The good news was that I wasn't dead.
The bad news was that every other outcome remained firmly on the table.
I opened my eyes and stared at the cave ceiling. For a few moments, I simply lay there, trying to determine which parts of my body still worked. My head felt like it had lost an argument against a mana-powered carriage.
Slowly, I pushed myself upright.
"Agh..."
Definitely alive.
Unfortunately.
Carefully, I checked my condition. No broken bones. No obvious internal injuries. My left shoulder hurt. My ribs hurt. My head hurt.
Actually, everything hurt.
But that wasn't unusual.
The remains of yesterday's experiment were still scattered around the cave floor. Charred crystal fragments, melted wire, and what used to be a perfectly edible sandwich.
I stared at the wreckage for a long moment.
Three years of research.
Gone.
The experiment hadn't worked.
At least, that's how it looked.
There was no sudden surge of power. No breakthrough. No divine revelation from Lord Shvek himself.
Just pain.
Lots of pain.
Wonderful.
I stood up, dusted off my clothes, and gathered what little equipment had survived. The notebook had escaped with only moderate damage. Some pages had burned, but most of the important observations were still intact.
A miracle.
Or perhaps the flames had taken pity on me.
Either way, I'd take it.
By the time I made it back to Umria, the sun was already setting.
Tomorrow was the theory examination.
My final attempt.
The strange thing was that I felt calm.
Not optimistic.
Definitely not confident.
Just calm.
There came a point, after enough failures, where anxiety simply ran out of fuel.
You stopped imagining all the ways things could go wrong because you already knew them by heart.
I found a spot at the temple, ate dinner, and slept surprisingly well.
The alarm rang at six.
I was already awake.
The prayer hall was mostly empty at this hour. A few devotees sat quietly in meditation while volunteers prepared breakfast.
I washed up, ate, and headed for the examination center.
The closer I got, the more crowded the streets became.
Students were everywhere.
Some walked alone with grim expressions. Others traveled in groups, frantically discussing formulas and theory notes as if one final revision session might save them.
Parents accompanied many of them.
The students looked stressed.
The parents somehow looked worse.
Vendors had capitalized on the situation.
One stall claimed to sell memory-enhancing herbal tea.
Another advertised examination lucky charms blessed by certified priests.
A third sold "Focus Nuts."
Apparently, eating five before an exam increased concentration by seventeen percent.
The sign helpfully included a disclaimer stating that the seventeen percent had not been scientifically verified.
I appreciated the honesty.
Business ethics weren't completely dead.
Eventually, the large testing complex came into view.
Even after seeing it several times before, I still found it intimidating.
Thousands of students streamed toward the entrance.
Thousands of dreams.
Thousands of future disappointments.
A comforting thought.
The verification process took nearly twenty minutes.
Identity scan.
Portal deposit.
Security screening.
Mana inspection.
Yet another identity verification.
Apparently the government believed every candidate possessed an overwhelming desire to impersonate somebody else.
Eventually, I reached the registration desk.
"Name?"
"Neal."
The woman looked up.
"Spell that, please?"
Seriously?
"Neil. N-E-A-L."
She entered the information.
Then she paused.
Her eyes moved back to the screen.
Then to me.
Then back to the screen again.
That wasn't encouraging.
Had I accidentally committed a crime overnight?
"Everything okay?" I asked.
She quickly nodded.
"Yes. Hall Seven. Seat Thirty-One."
Weird.
I took my examination card and turned around.
That was when I noticed him.
Blond hair.
Straight posture.
Expensive uniform.
The kind of face that probably appeared in recruitment brochures.
He was staring at me.
The moment our eyes met, he immediately looked away.
Suspicious.
Very suspicious.
I gave him my standard response whenever strangers stared for too long.
A mildly irritated expression.
It worked surprisingly often.
The guy looked genuinely confused.
Good.
Hall Seven contained approximately two hundred candidates.
I found my assigned seat and sat down.
Around me, students revised notes.
Some practiced formulas in the air using illusion projections, others stared blankly into space.
Personally, I preferred conserving energy.
The exam began in fifteen minutes. At this point, studying was useless.
Either you knew the material or you didn't.
Panicking certainly wasn't going to help.
I folded my arms and closed my eyes.
The examination supervisor entered shortly afterward.
His arrival instantly silenced the room.
"Good morning, candidates."
Nobody responded.
Excellent.
At least everyone understood the severity of the situation.
The supervisor continued explaining procedures. Most of us had heard them before, but the government insisted on repeating them every year.
No portals.
No external communication.
No mana usage.
No cheating.
No attempts to destroy examination property.
Apparently somebody had tried that once.
Eventually, the papers arrived.
Rows of sealed packets floated into the hall.
The supervisors distributed them.
Then came the announcement.
"You may begin."
Most candidates immediately opened their papers and started writing.
Amateurs.
I spent the first few minutes reading.
Always.
The examination wasn't a race.
The examination was a battlefield.
And only idiots charged into battle without understanding the terrain.
I scanned every page.
One hundred questions.
Five sections.
Difficulty looked reasonable.
A few regulatory changes.
Some newly introduced material.
Three obvious trap questions.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Only after understanding the structure did I pick up my pen.
Question one.
Easy.
Question two.
Easy.
Question three.
Slightly annoying.
Question four.
Trying too hard to be clever.
By question twenty, I had settled into a rhythm.
The outside world disappeared.
There was only the paper.
Only the questions.
Only the process.
Years of practice took over.
Read carefully.
Identify assumptions.
Eliminate incorrect answers.
Verify reasoning.
Move on.
I wasn't particularly gifted. I didn't possess photographic memory. I wasn't secretly some intellectual monster hiding among the commoners.
I'd simply spent four years studying the same material while everyone else moved on with their lives.
Eventually quantity became quality.
Halfway through the examination, I took a short break and stretched my fingers.
Several students already looked defeated.
One guy had reached the stage where staring at the ceiling seemed more productive than staring at the paper.
Understandable.
Section Three was brutal.
The examiner responsible for that section clearly had a personal vendetta against children.
I continued.
Question sixty-eight.
Question sixty-nine.
Question seventy.
At some point, I became aware of someone looking in my direction.
Again.
I glanced up briefly.
The blond guy from registration quickly looked away.
What was his problem?
Had we met before?
Did I owe him money?
Had I insulted his favorite sports team on the forums?
I dismissed the thought and returned to the paper.
By the final hour, only a handful of candidates were still working.
Most had either finished or surrendered.
The real challenge now wasn't knowledge.
It was discipline.
This was where people made mistakes.
Fatigue accumulated.
Concentration slipped.
Tiny errors appeared.
I began my second pass through the paper.
Not because I needed to.
Because experience had taught me that overconfidence was responsible for at least half of human suffering.
Question twenty-three.
Correct.
Question thirty-seven.
Correct.
Question fifty-two.
Poorly written, but correct.
Question eighty-one.
Interesting.
I changed one answer.
A trap.
I'd almost missed it.
Good catch.
Eventually, I reached the final question.
Question one hundred.
I read it once.
Then twice.
Then a third time.
A smile slowly formed on my face.
There it was.
The trap.
Every year, the examiners hid one.
Not a difficult question.
Not really.
Just one designed to punish lazy reading.
The worst part was that the actual answer wasn't hidden inside magical theory.
It was hidden inside the wording.
I leaned back in my chair.
Somewhere, the examiner who wrote this question probably believed himself incredibly clever.
Unfortunately for him, I'd spent years arguing with anonymous strangers on internet forums.
Compared to them, this was amateur work.
I picked up my pen.
For the first time all morning, I felt completely relaxed.
And then I filled in the final answer.