For my tiny army it was a buffet with unlimited helpings.
The holographic projection of the Black Crag Trial Realm slowly flickered and collapsed back into the metallic podium, leaving behind an oppressive, breathless silence in the lecture hall.
Murmurs rippled across the tiered rows like wildfire.
"An unmonitored survival zone...?" "The mortality rate in rift territories is over ten percent! What is the Academy Council thinking?!" "With no referee arrays, personal vendettas won't be stopped by rules..."
Beside me, Lina's hand remained tightly clutched around the cuff of my uniform coat under the desk. Her skin was warm, pulsing with a faint, draconic rhythm that matched the anxious cadence of her breath. Through our physical contact, I could feel the subtle tremor in her fingers.
"Class dismissed," Vice Principal Rosette announced, her voice slicing through the clamor with crisp, unyielding authority. Her dual-colored eyes lingered upon me for a lingering second—a gaze dripping with veiled calculation—before she turned and dissolved into a faint streak of fiery amber qi, vanishing through the side exit of the auditorium.
The moment Rosette left, the pressure cooker in the room snapped.
Arthur stood up from the front row. The crimson flush on his face had faded into a cold, venomous sneer. He shoved his tablet into his spatial satchel, turning his head over his shoulder to lock his gaze with mine across the descending stone steps.
He didn't yell this time. He didn't roar about breach of contract or the twelve crates of Blood Condensation Grass that were currently being redirected to my vault. Instead, he made a slow, deliberate slit-throat gesture with his thumb against his neck.
Three weeks, Roy, his hateful eyes seemed to say. In the Black Crag, your money won't buy you a coffin.
Accompanied by Vincent and three senior disciples from the Vance family dojo, Arthur marched out of the lecture hall with aggressive, purposeful strides.
I leaned back, resting my chin on my intertwined fingers, watching his retreating back with pure, clinical detachment.
Inhale. Exhale.
Deep within my secondary consciousness, the connection flared.
Plaintext
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HOST PARASITE TELEMETRY (TARGET: ARTHUR VANCE)
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[Target Heart Rate]: 138 BPM (Elevated Adrenaline)
[Active Parasitic Clones]: 14,200 Units
[Colonization Site]: Secondary Bronchial Bifurcation
[Replication Substrate]: Natural Pulmonary Microbiota
[Host Vitality Impact]: 0.04% (Latent Incubation)
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Fourteen thousand clones. They clung silently to his bronchial walls like microscopic obsidian crystals, shifting with every heavy breath he took. Every drop of sweat he shed, every arrogant curse he swallowed, only provided more cellular heat to accelerate their silent partition.
Walk fast, Arthur, I thought coldly. The heavier you pant, the deeper my roots dig into your chest.
"Amar..."
Lina's soft voice pulled my focus back to the macro world. She had gathered her study scrolls, her amber eyes searching my face with raw, unfiltered dread.
"The Black Crag Trial isn't like the academy sparring rings," she whispered, leaning close so none of the lingering students could overhear. "I read about it in the library archives. It's a grade-3 hazardous border zone connected directly to an unstable rift valley. The subterranean fissures are infested with Iron-Carapace Beetles, Toxic-Spore Basilisks, and low-tier alien beasts that bleed corrosive acid. If Arthur forms an alliance with the other martial families inside..."
"Then he will merely save me the trouble of hunting them down individually," I replied smoothly, standing up and smoothing out the creases of my dark uniform coat.
I offered her my hand. She hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat before placing her palm in mine, allowing me to guide her up the stone steps toward the grand double doors.
Deep within her sea of consciousness, the haughty female voice echoed with a cold, mocking snicker.
Look at you, trembling over a nest of low-grade swamp worms! the Sovereign Dragon Empress scolded inside Lina's mind. Little girl, did you forget what flows inside your bone marrow? When a True Dragon steps into the wild, all beasts beneath heaven bow their heads or face annihilation! That red-haired woman thinks she is setting a trap for you, completely unaware she is throwing a divine sovereign into her native hunting grounds!
Lina bit her inner lip, mentally retorting: 'Senior, I haven't even formed my first Dragon Bone yet! It's easy for an ancient immortal who ruled the heavens to call them worms, but I'm barely at the Initial Stage of Qi Gathering!'
Hmph! With those twelve crates of Grade-2 Blood Condensation Grass that this peculiar boy snatched for you, three weeks is more than enough to forge the 'First Transformation: Dragon Tendon Tempering'! The immortal paused, her tone dropping into a guarded, analytical whisper. Though... you should keep an eye on him. Did you see his expression just now? When that Vance boy threatened him, there wasn't a speck of human fear in his soul. In fact... I felt a dreadful biological hunger stir beneath his skin. It was as if he was looking at livestock waiting for harvest.
Lina's heart tightened as she glanced up at my profile.
I was walking beside her with an easy, elegant grace, greeting the nervous bows of passing academy juniors with mild, polished indifference. To the outside world, I was the undisputed young master of the Roy estate—untouchable, arrogant, and shrouded in generational wealth. But she remembered the tears I had shed in the private council room. She remembered the sheer agony that had contorted my features when I held her.
Whatever he is hiding, Lina thought fiercely, reaffirming her vow to the immortal, he did it to protect me. I won't let him fight alone in the Black Crag.
We exited the academic block, reaching the shaded courtyard near the private cultivation vaults.
"Ronald has already overseen the delivery of the twelve crates to Chamber 301," I said, stopping beneath the canopy of an azure-leaf oak and turning to face her. "You will spend the next three weeks inside. The spirit arrays are locked to your biometric signature. You don't need to attend general lectures, and no one from the student council is permitted within fifty yards of the vault."
Lina looked down at the obsidian keycard in her hand, her throat tight. "And what about you, Amar? Where will you go? You need to prepare for the survival trial too."
"I have my own preparations to make," I murmured softly.
I reached out, my fingers gently brushing a stray lock of pink hair behind her ear. Her breath hitched, a faint, lovely rose dusting her pale cheeks, but she didn't flinch.
"Focus entirely on your breakthrough, Lina," I whispered, my dark eyes boring into hers. "When the gate to the Black Crag opens... let them see the dragon they tried so desperately to crush."
She gripped the card tightly, her amber eyes blazing with newfound resolve. "I won't let you down."
With a determined nod, she turned and hurried toward the reinforced gates of the private cultivation vault, her burgundy uniform fluttering behind her like a battle standard.
The moment the heavy vault doors hissed shut behind her, the gentle warmth in my eyes vanished.
I turned on my heel and descended into the academy's rear transport depot.
My armored limousine was waiting in the shadows of the subterranean hangar, engine humming with a low, predatory purr. Ronald stepped out from the driver's side, opening the rear door with crisp, military precision.
"Master," Ronald greeted, bowing low. "The transaction with Elder Thorne is complete. The Vance family has officially filed an emergency grievance with the Commerce Chamber, but their supply pipeline is officially frozen. What are your instructions?"
I climbed into the plush leather interior. "Drive to the Western Sub-District Biotech Facility. The underground quarantine ward."
Ronald's hands stiffened slightly on the door handle. "The bio-hazard research center? Master... that facility houses the live pathogen specimens captured from the space rifts."
"I know what it houses, Ronald," I said coldly, leaning my head back against the leather seat and closing my eyes. "Drive."
"Understood, Master."
The heavy door sealed shut with an airtight clack, and the limousine shot out into the neon-lit underbelly of Lock Night City.
Inside the quiet cabin, I exhaled slowly, sinking entirely into my internal world.
Plaintext
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SWARM STATUS PANEL
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[User]: Amar Roy
[Physical Realm]: Martial Apprentice (Peak Stage)
[Main Form]: Human
-----------------------------------------------------
[CLONE SWARM MATRIX]:
- Active Bacteriophage Clones: 1,840,000 / 1,000,000,000
- Colony Tier: Primary Swarm (Tier 1)
- Host Bio-Sync: 100% Stable
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[SWARM CAPABILITIES UNLOCKED]:
Microscopic Armor (Passive - 40% Kinetic Reduction) Active Aerosol Exhalation (3-Meter Radius Infiltration) Bio-Feedback Integration (Peak Apprentice Body)
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[NEXT MILESTONE]: 10,000,000 Clones
[EVOLUTION REQUIREMENT]: Swarm Capacity: 1 Billion (Locked)
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1.84 million.
A human body had roughly thirty trillion cells and trillions of harmless micro-flora. My current swarm was only a tiny ripple in the vast ocean of my biology. To reach ten million—and eventually one billion—relying on my own body's natural flora would take too long, and draining Arthur's lungs prematurely would cause an imperial investigation.
I needed high-density biological mass.
I needed the violent, fast-mutating pathogens of alien beasts.
The Black Crag Trial wasn't a threat. To me, it was a testing ground—a cradle where my microscopic army would feed on the bio-matter of hundreds of rift beasts until the skies of this martial world choked on my viral shadow.
A slow, ruthless smile curved across my lips as the limousine vanished into the dark, rain-slicked tunnels leading toward the laboratory.
"Let the trial begin."