Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 158: Arrival At Valoria Academy

HUMM...

The hum of the yellow mag-cab’s repulsors changed into a whining decrescendo as the vehicle banked smoothly off the primary commercial thoroughfare of the Silverleaf district.

Silas sat in the back of the cab with his broad shoulders resting against the cracked leather seat, watching the city blur past the rain-streaked window.

The towering neon-drenched skyscrapers of the corporate zones were entirely gone now.

In their place, the architecture became more modern and the air practically smelled of elitism.

They were approaching the Valoria City Academy.

Even from six blocks away, the massive educational fortress dominated the skyline.

It wasn’t just a school... It was an architectural monument to the terrestrial awakened hierarchy.

’Well all big cities have their own Academies.’ Silas thought.

Massive spired towers constructed from polished white marble pierced the gray morning clouds. High stone walls, etched with glowing blue defensive runes, wrapped around an estate that looked large enough to house a small country’s standing army.

Sitting right next to him, Lia had her small hands pressed flat against the glass of the window with her breath fogging up the pane.

Her brown eyes were wide as dinner plates.

She was practically vibrating with a mixture of hype and deep terror.

"Big brother..." Lia whispered with her voice barely audible over the hum of the cab. "It’s... it’s huge. It looks like a castle. Are you sure I’m supposed to go here? This doesn’t look like a place for people from the outer wards."

"It’s the Academy," Silas replied smoothly, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. "And you aren’t from the outer wards anymore, Lia... You’re a resident of the Silverleaf district. You belong here just as much as any of the brats walking those halls."

He reached over and gently tapped his index finger against the glass, pointing toward the massive central spire of the campus.

"Besides," Silas explained. "The system here is very standard. Since you’re eleven years old, you’re exactly at the baseline age for the primary student intake. You’ll be placed in the foundational sector with the other kids your age. You learn mathematics, terrestrial history, basic mana theory, and core biology."

Lia pulled her face away from the glass, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"How long do I have to stay?"

"Until you’re eighteen," Silas told her flatly.

Lia blinked. "Eighteen? That’s seven years of school!"

"That’s until Awakening Day," Silas corrected her, his golden-ringed eyes narrowing slightly at the memory of his own brutal, grinding experience inside those walls. "The Academy isn’t just about reading books, Lia... It’s like a pressure cooker. They feed you nutrients, they teach you how the Sovereign Realm works, and they push your limits... When you turn eighteen, you undergo the Awakening Ceremony. If you possess a latent spark, your core ignites. You become a Lord and you could get drafted by a guild though you won’t need to, you have your big bro after all."

He leaned back against the leather seat.

"If you don’t awaken... you graduate with a standard corporate degree and you get a comfortable high-paying desk job in the inner city. Either way, you never have to sleep in a damp alleyway ever again."

The weight of that promise completely overrode Lia’s anxiety.

The idea of seven years of guaranteed safety and an actual future made her chest tighten.

She didn’t look terrified anymore.

A fierce brilliant spark of excitement ignited in her dark eyes as she puffed out her chest, adjusting the collar of her brand-new dark blue shirt.

"I’m going to be the smartest kid in the whole building," Lia declared with her confidence returning in full force. "I’m going to learn everything."

"Don’t get cocky. Just pass the entrance interview first," Silas chuckled.

The mag-cab pulled to a smooth hovering halt directly in front of the colossal wrought-iron front gates of the Valoria City Academy.

"Here we are, boss," the driver announced through the partition. "Valoria Academy, main entrance."

Silas pulled his Association-issued phone from his pocket, tapping the digital meter on the back of the driver’s headrest.

The screen chimed, instantly transferring the required Spirit Credits plus a generous twenty percent tip directly to the driver’s account.

"Thanks," Silas said, pushing the heavy passenger door open.

He stepped out onto the pristine swept cobblestones.

Lia scrambled out right behind him, instantly grabbing the edge of his dark trench coat as the intimidating scale of the front gates loomed over them.

The cab hummed with its repulsors flaring as it pulled away from the curb and drove off down the street, leaving them standing alone in front of the massive entrance.

Silas looked up at the gates.

Standing directly in the center of the walkway, positioned beneath a towering stone archway, was an armored Academy security guard.

The man looked incredibly tired.

He had dark circles under his eyes with his posture was slightly slumped, and he was holding a high-tier corporate-issued mana rifle loosely across his chest, looking like a bored worker counting down the minutes until his shift ended.

’Tired, my ass,’ Silas thought with his golden-ringed eyes lazily scanning the shadows cast by the high stone walls.

His Gold Core passively heightened his sensory perception, picking up the subtle suppressed magical frequencies bleeding into the morning air.

He felt them.

Thirty feet to the left, perched on a recessed stone gargoyle, was a stealthed archer.

Forty feet to the right, hidden behind an optical illusion barrier near the guardhouse, was a high-tier elemental mage.

Directly above the archway, concealed in the iron latticework, was an sniper with a kinetic suppression rifle aimed directly at the back of Silas’s skull.

’It’s a prestigious Academy after all...’ Silas thought with a sigh, keeping his hands perfectly visible. ’It housed Elora Verinda, the City Lord’s daughter, and half the heirs to the major Valoria guilds. Of course they aren’t relying on one bored guy with a flashlight. They need to be prepared for corporate espionage, rival guild assassinations, and terror attacks... The bored guy at the gate is just the bait to make intruders lower their guard.’

Silas didn’t react to the snipers,he had long since knew that they existed since he was a student here before.

He simply walked forward with his boots clicking against the stone and Lia trailing nervously in his shadow.

As they approached the gate, the tired-looking guard raised his free hand, holding up his palm to halt their progress.

"Hold it right there, citizen," the guard commanded, his bored tone perfectly rehearsed. "This is a restricted academic zone... I need to see proper identification and an authorized visit ticket before you take another step."

Silas didn’t argue.

He didn’t flex his aura or try to intimidate the man as he simply reached into the inner pocket of his dark trench coat, pulled out his metallic Lord ID card, and handed it directly to the guard.

The guard took the card with a lazy sigh, glancing down at the polished metal surface.

The microsecond the guard’s eyes registered the engraved name and the glowing blue core verification stamp on the corner of the card, his entire demeanor shattered immediately.

The man’s jaw literally dropped.

His eyes bugged out of his skull, darting frantically from the heavy metallic card up to the towering ridiculously broad-shouldered man standing in front of him.

He knew that name... Of course he did.

Silas Graves.

He was a really good student who came to school using the Mag-Train from the slums but... when did Silas Graves become this beautiful?

The guard stared at Silas’s handsome face, the messy dark hair, and the terrifying physique he had stretching the fabric of his dark shirt.

’This hunk of a man in front of me is Silas Graves?!’ the guard thought with his mind completely short-circuiting. ’Is this really someone who used to be from the slums?! He looks like he eats bears for breakfast!’

"L-Lord Graves!" the guard stuttered violently with his tired facade evaporating into panic.

His hands were shaking so hard he almost dropped the heavy ID card.

He frantically thrust the card back toward Silas, bowing so deeply he nearly snapped his own spine in half.

"I-I apologize! Congratulations on your successful awakening! Congratulations on becoming a Lord!"

"Thanks," Silas replied smoothly, plucking the card from the trembling man’s fingers and sliding it back into his coat pocket.

He gestured casually toward the sprawling campus behind the gates. "I’m going to see the Principal. I booked a meeting this morning."

The guard swallowed incredibly hard, sweat beading on his forehead.

On normal grounds, standard procedure dictated that even mid-tier corporate parents needed an authorized digitally verified visitation ticket signed in triplicate just to get past the courtyard.

But Silas Graves was a Lord...

And he wasn’t just a normal, bottom-feeding entry-level Lord either. The glowing stamp on his ID officially designated him as a Blue Core Lord... a tier that placed him quite high up in the terrestrial societal ladder.

You didn’t ask a Blue Core Lord for a piece of paper. You opened the gates and prayed he didn’t decide to obliterate your guardhouse for being mildly annoying.

"O-of course, Lord Graves! No ticket required for a Lord of your standing!" the guard babbled quickly, stepping hastily to the side and aggressively tapping the glowing green release rune on the control pedestal.

The massive wrought-iron gates groaned, smoothly swinging inward to grant them access.

"You will need to head directly toward the central administrative spire," the guard instructed, pointing a shaking finger down the main pristine walkway. "Just follow the cobblestones past the fountain. You’ll have to enter campu—"

Before the guard could even finish his sentence, the mahogany front doors of the administrative building located just inside the gates clicked and swung open.

A woman stepped outside.

She was the Principal’s secretary.

She was a tall and incredibly stunning woman in her mid-twenties. The woman had sleek and perfectly straightened black hair that cascaded down her back, piercing gray eyes, and a flawlessly beautiful manicured face.

She was wearing a tight, tailored gray pencil skirt and a crisp white blouse, holding a digital corporate clipboard against her chest.

She stopped at the top of the marble steps, her gray eyes locking onto Silas instantly.

"Lord Graves," the Secretary called out, her voice was a smooth alluring purr that carried easily across the courtyard.

She offered a deep respectful bow hiking up her skirt a bit in the process.

"Welcome back to Valoria Academy and welcome to your little sister as well. The Principal is waiting for you in his office. I will guide you there personally."

As she straightened up, her gray eyes swept over Silas’s towering muscled frame.

A visible flush of pink spread across her high cheekbones as she bit her lower lip slightly with her professional demeanor cracking as she actively checked him out from head to toe.

Silas looked at the flushed beautiful Secretary but he didn’t blush back.

He just reached down, firmly grasped Lia’s small hand to ensure she didn’t wander off, and looked at the woman with exhausted eyes.

Silas had not been here for even an hour yet and he already wanted to go home.

"Alright," Silas said flatly. "Let’s follow her."

He walked through the open iron gates, stepping onto the pristine Academy grounds.

As they followed the swaying hips of the Secretary down the wide manicured cobblestone path, Silas let out a long bitter internal sigh.

’I’m still trying to understand,’ Silas thought, staring at the back of the Secretary’s head. ’Of all the girls in this Academy, why her?’

He remembered her perfectly.

Back when he was an exhausted student at this exact Academy, busting his ass on four hours of sleep just to maintain his baseline grades, he had actually harbored a massive unrequited crush on this exact woman.

She had been a senior administrative assistant at the time. She was beautiful, unattainable, and always smelled like expensive perfume but the illusion had shattered violently during his third year.

He hadn’t learned the truth through some dramatic confrontation.

He had just been emptying the trash bins near the faculty parking garage late one night to earn extra meal credits when he accidentally overheard a conversation.

He had learned the beautiful Secretary was nothing more than one of the many, easily replaceable side pieces belonging to Elora Verinda’s older cousin.

She didn’t care about hard work, and she certainly didn’t care about scrawny slum kids with good grades.

’And Elora’s cousin is an irredeemable piece of garbage,’ Silas thought with a shake of his head. ’I really do not want to meet that guy in the Secret Realm expedition in some days... If I see his smug face in the dark, I might accidentally let Aeliana kill that fucker and blame it on the boss monster.’

And it wasn’t even about the crush, that fucker wasn’t even in this school and had disrespected him on multiple occasions.

’If I do see him, I’ll get him back for all of that.’