux-veins within a single year. You'll have a powerful bird for the exam, and a flightless, crippled pet by next graduation."
"How could you possibly know that?" Ellen asked, her voice trembling as she looked at the glowing jade in her hand.
"Because I can see the flow you're being told to ignore," Roman said. "These plans aren't designed to make you strong; they're designed to make you 'good enough' for the Federation's quotas while ensuring you never become a threat to the elites like Brent later on. They are glass ceilings wrapped in silver gift-wrap."
Silas was trembling with pure rage, his authority being dismantled by a "failure" in front of the entire student body. "Enough! Roman Dawson, you are officially blacklisted from any further Creator consultations! And as for you two," he glared at John and Ellen, "if you listen to this delusional failure, you can consider your careers over before they even begin."
Brent laughed, walking up to Silas's side and patting the older man's shoulder. "Let them follow him, Master. It just means two fewer people for me to step over on the way to the top. Roman, I'll look for you at the exam—oh wait, I forgot. You won't even make it past the first round with a 1-star wood snake."
Roman ignored the taunt entirely. He looked at his friends, his blind gaze somehow feeling more piercing than Silas's glare. "I can't force you. But if you trust me, give me tonight. I've spent every night in the library and the archives studying the fundamental laws of soul-geometry and flux-flow. I'll show you the real paths. Not the ones that make you 'pass,' but the ones that make you grow into something they're afraid of."
John and Ellen looked at each other, then at the sneering, bloated Silas, and finally at Roman. There was something in Roman's presence—not sight, but a terrifying, absolute certainty that felt more solid than the floor beneath them.
"I'm with Roman," John said. With a sharp, sudden crack that echoed through the hall, he snapped the 3-star jade slip in half.
Ellen hesitated for a moment longer, then walked up and handed her slip back to the stunned Silas. "I'd rather take a risk with a friend who actually looks at my bird than follow a path that treats it like a battery to be used up."
The hall was in an absolute uproar as Roman led his friends away. Silas's screams of "Ruined! You're all ruined!" followed them out the doors, but Roman didn't hear them. He was already calculating the variables. He had three days. He had three distinct beasts to prepare for a 5-star synchronization. And he had a 1000-point exam that was going to serve as the funeral for Silas's reputation and the birth of his own legend.
"We have work to do," Roman said as they reached the school gates. "Tonight, we start the real evolutions. And Zuzu... she's going to show them what an 'accident' can really do when it decides to reign."
Under the shade of his sleeve, the Truth-Seeking Bracelet pulsed with a deep, approving violet light. The first step was over. He had rejected the false truths of the world; now, he was going to create his own.