Chapter 138: The Eye of Truth +1
Team Soup had barely sat down at their table when the Duke’s voice boomed across the room again.
"Ah, but before we continue with the evening’s festivities!"
The Duke had recovered quickly. His injured hand was still tucked behind his back, but his composure had returned. He was standing near the center of the ballroom, raising his voice just enough to rise above the room’s murmurs.
"There is a tradition at the Royal Gala. One that dates back to the founding of the Kingdom." He gestured grandly toward the main archway. "The Purity Test."
Two guards wearing silver armor walked through the archway, pushing a massive object between them.
It was a mirror.
The frame was made of black iron twisted into shapes that looked like thorns, standing eight feet tall and four feet wide. The glass surface glowed with a soft, pulsing white light that seemed to come from inside the mirror itself, not from any external source. Ancient runes were etched into the iron frame, humming with barely contained energy.
The nobles murmured in recognition. Several of them nodded approvingly.
"The Eye of Truth," the Duke announced, spreading his arms wide like a stage magician. "An artifact from the Second Age. It reads the spiritual foundation of anyone who touches it and displays their inner worth for all to see. Pure heart, pure light. Corrupt heart, corrupt shadow."
He turned to face Team Soup’s table. His eyes found Holden.
"It’s tradition for all Academy Champions to take part. A nice little demonstration of what kind of students our schools are turning out." His smile was radiant, totally convincing, and utterly lethal. "Surely our National Champions have nothing to hide?"
Holden’s earpiece crackled.
"Holden." Maeve’s voice was a fast, breathless whisper. "I just hacked the artifact’s registry files. The Eye of Truth doesn’t measure purity. It forcefully scans a person’s exact Cultivation Rank and projects it as a visible aura above the mirror. Everyone in the room will see your rank."
Holden didn’t react. He took a sip of water from his glass.
"He wants to expose you," Maeve continued. "You’re supposed to be a Rank 1. When the mirror shows otherwise, every noble in the room will laugh you out of the Capital. It’s a humiliation tactic."
Beside Holden, Emric had gone still. His eyes were fixed on the mirror, his mind clearly running calculations.
Lyra leaned close. "We can refuse. There’s no legal requirement to"
"If we refuse, it looks like we’re hiding something," Emric said quietly, adjusting his glasses. "The political damage would be nearly as bad. The Duke has constructed a fairly elegant trap. Either we participate and Holden is exposed, or we refuse and appear cowardly."
"I’ll go first," Renna said, standing up so fast her chair scraped the floor. "I’ll go first, then Lyra, then Emric. We’ll show normal ranks, everything will be fine, and by the time Holden’s turn comes up, nobody will care anymore, right? Tell me that’s how psychology works?"
"That’s not how psychology works," Emric said.
But Renna was already walking toward the mirror.
She placed her hand on the glass. The white glow pulsed once, then a soft golden light bloomed above the mirror’s surface.
"Rank 1, 7-Star," a nearby noble muttered, nodding in approval. "Solid for a sophomore."
Renna pulled her hand back and scurried to the side, looking relieved.
Lyra went next. She walked up to the mirror with her chin raised and her back straight, placed her palm flat against the glass, and held it there. A cooler silver light appeared above the mirror, brighter than Renna’s.
"Rank 1, 8-Star. The Sterling girl. Impressive lineage."
Lyra removed her hand without looking at her father and returned to the group.
Emric went last before Holden. He approached the mirror like it was a laboratory specimen, examined it for three full seconds, then placed his hand on the glass. A steady amber glow appeared.
"Rank 1, 6-Star. Steady and reliable."
Emric returned to the table and adjusted his glasses. "The scan is non-invasive. A simple energy resonance read. It should be completely painless."
"Should be," Lyra murmured.
The Duke stepped forward, his arms spread wide, his voice booming with fake joviality.
"And now! The moment we have all been waiting for! Let us see the true worth of our champion! Mr. Holden Voss. Surely a hero of such legend possesses a spiritual foundation to match!"
Five hundred nobles turned to look at Holden.
The whispers started again.
"He’s probably Rank 1 at best."
"I heard he’s barely even that. Slum trash never cultivate properly."
"This will be entertaining."
Holden set his water glass down.
He stood up.
Lyra’s hand caught his wrist. "Holden."
He looked at her.
She didn’t say anything else. She just held his wrist for a moment, then let go.
Holden walked toward the mirror. Five hundred pairs of eyes followed him.
Holden stopped in front of the Eye of Truth.
Up close, the mirror was even more intimidating. The white glow from inside the glass was bright, almost harsh, and the runes on the iron frame hummed with a low vibration.
He raised his hand.
And placed his palm flat against the glass.
The mirror reacted instantly.
The white glow flared, surging brighter, trying to penetrate his core and read his cultivation. The energy reached into his body like a thousand tiny fingers, probing, scanning, searching for his rank.
Then it hit the System.
The 10,000x Multiplier didn’t just process information. It protected information. It guarded Holden’s data like a fortress, and when the mirror’s scan tried to force its way in, the System reacted the way any good security system would when faced with a hostile intrusion.
It fought back.
The mirror’s glow flickered. Changed color. Went from white to yellow to orange in the space of a heartbeat.
Holden felt the System surge in his mind, treating the scan not as a warning, but as a threat. It fired back instantly, overloading the mirror’s pathways with a flood of ten thousand calculations every millisecond. The artifact just couldn’t take that heavy of a data load.
The glow turned red.
Then blinding white.
"Uh oh," Maeve whispered in his earpiece.
The runes on the iron frame started vibrating so hard they started cracking one by one. The mirror’s surface rippled like water, and the reflection warped until it completely shattered apart.
The Duke’s smile vanished.
"What is"
BZZT.
It was a sharp, high-pitched screech, like a tuning fork striking crystal at full volume. Down the line, nobles threw their hands up to cover their ears.
The mirror’s glow intensified to the point where it was impossible to look at directly. The ballroom went from golden warmth to blinding white in a second.
"Get back!" someone shouted.
CRACK.
A jagged line appeared across the center of the glass.
Then another.
Then a dozen more, spreading outward from Holden’s palm.
The iron frame groaned. The remaining runes exploded one by one, sending tiny sparks of energy scattering across the floor.
BOOM.
The Eye of Truth shattered.
A shockwave of pure energy blasted out from the frame, hitting the closest nobles like a solid wall. Dresses flapped. Hair whipped. Goblets flew off tables. A row of elderly lords lost their balance and went down in a clatter of limbs and medals.
The two guards who had wheeled the mirror in were thrown backward into the archway.
Silence.
Dust and tiny shards of glass drifted slowly through the air, catching the chandelier light like glitter. The iron frame stood empty, its surface twisted and blackened, the glass completely gone.
Holden stood in front of it, completely untouched.
His hand was still raised, palm out, in the exact position it had been in when he touched the glass. Not a scratch on him.
He slowly lowered his hand, looked at the ruined frame, then at the scattered nobles picking themselves up off the floor, then at the Duke.
The Duke had frozen completely, his skin turning pale. His eyes were glued to the broken artifact like he was watching his life’s work go up in flames.
Holden brushed a speck of dust off his jacket sleeve.
"You guys should really ask for a refund on that mirror," he said. "Terrible quality control."