The initiates stood frozen where they were.
Shock sat openly on their faces. Some looked pale. Others looked lost, as if the field itself had shifted beneath their feet without them moving. What Kenji had said was not something they could argue against, but it was also not something their minds could accept. It was too vast, too absolute. It felt less like information and more like a story someone would tell to frighten children.

Kenji noticed it immediately.

He studied them for a moment, then exhaled quietly.

“Alright,” he said. “Ask your questions before I move to the next step.”

No one spoke.

The silence was not defiance. It was paralysis. They had been given a structure so large that their thoughts had nowhere to land. Each of them was still trying to decide whether what they had heard was real or some elaborate construction meant to test their reactions.

A few opened their mouths and closed them again.

Then Levon spoke.

“I… I did not understand anything you said.”

Several heads turned toward him.

Levon rarely spoke without precision. He was the one who usually grasped patterns faster than anyone else. The one who found logic where others found chaos. Yet now, his voice carried something unfamiliar. Not fear. Not doubt. Confusion.

Pure and unfiltered.

“I heard every word,” he continued. “I understood the language. I understood the structure of your sentences. But none of it connects to anything real.”

He swallowed.

“It feels like listening to a fairytale that insists it is a law of nature.”

Levon ran a hand through his hair, frustration flickering across his face.

“You’re talking about weight that bends reality, identities that split, systems that decide who we are, and rules where killing becomes arithmetic. My mind is trying to build a model of it, and there is nothing to anchor it to.”

He looked up at Kenji.

“It does not feel like knowledge. It feels like mythology disguised as science.”

Kenji looked at Levon steadily.

“I am glad you understood,” he said. “And I do not care whether you believe me or not.”

There was no challenge in his tone. No irritation. Just certainty.

He shifted his gaze from Levon to the rest of the class, and it became immediately clear that the confusion was not isolated. It was everywhere. In their posture. In their breathing. In the way their eyes searched for something solid and found nothing.

Kenji nodded slowly.

“You all share the same problem,” he said. “You heard me, but you are all still lost.”

No one denied it.

He took a small step forward.

“I cannot transmit information to you while it is in that state.”

Several students stiffened at the word transmit.

“I am not speaking metaphorically,” Kenji said. “If you allow me, I can repeat everything that was said in this class directly into your cognition.”

The field went silent.

“Not through language. Not through explanation. Through telepathic transfer.”

A few of them inhaled sharply.

“Your Vitria is blocking that right now,” Kenji continued. “As long as you remain alert, defensive, and resistant, it will not permit my Vitria to connect with yours.”

He raised his hand slightly.

“But if you lower it, if you allow the connection, I can upload the entire lecture into your mind exactly as it occurred.”

No interpretation.
No misunderstanding.
No disbelief interfering.

He scanned their faces carefully.

“This is not control. This is not alteration. This is replication.”

Silence stretched between them.

“What you heard will be repeated,” he said. “Every rule. Every structure. Every truth. Without distortion.”

His voice softened just slightly.

“You do not have to believe me. You only have to allow the transfer.”

Slowly, one by one, the initiates relaxed.

It was not trust.
It was surrender to inevitability.

Their breathing steadied. Their shoulders lowered. The tension in their bodies softened as their Vitria followed, receding from its alert state. The invisible barrier between them and Kenji thinned until it was no longer resistance, but permission.

The connection opened.

For several minutes, none of them moved.

Their eyes remained unfocused, staring past the world in front of them as the lecture replayed inside their minds. Not as sound. Not as memory. But as presence. Every word, every pause, every shift in Kenji’s tone unfolded again, starting from the moment they had entered the class until the instant of transfer.

There was no confusion this time.
No disbelief.
Only structure.

They saw it. They felt it. They understood it.

Then, as if drawn by the same signal, they all returned at once.

A collective inhale. A subtle jolt of awareness. Bodies realigning with the field around them.

They looked different.

Not physically. But in the way their eyes held weight now. In the way their stillness carried certainty. Whatever they had been before, they were no longer standing at the edge of ignorance.

They did not fully understand what they were.

But they knew they were no longer ordinary.

They belonged to a different tier of existence now, whether they wanted to or not.

Silence held them until Warda spoke.

Her voice trembled before the words even formed.

“What… what are we now?”

Her breath hitched.

It was not curiosity.
It was grief.

“What are we?

Kenji looked at Warda, and for the first time his voice carried something close to pride.

“You are a transcendent version of yourselves,” he said. “You are still you. Your thoughts, your fears, your choices. But you are Xacodian now.”

The word settled heavily.

“You have crossed a threshold that cannot be reversed. You exist on a different layer of reality. One that responds to Vitria.”

Artorias did not hesitate.

“Is killing the only way to increase our GAL?”

Several heads turned toward him.

Kenji studied him for a brief second, then nodded.

“Straight to the point,” he said. There was approval in his tone. “Yes. It is the only way.”

The certainty of it struck harder than the rule itself.

Malinda spoke immediately after.

“So are you encouraging us to kill one another?” she asked. “To go rampant and slaughter everyone we meet?”

The tension in her voice was sharp, almost accusatory.

Kenji’s expression did not change.

“It is bold of you to assume you could take on anyone with your current Vitria levels,” he said calmly. “Right now, most of you would not survive a real confrontation.”

“And no,” he continued, “we do not harm other Xacodians without purpose.”

He turned slightly, as if indicating a structure far larger than this field.

“There are laws. Strict ones. But those laws fall under the domain of Sofia Varn. She will explain them to you in full.”

His gaze hardened.

“Understand this first. Xacodia is not inhabited only by Xacodians.”

The air felt heavier.

“There are other entities. Other life forms. Some intelligent. Some not. Some born from Vitria. Some corrupted by it.”

He paused.

“Creatures that exist outside our order.”

The word outside carried weight.

“Those are what you will face.”

Silence deepened.

“They are not protected by our laws,” Kenji said. “They are not part of our system of restraint.”

His eyes moved slowly across the class.

“They are threats.”

A final pause.

“And they require extermination.”

Kenji straightened.

“Enough questions,” he said. “I do not want us to fall behind schedule. You still have two more classes with me, and I will dedicate one entire session only for your questions.”

A few students relaxed at that.

“But I have something else to teach now,” he continued, “and I know you will have questions about this as well. So we proceed.”

He lifted his hand and made a small, controlled motion.

The air folded in on itself. A circular distortion opened beside him, silent and smooth. Kenji stepped into it and vanished. Less than a second later, he emerged again, this time carrying two simple chairs and a humanoid dummy made of dull clay-like material.

He placed the dummy carefully on one chair. Then he positioned the second chair directly in front of it, facing it.

The class watched without speaking. They were still cautious, but no longer frozen by disbelief. Something had shifted. Curiosity was replacing fear.

“This,” Kenji said, resting a hand briefly on the dummy’s shoulder, “is called the Trinket of Clairvoyance.”

A few exchanged glances.

“It will allow you to discover what your class is.”

The words no longer caused panic.
They caused anticipation.

The class looked at one another. Nervous. Excited. Ready.