Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy
Chapter 99: Alright

Chapter 99: Alright

The lead man in black took a slow step forward.

His face—stern, unreadable—held the kind of gravity that only those who had seen hundreds of deaths could carry without flinching.

He looked directly into Elius’s eyes, as though peering past his golden irises and into the very forge of his soul.

"These missions," he said carefully, each word measured like a ticking timebomb, "are not what you expect."

The others behind him exchanged glances.

The second man in black stepped in to continue. "You won’t get to pick and choose your opponents. This isn’t a fantasy simulation where you get to study your target before striking. These will be randomized, pulled straight from live priority feeds. Anything flagged as emergent—rogue bioweapons, collapsed dimensional breaches, psychic screams heard in dreamspace—we send you there."

His voice lowered, growing sharper with every syllable.

"You might be sent to a frozen city where corpses still whisper."

"Or to a shopping mall overtaken by a haunted AI that mimics your loved ones."

"You could be forced to face a mutated swarm of insects that only react to breath, or plunge into a sewer beneath Sector 9 where every shadow has eyes and every tunnel is filled with teeth."

"We’re talking chaos. And chaos never plays fair."

"No prep time."

"No backup."

"No do-overs."

They stared at Elius with the weight of grim truth.

The third man in black, the tallest among them, added, "And we don’t get to control the threat level either. While these are categorized as F-Class by protocol, that doesn’t mean they stay that way. Sometimes F-Class anomalies evolve. Sometimes they adapt. The system can lag behind reality. You could go in expecting a low-tier engagement and find a newly awakened D-Class horror waiting for you."

They stood in formation now, like judges cloaked in authority and dread.

"Some of these missions don’t even come with official villain names yet. Just threat tags. Red Spikes. Phantom Melt. Blister Bloom. Names given by survivors—if there are any."

"Even we haven’t seen the full intel on them."

Then came the real question.

"Sword Immortal," the first one said slowly, "are you really... adamant on accepting these five unknown missions?"

The air seemed to still.

The weight of the room coalesced into a single point—Elius.

He didn’t waver.

His eyes, golden and unwavering, simply stared back.

"Yes," he said.

And like before, the murmurs returned.

The men in black leaned toward each other.

Their whispers this time were sharper, quicker, clipped. You could almost feel the sharp edges of doubt and confusion.

"—He’s too young."

"—No, too calm."

"—He doesn’t even twitch when hearing risk escalation."

"—Could be arrogance."

"—Or something else."

Then they turned again.

"You’re really sure?" the leader asked.

The tone had changed.

This wasn’t the cool analysis of before—this was the last warning before a fall.

"We understand that you may be able to defeat someone like Lava Scissor," he said, almost reluctantly. "That villain had a measurable heat output and basic mobility limitations. Sure. Fine. That’s a recorded feat."

"But what if that’s the only thing you’re good against?"

Another man in black picked up. "And the dungeon you completed? It was unexplored, yes, but when we evaluated it, it ranked at the bottom of the F-Class dungeon tier. No major anomaly readings. No dimensional folding. No elite corruption. Just a one-off nest with unstable spawn generation. So it doesn’t matter..."

"So tell us, Elius—are you really sure you can take on five unknown random missions of far greater risk?"

Elius inhaled deeply.

His lips curled into something rare—a confident smile.

"I can take them on... pretty well."

And before another doubt could form—

"I can clone myself," he added, voice calm.

The room paused.

"...What?" one of the men in black whispered.

Elius took a single step forward.

"I can clone myself," he repeated. "And I can release ten flying swords."

Even the background whispers from his classmates screeched to a halt.

"What did he just say?"

"No way—cloning?"

"Ten? He can control TEN flying swords?"

"Wait—he never even said that before!"

"Are we in a movie?!"

"Is this a dream?!"

Before anyone could blink, a ripple of shimmering air pulsed behind Elius.

From it emerged a second figure.

An exact copy of Elius.

A faceless version of him.

Same golden hair, same posture, same aura of unshakable calm—but its face was smooth, empty, blank. Like a sculpture of a man wearing the idea of a mask.

And then the swords appeared.

Five gleaming flying swords, whirling slowly around the real Elius like a solar system forged of silent death.

And then—

Another five flying swords, identical in shape, gleam, and deadly elegance—orbited his faceless clone.

Ten swords in total.

Perfect synchronization.

Elius stood tall beneath their orbit, his hand lightly outstretched.

"I am confident," he said, "that I can take anything the missions throw at me. This is my superhero ability."

The entire room seemed to break into invisible shards.

The students didn’t even whisper this time. They just stared.

Stunned.

One girl gripped the sides of her desk so hard the metal bent.

Another student’s glasses slid off their nose, forgotten on the floor.

Even Captain Grit—who’d been watching in silence from the side—raised his eyebrows.

The men in black?

They murmured again.

And this time their whispers came fast, messy, almost overlapping.

"—That’s not Esper-level..."

"—Where’s the energy signature? It doesn’t match anything on our hero index."

"—Clone-based abilities usually come with neural lag, but his is synced—perfectly synced."

"—The swords aren’t tech. No thruster signatures. No AI pings."

"—He’s using some form of unknown psychic technique—maybe symbolic imprinting?"

"—We need to escalate his profile."

"—Does Radiant Man know this already?"

"—If he doesn’t, he will soon."

"—Could this be a new evolution tree?"

"—Is this why Radiant Man chose him?"

Finally—after what felt like a century—they turned to him again.

The leader stepped forward.

His eyes were no longer judging.

They were respectful.

But also wary.

"...Please come to the Mission Tower tomorrow," he said.

His tone was measured.

Not commanding.

Not requesting.

It was somewhere in between—a mixture of order and awe.

Elius lowered his hand, and the clone behind him dissipated like smoke caught in moonlight. The ten swords gently slowed, then returned to his side, vanishing with a soft metallic chime.

He nodded slowly.

"Thank you for your time... and the opportunity."

Then, without another word, Elius turned and went back down to his seat, while the class, the agents, and even the silence itself nodded at him.

After that, the classroom settled back into an eerie calm, like the surface of a lake hiding the monsters below. Captain Grit resumed his position at the front, seemingly unaffected by the cosmic-level disturbance that had just unfolded in the form of Elius and his clone swords.

"Alright," he grunted, adjusting the metallic straps on his combat harness. "Now that the... uh... surprise inspection is over, let’s get back to orientation."

Nobody said a word.

Not because they didn’t have questions, but because no one dared break the silence still humming in the air.

Captain Grit turned to the projected map behind him. "This is your world now. The F-Rank City. You’ll be living here. Training here. Probably bleeding here too. Get used to it."

With a click of a remote, the image shifted to a wireframe display of several buildings, all labeled in bold red or pale gray text.

"This here’s the Recovery Pod Block, officially called ’Sector Re-08.’ You get hurt, you crawl there. Try not to scream too loud; it annoys the medbots."

Another shift.

"The Low Combat Simulation Dome. F-Class only. No flight. No anti-matter use. No psychic overcharges. If you blow it up, we make you clean the rubble."

Shift.

"The Disaster Reenactment Grounds. You get to relive real F-Class disasters. Fires. Floods. Civilian panics. Fun times."

Shift.

"The Hero Psychological Adjustment Facility. Also known as ’The Cry Room.’ Use it. Or don’t. Up to you."

One final click.

"The Mission Tower. Only show up there if you’ve been approved for a real field mission. You’re not heroes yet. Not really. That comes later."

His gaze lingered on Elius for a moment, but he said nothing.

Eventually, the session ended with no further spectacle. No fanfare.

Just Grit grumbling out, "Dismissed," and the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as students slowly stood—some stealing glances at Elius, others avoiding him entirely.

Elius left in silence.