Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 976: Crystal Hall

<Monday Afternoon, Dining hall>

The afternoon light filtered in through the tall glass windows, pooling across the marbled floor in warm streaks. The dining hall, ever grand in its architecture, echoed with the mingling of hundreds of voices, utensils against porcelain, and the occasional laughter from the noble tables clustered at the front.

At a long table tucked near the far wall—one of the few spots with a view of the training courts below—the five commoner students sat, trays in front of them, a quiet pocket of conversation in the crowd.

Lucavion was in the middle of slicing into something roasted and overpriced-looking. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re trying to make up for the sleep deprivation with lunch quality.”

Toven grunted. “If they serve fish paste tomorrow, I’ll know it’s a trap.”

“Fish paste is a trap,” Mireilla muttered, poking at her rice with visible distrust. “The last time I ate it, I hallucinated a ghost elk telling me to drop out.”

“That was the spice,” Lucavion corrected cheerfully, “and you’re welcome.”

Elayne sat across from them, eating quietly, posture perfectly aligned, eyes half-lidded as she tuned in and out of the conversation. Her tray was arranged with careful balance—steamed vegetables on one side, small slices of grilled meat on the other, untouched bread in the corner.

Caeden poured himself a glass of water. “So… one exam down.”

They all paused for a beat.

Mireilla leaned back with a sigh. “And six more to go.”

Caeden poured himself a glass of water. “So… one exam down.”

They all paused for a beat.

Mireilla leaned back with a sigh. “And six more to go.”

She glanced across the table. “Lucavion—you had one this morning, right?”

Lucavion didn’t look up from his plate as he replied, “Yeah. At three.”

A beat of silence.

Mireilla blinked. “Three?”

Toven dropped his spoon. “As in—three A.M.?”

Caeden nearly choked on his water. “You’re joking.”

Lucavion simply gave a small, lazy shrug. “Nope.”

“That’s absurd,” Mireilla said flatly. “Even for this place, that’s absurd.”

“I didn’t mind it,” Lucavion replied, reaching for his drink. “The air’s clearer before dawn. And the instructors haven’t had his tea yet.”

“How is that related?”

“I don’t know.”

“Elayne, back me up,” Toven muttered. “Three is basically still yesterday.”

Elayne didn’t look up. “I believe it is intentionally designed to be disorienting.”

“What exam was it, anyway?” Caeden asked.

Lucavion took a slow sip before answering. “Weaponship Evaluation.”

“Ah,” Mireilla said, then glanced around the table. “That one.”

“Anyone else have that today?” she asked, scanning their faces.

One by one, the others shook their heads.

“I did not,” Caeden said.

“Me neither,” Toven added, stabbing a chunk of meat a little harder than necessary.

Mireilla gave a quick nod. “I had mana control this morning. Cultivation room.”

“I had etiquette,” Elayne said softly.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Toven blinked. “You’re starting the week with etiquette?”

“It was requested,” Elayne replied, her tone unreadable.

Mireilla raised an eyebrow. “Mister Kaleran’s lessons must’ve come in handy there?”

Elayne gave a small nod. “Yes. The instructors didn’t find any flaws.” A slight pause. “At least… that’s what they said.”

“Really?” Caeden asked, brows rising.

Mireilla leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. “You sure they weren’t just trying to unsettle you? Make you drop your guard?”

“They didn’t,” Elayne said with a quiet shrug. “I just applied what I learned.”

Simple. Matter-of-fact.

As if all the weeks of grueling drills, posture corrections, silent practice runs, and balancing teacups on knuckles had been part of breathing.

Lucavion smirked faintly. “Kaleran would be proud.”

Toven grumbled into his tray. “He’d be proud if we walked into a royal dinner with bleeding wounds and remembered to bow with the right foot forward.”

“Etiquette before first aid,” Mireilla said dryly.

“That was one of his lines,” Caeden muttered.

Elayne said nothing more. She just sipped her water and set her glass back down with that same eerie stillness, the kind that always made the rest of them a bit aware of how loudly they existed.

Lucavion’s grin widened. “Well. That’s one test aced.”

Mireilla, arms crossed, studied Elayne for a moment longer, then muttered under her breath, “Spirits, now I feel like I could’ve taken etiquette first.”

Toven lifted his fork like a toast. “Here’s to getting graded on posture while half-asleep later in the week.”

The clatter of plates and silverware filled the hall again, muffled under the low roar of hundreds of conversations overlapping into background noise. The group at the far wall had settled into their own rhythm—the quiet, comfortable kind shared between people who’d fought enough battles together, academic or otherwise, to sit without forcing words.

Toven was still muttering about tea etiquette. Mireilla had her forehead pressed against her hand, mumbling, “If I have to memorize the proper sequence of toasts for every noble family in Arcanis, I’m defecting.”

Lucavion chuckled, pushing his empty plate slightly aside. “Don’t worry. If you defect, I’ll make sure they toast properly at your trial.”

“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”

“Immensely.”

Caeden snorted softly, shaking his head. “Can we not discuss hypothetical executions during lunch?”

“Technically, it’s early dinner.”

And that was when a familiar, lilting voice broke through the din.

“Oh?”

The sound came from behind him—light, melodic, touched with curiosity and a hint of mischief.

Lucavion didn’t need to turn to recognize it.

Marian.

“We didn’t know you guys were here.”

He glanced back over his shoulder just as the small group approached—Elowyn at the center as always, her stride measured and quiet, Selphine beside her with the calm precision of a blade walking, Aurelian just a step behind, already smirking like he’d expected this coincidence to happen.

Cedric followed, expression unreadable as ever, the twins trailing a bit farther back, arguing softly about something that had clearly started as a joke and turned into a minor philosophical debate.

“Oh look,” Mireilla murmured under her breath, straightening a little. “The prodigies have arrived.”

Toven groaned quietly. “Don’t start.”

Lucavion’s grin tugged up, almost involuntarily. He leaned back in his chair, arms draping along the sides, the picture of careless confidence. “Well,” he said easily, tone dipping into his usual half-smile, half-dare. “Seems like the hall just got more interesting.”

Marian flashed a grin, already sliding into a seat at the edge of their table before anyone could object. “Don’t mind if we join, do you?”

Elowyn hesitated—just slightly—but before she could answer, Selphine’s cool, amused tone followed.

“You always ask after sitting down, Marian.”

Marian smiled sweetly. “And it always works.”

Aurelian sighed, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him. “She’s not wrong.”

Lucavion gestured to the open seats with mock gallantry. “Please. The more the merrier.”

As Elowyn finally took her seat across from him, the air shifted—just a little. A tension neither sharp nor spoken, but palpable. The faint hum of magic from the wards in the hall caught in the stillness between their gazes for half a breath before the others began to fill the silence with light conversation again.

Marian had already snatched a piece of fruit from Caeden’s tray, which earned her a flat glare and a muttered, “What are you doing?”

“I’m charming,” she replied, popping the slice into her mouth.

“Charming as doing?”

“As a quality.”

“….”

Selphine unfolded her own parchment of notes with clinical precision, smoothing the edges on the table. “I assume we’re all in survival mode already?”

Lucavion gave her a look over his cup. “Three A.M. weapon drills say yes.”

Aurelian raised a brow. “They actually did that to someone?”

Lucavion just lifted a hand.

“…Ah,” Aurelian muttered. “Of course.”

“I thought I had it bad with a mana trial before 10 A.M,” Selphine added, shaking her head. “But three is practically criminal.”

“It’s scheduling with malice,” Mireilla said. “And that’s giving them credit for creativity.”

Marian blinked at Mireilla’s remark, still chewing the stolen fruit. “Wait—hold on. It’s actually that bad?”

“We didn’t know it was like this,” Aurelian added, brow furrowing. “The schedule. The… absurdity of it. That can’t be standard, right?”

“It is,” Mireilla said, flat. No drama. Just the cold weight of experience. “Started yesterday.”

Caeden gave a quiet nod. “They split everything. Timings, locations. Some of us had our first trial at dawn, some midmorning. Some get the kinder hours. Some…” He tilted his head at Lucavion. “…don’t.”

“They’ve scattered us deliberately,” Elayne said, not looking up from her tray. “No shared slots. Except for the written evaluations.”

Aurelian frowned. “And this is for everyone? Not just—” He hesitated. Caught himself.

Mireilla raised a brow. “Yeah. Everyone. Or at least, us.”

Selphine shook her head. “I doubt they’d dare skew the written. Too many witnesses. But the rest? No eyes, no pattern. Just noise.”

“…Damn,” Aurelian muttered. And that, for him, counted as full-blown alarm.

There was a beat of silence as they all mulled it over—this quiet, creeping realization that the academy’s trials weren’t only about skill. They were about pressure. Isolation. Control.

Marian leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “Alright, so what now? We’re clearly being split up. Should we not keep splitting up?”

Selphine glanced sideways. “What, start going together? Strength in numbers?”

“Not for the trials themselves,” Marian clarified. “But the lead-ups. The waits. The rooms before. We can’t go in together, but nothing says we can’t show up together.”

“That might not sit well with the staff,” Cedric said quietly.

Aurelian gave a half-smile. “Since when do we live for their approval?”

“Heh….That is not bad…”

“So,” Mireilla said, glancing around, “anyone else got exams today?”

There was a pause.

Then, from the far side of the table, a quiet voice spoke.

“I do.”

All eyes turned.

Elara raised her hand slightly, as though in class. “I have my affinity test at fourteen-thirty. Crystal Hall.”

Lucavion’s knife paused mid-slice, the sound of metal against porcelain soft but distinct.

A faint curve tugged at his mouth, slow, deliberate.

“Fourteen-thirty, huh?” he said, tone light, but there was a flicker in his black eyes—something that wasn’t amusement so much as anticipation. “Mine’s at three.”

————A/N———–

Hello, it is your fraudulent Author here.

To explain why I stopped posting… This summer was brutal—two full-time internships, three ongoing books, and side projects all piled up. I hit a wall.

On top of that, I had health checkups, military paperwork, and had to move out suddenly (my monitor didn’t survive the trip).

That is why I decided to stop posting to clear my head completely. I am aware of the fact that the latest Chapters were kind of this and there, and that was because of the lack of direction that I was having with my book.

Looking back, I definitely should have stopped writing and taken a break way earlier than I have already.

From now on, regular Chapters will continue.

I am also going to post a follow-up regarding Hunter Academy.

Thank you all for the patience and support—you’ve no idea how much it means.

—Darkness_Enjoyer