After the ruckus of the previous hour had settled, Master Thorne stood at the center. In his hand was the standard wand—the same as what others held.
"The wand isn't merely a stick. You are already aware of this," Thorne said, his voice carrying without effort. "It is a precision instrument. A bridge between the raw intent of your mind and the physical expression of your mana. Today, we conduct the first Mana Quality Assessment, post-Rite."
He held the wand level, addressing the cohort with the patience of someone who had given this address many times and still found it worth giving carefully.
"We are not here for theatrics. We will measure three variables: Total Reserve, Mana Efficiency, and Overload Risk. The wand will serve as your mirror. It will show you exactly where your foundation requires work."
He brought the wand down in one clean arc. E-rank: [Water Shot] discharged from the tip toward the flat assessment board across the dais. The water contacted the board and was absorbed instantly, the surface drinking it without leaving a single residue.
Then the board's inscription began.
Total Reserve: B.
Mana Efficiency: A.
Overload Risk: 0.1%.
The students went quiet. B-rank Total Reserve was exceptional, even for an Academy instructor. A-rank Mana Efficiency was the kind of number that redefined what the word efficient was allowed to mean.
Every student in the lecture hall had arrived with some private estimate of where they stood. Thorne's demonstration provided a scale that they could compare.
From the back row, Isaac read the board with a different attention than the students around him. He wasn't looking at the Total Reserve or Mana Efficiency, but the 0.1%—the Overload Risk.
"As you can see," Thorne said, "Overload Risk will never reach zero. Overload, indicating a damage unto Circuitry and the leakage of mana out of vessels, theoretically remains possible at any stage of a practitioner's life. However, a percentage below one percent is considered the stable zone. Reaching it takes approximately two to three years following skill acquisition."
Thorne looked across the class.
"You have four years at the Academy—one to prepare for the Rite, which you have already completed, and three to stabilize your mana and master your skills. If you cannot reach the stable zone by graduation, you are a liability to yourselves and the Kingdom."
He tucked the wand into his belt with the economy of someone who had made his point and saw no reason to elaborate on it.
"It is the noon bell. Go eat. Return in one hour. Individual assessments begin then."
...
The Great Cafeteria operated at its usual controlled chaos—trays, voices, the ambient mana of a thousand students whose skills were still finding their settled frequencies.
The air tasted of whatever the kitchen had produced and the specific social pressure of a student body sorting itself into the configurations it would carry for the year.
Silas Fulgur occupied a long marble table with the specific posture of someone who had decided, at some earlier point, that every space he entered should reorganize around him.
To his left and right, students from lesser noble houses arranged themselves with the rehearsed proximity of people who had identified a gravitational center and decided it was worth staying near.
"Let's see the Rite results." Silas picked at his plate without looking at it, his attention on the faces around the table. "What did you lot manage?"
A boy to his left produced a small, guttering flame from his fingertip. "D-rank: [Cinder]. My father says it's a solid foundation for support roles."
Silas's expression didn't shift toward anything charitable. "D-rank. You might as well be lighting candles in a gale. If your result isn't at least C-rank, you're a walking failure." He looked down the table, cataloguing the faces. "Half of you are liabilities. To be ruled under the elites like me. Solid foundation… heh, solid foundation my ass."
The students who had been drawing breath to share their own results closed their mouths simultaneously.
"Speaking of liabilities," Vane said.
Vane Abias. He was tall, angular, with eyes that moved across a room the way an audit moved across a ledger—cataloguing without announcing the catalogue.
He was commonly known as Silas's right hand even during the first year. He managed to keep his position post-Rite, thanks to having attained not one, but two high-rank skills. B-rank: [Mana Siphon] and C-rank: [Mana Pressure].
"Isaac Nameless," Vane continued. "Are you truly going to bother yourself with someone like him?"
Silas's expression soured with the immediacy of a reflex. "'Bother' isn't the right word for it. I'm giving a demonstration, that having blood ties to a Pillar House doesn't make you worthy. If he is a failure by every definition, he should act like one."
"…Indeed, his action doesn't match his status now," Vane said, with the tone of someone noting a variable they found mildly interesting rather than significant. "Still, F-rank is F-rank." He then lifted a glass. "And just as you said, given the mismatch between the Valerius-blood and the F-rank skill… he's attracted the attention of not just you, but also of other nobles. The third-year network, specifically, has been discussing his assessment numbers."
"You seem very occupied with a student you consider irrelevant."
The voice interrupted, coming from the edge of the table. It belonged to someone who had walked into a conversation already knowing where it was going.
A confident-looking woman with the hair color of spun moonlight and silver eyes that resembled a winter sky entered the scene. She set her tray down across from Silas with the unhurried ease of someone who had identified her seat before she'd entered the room.
"Princess Lyra Aetherion," Silas said, his posture adjusting by several degrees. A practiced inclination of the head. "An honor."
"Just Lyra is fine. And you've said his name many times in the last two minutes," Lyra said, picking up a fork. "I'm curious why a scion of one of the Five Pillars is spending his noon hour discussing someone he's described as irrelevant."
Silas forced a smile—the kind that didn't reach anything above his mouth. "Standards maintenance, Princess. Nothing more… or if I were to be frank," the smile widened, "because it's entertaining."
He then shifted forward, deploying the social interest of someone changing topic, "And your Rite? I haven't yet gotten a chance to confirm the rumors."
"A-rank: [Clairvoyance]," Lyra said.
Silas absorbed this with the expression of someone processing information that confirmed a pre-existing model.
"A-rank. The royal bloodline holds." He settled back. "This makes the Isaac Nameless situation even more clarifying. When a genuine A-rank and S-rank potential sits at the same table, the gap between that and an F-rank utility result becomes self-evident. It isn't just about him; those of same caliber should know their place."
Lyra's fork paused. Not dramatically—just the pause of someone who has heard a word used incorrectly and is deciding whether to address it.
"In my experience," she said, "people who find something genuinely beneath their attention don't continue cataloguing it. They file it and move on." Silas was about to retort, but she wasn't done. "If he's truly a crack in the floor, why are you the one bringing a sledgehammer? It suggests the crack concerns you more than the rhetoric suggests."
Across the table, Vane was running a quiet analysis that had nothing to do with the conversation's surface content.
He was watching Lyra, although not in a vulgar manner that would give wrong impressions.
B-rank Passive: [Mana Siphon]. His skill. It made Vane especially sensitive to the mana quality of everyone in his immediate range, precisely because this skill was about "absorbing" or "stealing" others' mana.
From his observation, everyone's mana, although rather unstable post-Rite—which made sense, given how the turbulence named "skills" entered their system—was currently in a dormant state. It meant that their skills weren't in use, or were categorized as a "passive" skill like his.
Lyra Aetherion, however, was different.
The flow of mana in her was active. It meant that she was currently running a skill.
He said nothing about it, but noted it in his mind.
"If you didn't hear, I am going to request a formal duel against Isaac Nameless. Given the rules regarding the fallen noble, the process will be quick, and he won't have a choice to refuse." Silas said with certainty in his voice and gesture. "War is prominent. There should be no false hope, but realism. I'm executing this for the benefit of everyone."
Lyra set her glass down with a demeanor that suggested that she didn't agree to his words.
"I feel something different," she said. "Your approach on this matter seems personal. He has something that you don't."
Silas's expression faltered for a second.
"As the owner of a S-rank skill, I can't deny that you are the future of this Kingdom. I advise you on the Kingdom's behalf, therefore—think thorough before you act, Silas."
She stood, tray still precisely organized, and walked away. The conversation has ended.
Silas sat still, not watching her go.
"…Next week, the duel," he then said, to Vane. "I don't just want a result. I want it public. Make every citizen in the capital be aware of the fight, of Isaac Nameless's execution"
"You do know… what the princess is talking about."
"I am thinking thorough. It is precisely because of that reason that I must do this."
"For your sake."
"What's good for me is good for the Kingdom." Silas made a pompous remark, leaning back into his seat. "As she said, I am the future of the Kingdom."