[Time]: Day 32 of Enrollment, 08:10 AM

  [Location]: Yggdrasil Academy · Lecture Hall 7

  The silence stretched. The air in the lecture hall grew heavy, filled with the malicious anticipation of three thousand geniuses waiting to see another failure.

  Even Victoria, sitting behind, leaned forward slightly, sensing the abnormality in the atmosphere. Why hasn't she said 'Fail' yet?

  Then, the corner of Nino's mouth twitched imperceptibly.

  It wasn't a smile. It was more like a flicker of grim amusement, as if she had found a specific, oddly shaped tool in a pile of junk.

  Nino withdrew her terrifying gaze and tapped her finger twice on Hathaway's desk.

  Tap. Tap.

  "You."

  Instead of criticizing the flawed execution or mentioning the abysmal 7.8-second clear time, Nino simply reached into her sleeve and tossed a second [Full Allowance Application Form] directly onto the desk.

  "Ludwig. You handle miscellaneous processing."

  The paper slid across the wood, stopping right next to Hathaway's trembling hand.

  For a heartbeat, the hall went dead silent. Then, the collective shock shattered the quiet.

  This time, the crowd's expression had morphed from hungry anticipation into utter, logic-defying disbelief.

  Hathaway heard a sharp, audible intake of breath from directly behind her. She didn't need to turn around to know that Victoria’s "Standard Answer" worldview had just cracked.

  Wait. Hathaway blinked, staring at the form. She didn't care about the jitter? She recognized me.

  A sudden realization hit her. It wasn't the skill. It wasn't the speed.

  It was the Napkin.

  Heidi Lucent hadn't just "mentioned" her. She must have stamped a metaphorical VIP pass right on Hathaway's forehead.

  The Balor Witch stood up abruptly, her tail flicking sparks, unable to process the blatant injustice: "Professor! I object! I accept the Wellington, but this Ludwig—her time was 7.8 seconds! Why choose her over me?!"

  Nino slowly turned around.

  She didn't look directly at the angry prodigy. Tilting her head slightly, her grey eyes radiated an extremely arrogant indifference.

  "Object?" Nino echoed, as if she had just heard a mildly amusing joke.

  She offered no justification for Hathaway's merits—partly because there were none. She didn't bother fabricating excuses about "compatible wavelengths" or deign to soothe the wounded egos of the elite.

  She simply stated flatly:

  "This is my lab. My funding. My project. Do I need to explain my choices to a bunch of Amoebas?"

  The entire hall flatlined.

  This was the crushing pressure of a top-tier Witch.

  This was the privilege of a Nominee for [The Axiom of the Water Dragon].

  Nino cast a sideways glance at the Balor Witch who wanted to speak again, her voice cold:

  "If you feel it's unfair, you can complain to the Academic Affairs Office. Or... go reincarnate into a species I find aesthetically tolerable."

  With that, she walked straight toward the door.

  "Report to Lab 606 after class. Don't be late. Wellington. And... Ludwig."

  Nino reached for the door handle, then paused. She glanced at the mechanical clock on the wall, her grey eyes narrowing slightly.

  "By the way," she added, her voice flat, as if remembering to feed a goldfish. "Today's lecture content is 'The Fluid Dynamics of Mana'. The notes are on the board."

  Snap.

  She snapped her fingers. In an instant, the massive, three-story-high blackboard behind the podium was completely overlaid with densely packed, terrifyingly complex formulas.

  Chalk dust didn't even have time to fall; the sheer volume of knowledge was simply imprinted onto the slate by brute force. It was enough calculation to make a normal scholar vomit blood.

  "Copy it down. Learn it. I'll test it next week. Class dismissed."

  The classroom door closed.

  Click.

  The sound echoed in the silence, leaving behind a room full of genius SSRs whose foundational realities had just been fundamentally shaken.

  Hathaway gripped the funding form in her hand, her heart racing—not from fear, but from a twisted, intoxicating surge of delight.

  What is the ultimate Power Fantasy?

  It isn't being the strongest.

  It's knowing the system is rigged entirely in your favor.

  You tried your hardest, burned your brain, and scored a Perfect 100 to get the reward. I barely passed, scored a 60, but because I know the developer, I got the exact same loot.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  It was shameful. It was completely unfair. And it felt absolutely fantastic.

  She subconsciously pressed a hand against the inner pocket of her coat, where Heidi's Napkin Booklist sat warm against her ribs.

  Sorry, Victoria, Hathaway gloated silently in her heart, though her face showed absolutely no apology. Technically, you won the Duel of Skill... But in this slaughterhouse, the one holding the VIP Ticket takes all.

  She fought back a savage, delighted grin, masking it behind a polite cough.

  She had won the lottery. She had cheated the system.

  But as the momentary high faded, the atmospheric pressure in the room plummeted.

  The previous silence had been stunned; this one was heavy, sharp, and lethal.

  It was the collective realization of three thousand geniuses that they hadn't just lost a rigged game—they hadn't even been allowed to log in.

  Nino Lucent had walked in, glanced at exactly four people in the front row, picked a Wellington, handed a VIP pass to a Ludwig, and walked out.

  She hadn't bothered testing the room. She hadn't even looked past the second desk.

  To the absolute elite of Yggdrasil Academy, the violent subtext was clear: If you aren't sitting in the first row, you don't even exist in my peripheral vision.

  Hathaway could physically feel the weight of three thousand shattered egos rapidly transmuting into cold, analytical fury.

  Thousands of glares bored into her spine.

  There was no self-doubt among them. Not a single S-Class prodigy in this room wondered if they had simply missed some profound, invisible brilliance in Hathaway's 7.8-second flailing.

  They weren't fools. They recognized gross nepotism when they saw it.

  They are wondering what I paid, Hathaway realized, keeping her posture stiff as the invisible weight pressed down on her. And they are simultaneously realizing the most horrifying truth of academic politics.

  If you wanted a spot natively, you could usurp a genius like Victoria by simply practicing harder and executing with a tighter error margin.

  But a VIP hire? Connections were bulletproof.

  Every genius in the room knew the bitter reality. Victoria could theoretically be fired the second her hands shook, or if she accidentally contaminated a single lab sample.

  But the girl who just bought her way in with an invisible VIP ticket? She was the absolute safest person in the room. You couldn't compete with the system when the system belonged to her sponsor.

  Seeking a moment of confirmation, Hathaway turned her head halfway back to glance at the true winner of the skill check.

  But the moment she made eye contact, she froze.

  Victoria wasn't looking at her with jealousy or anger.

  Instead, those unfocused blue eyes were locked dead onto the hand Hathaway had pressed against her chest.

  Victoria looked up, and the puzzle pieces audibly snapped together in her mind.

  The lingering confusion on Victoria's face vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp, knowing amusement. She adjusted her gloves, her aura shifting from "Indignant Rival" to "Wary Respect."

  She didn't speak, but the silent message was deafening:

  "Ah.

  "The Napkin.

  "I see... You didn't play a game of Skill. You played the Political Card."

  The look she gave Hathaway was no longer that of a mentor scolding a student. It was the reluctant respect one affords a dirty, cunning politician who just successfully rigged an election.

  Busted, Hathaway thought, suppressing a nervous smirk. She figured it out.

  Before Hathaway could process the victory, the atmosphere violently shifted again.

  Logical analysis gave way to immediate, physical hostility.

  A strange numbness seized her right hand. A layer of grey, decaying frost silently crept across the boundary of the desk, invading her territory. The wood turned ashen and brittle, aging fifty years in a single second.

  Hathaway turned her head stiffly to the right.

  The Ghost Witch had leaned in closer. Her deep green pupils had dilated entirely, swirling into the misty, bottomless spectrum of the Underworld.

  By peeling back mundane physical reality, she was forcing open a perceptual window to stare directly at Hathaway's karmic weight.

  It was the intense, unblinking glare of a high-roller who had secretly brought a Royal Flush to the table, now frantically trying to parse the invisible, terrifying hand that had just swept the pot with a blank card.

  By bridging the material and Ethereal planes, the ambient heat and vitality of the desk were passively vacuumed into the low-energy void of her gaze.

  She didn't even notice the lethal micro-ice-age spreading from her elbows, her quill hovering forgotten in the air as she obsessively dissected Hathaway's anomaly.

  Sizzle.

  At the exact same second, the air on her left ignited.

  The Balor Witch sat statue-still, but the magma-veins beneath her scales pulsed with a blinding, territorial crimson.

  The air around her warped, rippling with a heavy, suffocating mirage. She spiked her core body temperature, turning her side of the desk into the open mouth of a blast furnace.

  This was a crude, highly effective form of academic hazing.

  She knew the silver-haired newcomer wouldn't actually burn to death. Any competent Witch would simply snap her fingers, cast a basic [Resist Energy] ward, and go about her day.

  But that was exactly the insult.

  Forcing a classmate to actively burn mana and dedicate a cognitive thread to a thermal shield just to sit at a desk was an act of pure, arrogant dominance.

  It was the arcane equivalent of forcing someone to wear heavy tactical armor to a boring morning lecture—exhausting, deeply unpleasant, and a blatant reminder of exactly who owned the space.

  On the right: the passive absolute zero of an Underworld Gaze.

  On the left: the active high-pressure heat of Territorial Hazing.

  The two opposing S-Class domains clashed right in the middle—exactly where Hathaway was sitting.

  CRACK.

  The air twisted visibly. The wood of her desk groaned under the thermal shock.

  Hathaway felt the Ethereal draft rotting her right sleeve and the Balor heat singeing the left side of her hair.

  It was painful. It was profoundly annoying.

  So she pushed back.

  She didn't bother weaving complex shield spells.

  She simply unsealed the Weight inside her own blood vessels.

  HUMMMM—

  Her entire mana pool—42,000 M-Units—slammed down like a physical hammer.

  It was heavy, dense, and suffocatingly thick.

  Compared to the sharp, highly refined elemental natures of her neighbors, her mana was unpolished Deep Sea Water. Or liquid Mercury.

  Density was its own defense.

  Hathaway took a deep breath, and simply exhaled.

  A heavy, deep crimson aura erupted from her skin, flooding her personal space and claiming every inch of air around her.

  Because her mana was just as dense, just as heavy, and just as abundant as theirs, the laws of physics dictated that the competing elements had absolutely no room to exist.

  Stalemate.

  The invasive grey entropy on her right hit the wall of crimson mana and shattered.

  The aggressive heat wave on her left distorted and bent, washing harmlessly around the gravity well she had just established.

  Anchored between two S-Class monsters, Hathaway sat perfectly still.

  Her red eyes glowed faintly with a cold, irritated light.

  You want to scan me? You want to bake me?

  Fine.

  But I have mass too. Back off.

  She looked back at Victoria.

  The blonde aristocrat was watching the exchange.

  She saw the Entropy halt. She saw the Heat bend.

  She saw the crude, inefficient, yet undeniably effective barrier of raw mass.

  Victoria adjusted her gloves, offering a faint, almost imperceptible nod. It wasn't admiration. It was the subtle relief of a Mentor watching a clumsy student finally remember the basics.

  "Good," her eyes seemed to say.

  "You are a sledgehammer, Ludwig. At least you finally stopped trying to act like a scalpel.

  "You have the mass. Use it. Don't die."

  Left: Scorching Pride.

  Right: Frozen Curiosity.

  Center: The Anomaly.

  Hathaway sat in the dead center of this localized "Three-Body Problem."

  The smug, political smile on her face faded, replaced by a calm, dangerous composure.

  She realized she hadn't just painted a target on her back; she had stepped directly into the fighting ring. And she fully intended to hold her ground.

  "Luck got me in the door," Hathaway mused, gripping the transparent scalpel. Her deep crimson mana hummed around her like heavy armor, effectively creating a demilitarized zone on her desk.

  "But Power keeps me in the seat."

  Ignoring the deadly elemental storm raging mere inches from her elbows, she calmly picked up her quill and began to copy the fluid dynamics formulas from the board.

  ?? A CONFESSION FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: I know I just shared my link yesterday, but I need to share this with you all.

  Chapter 60. It is the absolute peak of the 4D chess and workplace satire that started in Lecture Hall 7 today. Every strange rule, every reaction, and every seemingly chaotic moment is a carefully planted setup.