Having regained his confidence and composure, Hybris calmly walked past Athen and Kai while staring at them.

Stopping right in front of Alice's seat, which was marked #5, Hybris stood still for a moment before finally saying.

"Where was this fake-thug act during the dinner? Did you go from some face-hiding loser to this? I mean, I understand why you want to hide your face now."

Confused, Athen stayed silent and slowly turned his head to Kai.

Wasn't Kai supposed to hail from a prosperous Valorian family?

The hierarchical structure of this world could be described as a family tree.

The higher up your last name was on the tree, the more power and influence you held over the world.

At the very top, of course, was the emperor and his family with the surname De'lor.

Branching out below from the emperor's family were the four grand dukes.

The emperor did not actually rule over any specific part of the land but, instead, saw over the entire human continent.

On the other hand, the grand dukes were specially assigned pieces of the empire to supervise and govern.

Kai's family, the Valorian, was one of these grand duke families.

His father and the other grand dukes were among the heroes who defended the human realm from mass destruction years ago when demonic monsters first appeared.

Knowing for his aggressive and devasting magical sword art, Cronus de Valorian wielded duel swords while simultaneously imbuing them with mana to cast spells with them.

While most preferred to choose a sword or a wand, not both, to fight, Cronus pioneered the art of using them together.

Wands allowed for more efficient spell-casting and mana conservation, as their internal structure and material allowed mana to flow seamlessly out of the user's body and into the wand.

Thus, most preferred them.

On the other hand, swords used cold and hard materials like metal instead of more elegant and smooth mediums like wood.

The wood material used to create wands kept mana that entered the wand trapped inside, so there was no net mana loss during the transfer from the human body to the wand.

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However, metal was the complete opposite, as mana was constantly depleted every second it was held in a sword.

That meant swords were practically impossible to use with magic unless one had perfect control over the mana in their body.

But that wasn't the only requirement.

One had to also master the art of wielding a sword.

To put mana from one's body into a sword is one thing, but taking that mana in that sword and creating a spell is a completely different thing.

Mana is an extremely unstable and uncooperative substance, so one wrong move with mana in your sword could cause your sword to explode, possibly killing you and also destroying the sword.

Controlling the flow of mana in your sword and redirecting it to the sword's tip to fire off a spell requires flawless knowledge of the sword arts.

Unlike the wand, which has a uniform structure, the form of a sword changes widely.

One has to lead the mana through the hilt of the sword and then into the blade, which gets thinner and thinner as you go on.

Cronus was one of the few who successfully transferred mana out of their body and into the material of a sword and then used that mana to conjure spells.

These people were called magical sword masters.

Cronus de Valorian was actually the exact opposite of his gentle and caring son, Kai.

Even Athen, who had lived on the outskirts of the kingdom for his entire life, had heard terrifying tales of Cronus wiping out thousands of demonic monsters...at the cost of all the land and infrastructure in a hundred-mile radius.

There was even a popular saying that Cronus caused more damage to the kingdom than the demonic monsters actually did.

Of course, no one dared to repeat that phrase to the grand duke himself.

All in all, Kai's family was a powerful and fearsome clan that no one would dare to disrespect.

So...who was this person calling Kai a loser?

Seeing Athen's questioning expression, Kai sighed before whispering.

"We're the same status..."

"..."

"..."

Unable to hold himself back, Athen ignored Hybris, who was still standing in front of Alice and staring at him, and furiously whispered back.

"You didn't think to tell me that before I called him a dumbass with no brain cells!?"

Athen wanted to create a name for himself...but he also wanted to survive!

One breath from a grand duke and a beggar like him would be wiped off the face of the Earth.

Returning his gaze to the stage, Kai sighed before saying.

"Remember, you're also a grand duke's son right now, so you have nothing to fear."

"..."

He was trapped.

If it came out that Athen was a fake and not actually Kai, then no matter his circumstances, he would be dead, killed by the family of Hybris.

"So much for only using Kai's name for the event..."

Although Athen wanted to scream at the top of his lungs at Kai, he held himself back and carefully shifted his gaze forward.

And, to his surprise, Hybris was nowhere to be seen.

Before Athen could even question his disappearance, a sudden and loud voice echoed from right in front of him.

"Welcome to your official Celestial Academy Orientation, students!"

Looking up at the stage, Athen spotted a figure he recognized slowly walking onto the stage with a pleasant expression.

It was the person who had appeared on his diamond when he clicked the switch.

"I'm Principal Artemis...but please just call me Art."

Pausing for a moment as she reached the front of the stage, Principal Art stared at the thousands of students in front of her.

"First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for being here and choosing to accept our Academy invitation letter out of every institution in the world."

Then, the principal paused mid-speech and looked down at the stage.

"However, that doesn't mean we have chosen you...just yet."