The Ultimate Weapon at Royal Academy

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Hope Ruthford is Cardinal Mage 9XA, a sorceress scientifically engineered as a vessel of pure destruction, to win wars for the Kingdom of Calidea. But when peace comes, weapons are needed no more. Hope is dispatched to the prestigious Academy of Belmesion to learn more about life as just a “normal” mage. But peacetime is in many ways more complicated than war. Tangled in a web of political scheming and conflicting interests, Hope must find allies she can trust and greater heights as a mage, to carve her own place in the world. The Ultimate Weapon at Royal Academyis not a story about one competent hero in a world of idiots, or how overwhelming power is the answer to everything. It's a story about exploring the universe, human nature, and the possibilities of magic. An academy story where the characters actually go to classes and study, and how even the great can become greater through connections and cooperation. All the characters featured in this story are aged 18 or older. No sex. No focus on romance. Updates: MON - WED - FRI Up to 15 advance chapters available at Patreon

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: Blanch

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 1,328
Views: 301,177

Chapters(95 total)

What readers say about The Ultimate Weapon at Royal Academy

“This is a story with strong direction, characterization, and natural world building, that work very well as a cohesive whole. The action feels vivid and cohesive. The setting is well realized, as compared to the usual fantasy hodgepodge common for this genr…”
BirdRobitRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“As of writing, we haven'tquitegotten into the academy proper, but we've had an excellent peek into the motivations of major political figures and characters directly important to our MC, enough to give me confidence in my thoughts/perspective.Having the ext…”
UnderwhelmingBirdRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

BirdRobitRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a story with strong direction, characterization, and natural world building, that work very well as a cohesive whole. The action feels vivid and cohesive. The setting is well realized, as compared to the usual fantasy hodgepodge common for this genre. The infodumps about magic systems are large...but very thoughtfully designed, with an emphasis on how real world philosophy and science might intersect with magic if it were to exist in our universe. The author is clearly well versed in non-fiction and brings a more rigorous approach in grounding the story than is standard for this rather anime inspired genre. The end result is a bit of a slow burn, but personally this is to my tastes. If only such care was the standard!
Its a shame this gem is buried with some bad reviews, I think due to both misunderstandings of what to expect from this story and misreadings of author intentions about certain scenes. I'll just say our (very well characterized) MC has her own rather strong views about the world, and this leads to a somewhat warped interpretation of things relative to how many of us would consider them. She is very clearly an unreliable narrator, and she sublimates her traumas in ways reinforced and justified by her world view.
UnderwhelmingBirdRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
As of writing, we haven'tquitegotten into the academy proper, but we've had an excellent peek into the motivations of major political figures and characters directly important to our MC, enough to give me confidence in my thoughts/perspective.Having the extra context before we get into the inevitable political snafu to come will make those interactions land quite a bit better, without feeling contrived.(Been a while since I've done one of these, bear with!)(Style)Much like Blanch's other story,The Maid is Not Dead, I found the narrative style pulling me in, making blowing through all available chapters in a single sitting an easy task. The scenes felt clear, and I had no difficulty crafting a mental picture, so no hiccups where I'm trying to figure out what'shappening.One I'll reference directly is when we get a scene description of a past event after a dialogue string, transitioning back to Current Times organically, the MC shaken from her flashback/Lore Drop by being prompted in conversation again. It happened so smoothly I hadn't realized until 'And then I was back' which was fucking chilling, honestly. I couldfeelthe recontextualized scene, Hope staring into the middle distance, before blinking back to reality with help from a friend who couldn't have known the positive impact of her presence.(Story)The setting's a bit grim, but in the 'finding a light in the darkness' kind of way, with a bit of 'ends justify the means'. Even with her experiences, our wonderful Engineered Child Soldier has found a way to cope without drowning in misery.She even ends up in the care of a handler who saw a chance for 9XA/Hope to be more than just a weapon, at least for a while, and capitalized on the opportunity. We've gotten to see the general shape of the environment, and likely the start of Hope's journey to living more as a person. Excellent so far(Character)I've loved the cast we've seen so far. Our MC, slightly unmoored from reality. A Handler, warring between duty and compas
GhostlyGooseRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
The take on school life is enjoyable, the characters are believable. The magic system is fun. The entire thing makes me want to know where it's going next. Original enough to hold interest, trophy enough to be fairly light reading. Reccomend to anyone looking for a little bit of a darker school life story, but not so dark it's stressful. Also there is Yuri potential and that is fantastic.
Likely LucyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
First the mc. She is a good character and has a very interesting perspective. I really like her analytical style of thinking and her pessimistic nature. The child soldier thing is done well although some of it comes across as unrealistic.
Side characters. I feel like some of the side characters are weak, especially in comparison with the main character. A lot of them seam more like common tropes than people. The mc’s “apprentice” and the popular villainess especially feel very shallow. This could be because of a lack of time to get to know them but right now I think they don’t hold up to some of the more three-dimensional characters.
World building. The world is well thought out even if the setting is a bit generic. I sincerely hope that we get to see more country’s and get more information about the world.
Magic The magic system is well written and is more interesting than most.
Story. The story is in my opinion one of the weaker parts of the book. Some story decisions just feel confusing. This might have been just me but I needed some choices clarified to make sense in the setting.
Grammar I haven’t noticed any major grammar problems. The style of writing is very formal and although I enjoyed it some might not.
Overall this is a good read and I would recommend trying at least a few chapters
BedborneRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Hear me out: secret magical girl is nothing new, but considering that royal road was flooded with isekai, tower climbing korean, and chinese murim story this kind of story might as well be new.
The mc is solid. The npc is solid. The plot is solid. Just wishing the chapter come out mire often but thats just my greed talking
archetypenecromancerRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
the linguistic and technical aspects of the writing are quite sound and as a body of work this story is quite good... however it bugs me in matters of taste. i started to have apprehensions about the story after the whole character flipflop... she is a weaponised child soldier who was put through hell... but she isnt a vat baby... so she should have resentment and defiance stemming from having a life and morals from before the training,,, but she doesnt so there should be elements of either brain washing or conditioning but as far as i got there is no such thing being adressed by the plot, shes perfectly caable of critical reasoning but seems incapable of doing anything about it... shes also vaunted to be one of 2 only 2 level 8 mages amongst all of humanity and shes sacrificed her versitility for raw power despite all of this she has none of the individuality that comes from being a frontliner for years.... the grit.... yet shes also not a heartless tool as yyou would become if you were a brainwashed killer... yet shes got no agency nor drive nor goals nor is she working to free herself... shes basically just a place holder with the most mary sue personality possible for her setting.... now maybe this is deliberate and her character development is part of the plot... but as a concept her being a shrewd rationalist who fully analyses and understands her situation with a detached calculus of a ruthless tactician yet remains bizzarely subservient in a way that no irl human ever would... people who are that sub are just not the type of person to be able to enjoy war and combat... shes a mess of cintradictions and annoyances and her emotions are like that of a lonely self concious teen rather than those of a grizzled war vet with 10 plus years of combat experience... also shes been a frontline asset and everyone knows about her existence yet no one knows her face... basically i have so many gripes that unless the author pulls a shakespere level narrative shift and this
c0eosRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I usually don't put reviews on fictions, either because I dislike them so much I drop them too quickly to be objective, because I get bored and stop reading, or because they are so good that a 5-star suffice.
Here I have to write something. I like the story, the world, most of the characters. I like the MC, with her general arrogance and unpleasantness. Hidden OP protagonists going undercover is a trope I can't really get enough of; especially when they teaches others.
But.
Please stop whatever you are doing with the romance and the flirting. It reads like a bad harem anime, and those are never good to begin with. You have nearly all the worse tropes covered (the not-blood-related incest with the aunt, both a prince and a princess (OK, she may be weird and not all there mentally, but who the fuck calls a soldier "my cute little puppy" during a strategic meeting?!), the school council president, the popular girl which is really a closeted pervert -- you are only missing the pedo one, and I think it was mentioned the Archmage's granddaughter is barely a teenager, so I'm sure it'll come soon enough). The MC is both consciously, overtly flirtatious, and oblivious to the reactions she create. I'd even suggest taking an afternoon to go back and edit the previous chapters, to scrub most of it away. If you really want to keep some romance, stay at one, maybe two love interests, and drop the oblivious MC -- she was raised in the army, she can be direct and crude. Another review mentioned it was jarring enough to break the immersion and flow of the story, and I agree wholeheartedly.
Please, don't ruin an otherwise enjoyable story with that trashy smut.
DefectivebyDesignRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Ok, there is a LOT wrong with this story, which other people have explained better, but my issue is with the entire premise. The main character's complete lack of personal agency, and how hypocritical they're treated. You don't force magic suppressing rings on a war hero. The war hero doesn't TOLERATE magic suppressing rings either. This is complete nonsense. Not only that, but 3 of the rings are VOLUNTARY, which should be an AUTOMATIC NO YOU'RE NOT GETTING THEM WORN, and then immediate VAPORIZATION of said rings. There's also OTHER WAR HEROS who DON'T WEAR MAGIC SUPPRESSING RINGS. This is it's OWN problem.The main character is basically RAMBO, and is not going rogue, even though there is every single reason to say F THIS and go live in the wilderness, while disintegrating anyone who comes after them.It's bad. Everything about this story contradicts how the plot SHOULD be going.Can you fix the story? Sure, address all the other issues people have brought up, and then remove 3 of the rings, because they shouldn't have ever been tolerated by a psychotic genetically engineered war machine.Look, I get the premise has potential. Reform the war machine back into society, but this isn't how you do it. It's not believeable. The MC is a walking Nuke. You don't treat a nuke like this. The walking nuke doesn't behave like this either. You don't "reform" a walking nuke, by sending them to an academy with NO PLAN other than "you'll figure it out". No. ABSOLUTELY NOT. You run these people through a structured rehab, so they don't freak out, and it actually works. This can be done in an academy, just not where you send a war machine blindly into it with no structure. This isn't Hogwarts. The MC isn't Harry Potter. The MC is Rambo. That's HOW THE STORY WAS WRITTEN, then it just starts going into nonsense land, like a terrible bait and switch from rambo into some bad light novel.The light novel stuff shouldn't exist, the MC should have more agency. The author needs to ask if the pl
DougheyRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
I see this fic as being a gem in the rough, having found it in between two medioce fics, I think it's shaping up to be a well-built and better-than-average novel that many would appreciate.
However! Though the MC is really great, and is written fantastically, but some of the side characters really grate at me, as some of them act like your generic Light Novel side characters and one is even an archetypal villainess. The two I dislike the most are the adoptive aunt who acts like a perv to a 16 year-old (The MC is a superweapon, sure, but the aunt doesn't know that) and the adoptive mother who forgets her status as a high-ranking general in front of said aunt, and both bicker at each other like they were your average anime characters. Seriously, why does the MC act way more mature than these two?
The maid is fine, though, as most of the characters that I have seen outside of the household are fine; and I have a small idea as to what the nature of this academy is from a narrative standpoint. The Headmaster's perspective on the MC was well-written, and I'd say it did a good job at showing how terrifying it is to basically have a nuke that's right next to you 24/7. I do have some complaints about some of the other characters, but they're more personal and are less jarring than the first two that I mentioned.
Personally, the MC is the best part of this fic, and a glimpse into her personal philosophy regarding the world around her felt refreshing for me. If you like reading fics with analytical MCs you'd most likely enjoy her character. Next would be the worldbuilding, followed by the battles, and both are quite satisfying to read.
I don't really know what else to say other than go read the fic yourself, and if you like it, good for you, and if you don't, well, there's not much I can do about that.
coldsonataRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
If you're here looking for a sombre yet uplifting piece about a misadjusted individual readapting to society with occasional badass moments, look away.
The main character is snarky, acts cool, and talks like the cool kid at school. The conversation and banter reeks like chatgpt-assisted writing.
I mean maybe what I wrote is right up your alley and you want to read about the cool and snarky secretly OP girl, but it sure as isn't what I was led to expect from reading the synopsis.