The briefing hall was a coliseum of anxiety. Thousands of applicants were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, their nervous energy a palpable buzz in the air. The silence was absolute, broken only by the sharp, authoritative voice of the woman on the stage.
She was Pro-Hero Falcon, her sharp eyes scanning the sea of faces with an intensity that promised no mercy. Her costume was a sleek, aerodynamic gray, but today she wore the severe uniform of the Academy's head examiner.
"Welcome, applicants," she began, her voice amplified throughout the hall. "You are here because you believe you have what it takes to be a hero. For the next three days, we will disabuse most of you of that notion."
A nervous murmur rippled through the crowd.
"The Hero Academy Entrance Exam is not a game. It is a crucible designed to find the one percent with the power, the intellect, and the spirit to succeed. It is divided into three stages."
A massive holographic screen lit up behind her.
"Stage One: The Written Examination. Tomorrow morning. You will be tested on hero law, ethics, crisis management, and Evolve history. A hero who does not understand the rules is no better than a villain. Fail this, and you are immediately disqualified."
Kael's heart hammered. A written test. This was something he could prepare for. Something that didn't rely on his pathetic power. A flicker of hope.
"Stage Two: The Power Vetting," Falcon continued, her voice hardening. "This will measure your raw output, control, and combat applicability. You will be pushed to your limits. Your abilities will be analyzed, judged, and ranked. If you are found wanting, you are out."
The hope in Kael's chest turned to ice. He could already feel the shame of his F-Rank score, the memory of the laughter in the gym. This was the wall he couldn't climb.
"Finally, Stage Three: The Survival Gauntlet." The screen behind her shifted, showing a sprawling, ruined cityscape. "Applicants who pass the first two stages will be placed into a large-scale urban simulation. You will face dynamic threats, rescue scenarios, and unpredictable challenges. Here, we test not your power, but your instinct. Your courage. Your ability to think under fire."
She paused, letting the weight of her words sink in.
"Look around you," Falcon commanded. "There are ten thousand applicants in this city's testing center alone. Fewer than one hundred will be accepted."
Ten thousand. The number was staggering. Kael felt a wave of dizziness. He was a single, flickering light in a galaxy of blazing suns. What was he even doing here?
"One hundred," he thought, his throat suddenly dry. "Out of ten thousand."
The odds weren't just long; they were impossible. A sheer cliff face with no handholds.
Falcon's gaze seemed to find his in the crowd. "If you have any doubt, leave now. The path ahead is for the dedicated, the powerful, and the absolute. Good luck."
The lights came up. The briefing was over. The crowd exploded into a roar of nervous chatter. Kael didn't move, rooted to the spot. The impossible scale of it all was crushing.
But as the wave of intimidation washed over him, something else held firm beneath the surface. The promise he'd made on that rooftop.
He straightened his shoulders. "Okay. One stage at a time."
—--
The atmosphere outside the briefing hall was a chaotic mix of bravado and panic. Applicants formed tight clusters, dissecting the examiner's every word.
"A survival test? That's my specialty!" a boy with rock-like skin boasted.
"I'm more worried about the written exam," a girl confessed, frantically scrolling through notes on a datapad. "I'm all power, no brains."
Kael tried to slip through the crowd, his mind already racing. He needed to get to the library. He needed to study. He had to ace that first test. It was his only chance.
A familiar, condescending voice cut through his thoughts.
"Don't tell me you're actually planning on showing up tomorrow, Kael."
Ren was leaning against a marble pillar, looking utterly unfazed by the briefing. His usual followers were with him, all of them radiating the same easy confidence.
"Of course I am," Kael said, stopping. He hated how defensive he sounded.
Ren pushed off the pillar and strolled closer, circling him like a shark. "You heard her. Stage Two is a power vetting. They're going to measure you, and they're going to find you have nothing. It'll be a repeat of the school assessment, but this time, in front of everyone."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, cutting whisper. "This exam isn't a charity event for the weak. It's for people who can actually make a difference. People like me. You're just taking up a spot that a more deserving candidate could have."
The words were poison darts, each one hitting a fresh wound. The memory of his sputtering light, the F-Rank, the laughter—it all came rushing back.
"He's right," the voice of doubt screamed in his head. "What am I doing? I'm a fraud. I'm wasting everyone's time."
He could feel the stares of the nearby applicants. They'd seen Ren, the S-Rank prodigy, and now they were looking at him, the target of his scorn. He was being judged before the test even began.
His confidence crumbled. The small spark of hope from the written test was extinguished.
But as he stood there, ready to break, another image pushed through the haze of doubt. The purse-snatcher's shocked face, blinded by a flash of light. The old man's grateful eyes in the alley.
"I made a difference then," a defiant thought fought back. "It wasn't S-Rank, but it was something."
That small victory was his anchor in a storm of inadequacy.
He looked up, meeting Ren's gaze. The fear was still there, but it was no longer in control.
"I'm not here to compete with you, Ren," Kael said, his voice quiet but steady. "I'm here to see how far I can go."
Ren scoffed, clearly not expecting a response. "You won't go far. You'll be the first one to wash out."
He turned his back and walked away, his friends laughing as they followed. "See you at the bottom, Glow-worm."
Kael watched them leave, the insult bouncing off him. The doubt was still there, a cold knot in his stomach. But his resolve had hardened around it.
He had a test to study for.
—--
The days leading up to the exam became a blur of relentless, solitary effort. Kael's world shrank to three places: the library, the park, and his room.
Day: The public library. He surrounded himself with stacks of digital and physical books. 'Hero Ethics & Law, 5th Edition.' 'A Chronicle of the Great Evolve Wars.' 'Crisis Management Tactics for Urban Environments.' He devoured them, his datapad glowing late into the night. His mind was a muscle, and for the first time, he was training it to its breaking point. This, he could control.
Night: A deserted corner of the local park. While other applicants were at state-of-the-art gyms, Kael was doing push-ups on damp grass until his arms screamed in protest. He ran laps around the pond until his lungs felt like they were on fire, the city lights a distant, blurry witness to his struggle. He wasn't aiming for S-Rank strength; he was just trying not to be fragile.
The In-Between: His cramped room. This was for the hardest training of all. He'd sit cross-legged on the floor, focusing on a single, dead battery. "Come on… just a little…" he'd whisper, sweat beading on his forehead.
He'd push, pouring his will into his hand. A weak flicker would appear. He'd try to hold it. One second. Two. Then it would sputter and die, leaving him panting in the dark. Failure. Again. And again.
He slammed his fist on the floor in frustration one night, the sting jarring him. "It's no use! I'm just not strong enough!"
He was about to give up when his eyes fell on a small bag of marbles he'd had since he was a kid. An idea sparked, born not of power, but of desperation.
He tipped the marbles onto the floor. Instead of focusing on one point, he tried to spread his energy thin, to touch all of them at once.
He closed his eyes and concentrated.
When he opened them, the floor was dotted with twenty tiny, faint points of light. It was dim, almost useless. But it was something new.
He took a handful of the glowing marbles and tossed them into the darkest corner of his room. They scattered, and for a brief moment, the entire corner was illuminated. It wasn't a spotlight; it was a net of light, revealing the whole space at once.
A slow smile spread across his face. It wasn't about the brightness. It was about the application.
The montage continued. Days of studying bled into nights of running. The dark circles under his eyes deepened. His body ached constantly. The light in his hand still sputtered, but he could now hold it for ten seconds. The marbles now glowed a little brighter.
He was still weak. He was still leagues behind everyone else. But he wasn't the same. He was forging himself in the fires of his own limitations, one painful, exhausting day at a time.
—--
The night before the exam, Kael found himself back on the rooftop. The city below was a vast, uncaring ocean of light, each flicker a life, a dream, a power greater than his own.
He sat on the ledge, his legs dangling over the edge, the wind cool against his face. His body was a symphony of aches. His mind was crammed with facts and laws. He was more prepared than he had ever been in his life, and yet he had never felt so terrified.
"Tomorrow, it begins," he thought, his gaze fixed on the distant silhouette of the Academy. "And I'm not ready."
The truth of it was a bitter pill. Weeks of training, and what did he have to show for it? He could run a little farther. He knew the legal difference between public endangerment and collateral damage. His power… his power was still a joke.
He held up his hand, channeling his energy. A soft, steady light bloomed in his palm. It was brighter than before, more stable. He could hold it for almost a minute now if he really focused. But it was still just a glow. A nightlight. Ren could probably level a building with the energy he expended just getting out of bed.
"What was I thinking? This is impossible. Ren was right. I'm just going to humiliate myself."
The weight of the ten thousand applicants, the three stages, the S-Ranks and the prodigies, pressed down on him. He was bringing a marble to a gunfight.
He let the light in his hand die, the darkness rushing back in. He closed his eyes, the feeling of utter hopelessness washing over him.
He was about to retreat into his despair when he remembered the scattered, glowing marbles on his floor. The creative solution born from weakness.
His eyes snapped open.
His thinking was all wrong. He had been so focused on closing the gap between his power and Ren's that he'd missed the point. He couldn't close that gap. Not by tomorrow. Not in a year.
He wasn't supposed to.
"I don't need to be the strongest," he realized, the thought a sudden, clarifying shock. "I don't need to be a powerhouse. That's not who I am."
He was the boy who used a flash of light to distract a thug. He was the boy who thought to illuminate a whole corner with scattered light instead of one bright beam. His strength wasn't in his power's output. It was in how he chose to use it.
"I just need to start," he whispered to the wind. "I just need to pass Stage One."
A sense of calm settled over him. His goal wasn't to win the whole exam tomorrow. His goal was to survive the first day. To pass the written test. That was a mountain he believed he could climb.
He stood up, his resolve no longer a fragile hope, but a solid, grounded thing.
"One step," he said, his voice firm. "Just take the first step."
—--
End of Chapter 3