Mordecai walked out of the examination hall, his head throbbing. The bright sunlight of the Academy grounds felt like a physical assault after the cold, suffocating atmosphere of the testing room. He just wanted to find a dark corner, sit down, and figure out how to stop his life from spiraling into a dumpster fire.
"Mordecai! Over here!"
He flinched. Elara Solari was standing by a marble fountain, surrounded by a group of noble students who looked like they were carved out of gold and ego. She waved him over, and the other students turned to stare at him like he was a stray dog that had wandered onto a palace rug.
'Fuck. Why can't she just leave me alone?' Mordecai thought, putting on his best "nervous commoner face."
He shuffled toward her, keeping his eyes on his boots. "Lady Solari."
"How was the written portion?" she asked, her silver hair catching the light. "I found the section on the Dark Tower's hierarchy a bit tedious, but I'm sure a scholar like you handled it easily."
'Easy? I just spent an hour shitting on the only home I've ever known so your people don't burn me at the stake,' he screamed internally.
Outwardly, he just rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the ground. "It was... okay. I think I got the basic facts right. I'm not really a genius or anything."
Elara smiled, that same sharp, calculating look in her eyes. "Don't be so modest. You have a strange air about you, Mordecai. Anyway, I just finished my practical. I scored an A+ on the mana-conduit dummies. They said my holy light output was the highest in the morning session."
Mordecai's stomach did a slow, sickening somersault. "Practical? There's a magic practical? Right now?"
"Of course," Elara said, gesturing toward a row of training squares where wooden golems were being blasted by fire, ice, and light. "Each student has to hit a dummy with their strongest offensive spell. It measures the quality of your mana under pressure."
Mordecai looked at the wooden dummies. They were enchanted with "Truth-Seeker" runes—designed to glow a specific color based on the element of the caster.
'I'm dead. I'm actually, 100% dead this time,' he thought, his palms beginning to sweat. 'If I hit that thing with a normal spell, it'll be weak because I'm suppressing my mana. But if even a drop of the Abyss leaks out, that dummy is going to turn black and start screaming. Every Holy Knight in this city will be on me in seconds.'
"I... I'm really weak, Lady Solari," Mordecai stammered, his voice sounding genuinely pathetic because he was actually panicking. "My mana capacity is F-rank, remember? I'll probably just tickle the dummy and get kicked out."
"Rank isn't everything," Elara replied, her voice dropping to a whisper as she stepped closer. "There's something about you that the testing stone couldn't catch. I'm curious to see what it is."
She wasn't just being nice. She was testing him.
'She suspects something. If I fail too hard, she'll know I'm hiding something. If I succeed, the Academy finds out I'm a monster. Why is my life so fucking horrible?'
A loud voice boomed from the center of the square. "Applicant 402! Mordecai Thorne! Report to Circle 7 for the Practical Evaluation!"
Mordecai looked at the training circle. A wooden dummy stood there, its carved face looking mockingly at him.
[Status: Extreme Stress]
[The Primordial Hollow is agitated...]
'Shut up,' Mordecai thought at the screen. 'I just need to throw a rock or something. Anything but magic.'