The Sovereign Veil Chapter 23: Chapter 23: The Reincarnator's Nightmare

Read chapter 23 of The Sovereign Veil by GodEmperor on NovelPedia.

Two days later. Inside the primary suite of the Croft family villa in Onyx City, Lucian sat cross-legged on his cyan Origin Stone. The Kirin Ascendant Protocol cycled violently through his meridians. Faint, jagged azure dragon scales materialized and faded across his skin as the ambient cosmic energy grew increasingly dense. "Still hitting a wall," Lucian muttered, opening his eyes and slowly withdrawing his True-Qi. He was literally a hair's breadth away from breaking through to the Tier 2 Innate stage, yet the threshold felt as insurmountable as a mountain. The Primal AI had been right; brute-forcing the biological refinement was not going to work. He needed actual, lethal comprehension born from life-or-death kinetic combat. Lucian seriously considered immediately initiating a Consciousness Descent mandate to temper himself in a secondary dimension. His smart-comm vibrated. It was a call from his academy deskmate, Hugo Hayes. "Alright, alright, I am on my way," Lucian sighed, accepting the call. Recently, the senior class of the 7th Academy had been hosting a slew of civilian graduation and placement banquets, and Lucian had been invited to several. He could not skip Hugo's. Hugo had officially been accepted into a top-tier civilian university within the Pan-Asian Zone, and his family was hosting a massive celebration. At the banquet hall, the civilian students enthusiastically traded gossip about university placements, corporate drafts, and the inevitable high-school breakups. "Where is Quinn Sterling tonight?" someone asked over the deafening music. "Did you not hear? She was drafted directly by the Obsidian Vanguard Academy," another student whispered, their voice laced with profound envy. "She is practically a favored daughter of the cosmos now." The surrounding students sighed collectively. Quinn's family had not hosted a graduation banquet, nor had she attended anyone else's. In Lucian's memory, the old Quinn usually spent her summers working grueling corporate internships to support her family. Now that she was a registered Catalyst, those days of civilian struggle were permanently over. "Lucian, what about you? Did you get your placement results?" When Quinn was mentioned, the table naturally shifted their focus to her notorious ex-boyfriend. "The Obsidian Vanguard," Lucian announced with a bright, arrogant smile. "My official draft banquet is scheduled for August 8th. You are all cordially invited." "Seriously?!" "Sure thing, Lucian. We will be there." The classmates laughed and nodded along. None of them actually believed Lucian had been drafted by Terra-Nova's apex military institution, but they were polite enough not to call him out on his perceived delusions. At the very least, civilian high-school friendships were relatively pure and devoid of lethal corporate scheming. Amidst the lively, mundane atmosphere, Lucian's thoughts drifted back to the Sovereign Veil. Specifically, they drifted to Aria Winters. Her flawless, devastating beauty and those glacial, starry eyes had been lingering in his mind for two solid days. "Primal AI, are you absolutely certain you cannot bypass protocol and identify her biological identity in the Crimson Dynasty?" Lucian complained mentally. He needed to be careful. If 'Aria Winters' was actually a sixty-year-old aristocratic warlord using a highly modified digital avatar, his multiversal corporate merger was going to be violently disgusting. However, given the subtle details of her etiquette and reactions, she definitely seemed like a sheltered, high-tier royal. "Negative. The Veil of Secrecy is an absolute Axiom," the Primal AI refused coldly. However, after Lucian relentlessly badgered the system for an hour, the AI finally ran a micro-expression and biometric stress analysis on his recorded interaction with Aria. "Conclusion: Operative 'Aria Winters' exhibited zero micro-tremors associated with deception during the orientation. The authenticity of her rendered avatar and psycho