The townhouse was located in the ring of District 7. It did not look like the kind of place a student would rent. It looked like a fortress. The walls were made of stone that had been reinforced. As soon as Zen walked through the front door he could feel the protections humming in the air.
Valeria locked the door behind them. The sound of the deadbolt clicking shut was loud in the house.
"I will show you to your room," Valeria said with a smile taking his bag and leading him upstairs.
She opened the door to a large, luxurious bedroom. The bed was enormous and the sheets were made of silk. There was a private bathroom. It was even nicer than the rooms Zen used to have five hundred years when he was an Emperor.
"My room is across the hall," Valeria said, leaning against the doorframe. "If you need anything... Anything all... Just call my name."
"I just need to sleep Val," Zen said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"Get some rest," she whispered softly. She slowly closed the door leaving him alone in the room.
Zen waited for ten minutes. He listened carefully until he heard the door across the hall close.
He did not trust Valeria. He stood up, grabbed his canvas bag and pulled out his GE burner drone.
Zen tapped the drone's power rune and manually accessed its optical sensors through his terminal interface. He used the drone's infrared camera to sweep the entire room and can for electronics: the air vents, the mirrors, and the corners of the ceiling.
Nothing. There were no hidden cameras… no listening bugs.
"System," Zen thought. "What is the probability of Vanguard surveillance inside this specific house?"
[Probability: 0%. The Goddess of War is highly territorial. She values absolute privacy in her personal domain and would not allow Vanguard High Command to monitor her living quarters.]
"Good," Zen smirked in the dark.
He put the drone down and pulled out the dark purple Heart-Stone. It was full of energy. He sat cross-legged on the floor holding the stone in both hands.
"System, initiate absorption," Zen ordered.
[Processing Mid E-Rank Boss Core…]
A violent wave of heat rushed up Zen's arms and slammed into his chest. This core was much stronger than the ones from the sewers. It felt like swallowing a volcano. Sweat poured down his face as he forced his body to take in the energy.
[Absorption complete. Core fracture repaired by 5%.]
[Congratulations. You have reached High F-Rank.]
Zen opened his eyes. The purple stone in his hands crumbled into uselesss grey dust. He felt amazing. The pain in his ribs was gone, healed by the surge of magic.
He stood up flexing his hands. But he frowned slightly.
"System," Zen thought. "That was a Mid E-Rank Boss core. Why did it only push me to High F-Rank? It should have broken me through to the E-Rank tier entirely."
[Negative. Core density requirements scale exponentially. Repairing a shattered soul is vastly different from normal cultivation. To break the E-Rank barrier, you will require at least ten E-Rank Boss cores, or one Mid D-Rank Boss core.]
"Ten boss cores," Zen muttered, shaking his head. "Levelling up is going to be hard."
He walked over to the desk, picked up the hacked GE drone. He tapped the power rune again, and the little silver ball floated up, its red light blinking on.
Zen didn't just want to survive anymore. He wanted to get back at Kaelen Thorne. But first, he needed to keep his audience engaged to keep the credits rolling in.
"System," Zen said. "Log into the Ghost Scrapper account. Let's do a quick shadow-boxing stream for the fans. They wanted to see the footwork."
[Ghost Scrapper is now LIVE.]
[Notifying 14,850 followers...]
Instantly, the viewer count spiked. The chat box started moving at light speed.
User_992: HE'S ALIVE! The legend returns!
ScrapRat: Bro, are you going back to the sewers?!
MetalHead: Show us that parry stance again! I got 1,000 credits ready!
Zen smirked, standing in the center of the room. He made sure the camera angle was tight, showing only his torso and legs so the expensive bedroom background wouldn't give away his location.
"No dungeons tonight," Zen whispered, keeping his voice extremely low so Valeria wouldn't hear him across the hall. "Just some combat theory. Watch my feet."
He moved into the Emperor's Stride, making a perfect, fast turn. Then he did the Vanguard Parry. He moved smoothly and carefully without using any mana. The chat went absolutely wild, spamming small donations and cheers.
After ten minutes of basic forms, Zen stopped. He gave a casual wave toward the drone's lens, completely confident in the hacked digital blur masking his identity on the live feed. "That's it for tonight. Stay sharp."
"System, end stream."
Zen caught the drone as the red light clicked off. He put it back in his bag, turned off the lights and laid down on the silk bed.
He was finally a High F-Rank. He was getting closer to his goal.
—
The next morning, Zen woke up to the smell of food… real, expensive food, not synthetic.
He walked downstairs to find Valeria in the kitchen. She was wearing her academy uniform, but with an apron around her waist. She was humming a happy tune while cooking eggs and bacon.
"Good morning Zen," Valeria said with a smile as she placed a plate of food on the table for him. "Did you sleep well?"
"I did," Zen said, sitting down. "Thank you for the food, Val."
"Eat up " she said, resting her chin on her handa and watching him intensely. "You need your strength. We have a day at the academy today."
Zen took a bite of the bacon. It was incredibly good. But as he ate, he suddenly realised something.
Valeria was not just playing house or being nice. If she fed him high quality food every morning, he would never have a reason to go to the academy cafeteria. She was trying to remove every possible reason for him to interact with other people.
After eating and dressing up, they walked to the Ares Military Academy together. Valeria kept her arm linked with his the entire way.
But as soon as they got to the campus, Zen realised something was wrong.
The campus was totally silent. None of the students were talking or laughing. Everyone was in the courtyard, staring up at the sky.
Zen looked up and saw three, big, black Vanguard Military dropships hovering above the academy.
"What is going on?" Jax whispered, running up to Zen and Val in the courtyard. He looked scared. "The military just locked down the school. Nobody is allowed to leave."
Before Zen could answer, the bay doors of the dropships opened. Dozens of elite soldiers in dark grey armour dropped down into the courtyard holding high-tech mana-rifles. They quickly formed a perimeter around the students.
A tall man in a trench coat stepped out of the lead ship floating down to the ground using wind magic. He had a car on his face and a silver Inquisition badge pinned on his chest.
Professor Vance and Dean Alaric rushed forward bowing nervously to the man.
"Inquisitor," Dean Alaric greeted with a confident smile. "We were not expecting the Vanguard. How can the Academy serve you?"
The Inquisitor ignored the Dean. He held up a glowing artifact that amplified his voice.
"Yesterday, the Academy experienced a spatial fracture," the Inquisitors voice boomed. "Our satellites detected a S-Rank magical anomaly from inside that unmapped zone. The energy signature was ancient. Unregistered."
Zen's blood ran cold.
They were not here to investigate the teleportation pad malfunction or Kaelan's possible sabotage. They were here because of the Primordial Void Breathing Zen had used to punch the Minotaur.
"We are locking down this Academy," the Inquisitor announced, his cold eyes sweeping over the terrified students. "An ancient threat has breached our Domain. And we are going to find out exactly how it got here."
Right next to Zen, Valeria's grip on his arm tightened painfully.
"An ancient threat?" Valeria whispered, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses. A dark, terrifying aura began to leak from her body. "Interesting."