Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 928: Understanding a student (2)

Selenne watched him in silence, not answering his statement—not challenging it either.

Not yet.

Lucavion sat there, steady, that irritating little twist of amusement still playing faintly across his features. He looked relaxed, but everything about him was coiled—the casual posture, the ease in his tone, the deliberate lack of reverence.

And yet...

Her mind turned.

He is a mystery.

Not because she lacked information. No, she had watched the entire entrance examination broadcast. Alone, of course. Always alone. She preferred it that way. No noise. No bias. No other eyes trying to tell her what she should see.

And what she saw...

Lucavion’s performance was not just impressive—that word was far too small.

He wasn’t merely gifted. He wasn’t polished like a noble’s child trained since birth, nor was he brutish like some war-born talent who survived off instinct. He moved like someone who had learned the rules just to dismantle them.

There was grace in his swordwork, yes.

Precision in his steps.

But more than anything?

There was unruliness.

Refusal.

He didn’t flow with the field. He tore through it.

She had watched him during his clash with Reynald Vale—a duel that should have been straightforward. Reynald was a known quantity, as he was the start of the show.

And yet Lucavion...

Lucavion had mocked his stance. Not with words—but with movement. With choices.

He baited where others would brace. He evaded not just attacks, but the entire logic of Reynald’s form. As if he wasn’t just dodging strikes—he was dodging predictability itself.

Selenne remembered the moment when Reynald had activated that technique clearly something that wouldn’t belong to a normal commoner...

How the boy’s aura surged—

—and Lucavion didn’t even blink.

...He met force with silence.

And that alone—required commend.

Most would’ve cracked under Reynald’s technique. The boy’s surge had been no small matter; it was a technique tethered to bloodlines, to hidden permissions and family seals that no commoner should’ve possessed. Even Selenne had arched an eyebrow when it flared across the broadcast crystal.

It was clear that, this Reynald Vale’s identity was rather...peculiar.

But Lucavion?

He didn’t step back.

Didn’t react with panic or aggression.

He understood it—and then cut through it like it wasn’t worthy of fear.

That moment, small as it was, had struck something in her. A chord.

Because her initial impression of Lucavion... hadn’t been objective. Not entirely.

He reminded her of someone.

Someone she had spent years trying not to name.

A man whose presence had once turned the tides of an entire warzone with a single step.

A brief encounter. A time that is spent short for most people, yet for her it became something that changed her life.

But even now, decades later, he was the reason she had survived. Why she had pushed forward when every door shut in her face. Why she had chosen the Tower over the Crown.

She never even knew if he remembered her name.

But Lucavion...

There were echoes.

Not in the power—no, not even close. Lucavion was still raw, still far from that tier.

But the way he moved. The way he stood in front of chaos like it owed him an apology. The deliberate disorder in every choice. That refusal to yield to the system’s architecture.

It stirred something old in her.

And that stirred... bias.

Which, as an educator—as an Archmage—she hated.

She had told herself it was nothing. That the resemblance was superficial. That favor had no place in her judgments.

But then came the banquet.

And the reports.

And the incident.

Lucavion—this mystery wrapped in talent—had done something that not even she had ever dared to do.

He had humiliated Crown Prince Lucien.

Not subtly.

Not symbolically.

Directly.

And not through sabotage or scheming, but through a brazen, effortless humiliation right in front of the Academy’s elite. He had taken one of the most untouchable figures in Arcania and treated him like just another arrogant name.

When the whispers reached her ears—when the account came through, neat and trembling from one of her aides—Selenne had said nothing.

She had stared at the parchment for a long time.

And... she had felt something unexpected.

Disappointment.

Because power poisons. And she had seen too many young talents burn out under the illusion that their ability made them untouchable. She thought Lucavion had fallen to the same delusion.

That his resemblance to him was nothing more than a trick of memory.

Another arrogant child, thinking a single exam made him emperor of the world.

But then—

Then came the incident with Magister Marisse.

When Lucavion stepped into that petty, layered, venomous game of status and legacy.

And interfered.

Not because it served him.

Not because he was posturing.

But—

There was a glint in his eyes.

A flash. A choice.

And maybe she had imagined it. She’d seen too many ghosts in her life to always know which ones were real.

But at that moment, when he spoke—not loudly, not for glory—but with that same cutting tone, that same knowing calm...

Selenne had paused.

Because that wasn’t arrogance.

That wasn’t power-spoiled pride leaking from a boy who thought himself untouchable.

It was deliberate.

Not a swing. A statement. A chess move, not a tantrum.

And more importantly—

He didn’t follow it up with more.

She had kept an eye on him after the Marisse incident. Quietly. Observing from the edges like she always did, watching how the others responded to him.

If he had been poisoned by his own power, he would’ve basked in it. Demanded respect. Pressed others down with his newfound status like a blunt instrument.

And yet?

Nothing.

Lucavion didn’t strut. Didn’t provoke. Didn’t belittle the students around him like most first-ranked entrants did when they caught the scent of attention.

They were wary of him, yes. Some confused. Some even frightened. But it wasn’t because of cruelty.

It was uncertainty.

He was unreadable.

Unplaceable.

And then... came the confrontation.

Markus.

And the Crown Prince again.

That moment.

That turning point.

It had been quiet at first. No battle aura, no grand declaration. But something shifted in the atmosphere the second Lucien walked in, flanked by Markus and their little court of pedigree-fed lackeys.

Most students tensed, like animals sensing a predator.

Lucavion?

He didn’t tense.

He stepped forward.

No hesitation. No fear.

And once again—not to grandstand. Not to provoke.

But to intervene.

It wasn’t his fight. He had no stake. But the way he placed himself in that moment, the way he angled his body and words—not for glory, but for pressure—it was calculated.

Targeted.

He wasn’t there to pick a fight.

He was there to draw a line.

And that’s when it became clear to her.

This kid... didn’t act unless something crossed his personal line.

He didn’t challenge everyone.

Just certain people.

And not for dominance.

But for... correction.

That’s what made it maddening.

Because there was no clear system to his decisions. No banner he carried. No ideology declared.

And yet everything in him screamed: I won’t let this pass.

He wasn’t arrogant.

He was... reckless with intent.

That was why she wanted answers. That was why this meeting wasn’t merely a courtesy or disciplinary formality. No, this was her way of prying apart the veil he wore like armor.

Because none of this made sense.

Not from someone like him.

Not in a system like this.

And, of course, the final irony—

It had already been decided.

The commoner students—what few were allowed under the Archmage’s mercy—were placed under her direct watch.

Not a request.

A directive.

Because she was born of the earth, not the blood. No noble crest. No fancy surname. Just a title earned, one arcane page at a time. A truth that most of the faculty still pretended to forget.

Which made her the obvious choice.

The clean political move.

”Let Selenne take care of them,” they had whispered. ”She knows how to handle their kind.”

Then again, she didn’t have any reason to refuse either.