The Might of a Genius, John's Grand Design

Bzz!

On the deck of the Icebreaker, a large warship crossing the sea,

Sellviya stood in her Empire general's uniform, gazing out at the endless water. For a moment, she seemed lost.

She could not help recalling the six months she had spent studying at the academy.

To be honest, she had resisted the heavy coursework at first.

After all, her Red Dragon Technique enhanced only her strength and defense. It did little for her mind.

Battlefield simulations, logistics calculations, casualty projections, identifying key terrain—every assessment demanded a terrifying amount of calculation. Even Sellviya, who considered herself exceptionally clever, had struggled under the mental load. At one point, the coursework had made her question everything.

In the end, she had scored only eighty-two on the final test.

But that was precisely what had made her understand how impressive the Fauken Campaign truly was.

In Roxy's place, she would probably have lost her entire army at the Iron Horse Mountain Campaign before help ever arrived.

Not that she felt inferior.

Sellviya knew exactly where her strengths lay.

Rather than planning troop deployments, work better left to staff officers, she was suited to charging into battle. She had the potential to reach the peak of individual combat strength. Still, I wasn't the only one driven to despair by the academy's absurdly difficult assessments. Quite a few people didn't even reach the passing mark of sixty on the final test.

As for a perfect score, even Hawk, the best strategist among us, only got ninety-six. Of course, that counted only the trainees from Faoken.

Include everyone who had returned with them, though, and one prodigy really had earned a perfect score. Sellviya glanced toward the boy seated on the deck, calmly playing chess against himself. He was Leo, the uncut gem John had