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Section 1
# Transcenders of the Oracle Academy
## Illustrations
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/121236.html
              
## Prologue
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76419.html
Taiwan edition. Reprinted from Light Novel Kingdom. Scans: Chisato Akane Transcription: bluestrings "This seat has grown weary." The voice spoke. It did not pass through the eardrum. It sounded directly inside the brain of every human being. Language, people, and culture made no difference. Continent or island made no difference. The whole world heard those words at the same instant, and heard them equally. What may have been most astonishing was that everyone arrived at the same understanding of this unknown utterance, even when the languages they used were different, even when they had never learned language at all. "This seat has decided to bring change." People in the streets looked at one another, and then realized the strangeness was not happening to them alone. Those who were by themselves often suspected that something had gone wrong in their own minds. Some burst into frightened tears. Others shouted, trying to drown the voice out. The voice paid their reactions no mind, and went on speaking. "This seat will portion out power. Yet even this seat cannot grasp which ability will succeed in bringing change... Therefore, this seat leaves the choice to the young, who hold the future." This anomaly, the first of its kind in human history, brought everyone still in motion to a halt, and countless accidents broke out across the globe. Into that stilled world, the following proclamation was delivered. "Every student of Mikagehara Public High School has, from this moment, been granted power. Fight to your hearts' content, children who stand within it. Wield the power to transcend, and become the strongest ability users. After this, the only one permitted to ascend... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Episode 1: Those Who Look Up, Those Who Look Down
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76420.html
The day's classes were drawing to a close. It was an ordinary afternoon. From the moment class began until now, Watarase Fumino had stayed face-down on his desk and never once lifted his head. The brisk tap of chalk against the blackboard, the teacher's lesson droning on in a voice without rise or fall—none of it interested him, and none of it seemed to mean anything. The classmate in the next seat paid Fumino no particular mind, and went on copying what was written on the board. His way of living had not become like this only recently. Mikagehara Public High School. Set beside the other high schools of Japan, the students of Mikagehara sat roughly in the middle. It was a coeducational school. Discipline on campus was not a problem, and yet not everyone there was a diligent model student. It was a school with nothing remarkable about it. Once, that had been true. About a year ago, words delivered without warning to humankind—words later called the Proclamation—turned Mikagehara High School into the focus of the entire world. The Japanese government immediately formed a special organization and dispatched it to Mikagehara High School, both to protect the boys and girls from adults who came bearing every kind of intention, and to examine them. The examinations revealed that nearly every student in the school possessed an ability beyond the scope of "the power a human being ought to have." Under reporting that kept the story burning at a global pitch, no one can say anymore who first thought of the term, or which outlet used it first... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Episode 2: The Radiant Road Toward the Strongest
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76421.html
"Well, I know that perfectly well myself." It was lunch, with the sun high overhead. In a classroom lively with the noon break, Fumino muttered this to himself. Yesterday's battle of abilities might as well never have happened. Classmates clustered in twos and threes, pushed their desks together, and ate lunch. For everyone but the few students aiming for the top, the fighting after school was only another kind of sport. "What am I supposed to do... I have a feeling this is about to get messy." His stomach gave a loud growl, and Fumino answered it without much pleasure. "Why... I already understand this is a world inside a novel, so why am I still hungry..." Grumbling at the world's high-handedness, he started to dig through his bag for what he had bought at the school store, then stopped halfway. Fumino was always alone, endlessly criticizing this world, and his classmates kept their distance. It would not be too much to say that everyone found him uncanny. This world was the source of Fumino's torment, but to everyone else his talk was only ravings they could never share. Even if he shouted "This is a world inside a novel," who would ever believe him? "...Mm." Someone set a heavy, tiered lunch box, wrapped in a large cloth, on Fumino's desk. He had already known they were coming. As he drew the zipper of his bag closed, he looked up at the person who had brought the box. They had bright... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Episode 3: Butterflies in a Wild Dance
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76422.html
As if to flaunt its own authority, the student council office of Mikagehara High School occupied the fourth floor, the top floor of the school building. Three teacups on the long tables arranged in a hollow square were sending up steam. Of the council officers seated on steel folding chairs, two seats were empty. One belonged to Shijima Kanade of Heaven's Severance, kept away by important routine business that morning. The other had belonged to Kobanami Kouki of Light Projection. "Kobanami has been expelled from the student council." The voice of student council president Yakouzuki Byakuya echoed through the room, and no one answered. It was the morning after Powerless had won. Not only were the other students absent; fewer than half the teachers had even come to school. The building was very quiet, and the quiet felt deeply wrong. The officers had gathered at this hour for one reason alone. "This threatens the order of Mikagehara. It is not a situation we can ignore." Amakase Anna and Watarase Fumino had crushed one of the student council's officers. Even so, alliances among students were a perfectly natural thing. The problem was that Fumino was a low-tier ability user who had avoided fighting until now, and Anna had no ability at all. "If people start thinking they have a chance of beating the student council, that will be a headache." The one who drew out what Yakouzuki Byakuya had left unsaid was Ohanada Chouchou of Purgatory Butterfly, who had just been busy blowing on her hot tea to cool it. "In short, blow them apart as soon as possible and show everyone the student council's strength. That should be... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Episode 4: The Night the Azure Sky Split, and the Lion Ran
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76423.html
She had been at Fumino's side since before he was old enough to understand the world. They were neighbors, and their parents got along. Watarase Fumino and Shijima Kanade were each an only child, so the two of them played together all day like an older sister and a younger brother. After Fumino started elementary school, he sometimes played with other boys his age, but even then Kanade stayed beside him. "Hey, Watarase! Hanging around with a girl again today!" "You're actually a girl, aren't you?! Even your name sounds like a girl's! Little Fumino!" On the way home from school, several of Fumino's classmates came up from behind and shouted this as they passed him. "Always with a girl" earned him mockery of that kind again and again, and he was shut out of the boys' groups more and more often. It filled him with bitter regret. "Fumi, let's hurry home. Mom said you're eating dinner with us again today." The girl in a white dress, a red school bag on her back, gave him a bright smile. They walked side by side for a while, and then Fumino suddenly stopped in front of an empty house where no one lived. He and Kanade had been walking hand in hand, so she stopped as well. Fumino peered through a gap in the door and found a huge black dog inside. The moment the dog noticed them, it rose, began to growl low in its throat, and bared its fangs in threat. The stray that lived in the empty house was well known in the neighborhood. Even adults, afraid of it, quickened their steps when they passed the house... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Episode 5: Dawn of the Transcenders
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76424.html
Byakuya's misfortune began the moment he was born into the Yakouzuki family. It did not take long before he came to think so. The Yakouzuki house had stood in the city of Mikagehara since ancient times, and like the Ohanada house it was a distinguished family of long history. Born as the eldest son, Byakuya grew up beneath the fervent expectations of his parents and of everyone around him. "Do not be a waste." That was his father's favorite phrase. Besides lessons in every kind of accomplishment, a private tutor was hired to drill him in his studies. As a result, he passed with distinction the entrance examination for an elite elementary school whose students were mostly the children of nobility and great houses. Byakuya began to find unbearable a life that demanded his best at every moment. It was probably after he had seen other children his age playing outside. As if reflecting how he felt, his grades began to fall. Being scolded by his father was the lesser consequence. At times the treatment turned violent. Wherever he was, there was pain, and his heart was never allowed a moment's rest. Even so, the Byakuya of those days still held to the thought that he had to answer, somehow, the expectation that he remain at the very top. He had grown up hearing, from childhood, the groundless claim that he was different from other people. When the junior high entrance examinations came, Byakuya failed. He failed at one private school after another, and in the end chose the local public junior high. Habit, perhaps, kept him studying hard, but when he reported this to his father... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Epilogue
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76425.html
"Fu~mi~! Want to have lunch together?" The instant the bell announced the start of lunch, the classroom door was flung open, and Shijima Kanade appeared with a tiered lunch box in one hand. Lunch with Kanade-nee. The greatest difference from before was probably this: every word she spoke now, smooth and unbroken, was full of feeling. The students of Mikagehara High School were no longer transcenders. Two weeks ago. On the day I lost to Anna, and Powerless took the throne of the strongest, the bell that marked midnight rang, and the abilities forced upon every student in the school vanished as suddenly as they had been drawn out. Or perhaps it would be better to say we were forced to accept Anna's Powerless. In any case, we all became ordinary people again. The Transcender Administration Office was disbanded not long after. Humanity had gained no abilities in the end, and the disappointed media lost all interest. After that, Amakase Anna never appeared again. Our classrooms were on the same floor, so we should have had the chance to run into each other, but in these two weeks I had not seen her once. Perhaps, with her ambition already achieved, she no longer needed me. If that was truly the case... it felt a little lonely. "Fumi, Fumi! Look, look~ I'm super confident about today's lunch!" While I was stuffing my pens, notebooks, and everything else into the drawer, Kanade-nee had already sat down at the desk in front of me, set the lunch box on it, and begun untying the cloth wrapped around it. Then... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)
## Afterword
> https://www.bilinovel.com/novel/2132/76426.html
Pleased to meet you. I'm Kaoru Syuudou. Syuudou is pronounced Syuudou, not Akidou. My editor sometimes ends up calling me "Aki—Sensei Syuudou." Please remember it's the former! Among so many captivating works, you chose Transcenders of the Oracle Academy 〈transder〉. Thank you. I could never quite win over the judges or the editors, and after worrying over it for a long time, the thought "Then I'll try writing something only a light novel can attempt" is what let this book be born. The material really does run to an extreme, so when I took the manuscript to the post office I was still holding the distinctly dim idea that it would either be cut at the first screening, or maybe, just maybe, squeeze into the third round of review. In the end it received the honorable Encouragement Prize of the 5th GA Bunko Award, and that is how it became a book. Writing while thinking six lines ahead strikes me as excellent mental exercise. After finishing, standing there counting the lines—"one, two, three, four..."—must have looked incredibly stupid, but it is an experience only this work could give. Once you have read the whole thing, if you try skipping the parts that look at six lines and read it again, you may notice something different. Now for the thanks. To my editor, K, thank you for testing and verifying from every angle the unreasonable challenges born of that strangely bold mindset: "A newcomer should make a mess of things while they still lack experience!" You also pointed out details I had not noticed, and I learned a great deal. The illustrator, Noco... (Content failed to load! Please refresh or switch browsers)