The prep room in Villa 1 smelled of gun oil and polished leather. It was a sharp, aggressive scent that cut through the usual lavender perfume of the high-end cleaning spells used by the staff.

Vane stood in front of the full-length mirror. He adjusted the straps of his standard-issue light combat armor. It was grey, nondescript, and flexible. It was not the custom-forged plate of a Duke's son or the enchanted silk of a high-tier caster. It was mass-produced gear for a soldier who was expected to be mobile.

He strapped the Star-Metal Spear across his back. The weight was familiar now. It acted as a grounding rod for his nerves. The cold bite of the ash wood shaft against his palm was the only reassurance he had left.

He glanced at his student tablet on the vanity. The screen still displayed his academic results from the day before.

Cumulative GPA: 3.2

Academic Rank: 42 / 1000

'Forty-second,' Vane thought. He swiped the screen off with a dismissive flick of his thumb.

Even here, at the most rigorous academy on the continent, a 3.2 was an incredible score for someone with his background. It proved he wasn't just a thug who got lucky in the admission lottery. He had beaten nine hundred and fifty other students at their own game of memorization and theory.

He felt a flicker of pride. He allowed himself to feel it for exactly one second. Then he crushed it.

Academics were just the gatekeeper. They kept you in the building. They kept the lights on and the staff paid. But nobody remembered the names of the scholars when the monsters broke through the walls. History did not record the GPA of the soldier holding the breach.

To stay in the Top 20, to be a true ruler in this ecosystem, grades didn't matter. Only violence mattered. Points. Accumulation. Survival. The practical evaluations were the only currency that bought respect from the monsters he called classmates.

Vane smirked at his reflection. It was a brutal, Darwinian system.

'And it is exactly how it should be,' he decided. 'This is not a finishing school for poets. It is a factory for weapons. If you can write a sonnet but cannot take a hit, you belong in the choir.'

He was safe. He had proven he belonged in the classroom. Now he just had to prove he was the sharpest thing in the drawer.

He grabbed a pouch of nutrient bars. He had stolen them from the kitchen earlier because old habits died hard. He clipped the pouch to his belt next to his daggers. He checked the bindings on his boots. He checked the release mechanism on the spear strap.

"Time to clock in," Vane whispered to the empty room.

The Transport Hangar was a cavernous bay carved into the side of the floating island. It was large enough to house a small fleet of airships. Today, it was filled with the deafening roar of mana-engines and the shouting of deck officers trying to organize chaos.

One thousand students stood in formation. The air was thick with tension and ozone. There was also the distinct, sour smell of terror masking itself as bravado.

Vane stood near the back of the formation. He kept his posture loose and his eyes moving. He scanned the crowd.

He saw Anastasia Aurelia at the front. She was surrounded by her retinue of loyalists. She wore custom-fitted white armor that probably cost more than Vane's entire hometown. She looked bored. She treated the upcoming chaos like a mild inconvenience, like a gala she was forced to attend.

He saw Valerica Sol standing alone. She was a monolith in heavy grey plate that looked like it had been salvaged from a battleship. She wasn't checking her gear. She was staring at the wall. She was likely visualizing punching it until it stopped being a wall.

And he saw Isole Sylvaris. She was wrapped in a combat-ready robe woven with defensive wards that shimmered in the hangar lights. She looked like a surgeon preparing for a messy operation, checking her pockets for reagents with clinical precision.

But Vane's eyes drifted past them. He looked for the ceiling.

Standing in the center of the formation, completely isolated by a natural radius of cold air that kept even the boldest students at bay, was Isaac Glacium.

The Frost Monarch.

He was the greatest genius in the history of the continent. He stood perfectly still. He was reading a pocket book with one hand while the chaos of a thousand terrified students swirled around him. Frost formed on the epaulets of his uniform. The air around him was so cold it distorted the light.

He didn't look arrogant. He didn't look scared. He looked like he was waiting for a bus.

'That is the bar,' Vane thought. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the hangar's temperature.

Isaac wasn't just strong. He was a force of nature wrapped in human skin. Vane had the spear. He had the Usurper. He had the legacy of the Silver Fang. But looking at Isaac, he wondered if it was enough. The gap between Rank 1 and the true peak felt like a canyon.

"Listen up!" General Kael's voice boomed over the mag-speakers. It drowned out the engines and the whispering students.

"The drop sequence is randomized. You will be teleported via short-range warp gates into Sector 4. Coordinates are scrambled. You might land in a tower. You might land in a swamp. You might land next to a Kinetic Golem. Deal with it."

The floor beneath them began to glow with complex transport circles. The humming of the magic began to vibrate in Vane's teeth.

"Remember the objective," Kael roared. "Points. Survival. And if you cry for extraction within the first hour, I will personally throw you off the island myself."

Vane felt the familiar, sickening lurch of space bending around him. The light grew blinding.

'Better than the Hydra corridor,' he told himself. He gripped his spear tight enough to whiten his knuckles.

The world dissolved into white light.

There was no sensation of movement. There was only a sudden, violent shift in gravity and temperature. One moment he was in the cool, sterile hangar. The next, he was falling.

Vane hit the ground rolling.

His boots skidded on slick, moss-covered cobblestones. He dropped instantly into a low crouch. He snapped the spear into guard position. His senses expanded to fill the immediate area.

He was in an alleyway. But not a normal one.

Sector 4 lived up to its name. The buildings looming over him were made of rusted iron and crumbling stone. They were intertwined with massive, silent brass gears that were seized with age. Some of the gears were the size of houses, jutting out of the earth like the ribs of a dead mechanical god. Steam hissed from vents in the ground. It filled the air with a warm, metallic fog that smelled of oil and decay.

It looked like a city that had been built inside a giant, broken clock.

Vane stood up slowly. He checked his perimeter.

The alley was empty. The steam swirled around his ankles. He could hear distant mechanical grinding sounds, like the dungeon itself was waking up.

He looked at his wristband. It was a simple black band with a glowing blue display.

Points: 50

It didn't show his rank. It didn't show his name. It just showed his value. To everyone else in this city, he was just a walking bag of fifty points.

The counter was live. The game had begun.

Vane took a deep breath. He tasted rust and damp stone.

He wasn't fighting yet. But he could feel the pressure of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine students landing all over the sector. He imagined the panic, the immediate clashes, the ambush predators already finding their spots.

He spun the spear once. He settled the shaft against his shoulder.

'I passed the tests,' Vane thought. 'I kept the Villa. I proved I can read their books and play their games.'

He looked down the alley toward the wider street, where the sounds of the first skirmishes were already echoing off the metal walls.

'Now I just have to keep my head attached to my shoulders.'

He stepped out of the alley and into the steam. The King of Rats had arrived.

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