CELESTIA: Chapter 44 — Those Who Know How to See
The next morning, the entire Academy seemed to breathe differently.
The air felt heavier.
The hallways quieter.
Even the students who usually laughed were speaking in low voices, as if something invisible was watching their every movement.
The UAP's advanced examinations had officially begun.
And no one truly knew what awaited them.
---
The massive examination amphitheater was overflowing with students.
Hundreds of them.
Every major class in the Academy was present.
The black UAP uniforms formed a dark tide beneath the white ceiling lights. Nervous whispers spread through the rows while several supervisors walked between the desks with strict military precision.
At the far end of the room, gigantic screens displayed only:
EVALUATION EXAM — PHASE 1
No additional instructions.
No extra rules.
That silence made the atmosphere even more oppressive.
Zayn sat in the middle of the room with his arms crossed behind his head.
Completely relaxed.
— "Honestly… this is gonna be easy."
Next to him, Cynthia slowly turned her head toward him.
She looked extremely stressed.
Study sheets were still sticking out of her bag.
— "Zayn… you didn't even study…"
— "Natural talent."
— "That's not a strategy."
— "Yes it is. A bad strategy."
Haruto, seated a few rows away, was literally trembling in his chair.
He reread his notes at absurd speed.
— "Oh no oh no oh no… I'm gonna die… I'm actually gonna die…"
His eye twitched nervously.
Even Kai looked more serious than usual.
Robin quietly spun a pen between his fingers while Murata remained perfectly calm despite his blindness.
Then—
CLACK.
The massive doors of the hall slammed shut.
Silence immediately fell over the room.
A tall man wearing a long white supervisor's coat stepped forward to the center.
His gaze swept across the room like a cold blade.
— "The examination begins now."
A wave of his hand.
Sheets instantly appeared on every desk through a holographic mechanism.
Zayn immediately grabbed his.
Then his smile disappeared.
…
— "Huh?"
Pages.
Hundreds of questions.
Fumetsu formulas.
Tactical analysis.
Blessed structures.
Energy compression.
History of the Celestial Wars.
Dimensional calculations.
Zayn's brain left his body.
— "WHAT IS THIS?!"
The supervisor instantly looked up.
— "Silence."
— "BUT I'M LOOKING AT ANOTHER LANGUAGE!"
Cynthia sighed while already writing.
— "I told you to study…"
Zayn was already sweating.
— "Why are there numbers mixed with letters?!"
Haruto was writing so fast his hand almost seemed to smoke.
Kai answered emotionlessly.
Robin thought calmly.
Even some students from other classes seemed relatively prepared.
But Zayn…
Zayn was losing the war.
Completely.
— "It's over for me…"
Slowly, he turned his head.
Toward Yojuro.
And what he saw shocked him instantly.
Yojuro was yawning.
Looking completely bored.
He wasn't even reading the questions.
He was simply drawing circles on his paper.
Lines.
Random symbols.
Sometimes formulas written without logic.
Sometimes absolutely nothing.
Like someone who had already given up a long time ago.
Zayn widened his eyes.
— "…What the hell is he doing?"
Yojuro stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
Then started drawing random things again.
As if the entire examination wasn't even worth his attention.
Further away, several students were discreetly cheating.
One boy used a tiny drone hidden inside his sleeve.
A girl looked through a metallic reflection.
Another student used a small Tracker ability to read multiple papers at once.
But the supervisors did not react.
Not a word.
Not a glance.
As if they saw everything…
and allowed it.
Time passed slowly.
Very slowly.
Pens scratched across paper in an almost suffocating tension.
Then finally—
— "Time's up."
A collective sigh crossed the entire hall.
Zayn immediately dropped his pen.
— "I'm gonna end up as a cosmic janitor…"
Cynthia calmly placed down her paper.
Haruto looked seconds away from fainting.
The supervisors began collecting the exams one by one.
Then—
The man in the white coat stopped in front of Yojuro's desk.
Silence.
He picked up the sheet.
Looked at the answers.
The fake calculations.
The absurd symbols.
The meaningless circles.
Then…
a very slight smile appeared on his face.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
— "Interesting…"
Zayn blinked.
— "Huh?"
The supervisor continued walking without explaining anything.
But in his eyes…
something had changed.
Because the true examination was never about finding the correct answers.
It was something else.
Something only real Paladins understood.
In this world…
a Paladin was not supposed to simply know how to answer.
They had to know how to observe.
To understand.
To question.
And above all…
to see the trap hidden behind appearances.