"Demon Prince Damien," Vael called respectfully, bowing low before the otherworldly handsome figure seated in a dark, throne-like chair. The man's long black hair fell in loose waves around a face carved in lethal beauty, his crimson eyes half-lidded with lazy amusement.
"Hmm?" Damien's deep voice rolled out casually, almost indulgent. "How did your search turn out?"
Vael allowed a faint, triumphant smirk. "Well… surprisingly, this time around, it came out good. We managed to get hold of something."
Damien's lips quirked in a low chuckle. "Go on."
"That person has awakened."
That single statement erased Damien's playful grin, replacing it with sharp, calculating focus. Vael continued, voice steady but laced with a trace of excitement.
"As usual, we were using our powers to monitor the people the elders had suggested, but still nothing. So I suggested we take a minute to run a general sweep instead. Monitoring was going well… but then there was one particular person my powers couldn't monitor fully. I got suspicious, pushed harder then it backfired and knocked me out cold. And there's no one who should be able to withstand demon powers except the Chosen One, so…"
Damien tapped his chin slowly. "You're right… so who is that person?"
Vael's smirk dropped. "That's the problem. We couldn't trace the person, no matter how we tried. Like there was something—someone—protecting them."
Damien nodded faintly, unfazed. "Expected of the Chosen, especially if they've awakened. But… still a shame we don't have a name."
Vael exhaled in frustration then almost immediately his eyes lit up. "I almost forgot. We did find the person's location."
Damien tilted his head. "Oh?"
"The mortal realm. At a certain prestigious Arcane Academy."
Damien's sigh was almost a growl. "Mortal realm? Don't tell me the Chosen One is a mortal…" He paused, then smiled slow sharp and dangerous. "Prepare. We're going to the mortal realm."
★★★
Meanwhile…
Leonis was having a full-on mental breakdown.
Host?
System activation?
It was sheer luck—or the fact he felt like a wet noodle—that stopped him from rolling straight off the bed in shock.
Good lord… did that mean he had a system?
Half doubting but half convinced, he tested the thought. 'Who the hell made that sound?'
The reply came instantly, mechanical yet disturbingly cheerful.
"I did, Host. Allow me to introduce myself I'm S-22."
Leonis blinked. "Good… now why the hell do I even have a system?"
"Host, I've always been with you. But I couldn't activate only function inside your dungeon. During your death, when your dungeon core shattered, I was… unexpectedly able to fully awaken. And here I am."
So he really had died. That bastard had killed him and the system had just confirmed it. But… then why—
"You said I died, which is obvious enough since I remember being murdered, but… why am I alive?"
"Host, it appears you've transmigrated into another world and another body."
Leonis stared at the ceiling, torn between laughing and cursing. Alive, sure but barely. Every inch of him felt like it had been beaten with hammers. Was this some cosmic prank?
"Fine. So where the hell am I? Whose body is this? What's the identity?"
System Prompt: Scanning Host…]
Result:
Name: Leo Ashbourne
Occupation: Student at the Arcane Academy
Location: Mortal Realm
[Channeling Information to Host]
Information began pouring into Leonis's mind like a river breaking its dam memories, faces, fragments of this body's miserable life.
Leo Ashbourne. The sickly young heir of a noble family, a family who hated him but couldn't do anything to him since he was his grandfather's favourite. Leo was known not for skill or strength, but for spectacular failures. His magical core was so weak it could barely light a candle without shattering the spell in his hands. In fact, the last time he'd tried a levitation charm in class, he'd managed to explode an entire shelf of library books… right onto the Head Librarian.
The whispers about him at Arcane Academy weren't kind. "Walking disaster." "Spell hazard on legs." "Ashbourne the Ash Heap."
He was the kind of student professors barely tolerated, not because he was cruel or lazy, but because everything he touched seemed doomed to go catastrophically wrong.
Arcane Academy itself, however, was no joke. Prestigious. Ruthlessly competitive. The kind of place where magical prodigies and top-ranked cultivators were groomed for positions in the royal court, mage councils, or elite mercenary guilds. Students were ranked not just by academic merit, but by magical capacity and cultivation strength something Leo Ashbourne had in painfully short supply.
Here, there were tiers. At the top sat the Exclusive tier (A rank), the prodigies who could bend the battlefield to their will. Then the Top tier (B rank) , skilled but not flawless. Below them, the Middle tiers (C & D rank), average and unremarkable… and finally, the Low Tier (E & F) rank a polite name for students who had almost no magical worth.
Guess where Leo Ashbourne sat?
Dead last in the F rank
Worse still, his family's name didn't carry the weight it used to. Once respected for producing a legendary Archmage centuries ago, the Ashbourne lineage had dwindled into obscurity, their wealth siphoned away by poor investments and political missteps.
They were still prestigious as before with their grandfather handling everything but they still needed a backup way out.
Sending Leo to Arcane Academy had been their desperate attempt to regain prestige… and, well, that gamble had clearly failed.
Leonis absorbed all this with the kind of quiet horror only a once-mighty Dungeon Master could feel. I went from ruling a fortress feared across realms… to being the magical equivalent of a baby rabbit.
But what scared him most was him being in an arcane Academy?
An arcane Academy!!!!! That screamed magic. Magic meant spell-casting, spell-casting meant rankings, and rankings meant… he was at the bottom of the barrel.
Great. Just great.
He had been used to dungeon raids, monster hunts, and good old-fashioned stabbing things until they stopped moving, not waving sparkly sticks and chanting fancy words.
This is going to be a problem.
Wait. If S-22 came from his dungeon…
"System, can I still access the dungeon after transmigrating?"
"Yes, Host. But not right now."
"Why not?"
"Because this body's level is too low to summon or sustain the dungeon."
Leonis groaned. "Fine. So what level are we talking here?"
[Current Level: Magic – Lowest Tier. Cultivation: Lowest Tier.]
Leonis sat in stunned silence. Then—"…Lowest? You mean the actual bottom? The basement floor of strength?"
"Affirmative, host."
There was a long, stunned silence.
Then— "…You're telling me I'm in the body of the weakest sack of bones in the entire realm?!"
★★★★
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