The ruins beneath the academy were silent.
Not naturally silent.
Dead silent.
Kael followed behind Tovin through the fractured underground pathways while loose dust shifted softly beneath their footsteps. The deeper sectors of the structure looked ancient compared to the academy above. Massive stone walls stretched through the darkness covered in faded mana inscriptions that no longer functioned properly.
Some still flickered weakly.
Others looked burned out entirely.
Kael studied everything carefully as they walked.
The architecture alone felt different.
Older.
The academy above was clean and structured, designed for students and combat evaluations.
This place looked built for something else entirely.
Something larger.
Tovin walked ahead casually with his hands inside his pockets like none of this bothered him.
Like falling beneath unstable ruins was normal.
Kael's eyes narrowed slightly.
That alone was strange.
Most first years would still be panicking.
But Tovin's breathing hadn't changed once since the collapse.
Neither had his expression.
Kael replayed the earlier moment again in his mind.
The falling debris.
The movement.
The impact.
Tovin hadn't used elemental projection.
No visible Path manifestation.
Just raw mana reinforcement.
But reinforcement alone shouldn't have generated enough force to shatter stone that cleanly.
Not at F-Class level.
The efficiency was too high.
Too controlled.
Mana reinforcement strengthened the body by circulating mana through muscles, bones, and nerve pathways. Even weaker students could perform it to some degree, though most lacked proper control.
The problem was efficiency.
Poor mana circulation caused waste.
Leakage.
Instability.
Most F-Class students burned through mana simply reinforcing their bodies for short periods.
But Tovin's movement contained almost no wasted output.
Everything had been compressed perfectly into a single strike.
Kael understood what that meant.
Control.
Experience.
Possibly years of it.
Which made no sense.
His gaze drifted toward Tovin again.
"…Why are you in F-Class?"
Tovin didn't answer immediately.
They continued walking through the dark ruins for several more seconds before he finally shrugged lightly.
"Because rankings don't measure everything."
Kael frowned slightly.
Vague answer.
Intentional.
Ahead of them, another damaged corridor stretched deeper underground. Ancient support pillars lined the sides, several cracked apart by time and unstable mana pressure.
Tovin glanced at the inscriptions briefly while passing them.
"Don't touch those."
Kael's eyes sharpened.
"You know what they do?"
"Old mana stabilizers probably," Tovin answered casually. "Or emergency seals."
Probably.
Yet he said it too quickly.
Too confidently.
Kael stayed silent.
The more he observed Tovin, the stranger he became.
Even his awareness felt abnormal.
He noticed unstable terrain instantly.
Knew safe pathways without hesitation.
Moved through the ruins like someone familiar with them already.
None of that matched an ordinary first-year student.
Kael looked upward toward the darkness above them.
Somewhere far above was the academy.
The students.
The instructors.
The evaluation.
Life had probably continued normally after the collapse.
That thought twisted something cold inside his chest again.
The academy really would have left him there.
Not because rescue was impossible.
Because retrieving an F-Class student wasn't important enough.
Kael's hands tightened slightly.
Paths determined everything in this world.
Potential.
Status.
Value.
The stronger a person's affinity, the more society respected them.
And people without Paths—
people like him—
were treated as incomplete before they even had the chance to prove otherwise.
Yet the deeper Kael studied mana theory, the more he understood something important.
Paths were not magic itself.
Mana was.
Paths simply shaped it more naturally.
A Fire Path user didn't own fire.
They possessed a natural affinity toward controlling and converting mana into fire efficiently.
That efficiency created power.
An S-Class Fire user could compress flames instinctively while someone weaker wasted massive amounts of mana attempting the same thing.
But technically—
anyone could shape mana.
Even without a Path.
The difference was talent.
Efficiency.
Affinity.
Which meant intelligence still mattered.
Understanding still mattered.
And Tovin…
Tovin completely disrupted Kael's understanding of rankings.
Because no true F-Class student should possess that level of control.
Ahead of him, Tovin suddenly stopped walking.
"We're close."
Kael looked forward.
A faint light became visible near the end of the corridor ahead.
An exit.
As they approached, the atmosphere slowly changed again.
The heavy silence of the ruins faded.
Distant academy announcements echoed faintly from above.
Students.
Voices.
Civilization.
Normalcy.
Tovin pushed open a damaged maintenance door hidden behind fractured stone, revealing a narrow pathway leading back toward the outer evaluation sectors.
The sky above had already darkened slightly.
The assessment was nearing its end.
Far in the distance, glowing mana displays still floated above the academy grounds while instructors directed returning students toward recovery zones.
Everything looked normal again.
Like nothing had happened beneath the ruins.
Tovin stepped out first.
Then paused slightly.
"You should probably avoid Brann for a while."
Kael stared at him.
"…You say that like you're not also F-Class."
Tovin glanced back calmly.
"Aren't I?"
Then he walked away before Kael could respond.
Kael stood there silently for several seconds.
The cold evening wind brushed lightly through his dark hair as students moved throughout the academy in the distance.
---
After all of that, Kael had a sudden conclusion, "The lowest rank isn't always the weakest."