Kael woke up the next morning and immediately checked his panel.
[ Luck Event: Incoming ]
[ Estimated trigger: Today ]
He stared at it for a long moment.
"Still not specific," he said.
Still, the panel has no response.
He dressed slowly, watching the notification the way a person watches a dark cloud building on the horizon. It was there, it was coming, and he had no idea what shape it would take when it arrived or how much trouble it would bring.
He stepped into the corridor.
Three first-year students he had never spoken to were standing nearby. When they saw him, one of them stepped forward immediately.
"Is it true you trained under a hidden master before the academy?" she asked.
Kael blinked.
"No," he said.
"Is it true you can read mana signatures without channeling?"
"No."
"Is it true you broke the core stone on purpose to confuse the ranking system?"
Kael looked at all three of them.
"Where are these coming from?" he asked.
They exchanged glances.
"Everyone is talking about the duel," one of them said.
Kael rubbed his face and kept walking.
By the time he reached the dining hall, Mira was already there with her notebook open, a fresh cup of tea, and the expression of someone who had been awake and productive for quite some time.
"Good morning," she said. "Your reputation expanded overnight."
Kael sat down.
"I know," he said. "Someone just asked me if I trained under a hidden master."
"That is version seven," Mira said. "Version eight involves a divine blessing received at birth, and version nine claims you are actually a third-year student who failed out and re-enrolled under a false identity to prove something."
Kael stared at her.
"Version nine is insane," he said.
"Version nine has the most believers," she said.
Kael poured himself tea.
Outside the dining hall windows, the academy grounds were already busy in the early morning light. Students moved between buildings in small groups, training sounds drifted faintly from the east yard, and everything looked completely and misleadingly ordinary.
"The Luck Event notification is still active," Kael said quietly.
Mira looked up from her notebook.
"What does it say?"
"Incoming, estimated trigger today, and no other details."
She wrote something down.
"Last time it activated during the duel," she said. "Before that, it was the Shadow Fragment, and both involved an immediate situation with a clear resolution point."
Kael thought about that.
"So today something dangerous happens," he said.
"Or something significant," Mira said. "The Draventine Shard activation was not dangerous. It was just strange."
"Strange and dangerous are not always the same," Kael said.
"Exactly," she replied.
He drank his tea and looked at the window for a moment.
A second-year student stopped beside their table on the way past. He was tall, with a senior evaluation badge on his collar and the easy confidence of someone who had been at the academy long enough to feel comfortable approaching anyone he chose.
"Draven," he said.
Kael looked up.
"I heard about the duel," the student said. "I wanted to see things for myself." He paused. "I am organizing a practical evaluation session this afternoon, upper-year students testing younger ones in applied technique, and first years are not normally included."
Another pause.
"I am making an exception."
Kael looked at him.
"Why?"
The student smiled slightly.
"Because I want to see what you actually do under pressure from someone who knows what they are looking at."
He set a small card on the table with the time and location written on it in neat handwriting, then walked away without waiting for an answer.
Kael looked at the card, then at Mira.
Mira was already writing.
"Upper year evaluation sessions are not official," she said. "But the students who run them are usually in the top ten percent of their year. They are good." She paused. "Very good."
"And they have been watching me since the duel," Kael said.
"Since before the duel," she said. "Since the core stone, this is not generosity, this is an investigation, and they want to see what you do when people who actually understand technique are watching closely."
Kael set the card down on the table.
"If I go, my luck does something in front of people specifically trying to analyze me," he said.
"Probably," she said.
"If I do not go, it looks like I am hiding something."
"Definitely," she said.
Kael exhaled slowly and picked the card back up.
Training Hall Three was a covered indoor space on the north side of the academy used for advanced practical work. When Kael arrived just after the midday bell, twelve upper-year students were already inside, arranged in loose groups and talking quietly among themselves. They all looked at him when he walked in without exception. He looked back and kept walking.
The organizer stood at the center of the room beside a set of target markers arranged in a specific, deliberate pattern across the floor.
"Simple format," he said when Kael approached. "Each participant attempts the standard three-stage assessment sequence. We observe output, affinity, and control."
He paused.
"No pressure."
Kael looked at the target markers and then back at him.
"I have F rank mana," he said.
"I know," the organizer said.
"The three-stage sequence requires mana channeling."
"I know that too."
"Then what exactly are you expecting to observe?"
The organizer smiled.
"Whatever happens," he said simply.
Kael stepped to the starting position. The room settled into complete quiet around him, the kind of silence that meant everyone present was paying full attention.
He raised his hand toward the first target marker the way he had watched students do in combat theory class. He focused and tried to feel mana the way the textbook described it: a current, a warmth, a sense of something moving through the body and outward through the hands.
He felt nothing, the target marker did not respond, and then his panel flickered.
[ Luck Event: Active ]
The notification was the only warning he got before the ceiling above the first target marker cracked, and something very old, very heavy, and very unexpected began to fall directly toward the center of the room.