The lunch concluded. Back to the lecture hall, there was now a specific tension in the area, with Mana Quality Assessment having begun.
Thorne stood by the floating display with the unhurried patience of a man who had conducted this assessment countless times. The rotation of students was quick and structured, in a way that suggested that it may be possible to have hundreds of students complete the assessment in a single afternoon class.
"Hanson. Total Reserve at E-rank, Mana Efficiency at E. Overload Risk is 52.4 percent. Step down."
"Vick. Total Reserve at D-rank, Mana Efficiency at E. Overload Risk is 49.8 percent. Step down."
"Lana. Total Reserve at E-rank, Mana Efficiency at D. Overload Risk is 54.1 percent. Step down."
The students retreated with various expressions depending on their results.
"Marlene."
Now, Marlene stepped forth with her wand gripped rather tightly—the knuckles showed it, and the slight tension across her shoulders showed it. She was nervous as she used her wand.
The mana flared with the jagged, visible effort of someone who understood what was at stake and had let that understanding get between herself and the task.
"E-rank: [Water Shot]!" she said, as if trying to ease her nervousness.
A globule of water left the tip and hit the target with a dull thud. She exhaled as she lowered the wand, a thin sheen of sweat along her hairline.
"Marlene Raven. Total Reserve at D-rank, Mana Efficiency at E. Overload Risk is 41.3 percent... interesting. Step down."
She bit her lip and came down the stairs. As she descended, she passed Cassiopeia going up—and Cassiopeia paused, reaching out to briefly squeeze her shoulder.
"D-rank reserve is a solid foundation," Cassiopeia said, her voice genuinely warm. "You hit the target. Don't be hard on yourself."
Marlene managed a tight smile and kept walking.
To Cassiopeia, D-rank was a comfortable baseline. To Marlene, it was the number that had just been spoken aloud in a room full of people she would spend the next three years beside.
"Cassiopeia Terra. Total Reserve at B-rank, Mana Efficiency at A. Overload Risk is 24.7 percent. Step down."
Everyone went silent, clearly surprised by the extraordinary results of the usually silent noble. Then, they murmured, trying to confirm her identity.
Cassiopeia stepped down with the ease of someone who had expected nothing significantly different and received confirmation. She offered Marlene an encouraging look as she returned to her seat—the expression of someone who genuinely wanted to help and genuinely didn't register the gap between offering and receiving.
"An A," Marlene said quietly, looking at the floor rather than the board. "Even from the same books. Your mana just... listens to you."
"Most people are too loud with theirs," Cassiopeia said. "You have to whisper to it."
Marlene nodded. The words felt like a wall being described rather than opened.
"Jax Wason."
Jax climbed the stairs with his right hand wrapped. In his fine hand was a new wand, which Isaac wondered how he got hands on it in such a short period of time. His eyes moved to Isaac's position in the back row before they moved to the assessment plate.
He didn't cast; he forced. A turbulent burst of water slammed the target, spraying the front row.
"Jax Wason. Total Reserve at C-rank, Mana Efficiency at C. Overload Risk is at 48.0 percent. Step down." Thorne's voice carried the specific flatness of someone delivering a number that said more than the number itself. "The injury is elevating your baseline. Infirmary, before tomorrow's session."
Jax snarled, clutching his bandaged hand. He found Isaac's gaze on his way down. "What are you looking at?"
"Your bright future, I suppose."
Leaving an impassive remark that left Jax fuming, Isaac returned his attention to the board.
The middle-tier students took their turns. The numbers accumulated—D-rank reserves, E-rank efficiencies, overload risks in the fifties and occasionally the forties. The room's collective anxiety shifted from anticipation to the more specific discomfort of people absorbing a picture of where they actually stood.
"Peter. Total Reserve D, Efficiency D, Overload Risk 50.1 percent. Step down."
"Sarah. Total Reserve C, Efficiency E, Overload Risk 55.4 percent. Step down."
Isaac remained in the back row with his attention divided between the board and his own internal state. Not nervous, just running a final check.
"Princess Lyra Aetherion."
Then, the room went quiet.
Lyra stepped onto the plate without adjusting her grip or checking her posture or doing any of the things that people did when they were about to be assessed. She picked up the testing wand and pointed it without an ounce of anxiety.
E-rank: [Water Shot] left the tip as a perfect sapphire sphere, hit the target, and vanished into the enchantments without spray.
"Princess Lyra Aetherion." Thorne's voice was not quite steady. "Total Reserve at S-rank. Mana Efficiency at S. Overload Risk... 5.6 percent. Please step down."
The collective intake of breath was audible.
S-rank reserve and S-rank efficiency were exceptional beyond belief. Together, with an overload risk below six percent, three days post-Rite, they described something that the room's framework for understanding practitioners didn't have a clean category for.
Lyra stepped down, her expression unchanged. Her silver gaze moved across the room with the deliberate economy of someone reading for specific information, passing over faces until it reached the last row.
It stopped on Isaac for a moment.
After, Thorne called three more names—students whose results were absorbed and processed and were already fading by the time they left the dais. Then he looked at the next on his list.
"Isaac. Nameless."
Isaac stood. He walked down the aisle with the same even pace he brought to everything.
He reached the quartz plate and picked up his—previously Jax's—wand.
He didn't flood it. He didn't suppress it. He sent a single, thin filament of exactly what the E-rank: [Water Shot] skill structure asked for, no more.
The wand produced a small, quiet globule of water. It traveled in a straight line, the same way it did during the diagnostic duel against Jax.
Thorne didn't speak. The room noticed this. The murmurs stopped, awaiting for Thorne's call.
Thorne was staring at the display. His mouth had opened slightly. His fingers, which had been moving with the practiced rhythm of a man reading results he expected, had stopped entirely.
"Total Reserve at F-rank," he finally said. "Mana Efficiency at F-rank."
He then paused as if gauging the possibility that the instruments had failed. "Overload Risk... 0.005 percent."
The hall had gone so quiet the mana-lamps appeared more audible.
"0.005," Thorne repeated, as if the repetition would resolve something. "I have never—in thirty-one years of assessment—seen a three-digit decimal. F-rank efficiency. Near-zero overload risk. The mana is moving through his Circuitry as if there is no resistance at all."
"He's just hollow!" Someone—Kael—called from the front row, finding the laugh as he found conclusion of his own. "The machine can't calculate a risk from nothing! You can't overload a damp matchstick!"
Many laughed along, finding his explanation plausible.
However, Thorne wasn't laughing. He was tracing the display's runes with his fingertips with a complete disregard for Kael's words, with his expression being the expression of a man who had just encountered data that he's never seen before.
"The efficiency reads F. A very viscous mana. It was accepted by the academia that Mana Efficiency affects Overload Risk, that they are in a causal relationship," he said, no longer addressing the room—addressing the data. "The risk reads 0.005. What could be the cause? It is true that the measure of Mana Efficiency is predictive and limited. It is subjected to an error. However, Overload Risk… the number is absolute."
Thorne entered the world of his own, having forgotten that Isaac is not the last student to be assessed.
"Total Reserve is mass. Mana Efficiency is acceleration. Mass times acceleration equals mana output. The third variable would be… resistance." He stopped. "The Manafold Circuitry. That's the third variable. Not the Reserve. Not the Efficiency. The vessel framework itself. It complements the viscous mana in the most effective way possible... somehow."
Isaac stood on the plate and did not move. He was running the same calculation Thorne was running, from a different direction.
Thorne's voice then snapped across the room. "That is enough for today."
The room looked at him. There were still twenty students in the queue.
"Master Thorne, we haven't—"
"The remaining assessments will be conducted during tomorrow's first session." His eyes were still on the display. "Class dismissed. Leave immediately."
The scramble to the exits had the specific energy of students who didn't care about the reason why the class abruptly concluded and were glad that it was over for the day. Kael and the others left still making matchstick jokes, the laughter carrying into the corridor. Marlene and Cassiopeia left in a silence that had different textures on each of them. Lyra gazed at Isaac briefly before taking her silent departure.
Isaac was almost at the door when he glanced back through the hall's narrow side window.
Thorne was still at the plate, bathed in the blue light of the display, his shadow moving against the stone walls frantically.
Isaac turned away from the window.
"0.005 percent," he said, to no one in particular and to the evening air in general, "For once, a good number, huh?"
He leaned back against the cool stone of the corridor wall for a moment, looking at the ceiling.
Truth to be told, he had wanted to pass the diagnostic with a result that wouldn't generate attention. This… Overload Risk of 0.005% was something that he couldn't predict at all.
The face of his father, Valerius Patriarch, appeared in his mind. He felt no attachment at all.
"Not that it matters anymore," he chuckled.
He pushed off the wall and walked toward The Hollows.
The long day of Academy was finally over.