World of Regalia

A Hundred meters above air

The world fell away.

Wind screamed past Damian’s ears as he plummeted, the rooftop shrinking above him, the ground rushing up to meet him with terrifying speed. Forty meters. The rooftop had been over forty meters high. A fall like that would kill an ordinary person—would shatter bones, rupture organs, end a life in an instant. Even someone who had awakened a Regalia could die if they were inexperienced, if they hadn’t learned to control their Zeta energy.

Fuck. I’m going to die. I’m actually going to die.

His thoughts raced faster than his descent. He remembered something—something about his stats, his enhanced physique. Twenty. His Physique was twenty. What did that mean? What could he survive?

The ground was coming too fast. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. He braced himself, muscles tensing, expecting impact at any second.

His feet hit the concrete.

Pain shot up his legs, a violent shock that rattled his teeth and sent agony lancing through his knees. He buckled, dropping to the ground, his hands slamming against the hard surface to keep himself from collapsing entirely. His legs throbbed. His hips ached from the jarring force. But his bones hadn’t broken. His spine hadn’t snapped. He was alive.

He knelt there, gasping, the reality of what had just happened sinking in. He had fallen forty meters and survived. His body—his enhanced, Regalia‑touched body—had taken the impact and held.

A presence settled behind him.

Damian spun instinctively, heart still hammering, and found Sagara standing there as if he had been there all along. No winded breath, no sign of exertion. Just that same calm, unreadable expression behind the blindfold.

Damian fell backward onto his hands, his heart racing for an entirely different reason now.

“Your physique is impressive,” Sagara said, his voice carrying a note of genuine evaluation. “Your mana as well. With your current abilities, you could easily rank fifteenth in the class.”

Fifteenth. Out of thirty students. Damian had expected to be at the bottom, to struggle just to keep up. Instead, he was already above half of them. His stats, his Regalia—they had already put him ahead, even without experience, even without training. A smile tugged at his lips despite himself.

“Now that you’re full of confidence,” Sagara continued, a hint of something dark entering his tone, “let’s see how you survive a fall of a hundred meters.”

His hand closed on Damian’s shoulder. The world lurched. In an instant, they were suspended in midair, a hundred meters above the ground. Damian looked down and immediately regretted it. The buildings below were specks. The people walking the academy paths were barely visible. His stomach dropped, nausea rising in his throat.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Sagara said, releasing his grip just slightly, “your Regalia is a body‑enhancing type. Use it, and you’ll probably escape unharmed.”

Probably. He said probably. Damian’s blood ran cold.

“Wait—Sagara, I don’t know how to activate it yet, I haven’t—”

But Sagara’s hand had already let go.

Damian fell.

The wind howled past him, faster this time, the ground a blur of grey and green below. Ten meters per second. Twenty. Thirty. He closed his eyes, waiting for the end. There was nothing else he could do. He didn’t know how to use his Regalia. He didn’t know how to control his Zeta energy. All he could do was fall and hope.

Then—he stopped.

His descent halted mid‑air, twenty meters above the ground, as if an invisible hand had caught him. He hung there for a moment, suspended, his heart still racing, before he felt himself being lifted, gently this time, back toward the rooftop.

When his feet touched solid ground again, his legs nearly gave out. He stumbled, catching himself against the low wall, breathing in ragged gasps.

“I suppose we should start after you’ve gained a little understanding of the basics,” Sagara said, as if pushing someone off a roof was a perfectly normal teaching method. “Meet me after school. We’ll begin properly.”

He turned and walked toward the rooftop door, his hands still in his pockets, his steps unhurried. Damian watched him go, his mind churning with questions. The way Sagara had moved—appearing beside him in an instant, catching him in midair, floating as if gravity meant nothing. Was it speed? Teleportation? Flight? All of them seemed possible, and none of them seemed to capture the full scope of what he had just witnessed.

Damian sat down against the wall, pulling the guidebook from his spatial bracelet. He needed answers. He needed to understand.

The book was thicker than he had expected, its pages filled with diagrams and dense paragraphs of text. He flipped to the first section, his eyes scanning the words, absorbing what he could.

Zeta energy, he read, was a new source of renewable energy derived from the second moon—the Zenexian Orb. Since its appearance, most living things had adapted to it. Instead of emitting only infrared radiation, living beings now also emitted and absorbed Zeta energy, integrating it into their very biology. The nature of Zeta energy differed from person to person. This variation, combined with factors such as the individual’s soul, luck, bloodline, and countless other variables, resulted in the formation of different Regalias. No two were exactly alike.

He learned that Regalias were divided into nine distinct ranks, each exponentially more powerful than the last. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Earth, Unique, Heaven, Mystic, Mythic, Legend. The power gap between ranks was vast. If a Common‑rank Regalia had a rating of one, an Uncommon‑rank would be approximately three, and a Rare‑rank would reach ten. But from Unique rank upward, the difference became exponential. Unique‑rank Regalias and above could only be possessed by one person at a time—if the wielder died, the Regalia might awaken in another. A Unique‑rank wielder could topple an entire city of Earth‑rank users on their own.

From Heaven rank and above, users gained access to a technique called Partial Awakening, which produced different effects depending on the Regalia’s nature. Mystic rank unlocked Partial Zone. Mythic rank allowed Full Awakening. Legend rank granted the ultimate technique: Full Zone.

He read on, his eyes growing heavy but his mind still hungry. Zeta energy had infinite wonders, giving rise to countless theories across the world. But every coin had two sides. When Zeta energy condensed under certain conditions, it gave birth to Ajumas. It could also mutate existing living beings, creating Worldly Ajumas—creatures commonly called monsters. The first type, Natural Ajumas, were usually referred to as demons by the common folk.

Ajumas were ranked by their threat level, their power increasing exponentially at each stage: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Spirit, Special, Disaster, Calamity, Chaos.

When Damian finally lowered the book, the sun had shifted in the sky. Hours had passed without him noticing. His mind was spinning with new information, his thoughts racing through everything he had just learned. His Regalia—Body of Divinity—was currently Uncommon grade. The lowest tier. But it was a growth type. It could rise. It would rise.

When he looked up, Sagara was still there.

He stood at the edge of the rooftop, facing the sun, exactly as he had been before. He hadn’t moved. Not once, in all the hours Damian had spent reading. His silhouette was sharp against the fading light, the blindfold still wrapped around his eyes, his hands still tucked into his pockets. Damian wondered, not for the first time, if the boy beside him was even human.

“It seems you’ve understood the basics,” Sagara said, not turning. “We can look into your training another day. School hours are already over.” A smile touched his lips—not warm, not cold, something in between. “Something interesting is bound to happen later. I hope you’ll learn from it.”

He walked back toward the door, and Damian followed, his questions still unanswered, his mind still turning over everything he had read, everything he had seen. Whatever was coming, whatever Sagara had planned—Damian would be ready.

Or at least, he would try.