CHAPTER 285: S RANKED PRIVILEGES

"The algorithm won’t unlock housing, training allotments, nothing." He lifted his head and barked, "One sec—hey, Mira, can you—"

Sparks suddenly popped at the far bank of terminals. Three desks down, a cable hissed and spat where it entered a floor conduit.

A mild pandemonium ensued as heards jerked towards the position of the sparks.

Someone quickly cast a frost spell while the bald tech man stood up halfway, craning to see.

Victor had invisible qi wrapped around his arm in a thin sheet that extended forth, sank between floor tiles, and slid through the belly of the terminal like a ghost hand.

He had secretly ochestrated this mishap.

The moment the bald tech man attention was drawn to the ongoing situation, Victor had his qi withdrawn and then extended it towards the keyboard opposite him.

The invisible Telekinetic hand touched keys in order, as gently as if he were playing scales.

He let out soft breath as he slowly typed out; L-e-v-e-l: 4-5.

When the incident in the surroundings died down a bit, the bald tech man sat down again and jiggled the mouse...

The screen flashed once, as if embarrassed, then updated.

LEVEL: 45. RANK: S.

The bald tech man blinked. "Well I’ll be—looks like the cache held the field read and the sync just... caught up." He voiced with a relieved tone.

"Probably just a little glitch... it says you’re level 45... Impossibly high for a first year but seeing as that other girl Elyra is at Level 41, I guess it makes sense..."

He tapped through three confirmations, affixed a stamp rune, and the system chimed politely as a new block of privileges unrolled across Victor’s file. "All right, Mr. Revenant. S-tier privileges unlocked. You’ll get suite selection, training chamber access, advanced armory checks, and a few other goodies. You can pick up your key-sigil in Housing."

"Appreciate it," Victor stated while getting up.

The man hesitated. "Off the record? Your mana signature is low for a level forty-five. Either you don’t leak, or you’re using some suppression trick you shouldn’t know yet."

Victor shrugged. "I’m a quiet guy."

The registrar snorted. "Just... odd. Your record shows no entries at any Level-Up Sections. Not one. Those are, you know, the gateroom hunts where students rack experience within controlled environments and low ranked beast... leveling up without ever visiting the level up sections unheard of..."

Internally Victor screamed but externally he did his best to maintain a calm look. He truly had never visited the level up sector except on the first day of getting here because he didn’t need to since he did not actually possess a system.

"Maybe the record syncs are lagging?" Victor offered. He let his watch flash a polite system icon. "It did that on my intake day too."

"Maybe." The man didn’t sound convinced. He glanced between Victor and the screen. Level 45 glowed in bright white on the file. For any other first-year, that number meant hundreds of hours in the Level-Up sectors.

The registrar chewed the inside of his cheek, then sighed and clicked Save. "Anyway. You’re all set. Congratulations, Mr. Revenant."

The man handed over a temporary pass, and waved him on.

Back at Housing, the same clerk smiled more brightly. "We have three openings in the upper ring," she voiced while swinging a holo of the academy’s dome into the air. "Unit S-19, exterior view. Unit A-22, interior atrium. Unit B-3, corner, partial reef outlook."

"Exterior," Victor said automatically. He liked watching the pockets of artificial water bodies in the academy.

She keyed it in, and a smooth metal sigil slid out of a slot, stamped with the academy crest and tuned to his aura. "Key-sigil, mana lift access, training chamber allotment. Your suite’s chamber is calibrated for mana users; you’re free to retune within safety thresholds. Oh, and—" She lowered her voice, conspiratorial. "There’s a jacuzzi and indoor pool."

She grinned as he blinked at her. He took the sigil and tried not to laugh.

The corridor breathed cool air across his face as left the admin building.

On his watch, a sequence of updates stacked themselves calmly:

[Status: S-Rank privileges enabled.]

[Housing: Skyline Tier — Unit S-19.]

[Perks: Private training dome • Private pool • Aerogarden • Storage vault • Guest passes: 5/week.]

[Credits: +1,000,000 deposited to Academy account.]

He exhaled a laugh. A million credits just... dropped in. He could buy a dozen practice blades, a full month of personal grav-time in the advanced gyms, lots of snacks at the mini malls, a stupid amount of food at the feedhubs.

For once, the Academy was giving instead of taking.

However, before he moved in, he still had one last thing to do.

He needed to pack up his things at his old dorm.

Kairo was already perched on the top bunk when Victor pushed into the old room.

Kairo elbows were on knees with his expression somewhere between proud and amused. "S-rank man," he said, grinning. "About time."

Victor saluted him with a clothes compression cube and started clearing his shelves. "You coming to see the new digs or you going to keep slumming it with us mortals?"

Kairo snorted. "I’ll swing by. But—" He broke off, watching Victor slide a flat, innocuous case under a pile of shirts. "Be careful with that game you keep hiding around."

Victor froze. "What?"

The sound of the AC couldn’t have been any more louder at this moment.

Kairo lifted his hands. "Relax. I’m not snitching. But you really think a bunkmate won’t notice the nightly sheet-tents and the weird power dips at 0300? I figured it was either contraband media or some... extracurricular. I put two and two together when you started sleeping like a corpse and waking up with that ’lived a decade’ stare."

Victor blew out a slow breath as the edge of panic dissolved into chagrin. "You could have said something."

"And ruin your fun?" Kairo hopped down, clapped him on the shoulder. "Just... be smart. They confiscate personal devices for a reason, and you’re on every spotlight after the Legacy. Don’t give Vex Rhane a heart attack."

"Noted." Victor stuck out his hand. "And thanks—for not ratting me out."

Kairo bumped fists instead. "What are roommates for?"

The last thing Victor tucked away was the legacy sword—sheath wrapped in a dull cloth to avoid the kind of attention the blade drew simply by existing.

Together they hauled duffels down three flights, across the quad, and up the private lift to the Skyline Tier, where the air actually smelled like salt and greenery instead of recycled hall.

Unit S-19 greeted them with a soft chime and a corona of light that flowed across the floor like water. The door slid back to reveal a wide, split-level studio: glass wall to the left spilling into a balcony suspended over a ravine of rust-green trees; a sunken lounge with a projection field; an alcove kitchen that looked like it had never seen a real mess; and beyond it, a short run of steps lifting to the sleeping platform.

On the far side, a circular training dome sat behind transparent shielding with runic projectors lining its base, grav-anchors sunk into the floor, a rack of blunted training weapons in neat rows.

Outside, through a second set of doors, a small, private pool caught daylight and cut it into ripples.

"Okay," Kairo voiced while wandering toward the glass, "this is disgusting."

Victor couldn’t help but chuckle upon hearing this.

He palmed the balcony door; fresh air shoved a hand into the room. Below, a green expanse tumbled toward the eastern ridge.

The Academy had carved the Skyline Tier into the cliffside and hidden it with a shimmer field so that from the ground it looked like simple rock. Up here... it felt like the world.

His watch pinged again and synchronised with the suite system.

[Welcome package delivered to pantry.] [Training dome initialization complete.] [Aerogarden seeded.] [Security mesh set to ’Friends & Instructors’.]

"Security mesh?" Kairo asked.

Victor flicked a menu to the wall. "Basically tells the suite who’s allowed to wander in. You’re on the list."

"Cute." Kairo walked a slow circle through the training dome. "You going to try the grav settings here or keep cheating with your own, uh—wind tricks."

Victor smirked. "Little of both."

A knock came a heartbeat before the door recognized Selene’s ID and slid open anyway.

She walk in glamorously, claiming the space with her presence with her pale hair tied in pig tails and her eyes sweeping the surroundings.

Apparently, Victor had already informed her and the others of his rank up privileges activated when he was still packing at the previous dorm so she had rushed her.

"It looks nearly perfect..." she voiced with shiny excited eyes, then ruined the effect by flinging a bag of pastries at Victor. "Housewarming. We raided the feedhub."

Behind her came the others: Danny with a box balanced on one shoulder, Reed with two cases of hydration shots, Aria with a bundle of rune-stamped towels, Rylan with a basic medkit ("Because you never go to the infirmary when you should"), and Kai with what looked like a potted plant. "Air-scrubber vine," he said when Victor raised a brow. "Low maintenance. Eats trace toxins."

"Try not to murder it..."