The admission letter from Dragonborn Academy was a gilded dragon scale.
When Xuan Xi·Hellas took it from her foster father’s hands, the scale was still warm, as if it had been peeled from a living dragon.
She flipped it over. The first line of the enrollment notice read:
“The Academy does not guarantee the physical safety of dragons. Enrollment constitutes acceptance of this clause.”
“…That’s way too direct.” She muttered under her breath.
Her foster father’s voice came from across the dining table, carrying the low resonance unique to Western dragons: “Normal. Dragonborn Academy has students drop out every year because of injuries or deaths. The dropout rate is… about thirty percent?”
He paused, then added: “Annually.”
Xuan Xi was silent for two seconds, then carefully tucked the dragon scale into her chest.
Her foster father was named Hellas. He was just an ordinary Western dragon, grayish-brown scales, medium build, running a weapon shop in a border town.
He had neither a distinguished lineage nor astonishing power.
Even his breath was just the most common flame—good for forging iron, useless in a fight.
He was one of the few dragons in this world who actually said “safety first.”
“You can still back out, really.” Hellas said while quenching a longsword.
“The smithy back home needs hands. Come help me out. Room and board included, no risking your life.”
Xuan Xi leaned against the doorframe.
Her appearance clashed with this border town—ink-green hair loosely tied at the nape of her neck, slightly upturned eyes, noble amber-gold pupils, and a long, tattoo-like mark beneath her right eye, curving from the corner down to her cheekbone.
That mark was neither a tattoo nor a scar.
When Hellas first found her, she was a cub wrapped in rags, covered in blood, the mark beneath her right eye faintly glowing.
He picked her up from the wilderness, raised her for over a decade, and still had no idea where she came from.
He only knew she wasn’t a Western dragon. Western dragon cubs didn’t look like that.
As for her name, “Xuan Xi” was carved on a jade pendant she wore when found. Hellas didn’t recognize those two ancient Eastern characters.
After having someone translate them, he learned the pronunciation and meaning.
He originally wanted to give her a Western name, but the faint power emanating from that jade pendant told him those two words were important—they couldn’t be changed.
As for the surname “Hellas,” Xuan Xi added it herself when she was twelve.
“You raised me, so I’ll take your surname.” That’s what she said, her tone as calm as commenting on the weather.
Hellas drank all night that day. The next morning, his eyes were red. He said it was from the smoke.
“I’m not going back.” Xuan Xi said.
Hellas sighed, didn’t push further. He’d known the answer all along.
Ever since she could walk, Xuan Xi had wanted to go to the Academy.
Not to stand out, not to honor her family—she’d felt since childhood that she didn’t belong here.
This border town, these gray stone houses, these Western dragon neighbors with thick accents—all made her feel like an object misplaced.
She wanted to go to the Academy, to find an answer. An answer about herself.
“Oh, your roommate info came through.” Hellas handed her a communication stone.
“Not bad. A double room. Just one roommate.”
“Just one?” Xuan Xi was surprised. She’d heard Dragonborn Academy had four-person dorms.
Too many dragons meant fights; too few put a strain on finances. Four-person was optimal.
Hellas’s expression turned subtle.
“Yeah, just one. But…”
“But?”
“See for yourself.”
He handed over the communication stone. On it was a line of text:
“SigrdrÃfa von Edelstein. Legitimate Heiress of the Edelstein Family. S-Class Bloodline. Lightning-Fire Element. Notes: Reserved personality, dislikes social interaction. Do not disturb. In case of conflict, consequences are borne by the other party.”
Xuan Xi stared at the line, blinked.
“…S-Class bloodline?”
S-Class was the third tier in the Western dragon bloodline system.
After hatching, cubs took a bloodline test, starting from C and going up: B, A, S, SS, and SSS.
For an ordinary student, S-Class was already overkill. Only family heads had higher grades. And she was dual-element on top of that.
“Are you sure you read that right?” Xuan Xi turned the stone over and over.
“I’m sure.” Hellas’s tone was more like a warning.
“I heard the Edelstein family is top three in the Western dragon territories. This SigrdrÃfa is the strongest of her generation. Her bloodline broke through S-Class at sixteen. The Academy put her in a double room alone because no one dared room with her.”
“Then why send me to be her roommate?”
“No idea. Maybe enrollment exceeded capacity this year and rooms ran short. Or maybe the young lady took a liking to my daughter.” Hellas shrugged.
“Don’t ask me. I only know you need to be careful in there. Don’t make me come collect your corpse.”
Xuan Xi returned the communication stone to her foster father.
The corner of her mouth curved slightly—a faint smile, amber-gold pupils reflecting the morning light, unreadable whether it was resignation or anticipation.
“An Eastern dragon and a Western dragon living together.” She slung her luggage bag over her shoulder. “Let’s see how this turns out.”
—
From the border town to Dragonborn Academy took about two days by flight.
Hellas originally said he’d accompany her, but Xuan Xi refused.
She said she was an adult now and needed to learn to travel alone.
Hellas didn’t insist, but on the morning of her departure, he stuffed into her luggage: a dagger, two bottles of healing potion, three portions of dried rations, and four letters—letters of recommendation to his old friends near the Academy.
Xuan Xi didn’t have the heart to tell him those old friends were probably long dead.
Though dragon lifespans were far longer than humans’, a two-hundred-year gap was still significant for any race.
Hellas’s friends had either passed away or moved away long ago.
She traveled by flying vehicle for an entire day, landing at a small town about half a day’s journey from the Academy at dusk.
She found a cheap inn, stowed her luggage, and sat on the windowsill watching the sunset.
From this angle, she could see several floating peaks on the distant horizon.
Dragonborn Academy was on one of them.
Those peaks glowed with an unreal, magnificent color in the sunset, as if someone had casually daubed paint across the sky.
Suddenly, she remembered something—she still didn’t know what SigrdrÃfa looked like.
The communication stone only had a name and identity, no picture.
She tried to imagine an “S-Class, Lightning-Fire dual-element” young lady—probably an imposing dragon, dark scales, eyes with lightning patterns, breath mixed with thunder and flame…
“Whatever. I’ll see her tomorrow.” She muttered to herself, closing the window.
—
The next day went smoothly. Dragonborn Academy’s enrollment process took place at the base of the floating peak.
New students first completed identity verification at the reception area at the foot of the mountain, then used a teleportation array to reach the campus at the summit.
When Xuan Xi arrived, the reception area already had a long queue.
The new students had all retracted their massive true forms and transformed into human shapes.
Looking around, the square was packed with young, upright figures.
Though most were exceptionally handsome, they exuded an air of “keep your distance.”
Their hair colors varied—silver-white as frost, ink-black as night, crimson as fire—glistening with strange luster under the sun.
Occasionally, a pair of vertical pupils flashed through the crowd, their depths gleaming with the dark gold or emerald light of predators.
These dragons, whose true forms could block out the sky, now had to suppress the arrogance in their blood, wearing identical uniforms, mingling in the queue with a slightly restrained yet still sharp edge.
Xuan Xi obediently joined the end of the line.
Her dragon form was awkward in this setting—not because she was weak, but because her dragon form was completely different from Western dragons.
She had no wings, a longer body, smaller and denser scales.
Overall, she looked more like a serpentine creature than the typical lizard-like giant of Western dragons.
She didn’t want to become the center of attention on her first day.
After waiting for over half an hour, it was finally her turn.
The teacher at reception was an old A-Class dragon. He squinted at her identity document, then at her, then back at the document, several times.
“You…” The teacher hesitated. “Why is your bloodline information field empty?”
“I don’t know.” Xuan Xi said honestly.
The teacher opened his mouth as if to ask something, but ultimately just shook his head and stamped her identity document.
“Alright, go on up. Your dorm is in the Third District, Room 404.”
Xuan Xi took the document and walked toward the teleportation array.
What she didn’t know was that as she turned away, the teacher’s gaze lingered on the mark beneath her right eye for a long moment, then he quickly flipped open a thick logbook and scribbled a line in the remarks column.
—
The teleportation array brought her to the summit.
The Academy was larger than she’d imagined, its architecture blending the rough style of Western dragons with an exotic aesthetic she couldn’t quite name.
Massive stone pillars, domes, archways—everywhere were dragon totems and crests. In the distance, she could see training grounds, a library, a cafeteria, and a white tower soaring into the clouds.
She followed the signs to the Third District, a dormitory building separate from the main campus.
Five stories. Her room was on the fourth floor, at the very end.
The hallway was quiet. Unnaturally quiet.
As Xuan Xi walked down the corridor, she passed several dorm rooms with open doors. New students chatted noisily, organizing luggage. When they saw her pass, their gazes turned subtle.
Not because she was strange—well, partially—but more because she was heading toward the room everyone knew belonged to “that person.”
As she passed one dorm, a lizard-like dragon girl who was making her bed lowered her voice to her roommate: “Look, she’s going to the end.”
“That room? She doesn’t know yet, does she?”
“Wanna bet how long she lasts in there?”
“A week.”
“I’ll bet three days.”
Xuan Xi had good hearing, but she pretended not to hear.
The door at the end of the hall was closed. The nameplate read “404,” with a line underneath: “Double Room·Special Arrangement.”
She took a deep breath and knocked. No answer.
She knocked again. Still no answer.
She tried pushing the door. It was unlocked.
The door swung open. The room was larger than she’d expected. Two beds were distributed on opposite sides, separated by a semi-transparent screen.
The area by the window was open, with a desk and wardrobe.
One desk was already occupied—neatly arranged books and a black crystal of unknown material.
On the other side of the room, on the bed against the wall, sat a person—or rather, a dragon.
In human form. Silver-white hair almost reaching her waist, gleaming with a cold luster in the light from the window.
Her skin was pale, almost translucent.
Her brows and eyes carried a chill that said “keep your distance.” Her lips were pressed into a thin line, revealing no emotion.
She wore a dark gray Academy uniform, buttons done up precisely. She looked like she’d stepped out of a noble portrait.
What drew the most attention were her eyes. Amethyst.
That was a rare eye color. In Western dragons, purple eyes often meant—
Wait. Xuan Xi suddenly realized something.
She was standing at the doorway of the other’s room, and the other was looking at her with an appraising gaze.
That gaze was calm, as still as a stagnant pool. But Xuan Xi inexplicably felt something hidden beneath that stillness.
“Hello.” Xuan Xi spoke first. “I’m your roommate, Xuan Xi·Hellas.”
She paused, then added: “Um, can I come in?”
The silver-haired dragon girl’s gaze lingered on her face for a moment—specifically, on the mark beneath her right eye.
A very brief instant, so fast it was almost negligible. Then she withdrew her gaze and said two words flatly.
“Whatever.”
The voice was pleasant, but the tone was as cold as saying “get lost.”
Xuan Xi’s mouth twitched. She dragged her luggage inside, chose the bed by the door, set her luggage down, and began checking the bed and wardrobe.
All the while, the silver-haired dragon girl sat on the opposite bed, flipping through a book thick enough to kill someone, not glancing at her once.
The room was so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat. Xuan Xi couldn’t take it anymore and decided to break the ice.
“You’re SigrdrÃfa, right?” She asked while making her bed. “Your name is so long. Can I…”
“No.”
“…I haven’t even said anything.”
“You can’t call me by a nickname.” SigrdrÃfa turned a page.
“Your expression already wrote ‘can I call you Sig?'”
Xuan Xi: “…………”
This one had something—she knew what she was thinking.
“Alright, SigrdrÃfa.” She made an effort to pronounce the mouthful of a name fully.
“I’m Xuan Xi. You can call me…”
“I’m not interested in knowing.”
“…You already knew from earlier.”
“That was you saying it. Not me asking.”
Xuan Xi took a deep breath, silently reciting “don’t fight with your roommate on the first day” three times.
She finished making her bed, took out her belongings one by one: a few changes of clothes, two books, a dagger, a cloth bag with the dried rations her foster father had stuffed in, and a jade pendant tied with a red string.
The pendant wasn’t large—palm-sized, ink-green all over, with two faint characters carved on it.
Xuan Xi hung it on the hook at the head of her bed, her movements gentle, as if afraid of breaking it.
The sound of pages turning from across the room paused for a second. Xuan Xi instinctively looked up.
SigrdrÃfa’s gaze fell on that jade pendant. But just for an instant. Then she lowered her head again, as if she hadn’t seen anything.
But in that brief instant, Xuan Xi noticed something.
There was a flicker in those amethyst eyes.
Not curiosity. Not hostility. More like… she couldn’t describe it.
Like someone striking a match in the dark, then quickly extinguishing it.
“What’s wrong?” Xuan Xi asked.
“Nothing.”
Xuan Xi waited a moment, confirmed the other wasn’t going to speak again, and turned her attention back to her own side.
She hung the pendant, then pulled out the dagger, hesitated, and tucked it under her pillow.
She wasn’t sure if Academy rules allowed it, but her foster father had said that when you’re out in the world, you can’t be too careful.
“Don’t put a knife under your pillow.”
Xuan Xi froze.
“You’re the first person who dares to put a knife under their pillow.” That cold voice came from behind the screen, still without emotion.
“Dormitory rule number seven: no carrying restricted weapons while sleeping. The dorm supervisor will inspect tomorrow. You’d better put it away.”
Xuan Xi blinked. “Are you… warning me?”
No answer.
Xuan Xi waited a while, only heard the slight rustle of someone turning over in the opposite bed.
She thought for a moment, then pulled the dagger from under her pillow and returned it to her luggage bag, then lay back down.
“Thanks.” She said.
There was a long silence from behind the screen, so long Xuan Xi thought she’d fallen asleep.
Then she heard a very faint voice, so soft it was almost a whisper.
“…Mm.”
—
The last glow of twilight sank below the horizon.
The first night at Dragonborn Academy had begun.
What Xuan Xi didn’t know was that after she closed her eyes, the silver-haired dragon girl on the other side of the screen lay awake, staring at the ceiling, amethyst pupils reflecting the starlight outside the window.
She was thinking about one thing.
She had seen that mark before, in an ancient book older than herself.
That book said there was an ancient Eastern dragon clan with a Destiny Mark beneath the right eye—proof of pure bloodline.
That book also said those dragons had gone extinct three hundred years ago.
SigrdrÃfa turned over, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and closed her eyes.
Whatever. She’d deal with it tomorrow.