Chương 99: CHAPTER 97: THE SYLLABUS OF ASH

The High Council chamber in the central tower of the Royal Academy was shaking with fury. Around the grand circular table carved from white marble, more than twenty senior arch-mages, department deans, and noble benefactors were shouting at the top of their lungs. The air in the vaulted room crackled with violent, uncontrolled sparks of elemental mana. Red fire flared around clenched fists, blue frost formed along the polished wood armrests, and wind runes spun wildly across the crystal windows.

At the head of the table sat Dean Morvath, his wrinkled face flushed dark purple with rage.

"This is an absolute mockery of our founding charter!" Morvath roared, slamming both hands against the table hard enough to rattle the crystal inkwells.

"A Sovereign Seat carries supreme administrative authority! It grants an unconditional seat on the High Disciplinary Board, unrestricted access to the classified archives, and complete immunity from academy wardens! And Director Vivienne just handed it to an unverified slum butcher who wears a cheap porcelain mask!"

"He has no noble bloodline!" shouted a sharp-featured woman in emerald robes, the Dean of Alchemical Botany.

"He holds no scholarly degrees from the capital guilds! If word reaches the High Nobles' Senate that a nameless commoner is teaching Pathological Anatomy under the Sovereign seal, our funding for the entire fiscal term will be frozen!"

"He is not even an aligned elementalist!" another elder barked, adjusting his heavy gold collar.

"We are the crown jewel of continental magic, not a charity clinic for border scavengers!" At the far end of the long council table, Director Vivienne sat relaxed in her high-backed velvet chair. She had her leather boots propped casually on an empty adjacent stool, slowly rotating her briarwood pipe between her slim fingers. A thin, lazy wisp of sweet herbal smoke drifted up from the bowl, completely undisturbed by the tempest of hostile mana swirling around her.

"Are you finished shouting, gentlemen?" Vivienne asked, her smooth voice cutting easily through the deafening noise.

"Or would you like another hour to exhaust your vocal cords?"

"Vivienne!" Morvath snarled, stepping forward with his fire staff raised.

"You bypassed the entire academic board! You used an ancient wartime emergency clause to register his appointment directly with the Duke's registry! You have forced this council to recognize an untouchable outsider!"

"I used a perfectly legal charter right," Vivienne replied coolly, taking a slow, elegant puff from her pipe.

"The border quarantine failed three weeks ago. Sector 9 was completely wiped out by biological corruption that your shiny golden elementalists couldn't even diagnose, let alone contain. While your noble researchers were writing useless hundred-page essays on theoretical mana flow, that 'slum butcher' was cutting open infected beasts with his bare hands and surviving." She leaned forward, her violet eyes turning razor-sharp as she swept her cold gaze across every dean in the room.

"The Duke wants practical results, not another theoretical poetry recital. Doctor Shin is here to teach applied survival anatomy and pathological dissection. His Sovereign Seat is registered, sealed, and irrevocable. If any of you have an issue with that, take your staff, walk to the ducal estate, and tell Duke Vance to his face that you refuse his wartime decree." The room instantly fell dead silent. None of the proud arch-mages dared to speak the Duke's name in defiance.

They exchanged venomous glances, their jaws clenched in bitter, helpless anger.

"Good," Vivienne said, standing up and brushing a speck of ash from her amethyst velvet cloak.

"His introductory lecture is set for Monday morning. His roster is capped at exactly twenty seats. I suggest you advise your aristocratic little proteges to prepare themselves. The Doctor does not grade on family pedigree." With a mocking tip of her wide-brimmed hat, Vivienne turned and walked out of the council chambers, leaving the furious elders stewing in their own humiliation.

Meanwhile, in the bright sunlight of the Grand Central Plaza, life went on as usual. Thousands of elite students walked across the wide marble walkways, wearing pristine uniforms embroidered with silver thread and family crests. They gathered in tight circles around the massive central bulletin board—a colossal slab of enchanted dark slate where all course schedules, sovereign lectures, and elite apprenticeship opportunities were posted. Suddenly, a quiet figure in a charcoal traveler coat walked through the crowd.

The students stepped back in shock and disgust as the masked figure approached the central board. Shin moved with calm, measured steps, ignoring the whispers and pointed fingers from the noble heirs around him. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The chibi companion hovered right beside his ear under the cover of his spatial veil, giggling at the crowd's reaction.

"Look at them staring, Doctor!" she snickered.

"They look like pampered poodles seeing a stray wolf walk into their parlor!" Shin reached into his coat, pulled out a single sheet of heavy parchment, and pressed it against the vacant Sovereign notice slot on the enchanted slate. The moment his dark-iron fingertips touched the board, the paper adhered instantly, sealed by the pulsing purple wax of his Sovereign crest. Shin did not stay to answer questions.

He turned on his heel and walked away, heading straight back toward the western quadrant and the descent into his subterranean laboratory. Within seconds, a dense mob of hundreds of students surged toward the board, pushing and shoving to read the new notice.

"A new Sovereign lecture?!"" The Chair of Pathological Anatomy has opened for the first time in forty years!"

"Who is the instructor? Master Shin? Is he from the eastern high houses?" An older student at the front pushed his silver spectacles up his nose and began reading the parchment aloud to the breathless crowd: COURSE: ADVANCED PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY & CORRUPTION RESECTION INSTRUCTOR: SOVEREIGN CHAIR SHIN MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT: 20 SEATS Prerequisites: None. Lineage Requirements: None. Academic Rank: Irrelevant. ADMISSION PROTOCOL: The lower laboratory is a sterile, hazardous environment.

Theoretical knowledge is useless against active biological corruption. Only those capable of surviving basic atmospheric toxicity may enter. To claim a seat, applicants must descend to the Subterranean Vault before sunrise on Monday.

The lower entry corridor has been saturated with concentrated Wyrm Spore residue and passive neural paralytic vapor. If your mana shield fails, your lungs will fill with fluid within four minutes, followed by total motor paralysis. Do not bring your family titles. Do not bring written recommendations. Walk through the corridor, open the iron door, and sit down. If you collapse in the hallway, your body will be dragged to the waste incinerator at noon.

A stunned, horrified silence fell over the entire plaza.

"Is... is this a joke?!" one noble youth yelled, his face turning pale.

"Wyrm Spore residue?! That is a Class 4 lethal bio-toxin used in border siege warfare!"

"Lethal entry requirements just to attend a lecture?!" a young noblewoman gasped, clutching her crystal pendant in horror.

"This violates all standard academy safety protocols!"

"No, you fools, don't you see?!" an ambitious third-year battle-mage shouted, his eyes gleaming with greedy excitement.

"This is an S-rank Sovereign Chair! The high council must have hired an ancient, ruthless battlefield specialist! If we secure an apprenticeship under an untouchable Sovereign, our family standing will surpass the High Deans!"

"Call the family estate!" another young heir ordered his attendant in a panic.

"Tell my father to send the high-grade purification talismans from our vault! Order three enchanted wind barrier rings immediately!" Word spread like wildfire through the capital's aristocratic estates within hours. To the proud noble houses, the lethal requirement was not a warning—it was an arrogant challenge. Every high-tier family viewed the Sovereign Seats as the ultimate stepping stone for political power and military prestige.

No noble heir was willing to lose face by backing down before an unaligned commoner.

Far below the bustling surface, the subterranean laboratory remained cold, silent, and peaceful. Shin stood at the secondary stone workstation, carefully grinding dried mountain roots into a fine gray powder using a heavy stone mortar and pestle. Beside him, the chibi companion was sitting cross-legged in the air, watching him work while swinging her little boots back and forth.

"Doctor, you are truly wicked!" she giggled happily.

"Did you really fill the upper entrance hallway with deadly Wyrm Spore poison?"

"No," Shin replied calmly, setting down the pestle.

"Real Wyrm Spore residue is expensive and hard to acquire in clean batches. I mixed crushed sulfur-moss, dried ghost-pepper husk, and mild swamp-fern pollen."

"Wait... so it is just an extreme irritant?!" she laughed, clutching her tiny stomach as she rolled through the air.

"It is not even lethal?!"

"It causes intense burning of the mucous membranes, heavy tearing, and involuntary coughing spasms," Shin said in his steady, emotionless voice.

"Anyone with a basic, properly maintained mana barrier can walk through it without difficulty. But anyone who relies purely on arrogance without knowing how to sustain a steady mana skin will panic and run." Abe saale... Rudra thought in quiet satisfaction behind his mask. These spoiled noble kids have spent their whole lives hiding behind expensive robes and theoretical books.

If they can't even handle a little spicy dust in a dark hallway, they will never survive cutting open a real corrupted beast on my steel table.

"A psychological filter!" the chibi cheered, clapping her tiny hands.

"Brilliant! You scare away the weak cowards before they even touch your clean floorboards!" Shin nodded slightly. He turned his attention toward the rear wall of the laboratory. In the dark corner, the massive circular vault door remained completely still. The crimson runes across its pitch-black metal surface were currently dormant, but the faint, lingering heat inside the spirit core of his dark-iron prosthetic arm reminded him that the strange barrier was very much alive.

He had spent the entire afternoon reviewing ancient academy maps, but found zero reference to any second-tier vault beneath the testing ground. Whatever lay behind that circular metal slab had been sealed long before the current academy spires were even built.

"We will investigate the rear door once the classroom roster is settled," Shin murmured.

"For now, we prepare the dissection specimens."

Early Monday morning, two hours before sunrise. The western quadrant of the academy was normally completely deserted at this hour, wrapped in cold gray mist and absolute quiet. Today, however, the ancient stone courtyard outside the heavy oak basement doors was packed with over three hundred people. Carriages bearing the gilded crests of high-noble houses lined the stone avenue.

Dozens of aristocratic heirs stood gathered in full combat gear—wearing pristine enchanted robes, shimmering mithril chainmail, and jewel-encrusted barrier rings. Surrounding each young lord and lady were heavily armed private house guards, personal alchemists holding glowing purification lanterns, and nervous family attendants carrying emergency antidote kits.

"Make way for Lord Vaelen of House Drake!" an armored knight barked, pushing several lower-tier students aside as a tall, arrogant young man in gold-trimmed red robes stepped forward. Lord Vaelen looked at the dark oak entrance with a sneer of pure contempt.

"A nameless slum healer thinks he can intimidate true royal blood with common swamp tricks?" Vaelen scoffed, adjusting the four glowing barrier rings on his fingers.

"Guards, maintain the perimeter. I will walk through this pathetic basement, take the front seat, and force this masked fraud to acknowledge his betters."

"Lord Vaelen is right!" another noble heir shouted, drawing an enchanted rapier that crackled with blue lightning.

"We are the future of the Empire! No hedge-doctor will lock us out of a Sovereign Seat!" With shouts of arrogant determination, the massive crowd of noble heirs and their armed escorts surged toward the ancient oak doors, ready to force their way down the dark stone stairs into the subterranean vault.