The echoes, now a loosely unified but still deeply suspicious coalition, ascended the starlight staircase. They arrived in the second chamber of the Gauntlet, their minds prepared for another grand, conceptual battle.
Instead, they found themselves in a perfect, mundane replica of a modern high school classroom. Desks were arranged in neat rows, a blackboard stood at the front, and sunlight streamed through the windows, showing a peaceful, generic campus outside.
The assembled warriors—knights in full plate, sorcerers in dark robes, corporate overlords in chrome suits—looked around the bizarrely normal room, utterly bewildered.
"What is this place?" the Shadow-Slayer knight asked, his hand on his sword, expecting a monster to burst from a locker. "Some kind of... indoctrination chamber?"
"It appears to be a place of learning for commoners," the corporate CEO echo surmised, a look of disdain on his face.
From their observation deck, Jin-woo looked at the scene, then at Cid.
Glowing runes appeared on the blackboard at the front of the classroom, written in a neat, unassuming script. Zenith, being the most familiar with text-based clues, read them aloud.
"'Second Trial: The Trial of the Unseen'," he announced. "'True mastery is not in standing out, but in blending in. The goal of this trial is simple: live one, full, simulated school day as a perfectly average student. Do not draw attention to yourselves. Do not use your powers. Do not excel. Do not fail spectacularly. Be aggressively, beautifully mediocre. The last one to be noticed by the 'teacher' passes'."
A collective, baffled silence fell over the echoes. They were being asked to sheathe their legendary powers, hide their world-shaking ambitions, and pretend to be... normal teenagers. For many of them, it was a more terrifying prospect than fighting a god.
Suddenly, their clothes and armor shimmered and changed. They were all now wearing the same, generic, ill-fitting school uniform. The Shadow-Slayer's shining plate was replaced by a blazer and slacks. The dark sorcerer's robes became a simple schoolgirl's uniform, much to her sputtering, furious embarrassment.
Then, the 'teacher' entered. It was not a golem or a monster. It was a perfect, lifelike replica of a tired, overworked, middle-aged history teacher, complete with a balding spot and coffee-stained shirt. He was an AI construct, but his programming was flawless. He was designed to notice anything out of the ordinary.
"Alright class, settle down, settle down," the teacher-construct sighed, dropping a stack of books on his desk. "Turn to page 47 of your history textbooks. Today, we're discussing the riveting topic of the Midgar Kingdom's pre-magical agricultural reforms."
The trial had begun.
It was, for Cid, the most beautiful and hilarious social experiment he had ever conceived.
The first to fail was the feral, beast-like echo. Unable to sit still, he began to subtly sharpen his claws on the underside of his desk. The teacher's head snapped up. "Young man in the back! Is that a weapon? Detention!" A trapdoor opened beneath the feral echo's seat, and he vanished with a yelp.
The corporate CEO was next. During a pop quiz, he didn't cheat, but he finished the entire test in five seconds with a perfect score, his advanced intellect unable to comprehend "slowing down." The teacher looked at his paper. "A perfect score, and you finished before I had even passed out all the tests? See me after class. You're either a cheater or a genius, and both are far too noticeable." A hook emerged from the ceiling and whisked him away.
The dark sorcerer, forced to participate in a gym class game of dodgeball, couldn't resist subtly enchanting the ball with a minor hex. The ball immediately swerved at an impossible angle and knocked out the entire opposing team. The gym teacher blew his whistle. "Supernatural athletic prowess? You're out!" A giant net dropped on her.
The heroes fared no better. The Shadow-Slayer knight, asked to answer a question, stood up and answered with such profound, respectful, and archaic language ("Verily, esteemed instructor, the agricultural reforms were indeed a pivotal moment...") that the teacher gave him a strange look. "Are you a historical re-enactor? Weirdo. Detention."
The trial was a masterclass in culling the extraordinary. One by one, the echoes, unable to suppress their own inherent natures, were eliminated for being too strong, too smart, too weird, too noble, or too evil.
Only two remained: Zenith, the vigilante from the noir city, and a quiet, unassuming female echo who called herself 'Number 47,' a former assassin from a cyberpunk world.
Zenith was a natural. His entire existence was based on operating from the shadows, of being unseen. He perfectly mimicked the other students. His test scores were a solid C+. His participation was minimal but not non-existent. He was a perfect ghost.
Number 47 was even better. She was a professional infiltrator. Her ability to be a 'grey man' was second to none. She was the definition of unmemorable.
It was the final period of the day: lunch. The teacher-construct announced, "Alright, class, lunchtime. Be back in one hour." This was the final, unspoken test. An unstructured social environment. The most dangerous place of all.
Zenith and Number 47 both went to the cafeteria. They both got the bland, generic lunch special. They both found a quiet, unassuming table to eat alone. They were both playing the game perfectly.
From his VIP box, Cid was on the edge of his seat.
This is where Cid decided to intervene. His trial needed a final twist.
He used his Author's Pen, not to create a grand event, but to write a single, tiny, new plot point into the simulation.
'A clumsy upperclassman, distracted by a bird, is about to trip and spill his entire tray of spaghetti directly onto the school's number one bully, a hulking brute named Og.'
The event played out exactly as written. The spill happened. The bully, Og, stood up, his uniform covered in marinara sauce, his face a mask of pure rage.
"WHO DID THIS?!" Og roared.
The clumsy upperclassman had already run away in fear. Og's furious gaze swept the cafeteria, looking for a target to vent his rage on. A weak, unassuming target.
His eyes fell upon the two quietest, most unnoticeable students in the entire room: Zenith and Number 47, who were both sitting in the "splash zone."
This was the final test. A random, unavoidable social disaster. How does a mob character react when the spotlight is suddenly, violently thrust upon them?
Number 47, the assassin, reacted with pure, cold logic. Her training kicked in. A threat was approaching. The optimal solution was to neutralize the threat. She subtly shifted her weight, preparing a nerve-strike that would incapacitate the bully before he could take two steps. It was an efficient, but ultimately extraordinary, action.
Zenith, however, reacted differently. He had absorbed the lesson of the first trial. He understood that he was just one facet of a greater whole. He knew what a "hero" would do. He also knew what a "mob" would do. He chose a third, more nuanced path.
He looked at the approaching bully. He looked at his tray of food. He then looked at Number 47. And he made his move.
He didn't fight. He didn't run.
He stood up, picked up his own tray of spaghetti, and with a look of profound, believable terror on his face, he "accidentally" tripped and fell, flinging his own tray of spaghetti all over Number 47.
The cafeteria went silent.
Og, the bully, stopped in his tracks, utterly bewildered. The weakling he was about to target had just been taken out by... another weakling?
Number 47, now covered in pasta, sat frozen, her assassin's instincts completely short-circuited by the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the situation.
Zenith, on the floor, looked up at Og and stammered, "I-I'm so sorry! I-I tripped! P-please don't hurt me!"
He had deflected the crisis not by being strong, or by being invisible, but by creating a bigger, more pathetic, and more distracting disaster. He had sacrificed his own (and Number 47's) dignity to avoid the spotlight.
It was a flawless "mob" maneuver.
The teacher-construct, who had been observing from the doorway, blew a whistle. A trapdoor opened under Number 47, who was still trying to process being defeated by a plate of spaghetti. She was eliminated.
Glowing runes appeared on the blackboard in the now-empty classroom.
'TRIAL COMPLETE. WINNER: ZENITH. HE HAS MASTERED THE WAY OF THE UNSEEN. HE UNDERSTANDS THAT TRUE SHADOW IS NOT JUST ABOUT BEING INVISIBLE, BUT ABOUT BEING WILLING TO BECOME... A JOKE.'
Zenith was teleported back to the main chamber, a single, glowing orb of light—his prize—floating before him.
From the VIP box, Cid nodded in profound approval.
The second, and arguably most difficult, trial was complete.