Dean Elara Vane's office was at the very apex of the Spire of Ascension. To reach it, Jin Park had to take a private lift platform that required the special access code she had sent him. The journey was a silent, swift ascent through the heart of the academy's power, and he spent the entire time reinforcing the mental and physical aspects of his "Jin Park" persona. Humble, quiet, a little awestruck, but with a core of unshakeable, savant-like confidence in his specific craft. A performance was about to begin.
The door to her office slid open, revealing a space that was not opulent, but vast and intimidating. One entire wall was a single pane of crystal, offering a breathtaking, god's-eye view of the entire Zenith archipelago floating in its sea of clouds. The other walls were lined with shelves holding not books, but unique monster specimens preserved in stasis fields—a claw from a legendary beast, the shimmering scale of a sea serpent, the crystalline eye of a Golem. The air itself felt heavy, compacted by the sheer density of the Dean's mana signature.
Dean Elara sat behind a large, minimalist desk made of pure, polished obsidian. She wasn't looking at him. Her attention was on a holographic screen displaying complex energy readings.
"You are two seconds early, Mr. Park," she said, her voice as cool and hard as the obsidian desk. She didn't look up. "Punctuality is a virtue. Precision is a requirement. Sit."
Jin Park inclined his head respectfully and sat in the single chair placed before her desk. He remained silent, allowing her to control the flow of the meeting. He could feel her passive mana subtly probing his own, trying to get a read on him. He consciously kept his own mana signature small and unremarkable, a placid pond hiding unfathomable depths.
After a full minute of tense silence that would have made any other student sweat, she finally deactivated her screen and folded her hands, her gaze finally locking onto him. It was like being pinned by the weight of a mountain.
"I have reviewed the footage of your spar with Applicant Marcus twenty-seven times," she began, her tone analytical. "I have also reviewed the data from your entrance examination dish. The two events present a fascinating contradiction."
She paused, letting the statement hang in the air. "Your dish demonstrated a level of ingredient and mana synergy that suggests a Unique-grade, if not higher, talent for culinary arts. The System, however, registered your talent as Enhanced Taste (Normal). An error, perhaps, but the System does not make errors. Therefore, you are the anomaly."
Jin Park maintained his composure, waiting.
"Your fight," she continued, her eyes narrowing, "showed no such talent. It showed no discernible skill beyond the most basic application of your Job's Chop ability. You won through a terrifyingly efficient understanding of leverage, kinetic redirection, and biological weak points. You did not fight like a warrior. You dismantled him like a butcher breaking down a carcass. This is not a skill one learns from a book. Where did you learn it?"
This was the first true test. A lie would be detected. The truth was impossible. He needed a carefully constructed narrative that was close enough to the truth to be believable.
He thought of the cold, demanding kitchens of his past life.
"I was not taught, Dean," Jin Park said, his voice quiet. "I observed. My first master... he was a man who believed that waste was the greatest sin. Every cut had to be perfect. Every piece of an ingredient had to be used. I spent ten years of my life in his kitchen, breaking down animals from the bone up, learning every tendon, every joint, every muscle group. When I fight... I see the same thing. Not a person. Just... a collection of parts to be separated."
He delivered the lines with a hint of subconscious trauma, a flicker of a dark memory in his eyes—a memory not from Muyeong, but from the Chef. It was a masterful performance.
Elara's gaze did not soften, but he could sense a shift in her analysis. His explanation was monstrous in its own way, but it fit the data. It painted him as a strange, almost sociopathic savant, his genius born from a traumatic, obsessive focus. It was a far more plausible explanation than him secretly being a high-level martial artist.
"An interesting perspective," she said, her voice still neutral. "Your potential is undeniable, but it is raw and dangerously unorthodox. As your mentor, my role is to shape that potential into something that can benefit the academy, and by extension, the nation."
She stood up and walked to the crystal wall, her back to him.
"You have been granted Tier-1 resources. This gives you privileges, but it also comes with expectations. The bi-annual evaluation for Prime students is absolute. You will be judged on your growth. If you are perceived as stagnating, you will be removed. Your recent victory has made you an object of intense curiosity. This makes you a target."
She turned back to him. "The 'Right to Challenge' for the general student body will be granted after the first-term mid-evaluations, in approximately two months. The top-ranking combat students will see you as a shortcut into the Prime Division. They will believe your victory over Marcus was a fluke. They will come for you. Are you prepared for that?"
"I will do my best to meet the academy's expectations," Jin Park replied simply.
"Good," Elara said. "Your first official assignment as my mentee is this: I am granting you access to the 'Sub-Zero Larder,' one of the academy's high-grade ingredient vaults. Inside, we have preserved the carcass of a Yeti (Unique-grade monster). Your task is to successfully butcher the carcass and prepare one dish from it. Succeed, and you will have proven your ability to handle high-grade materials. Your progress will be noted. Fail... and you will prove that your first dish was indeed a fluke."
She gave him a look that could freeze fire. "You have one week. Do not disappoint me, Mr. Park."
It was a test within a test. She was giving him a priceless opportunity—access to a Unique-grade monster that would yield incredible XP—but also an immense challenge. A Yeti's hide was notoriously tough, its meat infused with a chilling energy that could cause severe frostbite if handled improperly.
It was also a test of his story. If he truly had the anatomical knowledge he claimed, he would succeed.
"I understand, Dean," Jin Park said, bowing his head.
He walked out of the office, the weight of the Archon's gaze still on him. He felt no fear. He felt only the cold thrill of the challenge. The academy thought they were testing him. In reality, they were simply handing him the fuel he needed to accelerate his own, secret growth.