The investiture of the Blue Knights included a rite called the Sky-Lightning.

Each year’s valedictorian would release the strongest lightning he could muster straight into the heavens, announcing to the Thundering Star that a new Blue Knight had been born.

“…You’re the one who has to do that, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

It was an ancient tradition, performed before the family lord and the entire council of elders—immensely important.

I completely forgot! I thought they’d replace me since I signed the physical-defect oath!

Trisan had first drawn the elders’ attention at that very ceremony, when he sent a lightning bolt soaring more than a hundred and fifty meters into the sky.

Good thing I came today. Less than a week left. Not a day to waste.

For Kyrie—who also dreamed of adoption into the main house like Trisan—it was crucial to make a strong showing.

“This bastard—look at your eyes twitch. You totally forgot, didn’t you?”

“Forgot what? Of course I remembered. Just watch. I’ll shoot higher than Trisan did at his investiture.”

From that day on, Kyrie trained with clenched teeth.

There’s only so much mana I can raise in a week. Focus on absorbing the Elixir of Hundred Thunders. And more than that—output.

He had to compress every drop of mana in his body and fire it upward in a single linear burst.

Easier said than done. One mistake and his nerves could overheat—fatal.

A few days earlier, blocking Nereus’s lightning discharge, he’d only used about half his total mana and still hit his limit.

That was how hard it was.

The Heavenly Thunder Physique isn’t just quantity—it’s control, durability, endurance. If only the quantity had risen by 175 percent, it wouldn’t be enough, but durability and control increased as well. I can do this.

Difficult, but not impossible.

Inside his quarters at the main citadel, Kyrie uncorked the Elixir of Hundred Thunders.

Hot.

An incomparable current of energy flooded into his heart—far beyond what the Elixir of Thunderclouds had been.

Every muscle fiber from throat to chest blazed, melting from the inside out.

—What?

Halfway through, his nerves overheated and he blacked out.

When he came to, he was sprawled on the floor like a frog struck by a stone, convulsing.

Good thing I emptied my stomach and used the washroom first. Dying with vomit blocking my throat and soiling myself after becoming valedictorian—if I were the Thundering Star, I’d burn me on the spot.

The reward, however, was certain.

【Base Privilege】

【1. Heavenly Thunder Physique】

【Lightning-arts training efficiency +175%】

【Further increase possible through continued cultivation】

The Elixirs of Ten Thunders and Hundred Thunders were weapons of war in liquid form—made with no concern for cost efficiency.

Even Andromeda, minor lord of the house, and Pellaeus, her senior adopted brother, would covet one.

And Kyrie had absorbed it at one hundred seventy-five percent amplification.

The mana he gained was immense—enough that no one could ever again slight him for being lowborn.

Even so, I’m still weaker than the direct line. How much strength do they have? What must that feel like?

Still lightheaded, he went to find Andromeda.

“Sister.”

“My, my. You finally call me sister without me telling you to. Don’t tell me you want something?”

“Uh—about the lightning discharge. I was wondering if you had any tips on extending range.”

“Oh heavens, heavens! So you do want something!”

“Please, sister.”

He braced his face like armor.

The strongest lightning mage I know—and the only one I can trust.

Andromeda stretched her shoulders with exaggerated poise.

“Well, when my little brother asks so sweetly, how could I say no?”

“Thank you.”

They headed to the private lightning-arts training ground attached to the Minor Lord’s Palace—a wide courtyard paved with stone slabs.

Andromeda looked not at the targets but up at the sky as she spoke.

“Just make sure you break a hundred sixty-five meters. You know why?”

“Trisan hit a hundred sixty-five at my age.”

“Right. The usual rookie wall’s a hundred. You were around there, weren’t you?”

“One-ten.”

“What? That’s pretty good. Then why were you second?”

“Nereus hit a clean hundred fifty.”

To an outsider, the difference might sound trivial, but raising your score from fifty to seventy-five was nothing compared to pushing from ninety to ninety-five.

Gaining even five meters of maximum range could take over a month of dedicated training.

Kyrie had only a week.

“When you want range, the key’s compression. Use your control to pack the lightning down tight, build the pressure, and release it all at once. But don’t completely release control or it’ll scatter in every direction. Got it?”

“I’ll try.”

Kyrie didn’t falter.

“Don’t think of a straight line—think of throwing a ball. Eventually you’ll be able to do this.”

Shweeeak!

Andromeda flicked her fingers, sending a marble-sized sphere of lightning spiraling upward until it vanished into the clouds—all held together by pure control.

Beneath her straight fringe, her starlit eyes sparkled with a look that said, See? Easy.

“Sister, you’re incredible.”

A talent that ordinary men could only envy, idolize, and finally collapse before.

But Kyrie did not envy her.

She’s on my side. My patron, my teacher.

He possessed the rare strength not to envy someone he didn’t want to.

I’ll do it. Compress. Compress. Compress the lightning.

He began training, the stigma in his right eye flashing again and again.

A week passed.

“What brings you here?”

Just before the investiture began, in the shaded space behind the grand stage—

“I hear you did something amusing during the entrance exam?”

“Where’d my polite little brother disappear to? My dear sister Andromeda.”

Trisan had cornered her.

“Since when does a lowborn wretch speak my name so freely? Address me as Lord Minor.”

“Ha, who’d want to be adopted into this family out of sheer humiliation? And lowborn? How dare you talk like that to your heavenly brother?”

“You’ll lose that seat soon enough—to someone more worthy. A younger brother, not an elder.”

“Kyrie? You mean him? That one-eyed cripple’s no threat to me.”

“We’ll see soon enough.”

“So he’s this year’s Sky-Lightning. If by some miracle—one in ten million—he surpasses my record, I’ll send him a magic cloak from the engraving workshop as a gift.”

A deeply unpleasant encounter.

He’d spent days humiliating himself to procure the Elixir of Hundred Thunders meant for Nereus.

Given the circumstances, it was obvious that Kyrie and Andromeda had taken it to embarrass him—he could hardly greet her with a smile.

His nerves were rubbed raw, enough that he made promises he’d never normally make.

“…And if he fails to surpass me?”

“What?”

“For at least three years, don’t speak of that boy’s adoption again.”

“Three years?”

“You’ve said plenty about the quality of adopted heirs, haven’t you? If we’re to take a new one, he should at least match me.”

He drove in the final wedge, and that alone soothed him.

Three years.

In that time, he could have Kyrie transferred elsewhere.

The Border Patrol has high mortality but many chances for glory. If I post him to a safer yet stagnant unit, no matter how capable he is, he’ll remain a middling Blue Knight forever. He lost to Nereus in lightning arts, after all. There’s no way that boy can surpass me, a genius among geniuses.

The thought cooled Trisan’s anger.

A bastard, daring to dream.

He lifted his head again.

The ceremony had begun.

The Blue Knight investiture was held on the grand avenue before the same dome where the Celestial Oath had taken place.

Unlike before, the family lord now sat on the central dais before the dome, not to either side.

“…Next. Cadet representative Kyrie of Astrios—step forward and swear your loyalty!”

Kyrie strode the red carpet in plate armor polished so bright a fly would slip off it.

To stand before the family lord and elders wearing an eyepatch to prove a physical-defect oath…

His face was steady, but inside, he burned.

The elders and high-ranking Planetary Blue Knights fixed him with piercing stares.

“That’s the one who lost his eye.”

“I hear he ranked first in the Border Patrol trials.”

“Hmph. The Border Patrol isn’t exactly prestigious. Today’s Sky-Lightning will be pitiful—lucky if it passes a hundred meters.”

“No, even Nereus, the runner-up, volunteered there. And with Trisan and Andromeda pulling strings among the heirs, it sounds like quite a political mess.”

“Still, if he overcame that by merit alone, he’s earned his place—even with that eye.”

“His gaze is good. So what if he’s got one? Better than my grandson’s two.”

Among them, the tall, bamboo-slender Elder Racul offered words of approval.

He’s not secretly telling them to post me to the roughest warfront, is he?

Kyrie’s heart sank again.

“Kyrie of Astrios?”

“Yes, my lord.”

He knelt before the duke.

Still can’t see his face.

Duke Pellaeus wore again the platinum mask with twelve horns, robes trailing behind him.

Only the back of his right hand was bare, the glowing stigma there flaunting that the grace of the stars still rested on him and the house.

Please, let nothing happen.

Kyrie prayed their stigmas wouldn’t resonate—that his own eye wouldn’t start shining.

He froze his expression, wrestling down his anxiety.

Each observer interpreted that composure differently.

To stay that calm before Father—my brother truly chose well,
Andromeda thought, pleased with her own foresight.

“I did nothing wrong” written all over his face. He’s claiming the top rank proves it, is he? Arrogant, but the kind of spirit a knight should have,
Elder Racul mused.

That bastard. Let’s see how high his lightning climbs,
Trisan seethed.

“…May this day be one you and the house both remember.”

Duke Pellaeus rose, taking up the ceremonial sword of the Blue Knights—Thunderclap.

“In honor of one who endured training as dark as stormclouds, I grant the name of one who cleaves the sky. To the one who fulfills duty by blood, I bestow a name beyond blood; to the one who fulfills duty by sword, I grant renown.”

Thunderclap—its white blade veined with rippling black lightning—was a weapon of haunting beauty.

“To bear this title, you must never fear your enemies. Will you so vow?”

“Yes.”

“You must ever guard your kin. Will you so vow?”

“Yes.”

“You must ever uphold the will of the Celestial Seat. Will you so vow?”

“Yes.”

Pellaeus lowered the blade, tapping Kyrie’s right shoulder, left shoulder, and crown.

“Then may this be the last humiliation you will ever endure. From this moment, you are a Blue Knight who need suffer no further disgrace. Such is the title I, Duke Pellaeus of Astrios, confer upon you in the Thundering Star’s name.”

The black eyepatch across Kyrie’s face was visible even from afar—an indelible mark of his ambition.

“Rise, and take your sword, Sir Kyrie.”

Pellaeus offered the sword hilt-first, the blade pointing downward.

Kyrie rose to one knee and accepted it.

Then he raised Thunderclap high toward the heavens.

Applause and cheers erupted.

He was now a true Blue Knight.

The herald’s voice rang out with the next command.

“Sir Kyrie, demonstrate your Sky-Lightning to honor the Thundering Star!”

Chapter 18

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