The dust from the battle hadn't even settled yet, but the hierarchy of the Azure Peak Academy had already been rewritten. Caelum sat on the Headmaster's throne, his legs crossed, watching the survivors of the High Council as they trembled on the floor.
"The era of Mana is a stagnant pool," Caelum's voice echoed through the cold stone hall. "You spent centuries hoarding power, building walls, and calling anyone without your specific 'Gift' a piece of trash. But you forgot one thing: every wall has a crack. Every code has a backdoor."
[SYSTEM STATUS: DOMAIN_EXPANSION_ACTIVE]
[AUTHORITY_LEVEL: SUPREME_ADMIN]
Caelum waved his hand, and the air itself began to fracture. Glowing red lines of binary code wrapped around the pillars of the hall, turning the ancient stone into something metallic and futuristic. The atmosphere became heavy, charged with a strange electricity that made everyone's skin crawl.
High Elder Silas, still struggling against the invisible weight pressing him down, looked up with bloodshot eyes. "You... you are a monster. You are destroying the natural order of the world!"
"Natural order?" Caelum laughed, a sound like glass breaking. "Silas, your 'natural order' was a lie created by a flawed system. I am not destroying the world. I am simply... fixing the bugs."
Caelum looked toward the balcony where the elite students stood. "From this moment on, levels mean nothing. Your ranks mean nothing. If you want to survive in my academy, you must learn to embrace the Glitch."
[INITIATING 'FORBIDDEN_REWRITE' ON SUBJECT: STUDENT_BODY]
Suddenly, the students felt a surge of energy, but it wasn't the warm glow of Mana. It was sharp, cold, and calculated. Their status windows reappeared, but they were no longer blue. They were a dark, obsidian black.
"What is this?!" one student cried out. "My 'Fireball' spell is gone! It's replaced by something called... 'Combustion Overload'?"
"I've removed your limiters," Caelum smirked. "You no longer need to chant. You no longer need to wait. You just need to execute the command."
Beside him, Kira stepped out from the shadows, her eyes now glowing with the same red code as the hall. "Master, the scouts from the nearby Kingdom of Valoria have arrived at the gates. They saw the explosion of the Ranking Stone."
"Good," Caelum stood up, the black coat around him billowing as if caught in a phantom wind. "Let them in. I want them to see what happens to a god when he meets a Developer."