Ilena Ashen was born in the slums and admitted to the Empire's foremost Academy of Magic as a special exception.
On the day she enrolled, she stepped onto the mana-testing platform. The crystal ball showed no reaction.
"No mana."
Those words of judgment made her the laughingstock of the entire academy.
Noble girls forced her to kneel and polish their shoes. Her instructor watched with cold indifference, while her classmates mocked her as a slum rat who had sneaked into the academy.
Everyone thought she would be expelled.
But no one knew that Ilena wasn't without mana. Sealed within her was the last Black Moon bloodline of the lost royal family.
Her power doesn't make the crystal glow.
Her power devours magic.
When the ancient black stone cracked and a forbidden whisper rang out:
"The royal blood has returned."
From that moment on, those who had bullied her began to pay the price.
She devoured the flames of a noble prodigy.
The magic spirits in the academy's forbidden grounds bowed before her.
The Church sought to put her on trial, the royal family wanted to control her, but the dead of the old dynasty knelt to her beneath the Black Moon.
And Samuel, heir to the academy's most dangerous demon duke, was the first to see through her secret.
"Ilena, you're not worthless."
"You're the king they fear most."
This is the story of a slum orphan who awakens her royal blood in a dark academy, crushes the arrogance of the nobility, and reclaims her lost crown.
Interesting.