Harvey sat alone in the academy's dorm orientation chamber, his fingers idly tracing invisible symbols in the air—streamlined spell code sequences, incomplete but elegant. Around him, murmurs spread like wildfire.
"He's the one who beat Darian Velcroft, right?"
"I heard he dismantled over forty monsters in the trial."
"No family crest. No sponsor. What the hell is he?"
He ignored it all.
Let them talk.
He had more important things on his mind—like why the system hadn't triggered the [True Awakening] sequence yet. By this point in his past life, he had already been beaten, humiliated, and buried under noble propaganda.
But now? He'd set the tone early.
He was no longer prey.
The door opened with a sharp hiss.
In stepped a tall woman in obsidian heels, her long crimson cloak fluttering behind her. Her hair was jet black, tied into a tight braid, and her gaze was like frost-coated steel.
Instructor Kaelis Drayven.
Head of Combat Theory. Former commander of the Arcane 7th Division. Known across the empire as the "Witch of a Thousand Graves."
She looked straight at Harvey.
"You," she said. "Harvey. Follow me."
Students looked on with wide eyes. No one refused Kaelis Drayven.
Harvey stood silently and followed her.
---
The Forgotten Elevator
Kaelis led him past normal student halls, past the Class 1 elite quarters, down a hallway that shimmered with anti-magic seals. There was no chatter here. No laughter. Just silence—and flickers of residual mana that felt... warped.
She stopped before a sealed elevator with no buttons.
Kaelis pressed her hand to the wall, and a rune flared beneath her palm. "Retinal scan. Blood authorization. Instructor override: Code-Black."
The elevator opened with a heavy hiss.
"Get in," she said.
Harvey didn't hesitate.
As the elevator descended, Kaelis finally spoke again. "There are classes for the elite. For nobles. For prodigies. But there's one class the academy doesn't advertise. One filled with anomalies. Threats. Wildcards."
She looked at him sideways.
"It's where we keep the ones we can't classify."
The elevator stopped.
[You have entered Restricted Sector: Class Zero.]
---
The Class of Misfits and Monsters
The doors opened to a chamber vastly different from the others.
The ceiling was high, carved into a strange dome of floating data shards and spell arrays. Eight desks circled a glowing mana-core in the center. And scattered across the room were students unlike any Harvey had seen yet.
A blindfolded girl who hummed to herself while invisible blades floated around her like petals.
A boy with mechanical arms who whispered to machines and made them obey.
A silent figure cloaked entirely in black robes, surrounded by shadows that twitched unnaturally.
Kaelis stepped forward. "This is Class Zero. The place for threats we can't place among the sheep."
She turned to Harvey.
"Top of the trials. No background. Spell techniques that violate known magical theory." Her voice sharpened. "You're not fooling anyone, Harvey. We don't know what you are. But we'll find out."
She handed him a dark badge. Unlike the silver crests for regular students, this one bore a black phoenix in a ring of burning chains.
"From now on, you report here. You are Class Zero."
Before he could reply, a voice echoed from behind one of the desks.
"Tch. Another poser." A boy with wild red hair leaned back, his feet on the table. "Top rank or not, you won't last here."
Harvey's gaze flicked to him. He remembered this guy. Cain Ferros. Half-human, half-magebeast hybrid. Rage-enhanced mana. Controlled exactly like a weapon in his old life.
Not this time.
"I'll last," Harvey said, calm and cold. "But you?"
He turned away.
"You'll kneel."
The room fell into silence.
Somewhere deep beneath Zenith Academy, in the heart of the empire's most dangerous classroom—Harvey took his seat.
And Class Zero began to stir.
---