Reborn As A Nephilim: The Rise of A Manaless Prince

Several kilometres east of the capital city of Karsia, there exists a small forest by the name of Urnio Woods.

While the forest was known to be infested with monsters, the strength of each individual monster wasn't too high.

With almost all of them being below the second rank.

As for the stronger beasts?

The Karsian royal army dealt with all of them.

Killing any of the beasts that would be considered a threat to travelling caravans.

Karsia, being a city that was renown for its nightlife, needed a way to prevent beasts from attacking their alcohol shipments.

If a country like Karsia as dependent on alcohol as Karsia ever had an alcohol shortage, that would put many of its citizens out of a business.

Such was the case in the past.

Travelling merchants were frequently the targets of the many beasts that inhabited the nearby forest area.

Since the main trading route was quite close to the forest, the passing merchants would unknowingly alert the beasts.

In hopes of escaping them, these merchants would make a last-ditch effort to save themselves by chucking the prized alcohol straight at the various beasts.

While this on its own wasn't too useful, when paired with fire magic, the beasts would quickly go up in flames.

This wasn't enough to upright kill them but was more than enough to buy the merchants the precious time to escape.

With how frequent merchants would deliver alcohol to Karsia, hundreds if not thousands of bottles of prized alcohol were wasted in such a manor.

This was until the time of the previous king, Lily's grandfather.

The Elantryan royal family always had a particular fondness for alcohol, but the previous king was borderline obsessed with it.

To the point where his enemies would often refer to him as the 'The Drunk King'.

Seeing so many bottles of alcohol wasted like this enraged him.

To the point where he would personally command his army to eradicate every beast, they could find that would pose a threat to the merchants.

After a five-year-long campaign, The Drunk King managed to wipe out the populace of all nearby monsters above the 3rd grade.

Even destroying their habitats and their offspring.

While his actions angered the Alchemy Association, since killing the beasts would result in them having a shortage of beast cores in the future, the king didn't pay it much heed.

After all, he had managed to save his capital's collapsing economy, as well as secure his supply of alcohol.

Now the nearby woods had been devoid of most of its stronger beasts, the forest became somewhat of a training ground for the Capital's youth.

Sky Sword Academy in particular used this forest quite often, normally to conduct their examinations and recreational activities.

Arvell put his face near the window and watched the sea of trees steadily enter his field of view.

'Let's hurry up and get this thing over with.'

He took a glance to his side to see the bald boy staring outside with a blank expression.

It seemed that the boy was a 'strong but silent' type, and with Arvell's inclination to avoid interacting with people if he didn't have to, both of them spent most of the ride in complete silence.

'I wonder how Aug's gonna react when I don't return home today…'

Arvell pictured his small dragon companion tearing while watching the front door with a saddened gaze.

'Sorry buddy, I'll make it up to you later.'

The carriage came to a stop near only a few hundred meters before the forest entrance, prompting Arvell and the boy to step out of the carriage.

Seeing their fellow examinees gathering nearby, the two walked over to join them.

Arvell walked up and noticed Professor Orfina and a few of the examiners standing with a series of metal briefcases before them.

Seeing more students file in behind him, Arvell patiently waited until they all joined them.

Which luckily didn't take more than four minutes.

After the final student entered within earshot of her, Professor Orfina pointed to the metal briefcases sprawled out on the ground.

"The crests that you will use for the examination are over here, in these briefcases."

Opening one of them, she displayed a metallic crest which displayed the school's insignia.

"This is made of 'Terminal Iron' a material capable of emitting a specific mana frequency, but this frequency is currently being blocked by a larger magic circle that covers the majority of the crest. The metal itself is quite brittle and easy to break through."

She bent the crest lightly with her fingers, causing it to snap.

"This is all you need to do to alert one of us. By breaking the larger magic circle, it would allow for the Terminal Iron's frequency to be released, alerting some of our more specialized tools to detect it."

She passed the broken pieces to one of the nearby examiners.

"As you know, we won't be able to directly watch all of you during the duration of the exam, since that would infringe on several privacy laws, but if any of you decide to commit any unsavoury acts, thinking we won't know…"

A wave of pressure burst from Professor Orfina, causing the examinees to fall to their knees.

Knowing better this time, Arvell decided to pretend and fell to his knees as well.

Professor Orfina threw them a penetrating glare.

"...We have our means of finding out."

She turned around, and walked back over to the carriages, allowing the students slowly gather their bearings.

"Best of luck to you all."

She turned around and gave them one last encouraging message, before disappearing into one of the carriages.

*CLAP CLAP*

One of the examiners clapped his hands to get the attention of the nearby examinees.

"Ok, so all of you come here and get your crests. If any of them break even by accident, you will be disqualified immediately."

The examiner then pulled out a small pin and handed it to the nearest examinee.

"Prick your finger with this needle, and let some of your blood fall on the emblem. Once this is done, if you are too far from your emblem, the emblem will shatter on its own, and let us know to come and pick you up."

One of the surrounding examinees raised their hands.

The examiner beckoned for the person to say their piece.

"How will you find us in the off-chance that we separate too far from our emblem?"

The examiner nodded his head.

"That is a valid concern, however, there is no need to worry. Many strong mages excel in scouting among the examiners, so they should locate you even if you lose the emblem. After all, it'll break if you get too far, so it won't be too hard."

The examinee breathed out a sigh of relief and thanked the examiner for the clarification.

Seeing as there were no more questions, the examiners began to pass out the emblems to the examinees.

Once the examinees had all received their emblem, one of the examiners pulled out a whistle.

"Once I count down from 3 and blow on this whistle, all of you can begin the assessment."

The examinees all watched with bated breaths as the examiner brought the whistle to his lips.

"3"

Some of them could even hear their hearts beating, echoing through their body.

Sweat dripped like a steady stream down their necks as they took a deep breath in preparation for what they knew was only a matter of time.

"2"

The majority of the examinees even opted to take sprinting stances, all to be the first to enter the forest.

After all, the first there would have priority on the coins!

"1"

Arvell turned to see the bald boy he rode with not too long ago take one of these sprinting postures.

*FUUUUUHHH*

White puffs of air exited his mouth with him exhaling, forming what appeared to be a small cloud of mist.

'How heated up is he that his breath is forming mist? It's not that cold yet!' Arvell watched in disbelief.

However, he wasn't given much time to think.

The examiner blew the whistle, declaring the start of the examination.

*FWEEET*

***

Author's Note:

I finally got a contract offer from Web!

Yay!

But here is the bad news: I will be locking some of the earlier chapters in the upcoming days, and locking all of the newer chapters.

I hope you all still continue to support my book even if it's no longer free.

If you want to join the discord server the link is here: https://discord.gg/D3s9gwVjnG (if you want to just copy and paste it's also in the story synopsis)