Slowly, Aether pushed himself up to his knees. Before him lay the Grand Amphitheater, a colossal semi-circle of tiered seats carved directly into the peak of the mountain.
Thousands of eyes—slotted, glowing, multi-faceted, and cold—were fixed upon him. In the center, standing upon a dais of floating obsidian, was the High Dean.
The Dean, an Elf named Malanthir, was a vision of terrifying elegance. His robes were woven from the hair of starlight, and his skin had the translucency of fine porcelain. He held a Spectrum Staff that hummed with a resonance so deep it made Aether's teeth ache.
The Dean did not speak immediately. He merely watched as Aether struggled to stand, his muddy tunic and the neon-blue stains from the Goblin's fruit making him an eyesore against the pristine white of the academy.
"Look at it," the Dean finally spoke. His voice was not loud, yet it carried to every corner of the amphitheater, amplified by the very air. "Look at the 'human' who has graced our halls."
A wave of cruel laughter rippled through the stands.
"Step forward, human," Malanthir commanded, his eyes narrowing.
Aether stumbled forward, his legs shaking so violently he nearly fell again.
Each step left a dull, damp print on the obsidian dais. He felt like a bug pinned to a board under a microscope.
"This is the Sacred Summit," the Dean continued, his voice dripping with a lethal, quiet fury. "For three thousand years, no foot has touched these stairs that were not carried by the grace of the Magical Spectrum or the raw power of the Physical. And yet, you have crawled up like a wounded cur, leaving the salt of your sweat and the filth of your human blood upon the marble."
Malanthir leaned down, his face inches from Aether's. The boy could see the reflection of his own terrified, hazel eyes in the Dean's silver pupils.
"Tell me, child of the mud," the Dean hissed, the sound echoing through the silent crowd. "By what right do you soil this temple? Do you truly believe that by mimicking the motions of your betters, you can bridge the chasm that the Gods themselves have dug between us?"
Aether's throat was dry, his voice a mere husk. I am a man, he thought, the words a flickering candle in a hurricane. Papa said... Papa said...
"I... I followed the rules," Aether whispered, his voice cracking. "I climbed the stairs... like you said."
"Rules are for those with the capacity to follow them," Malanthir retorted, straightening his back.
He turned to the assembled students, gesturing broadly at the bedraggled boy. "Behold the folly of the Council's 'inclusion.' They ask us to teach the dust to shine. They ask us to welcome the void into the light."
He turned back to Aether, his staff beginning to glow with a menacing, violet hue. "You have not ascended, human. You have merely trespassed."
A pause. "Before we begin the Measurement, perhaps we should see if there is anything inside you worth measuring, or if you are as empty as the history books suggest."
He raised his staff, and the air around Aether began to thicken, the gravity suddenly doubling, then tripling, threatening to crush his small frame back into the dirt.
The other students sneered as they talked to themselves.
An orc-boy sneered, leaning towards their Goblin friend, "I bet he's going to get no spectrum."
His Goblin friend chimed in—laughing along with him, "You bet? Heh, you already know their history of having zero spectrum. Humans pray to the Gods that abandoned them. And didn't even give them powers to fight back! How amusing."
The Dean ignored all the voices and continued to channel his mana into this staff.
After everything—gravity soon resumed to its normal levels and the floating debris soon floated towards the ground as if Gravity finally realized its job.
....
The staff didn't glow. It dimmed.
The laughter was a torrential downpour, a cacophony of screeching Goblins, braying Beastmen, and the melodic, condescending tinkling of Elven joy.
It rose from the tiers of the amphitheater like a physical tide, threatening to sweep the small, shivering human off the obsidian dais.
To the thousands watching, the scene was a comedy of the highest order. A Daemon student soon laughed and yelled with amusing cruelty. "The High Dean's staff, a relic that could illuminate a city when touched by a Tier-5 soul, remained as dark as a charcoal pit!"
"Not even a flicker!" Another Goblin boy chimed in, laughing in unison with the Daemon student as they high-fived each other.
"The "Source of Spectrums" had judged the boy and found him to be a vacuum—a biological zero." The Dean said quietly.
Aether stood in the center of that howling gale of mockery, his small chest heaving.
It's too loud, he thought, his mind spinning into a dark, dizzying vortex. The laughter sounds like teeth. It sounds like the big wolves that howl outside our hovel at night. Why are they all looking? Why won't they stop? I just want the quiet. I want the smell of the pine needles. Papa... Papa, you said I was a man, but I feel like a shadow. I feel like I'm not even here.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking so much he had to ball them into fists. He felt the blue juice from the fruit drying on his skin, sticky and humiliating.
I'm empty. The big stick didn't light up. Does that mean I'm not real?
But while the students saw a failure, Malanthir—the High Dean—saw a paradox.