The God-Tier Beast Architect

Chapter 8 The Outcast's Disguise

The iron gates of Aethelgard Academy towered ten meters high, welcoming a throng of youths dressed in opulent finery. Kenzo Julian stood amidst a sea of magical silk and jewel-encrusted light armor, wearing a tattered gray coat faded by the dust of his travels. Inside his pocket, his hand gripped a piece of forged identification with edges that were beginning to peel.

"Your name, young man?" the administrator asked in a bored tone. He wore mana-powered optical glasses that glowed with a faint blue light. In his hand, a mechanical quill recorded everything onto a holographic sheet.

"Yulian. From the Western outskirts," Kenzo replied flatly. He kept his voice low and unremarkable.

The officer raised an eyebrow, scanning the holographic display showing Yulian's data. "A fallen noble, eh? How classic. What kind of Beast did you bring? If it is just some low-grade insect, you had better turn around before our detection machine crushes your psyche."

Kenzo did not answer immediately. From behind his coat collar, a small, dark head poked out. It was a black cat with pointed ears and fur that seemed to absorb the surrounding light. This was Nihilus, whom Kenzo had genetically commanded to compress his cells into the most harmless domestic form in the world.

"Just a common cat, sir," Kenzo stroked the head of Nihilus, who hissed very softly, a sound that, if understood, held a threat capable of shattering cathedral pillars.

The officer let out a cynical snort. "Fine, go through the lower-caste qualifying lane over there. Your registration number is 889. Move along, there is a VIP queue that needs to get in immediately."

A thunderous roar suddenly shattered the air above the gate. A small dragon with scales of pure gold dove from the sky, landing with a soft thud on the pavement, which had been reinforced with anti-getter plating. Standing tall atop the dragon was a young man in an Aethelgard uniform made of woven white mana fibers and gold buttons. It was Valerius von Goldenthorn.

Valerius jumped down, wafting the scent of roses and hot iron to the crowd around him. "Open the main gate," his voice was calm, yet carried undeniable authority. His blue eyes swept over the queue of commoners with a cold gaze, until he stopped right behind Kenzo.

"Officer, has this academy started accepting trash collectors?" Valerius asked, glancing at Kenzo, who had not yet managed to move.

Kenzo did not turn. Nihilus, beneath his coat, began to pulse, and the temperature around Kenzo's shoulders dropped drastically, a sign that the Void Beast was succumbing to its predatory instincts. Kenzo quickly slipped his thumb between Nihilus's ears to soothe the creature.

"Only a lower-caste applicant, Young Master Valerius," the officer replied, his tone shifting 180 degrees to become obsequious. "He will be out of your way immediately."

Valerius stepped forward, allowing the tips of his platinum-plated boots to rest only inches from Kenzo's heels. "Your little cat is trembling, Beggar. Your Beast knows that my gold dragon could make it a morning snack with a single breath. Get out of my sight before that cat relieves itself right here."

Kenzo turned around slowly. His face remained rigid, his left eye intentionally covered by his bangs so no one would suspect the reddish glow embedded within it. "He is just a bit thirsty," Kenzo said softly.

"Ha! Still has the guts to talk back, I see," Valerius sneered to his followers standing near a luxurious carriage. "Note his number. I want to see how fast he cries when the first test begins."

Kenzo walked away, entering a long granite-walled hallway reserved for speculative applicants. The air in the corridor was cold, filled with the scent of sweat from dozens of youths who shared the same fate, clutching their Beasts with the hope of changing their standing in life.

Kenzo's footsteps led him into a giant hall with a circular machine at its center. There, a woman in tight leather gear, Elena, was watching the participants from the stands with a suspicious expression. She held a transparent sensor tablet in her right hand.

"Everyone, stop where you are standing." The instruction came from an assistant with a magical megaphone. "This is the Aura Pressure Test. All Beasts must be summoned and kept beside their owners."

One by one, the participants began to bring out their Beasts. There were fire-tailed wolves, iron eagles, and two-headed snakes. All emitted waves of aura clearly measured by the central scanner. When it was Kenzo's turn, he moved Nihilus from his pocket to his shoulder.

BZZZZZT

High-frequency waves from the detector began to fill the room. A heavy pressure attacked everyone's chest, it was the aura radiating from the Mother Core of Aethelgard, designed to filter out anyone with a fragile soul foundation.

The participants beside Kenzo began to tremble. A youth to his left even vomited and collapsed on the floor, fainting instantly when the pressure reached 400 mana units.

Kenzo remained silent. He stood as sturdy as a stone statue in the middle of a storm.

"Hey, System," Kenzo whispered in his mind.

"Initiating Neural Filtration Mode," a cold mechanical voice replied in Kenzo's head. "External aura pressure detected at 550. Recommendation : Channel the load into Nihilus through the pores of your arm."

Nihilus looked up slightly, his black-hole eyes narrowing. To the scanning equipment, what was happening was a total mystery. As the massive aura waves crashed into Kenzo, instead of striking the youth's psyche, the energy was absorbed into Nihilus's black fur. The Void Beast swallowed it whole, turning it into pure energy reserves for his eternally hungry cells.

Up in the stands, Elena frowned. She adjusted the parameters on her tablet. "Number 889, why is he so flat? The machine isn't reading any mana activity, but his soul frequency is at a stable zero. It should be impossible for someone without an aura to remain standing calmly under that level of Sovereign pressure."

The assistant instructor in the center of the field shouted, "Increasing intensity to 700 mana!"

The room shook. A creaking sound from the concrete material began to echo. Two-thirds of the applicants in the hall fell one by one, fainting into the darkness of their own consciousness.

Valerius, watching from the VIP room, was slightly startled. "That rat is still standing? Hey, is the sensor machine broken?"

In the hall below, Kenzo felt his body temperature rise slightly due to Nihilus's rapid conversion process. The Eye of Origin throbbed with heat behind his bangs.

"Host Stability : 99%. External Energy Absorption by Nihilus : Success. We have successfully made the mana fluctuations at the detector's eye appear as low as possible, Master."

The detection machine was finally turned off. Only ten people remained standing in the giant hall out of hundreds of initial applicants. Kenzo stood with a neutral face, staring ahead without a single bead of sweat.

Elena stood up from her chair, eyeing Kenzo from afar with a highly skeptical gaze. "Strange, his aura is completely empty. Not low, but as if there is no sign of existence there at all."

Shortly after, the hall's main screen flickered, displaying the class assignments based on the remaining stamina of the participants who passed the first elimination test. Names scrolled by, accompanied by class codes ranging from A to S for those with noble rank or elite beasts.

Registration number 889: YULIAN - CAGE NIL (VOID). RESULT: ACCEPTED INTO E-CLASS (WASTE DIVISION).

The guards in the hall began to laugh. "Wow, standing tall but with no aura content! That's just the low-grade durability of a commoner used to forced labor! He still ends up in the dumping ground class!"

"Class E." Kenzo murmured, tucking Nihilus back into his pocket. No matter how much the word waste stung his ears, he knew it was perfect for his plan. The lower he was, the greater his freedom to move and build a structure from the foundation they considered scrap.

Kenzo walked toward the lowest-caste dormitory. Along the corridor, mocking looks from senior students in gold uniforms followed him. They did not realize that the person they called a beggar had just absorbed ten thousand kilojoules of holy energy from their school's defense system as his personal battery.

Kenzo bowed his head, avoiding the exposure of the magic-fiber optic security cameras. "Keep laughing," Kenzo thought as his eyes gazed at his entry badge to Aethelgard Academy. "This E-Class will be the start of the final chapter for you all."