The moment Landen stepped onto the stage, gasps swept through the crowd like a wave. Every head turned. The presentation's rhythm shattered.

Doe slipped away to speak with Headmaster Vanderbilt — a man with deep ties to the police force. Over the years, Vanderbilt had become their go-to consultant for the strange and unexplainable: anomalous cases, awakened individuals, Essence-related incidents. When the police had found Landen, they hadn't known what to do with him. So they'd brought him here, hoping the academy might be the answer. If anyone could assess the boy, it was Vanderbilt.

He adjusted his glasses, studying Landen from a distance.

"If he performs adequately on the stage tests," Vanderbilt murmured to Doe, "he may qualify for enrollment."

"He's… unusual," Doe said.

"That much is obvious."

At center stage, Landen gritted his teeth, his anger flaring at the crowd's nonchalant faces—as if his very existence meant nothing to them. He locked them in a glare sharp enough to cut glass, fully committing to the villain role.

Then he caught sight of a girl near the front row.

She was stunning.

Literal hearts flickered in his eyes, and a goofy smile twitched at his lips. He aggressively shook his head, desperate to resummon the villain within. But then his eyes drifted past her—and landed on another girl. Even cuter.

Hearts. Twitch. Twitch.

Then, right behind her — another one, stunning!

More hearts. More twitching.

His villainous death-glare completely short-circuited as his gaze bounced helplessly from face to face. There were simply too many of them—a world of beauties. The menacing scowl that had felt so powerful moments ago was now trembling at the edges, collapsing into a horribly cheesy grin.

He looked like a psychopath trying to land a date.

The crowd watched in horror.

"What is wrong with his face?"

"He’s a serial killer!"

"That's the face from my nightmares."

While the comments continued, Vanderbilt leaned toward Doe and murmured something. Celestine nodded, then stepped to the center of the stage.

"It looks like we have our volunteer," she announced, gesturing to the Essence Reader beside her.

Every eye in the arena swung back to Landen.

The moment Doe and Ray moved toward him, Landen was already gone — twisting sideways with a sharp pivot that caught both of them off guard. His palm drove into Ray's chest, and Ray stumbled directly into Doe.

There was no way that Landen was going down without a fight. He bolted for the edge of the stage, aiming to lose himself in the chaos of the crowd.

Shouts erupted as the crowd panicked and scattered like he was a live grenade. Then he launched himself off the ledge, soaring in the air like a bird—

But then…something caught him.

Not the floor. Not a person. A tree?

A tree grew out of the earth below, its trunk thickening instantly as branches shot upward to pluck him straight out of the sky. Hanging twenty feet in the air, Landen found himself face-to-face with a massive, ancient creature.

​Two glowing eyes blinked at him slowly. Below them, a hollow, jagged mouth creaked open.

"Aww, shit—"

But even as the words left his mouth, Landen realized he wasn't actually afraid.

He was fascinated.

He craned his neck, taking in every detail—the rough, armor-like texture of its bark-skin, the deep rumble vibrating through its wooden grip, the faint, otherworldly glow. He'd spent his whole life in a world that played by one set of rules, and right now, every last one of them was being shattered.

The buildings had been wrong. The sky had been wrong. The language had been wrong. And now there was a giant tree monster holding him twenty feet in the air like a rag doll.

​Despite the sheer insanity of the moment, a slow grin spread across his face.

"…Either I finally lost it," he muttered, scanning the scene one more time. "Or I just got isekai'd."

As Landen dangled helplessly, the large tree creature carried him back to Vanderbilt.

“Thank you, my friend,” the chief said. “You may go.” And with a quick wave of the hand, the tree disappeared.

Landen and Vanderbilt locked eyes.

So it was him, Landen thought. The old man summoned that thing. I knew there was something off about him.

Before either of them could move, Celestine stepped smoothly between them, scanned the tag on Landen's arm, and guided him in front of the Essence Reader.

“Now stand still while I turn on the device,” she said.

Landen turned to face the crowd, his back now pressed toward the machine. His chest heaved. His eyes darted — left, right, front, back — looking at every face, every exit, every possible angle of escape.

There was none.

His mind ran through the options at full speed and kept arriving at the same destination.

Nothing.

"Okay," Celestine said. "Here we go."

She pressed the button.

The display flickered to life, numbers scrambling across the screen as the crowd leaned forward in unified, breathless anticipation.

“He has to be at the Master's grade.”

“Probably higher, his stare alone is at least a Grand Master.”

Landen watched them. Their excitement, their complete indifference to his impending death—it snapped something inside him.

​"YOU'RE ALL DISGUSTING!”

​The shout ripped from his throat, making the audience flinch back as one.

​"MY DEATH IS ON YOUR HANDS! EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU! I SWEAR, IF I DIE TODAY, I WILL COME BACK AND HAUNT YOU ALL!”

​The arena froze, stunned by the sheer fury of his outburst. Though the words themselves were gibberish to them, the threat was unmistakable. Caught between shielding their eyes and fleeing for the exits, the crowd fell dead silent, paralyzed as they waited for the results.

Then the machine began to whine. It started low, barely noticeable, before climbing into a shrill, piercing pitch that drilled through the air. The pressure built, vibrating through Landen’s stiffened frame until he broke.

“AWWWWWW—!!!”

​His scream echoed across the arena, drowning out the deafening screech.

Then finally, the machine locked into place.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP

The final numbers flashed onto the display.

​For one suspended second, no one moved. Then, the entire arena gasped as one.