Chapter 6: The Art of Failing Correctly
The walk from the main school building to the indoor training hall felt like a march to the executioner's block for most of the senior class.
"I heard the military scouts don't even care about our grades," Leo whispered, walking closely on Ran's right side. He was chewing on his thumbnail, practically vibrating with nervous energy. "They only care about our combat sense. What if I panic? What if I summon my Fire Lizard and it just sneezes instead of attacking?"
Ken, walking on Ran's left, pushed his glasses up his nose. "Don't be ridiculous, Leo. Your lizard is an attack-type soul. Just focus your energy into your palm and keep your breathing steady. The scouts are likely watching us through the security cameras, analyzing our biometrics to see who cracks under the pressure first."
"Well, it's working!" Leo grumbled, wiping his sweaty palms on his white uniform trousers. "My heart is beating so hard it feels like a rabbit is trying to punch its way out of my chest."
Ran walked between them, keeping his face perfectly blank. In truth, he wasn't nervous at all. Because of his Level 10 stats, he felt incredibly calm. However, he knew he had to act like the depressed kid with the useless "Basic Orb." He let his shoulders slump and let out a long, shaky sigh.
"Just do your best, guys," Ran muttered, playing his part. "At least you two have souls that can actually do something."
Leo and Ken exchanged a guilty look, instantly regretting complaining about their perfectly fine souls in front of their friend who had awakened a grey rock.
"We'll stick together, Ran," Ken promised softly. "No matter what happens today."
The double doors of the main indoor training hall groaned as the hundreds of seniors filed inside.
The hall was absolutely massive. It had a high, vaulted steel ceiling that smelled like floor polish, rubber mats, and cold sweat. Usually, this gym was used for normal physical education. But today, the basketball hoops were pulled up, the bleachers were pushed back, and the open wooden floor felt cold and empty.
"Quiet," a voice cut through the nervous murmuring.
The voice wasn't loud, but it had a sharp, metallic edge to it that instantly silenced the entire room.
A woman stepped out from the shadows of the instructor's office and walked toward the center stage. She wore a dark grey military uniform. It was so perfectly pressed and tailored that there wasn't a single wrinkle on the fabric. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, her jawline was sharp, and her dark eyes looked like they had already decided how many of the students in the room wouldn't survive a real monster fight.
She stood perfectly still at the front of the hall, her hands clasped behind her back. For a full minute, she just stared at the crowd. The silence in the gym grew so heavy that some students actually stopped breathing.
Then, she raised her right hand.
With a loud, crackling sound of purple electricity, a massive bat materialized in the air beside her. It was absolutely terrifying. The beast was easily six feet wide from wingtip to wingtip, with leathery, pitch-black wings and veins that glowed with a faint, pulsing purple light. Its eyes were two points of cold red fire.
The moment the bat appeared, a heavy wave of pressure—a martial aura—slammed into the room.
It felt like the air had suddenly turned into warm, thick syrup. Several students in the front row gasped, their knees buckling under the weight. One girl near Class 4 actually collapsed to her knees, clutching her stomach in panic as she struggled to breathe.
"Level fifty," Ken whispered, his voice barely a squeak. "That's a Level fifty martial soul. The spiritual pressure alone is affecting our gravity."
Ran stood perfectly still. To him, the bat's pressure felt like a mild summer breeze. But he quickly forced his knees to tremble slightly and took a deep, shaky breath to blend in with the terrified crowd.
"My name is Instructor Hara," the woman announced. The giant bat folded its wings and hovered silently behind her shoulder. "For the next seven days, different military officers will assess your raw talent, your adaptability, and your combat sense. This week will determine whether you get a luxury scholarship to a university, or a contract to shovel coal in the industrial zones."
She tapped her digital tablet, and a giant holographic screen appeared in the air behind her. It displayed four words in massive letters: STRENGTH, AGILITY, INTELLIGENCE, PERCEPTION.
"Open your status screens," Hara commanded. "Palm forward, focus on your chest, and pull."
The students fumbled for a few seconds before transparent blue panels flickered to life all across the room. Ran opened his, taking a half-step back and angling his screen so Ken and Leo couldn't see his Level 5 stats.
"What you are looking at is your baseline," Hara said, walking slowly along the edge of the stage. "Strength is your physical output—how hard you hit and how much weight you can carry. Agility is your speed, coordination, and reflexes. Intelligence is your mental processing speed and mana capacity. And Perception is your awareness. Perception is what tells you a monster is sneaking up behind you before it bites your head off."
She stopped and glared at the crowd. "Your stats grow when you level up. You also get free attribute points to spend. If you spend them poorly, you will ruin your body. A bad build will hold you back more than a weak soul ever will."
Victor Alfonso, the rich kid who had mocked Ran yesterday, proudly stepped forward from the front row. He loved being the center of attention, and he wanted the military scouts to notice him.
"Instructor!" Victor called out loudly. "I have already hit Level 5 and unlocked my active skill, Acid Spit. Should I put all my points into Strength to make the acid more corrosive?"
Hara stared at Victor with an expression of pure, unadulterated boredom. "Come up here, boy."
Victor swaggered up onto the stage, throwing a smug look back at the other students. He summoned his green Acid Worm, which coiled tightly around his right wrist like a slimy, glowing bracelet. Victor faced a reinforced rubber training dummy along the wall, took a deep breath, and spat.
A glob of green, boiling acid shot out of his mouth. It hit the dummy's chest with a loud hiss, melting a small, smoking hole in the thick padding. Victor turned back to the class, a giant grin on his face.
"Your stance is completely garbage," Hara said coldly.
Victor's grin vanished. "What? But I hit the center!"
"You fired from six meters at a stationary dummy," Hara said. She walked over and kicked the back of Victor's heel, forcing him to stumble. "Your feet are square. Your left shoulder is leading instead of your hip, which means your balance is ruined. If that dummy were a real monster, it would have charged through your spit and broken your collarbone before you could even turn around. You are throwing your whole body forward like a child tossing a baseball. You are wasting energy and choking your soul's channel."
A few students in the back row laughed quietly. Victor's face turned so red it looked like it was about to catch fire.
"Widen your stance. Drop your shoulder. Relax your wrist," Hara ordered.
Victor gritted his teeth, humiliated, but he didn't dare argue with a Level 50 officer. He fixed his stance and fired again. This time, the acid shot out twice as fast, punching a clean, smoking hole straight through the dummy instead of just melting the surface.
"Better," Hara said, not looking impressed at all. "Sit down."
Victor walked back to his seat in absolute silence, staring angrily at his boots. The message was clear to everyone: wealth and arrogance meant absolutely nothing in this room.
"Now, we move to the firing range," Hara announced, pointing to a long folding table covered in sleek, black military pistols. "Normal bullets cannot scratch an awakened monster. But a gun is a standardized tool. When you channel your internal stats through the metal, the bullet absorbs your power and becomes a deadly weapon. This is how we test your Control."
The students filed outside to the open training field.
Ran took a spot on the firing line. Ken and Leo were on his left, both looking incredibly pale and sweaty.
"I've never held a real gun," Ken whispered, his fingers trembling as he picked up the heavy black pistol. "Leo, if I accidentally shoot my own foot, please tell my mother I died bravely."
"Just don't point that thing at me!" Leo squeaked, holding his gun awkwardly with both hands. "Ran, how are you so calm?"
"I'm just numb," Ran lied, casually checking the weight of his pistol.
In his past life on Earth, Ran had played thousands of hours of first-person shooters. He knew exactly how to grip a gun, how to align the sights, and how to control his breathing. Combined with his new Level 10 stats and high Perception, shooting these targets was practically child's play.
But Ran's brain was working a mile a minute.
Okay, Ran thought to himself. If I hit ten bullseyes, the military scouts will definitely notice me. They'll wonder how a kid with a 'useless' grey orb has the perfect control of a professional sniper. But if I miss everything, I look like a total failure and might get expelled. I have to find the sweet spot. I need to be the absolute king of average.
"Targets at twenty meters!" Hara commanded, walking behind the students with her tablet. "Ten rounds each! Aim and fire!"
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The field erupted in a deafening roar. Gunpowder smoke quickly filled the air.
It was a total disaster for most of the class. One large boy who had put all his points into Strength squeezed his gun so hard he actually bent the metal trigger, ruining the weapon. A skinny girl with high Agility fired her gun, but because she had zero Strength to brace herself, the recoil smacked the gun right into her own forehead, knocking her flat on her back.
Victor fired his shots with focused anger. Because of his Level 5 stats, his bullets flew with a faint green light, hitting seven targets in the inner circle. He looked very pleased with himself, glaring at the other students who were struggling.
Ran took his position. He breathed slowly. He channeled exactly two percent of his power into his hands—just enough to keep his arms steady and absorb the recoil without looking too strong.
First shot: Inner ring. (Good control).
Second shot: Outer ring. (Average).
Third shot: A complete miss. (He did this by intentionally tilting his wrist at the very last micro-second, making the bullet kick up dirt behind the target).
He continued this careful pattern. When he was finished, he had exactly five hits near the center and five spread randomly around the edges.
"Passable," Hara noted as she stood behind him, recording his score on her tablet. She didn't stay to praise him. She just moved on to the next student.
Ran let out a secret sigh of relief. Perfect. I am completely invisible. Nobody cares about the guy in the middle.
"Hey, Ran!" Leo cheered, wiping a smudge of black soot from his nose. "I hit three! I'm not the worst! High five!"
Ken had managed six hits. "My Phantom Cat soul gives me a small boost to Perception and eyesight," he explained, looking very proud of himself. "I think we might actually survive this week."
Finally, the smoke cleared. Instructor Hara walked back to the front of the group and opened a small, velvet-lined wooden box. Inside were five glowing blue pills.
"Concentration Pills," she announced, holding one up. "These pills double your meditation and skill-leveling speed for twenty-four hours. One pill costs two thousand silver on the open market. The top five students from this session will receive one each."
The air on the field shifted instantly. Two thousand silver was a life-changing amount of money for poor families. Every student was suddenly staring at the box with hungry eyes.
"The top five are..." Hara read from her tablet. "Victor, Sarah, Elena, Mark, and..."
She paused, looking at the screen with a slight, curious frown.
"Ran Aldric."
Ran froze. What?
He had tried so hard to be average, but he forgot one crucial detail: the rest of the class was absolutely terrible. Because most of them had never held a gun and were panicking under the stress, Ran's "average" score of five bullseyes was actually better than ninety percent of the students on the field.
Victor Alfonso spun around, his eyes burning with rage. "Him?! The rock-boy got a pill?! He missed half his shots!"
"He hit exactly in the zones I was looking for with a steady, calm rhythm," Hara said, her cold voice completely shutting Victor down. "He controlled his breathing and accepted the recoil properly. Something you would understand if you weren't so busy posing for the crowd. Ran, come get your pill."
Ran slowly walked up to the stage, feeling hundreds of jealous, angry eyes staring at his back. He took the glowing blue pill from Hara's hand.
"Good control," she whispered, her sharp eyes scanning his face closely. "Don't let it go to waste."
Ran pocketed the pill and walked back to his friends. He had secured a valuable treasure for his family, but he had also realized a highly dangerous truth: he was accidentally too good. If he wanted to stay hidden from the military, he would have to start failing even harder.