The class returned to its usual calm, but in some hearts, the echo of yesterday's confrontation was still alive.
Carla stood in front of the board, reading out the latest evaluation list she had compiled from observers and her own notes.Her voice remained soft but carried a hint of seriousness:
— "Alright, as I promised you… these are your performance results from the last confrontation."
She raised a white sheet before her, then began announcing:
— "In first place… Neil. You performed beyond your age."
Neil raised his hand slightly in a subtle gesture to show he heard. He said nothing, while some students whispered in awe.
— "Second place… Ryan."
Another boy raised his hand shyly. He wasn't part of yesterday's fight but had participated in the previous evaluation.
— "Third place… Krista."
She gasped slightly, her silver hair trembling on her shoulders. She raised her eyes in a mix of surprise and shyness.
Then Carla's gaze slowly moved until it landed on Adam, who sat near the window, pale-faced, looking at no one:
— "And finally… the last place was yours, Adam."
He didn't move. His eyes remained fixed in emptiness.A strange silence settled before Carla said in a gentle yet firm tone:
— "Now… I want each of you to tell me how you felt after this experience. Not about winning or losing… but what you felt in your heart."
She turned to Neil first:— "Neil?"
He lifted his head slightly and spoke in his usual calm tone:— "Nothing special. It was a useful exercise."
Carla nodded.She looked to Krista, who took a deep breath:— "I was scared… but I also felt something like excitement. I wanted to get better."
Carla smiled lightly.Then she looked at Adam.She waited.And he did not answer.He remained silent, as if the question didn't concern him—or as if he didn't have a language to describe what was in his chest.
Carla whispered:— "Adam…?"
He finally raised his head.His voice came out faint, as if he were testing the word before saying it:— "…I don't know."
Another moment passed.Then he continued, turning his face toward the window:— "Maybe… I just wished it was all over."
The students' whispers fell quiet, while Carla remained silent, watching him with eyes full of deep concern.A heavy silence filled the room, as if Adam's words were stones thrown into a still lake, breaking its calm with slow, successive ripples.
Carla didn't comment immediately. Instead, she looked at him for a long time—into his lifeless eyes, at his shoulders bent inward, as if the whole world was too heavy to bear.
Then she walked slowly toward him. Her voice remained calm, but warmer this time:
— "Adam… sometimes we don't know what we feel, and we don't even have the strength to ask why we feel that way. That doesn't mean you're weak… it means you're human."
He didn't reply, but he closed his eyes for a moment.
Carla turned to the class and said:
— "Each of you carries a war we can't see. These exercises, these evaluations… they're only mirrors. Some of us see strength, some see weakness. And some… see nothing yet."
She raised her hand and pointed to the window Adam had been staring out of:
— "But life isn't measured by what we see through the glass… but by what we face when we rise."
Then she stepped away from the board and placed the paper on her desk.
— "Today, we'll pause combat training. We'll do something different… we're going out. You'll walk together. No instructor, no evaluation—just you and the road."
The students exchanged looks of surprise. Some whispers rose from the back of the room.
— "You'll go out as a group. Don't be late, don't scatter. I don't want you to prove anything… just listen to the stillness the world has forgotten."
Everyone began moving, hesitantly—some with hidden excitement, as if they'd been granted an unexpected holiday.
But Adam remained seated.Outside, the students gathered at the academy gate, some whispering, others staring at the cloudy grey sky that suggested something hidden behind its calm.
Neil stood at the front, as promised, gazing into the distance as if reading the road ahead. His steady eyes revealed little, but inside, he was thinking about what happened days ago when he entered the forbidden caves without permission.
Had anyone found out, the punishment would've been severe: expulsion, or worse.
But no one judged him.
Because the world changed that night.
Chaos.
Chaos that came suddenly, without warning—brought by the attack of the masked man.At that moment, while everyone was fleeing or fighting, Neil was still inside the caves.
But no one knew… except one person—Carla.
She was the monitor in charge of the academy's perimeter that night and had detected Neil's presence in the unauthorized area. But instead of reporting it to the high council, she simply erased his trace from the records temporarily.
Because she saw something.Since that day, Neil never spoke of what he saw there. But he changed.
He became calmer. More focused.As if entering the caves wasn't just a challenge, but a rebirth.
While walking on the sandy path outside the academy walls, Krista approached Neil with hesitant steps, trying to hide her tension.
— "Neil..."
He glanced at her with half interest, his eyes following the clouds over the distant hills. He said nothing, waiting.
Krista took a deep breath, then said in a low voice, as if afraid someone else might hear:
— "Have you ever felt like there's something inside you… that isn't like everyone else? Like you don't belong here?"
A short silence followed.
Neil wasn't surprised by the question.In fact, his calm eyes hid something—as if he'd heard those words before, in another voice, another time… or maybe said them to himself one day in the cave, alone.
He finally said, without looking at her:
— "Often."
Krista blinked and looked up at him.
— "Did you ever find an explanation?"
Neil gave a faint smile, without warmth, and said:
— "Some things don't seek explanation—they wait for the moment to erupt."
Krista felt a slight shiver on her skin, but she didn't retreat. Her eyes remained fixed on him, as if she saw a reflection of herself inside him.The rain had stopped since dawn, but the scent of wet soil and humid air lingered among the trees, as if the earth was still breathing from a long night.
Neil sat on a broken tree trunk at the edge of the eastern forest, while Krista stood behind him silently, her hands clasped in front of her chest, waiting for him to speak.
A moment of stillness passed, then Neil said in a calm but sharp tone, like blades being sharpened before battle:
— "There's something about Adam… beyond understanding."
Krista turned slowly, her expression colored by an unspoken question, and Neil continued without looking at her:
— "I saw it in the last battle. I saw what no one mentioned. The way he defended himself, his hesitation, that moment he looked like he would collapse… but didn't. The power in his eyes for just one moment, then it vanished. It's not familiar energy. It's not magic. It's something else."
He paused, then stood and walked slowly among the rocks, as if arranging his thoughts on the ground before speaking them:
— "I used to think I was the only one walking the edge. But Adam… lives inside it."
Krista stepped closer, speaking with slight concern:
— "You say that like you're afraid of him."
Neil smiled faintly, without turning to her:
— "No, I'm not afraid… but I feel time is passing. And if I don't act before that moment… he'll surpass me. And I can't bear to be just a shadow behind someone."
Then he finally turned to her, his eyes gleaming with rare seriousness:
— "An idea came to me last night. A way… to release hidden power from the body without external triggers."
Krista took another step forward and whispered:
— "How?"
Neil drew close enough for her to hear his whisper through the wind:
— "The magical caves. There, where raw earth energy meets the silence of the depths. That environment… doesn't create power—it forces the body to reveal it. I feel something inside me… needs shock, solitude, darkness."
Krista's eyes widened slightly. She understood exactly what he meant.
— "But… entering the caves is now forbidden, after the masked man's incident. Magical barriers have been set, and surveillance is tight."
Neil nodded slowly, as if he was waiting for that to be said.
— "That's why I came to you."I possess lightning affinity, highly capable of filtering these internal potentials.
The next morning, Krista walked steadily through the academy corridors. Her face was calm as always, but her eyes held rare focus—a mix of precise calculation and a confidence whose source no one knew.
She reached the teachers' room, knocked softly, then entered, where Carla was busy writing notes on a glowing magical board.
Carla looked up:
— "Krista? Is something wrong?"
Krista answered in a composed, measured tone:
— "Yes, professor. I just wanted to inform you that I'll be leading a group of new students this week in a mental training exercise within the eastern fields."
Carla raised an eyebrow:
— "The eastern fields? That's very close to the new barriers set after the masked man's attack. Do you have authorization for that?"
Krista smiled calmly, then pulled out a document signed by a minor magical supervisor—someone with little authority, but whose official stamp was enough to convince anyone not suspicious of her intentions.
— "The exercise was approved as a personal initiative to strengthen mid-tier students. It's part of my applied project in Group Energy Regulation."
Carla read the document silently. Nothing seemed suspicious… everything appeared legal and convincing.
— "Alright… as long as it's under your full supervision."
Krista nodded, then added, as if saying it casually:
— "Oh, and I believe Neil will be one of the participants… he showed interest in the field."
Carla didn't comment much—just nodded.
Then Krista left the room, her steps as calm as when she entered.
But the moment she was out of sight, she stopped and pulled a small gray energy orb from her pocket. She pressed it gently, and it began emitting a light magical camouflage field that would last for twenty-four hours, hiding Neil's energy trace completely from the academy's detection systems—without triggering alarms.
Elsewhere in the eastern forest, where quiet fields stretched to the forbidden caves' borders, Neil was already waiting. He wasn't alone—he brought an old map of the caves and some strange mechanical tools used to analyze energy levels in the walls.
He received a small magical message from Krista, her voice whispering in his ear:
— "Everything's set. You have 12 hours only… after that, I won't be able to cover for you."
Neil smiled and took his first steps toward the caves.
And when he reached them, he dashed forward like lightning, holding a small dagger used to slay monsters—his smile wide, thrilled at the thought of fighting a Class S beast.