Seat of Ascension
Volume One
At Vanguard Academy, everyone can see where you stand.
Book details
At Vanguard Academy, everyone has a rank. Only one person can claim the Seat.
Marcus Webb arrives at an elite academy hidden in the mountains of Nagano with a simple ambition: reach the top.
But Vanguard doesn't reward intelligence alone.
Every student is ranked. Every alliance has a price. And behind the academy's polished halls, someone is rewriting the rules without leaving a name.
When Marcus's ranking inexplicably collapses overnight, he begins asking questions no first-year student should know to ask. His search draws him toward the Circle, a powerful network of students bound by promises, secrets, and a book that may be far more dangerous than it appears.
Then there's Rina Murakami—a feared Discipline Office supervisor whose warnings are as difficult to decipher as her growing interest in him. Yuki Tanaka, a brilliant strategist who refuses to trust easily. And Akira Shimino, an overlooked student who notices what everyone else misses.
Together, they discover that Vanguard's greatest mystery isn't how to win.
It's who decides what winning means.
And Marcus has another reason to uncover the truth.
His parents attended Vanguard years ago. Their history has been buried, their names left behind in places the academy would rather forget.
The closer Marcus gets to the Seat of Ascension, the more he begins to understand why.
At Vanguard Academy, the rules are simple: no violence, no theft. Everything else is strategy.
Seat of Ascension: Volume One is a psychological academy mystery featuring strategic competition, institutional secrets, morally complicated alliances, and a slow-burning romance.
