His fists were white-knuckled knots at his sides.
The world was a distant roar, a storm he was no longer a part of.
There was only the cold floor beneath his feet and the fragile, flickering ember of defiance in his chest.
Ren had walked away. The next candidate was already on stage, their Evolve a brilliant display of crackling electricity.
But Kael didn't move.
He didn't retreat into the shadows of the crowd as he was supposed to.
His feet, which had felt like lead moments ago, now felt rooted to the spot.
He turned.
Slowly, deliberately, he turned back towards the judges' dais.
A few candidates noticed the strange act of defiance. A ripple of confusion spread through the nearby crowd.
"What's he doing?"
"Is he crazy? Just get out of the way."
He took a step.
Then another.
He walked back towards the stage he had just been dismissed from, his heart hammering a frantic, wild rhythm against his ribs.
Ren, hearing the murmurs, turned around. His look of triumph curdled into disbelief, then into pure, contemptuous rage.
"What in the world do you think you're doing, Mori?" he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous threat.
Kael ignored him. His eyes were locked on the five figures behind the long desk.
He stopped at the bottom of the stage steps, his entire body trembling but his voice, when it came out, was shockingly clear.
"Please."
The lead judge, who had been watching the current candidate, looked down at him with an expression of profound annoyance.
"What is it, candidate? You are disrupting the examination."
Kael swallowed, his throat dry.
"Please… let me try again."
The words hung in the air for a moment. Then the arena erupted.
Not with cheers. But with a wave of derisive, scornful laughter, far louder and more cruel than before.
"Is he serious?!"
"Just quit already!"
Ren's voice cut through the din, sharp and dripping with malice.
"Embarrassing yourself twice won't make you a hero, Mori! It just makes you pathetic!"
Kael's hands shook, but he did not lower his gaze.
—--
The lead judge's eyes narrowed into slits.
"Absolutely not," she said, her voice like stone. "You had your ninety seconds. The rules are clear. Step aside."
Her words were a hammer blow, a final verdict.
But Kael didn't move. "The rules… the rules state a candidate can be re-evaluated if their Evolve was misjudged or if there were extenuating circumstances."
He was quoting a deep-cut clause from the academy handbook, one he'd memorized during his sleepless nights of study.
One of the other judges, a heavy-set man, scoffed loudly.
"Misjudged? Your Evolve produced a flicker of light equivalent to a dying candle. There was nothing to misjudge. You failed."
"It's a waste of time," another judge added, gesturing dismissively. "We have hundreds of more promising candidates to evaluate."
The Warden remained silent, his expression unreadable, a statue of pure judgment.
The situation was hopeless. The crowd was jeering, the judges were against him, and his own body was screaming at him to run.
Then, a new voice entered the debate. Calm. Measured.
"Let him."
It was Proctor Elara.
He leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on the desk. His gaze wasn't on the other judges; it was fixed entirely on Kael.
The lead judge turned to him, her expression incredulous. "Elara, you cannot be serious. We have a schedule to maintain."
"The boy quoted the rulebook correctly," Elara said, his voice quiet but carrying an undeniable authority. "He is claiming an extenuating circumstance. I, for one, am curious to see what that might be."
"Curiosity doesn't run this exam," the heavy-set judge grumbled. "Standards do."
Elara's gaze didn't waver from Kael. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of his lips.
"Sometimes, standards cause us to overlook potential that doesn't fit the mold." He looked at his fellow judges. "Ninety seconds. That's all he's asking for. Are we so rigid that we cannot grant him that?"
A tense silence fell over the dais. The judges exchanged looks. To refuse would be to publicly contradict Proctor Elara, whose reputation for spotting raw talent was legendary.
The lead judge let out an exasperated sigh, a sound of pure frustration.
"Fine."
The word echoed through the silent arena.
"You have ninety seconds, Candidate Mori. Do not waste them."
A collective gasp went through the crowd.
Kael felt his knees almost buckle with relief.
He had one final chance.
—--
Kael turned and ascended the steps to the stage once more.
The laughter had died, replaced by a tense, resentful silence. They didn't want him to succeed. They wanted to see him fail again, to prove that their judgment was right.
As he reached the center of the stage, Ren's voice cut through the air, a final, poisoned dart.
"You'll fail again, Mori."
The words were laced with a cold, hard certainty.
"Some people just aren't meant for this. You don't have what it takes."
Kael stopped. His back was to the crowd, his face hidden from the judges.
He closed his eyes. Ren's voice echoed in his mind, mixing with the jeers of the crowd and the heavy weight of his own self-doubt.
"He's right. I don't have what they have. My power isn't like theirs."
He remembered the overwhelming force of Ren's constructs. The roaring phoenix of flame. The sheer, unshakeable power he had witnessed.
He couldn't match that. Trying to had been his first mistake.
"I can't outshine them…"
He took a deep, shuddering breath, the air burning in his lungs. He thought of his answers on the written exam. He had won not by being the smartest, but by being the most honest. By being himself.
A new thought, clear as a bell, cut through the noise in his head.
"…but maybe I can outthink them."
He opened his eyes. The fear was still there, but it was no longer in control.
He turned to face the judges, his expression now one of calm, desperate focus.
—--
"Begin," the lead judge repeated, her voice impatient.
Kael didn't move.
He didn't raise his hand. He didn't try to summon a great ball of light.
Instead, he took a breath and centered himself. He ignored the whispers from the crowd, the burning glare of his rival, the cold eyes of the judges.
He focused inward, to the core of his Evolve. Not on what he wished it was, but on what it was.
It wasn't a fire. It wasn't a hammer.
It was a needle.
He looked past the training dummies and target drones that littered the stage. His eyes landed on a small, recessed panel in the stage floor, a detail almost everyone overlooked.
It was the Crystal Calibrator. A diagnostic tool for the arena's systems, and a secret, high-level test of pure control.
The crowd murmured, confused.
"What is he doing?"
"He's just standing there!"
Kael knelt down, placing his right index finger on the edge of the panel.
He channeled his Evolve.
Not into his palm, but down his arm, through his hand, and into the very tip of his finger.
He wasn't trying to create a blast. He was trying to create a single, perfect thread.
A tiny, brilliant point of white light, no bigger than a pinprick, appeared on his fingertip. It was intensely bright but gave off no heat. It was pure, stable energy.
He guided the point of light into a tiny access port on the panel. Inside the machine, a series of hair-thin, photosensitive crystal filaments were arranged in a complex maze. Too much power, and they would shatter instantly. Too little, and they wouldn't activate.
This was his gamble. His power wasn't weak. It was precise.
The audience was baffled.
"Is that it? What is this supposed to be?"
Kael didn't hear them. He was completely focused, his mind tracing the path of the maze inside the machine. He guided the thread of light forward, his finger steady.
He made the first turn.
ping.
A small, clear, resonant note echoed from the panel. A green light on its surface blinked on.
He had activated the first crystal.
The whispers in the crowd began to change, from mockery to confusion.
He continued, his brow furrowed in concentration. The thread of light danced at his command, weaving through the delicate internal architecture of the machine.
ping. The second light.
ping. The third.
His control was absolute. The light flickered for a moment, the strain showing on his face, sweat beading on his forehead. The crowd held its breath.
He steadied his hand, pushing through the fatigue.
ping.ping.ping.
He moved faster now, a surgeon performing a delicate operation. The sequence of soft, clear notes became a melody, a testament to his focus.
The final filament.
He guided the needle of light to its destination.
piiiing.
The final green light on the panel lit up. A low hum came from the machine, and the entire stage floor glowed for a moment with a soft blue light.
System calibrated. Test complete.
Kael withdrew his finger. The pinprick of light vanished.
He stood up, breathing heavily, his entire body trembling from the sheer effort of concentration.
The display was over. It had been small. It had been humble.
But it was undeniably clever.
—--
The arena was dead silent.
The silence stretched for one second. Two. Three.
Then the reactions began, a wave of confusion and dissent.
"That's all?" someone shouted from the crowd. "He just turned on some lights! How is that a power?"
"My little brother could do that with a flashlight!"
Most of the candidates, their minds fixed on explosions and brute force, were completely unimpressed. They saw it as a parlor trick, a desperate, pathetic attempt to avoid a real fight.
But a few, a very small handful, looked on with a new understanding. They were the ones with more subtle, technical Evolves.
They recognized the terrifying level of control it had taken. To channel energy with that much precision, without a single surge or flicker, was something they knew they couldn't do.
Ren was not one of them.
He stared at the stage, his face a mask of disbelief that was quickly hardening into pure, unadulterated fury. He didn't understand what he had just seen, but he knew one thing: Kael hadn't failed.
He had been publicly humiliated, and he had refused to stay down. It was an insult to Ren's own superiority.
The judges began to deliberate, their voices low and urgent.
The heavy-set judge was shaking his head vigorously. "Ingenious, perhaps, but it is not the display of power we are here to evaluate. He showed no combat potential."
"He showed exceptional control," another judge countered, a woman who hadn't spoken before. "That is a key metric."
The Warden was silent, but he was watching Kael, his expression thoughtful.
Proctor Elara leaned back in his chair, a faint, satisfied smirk on his face. He had made his bet, and now he was watching it play out.
The lead judge listened, her expression conflicted.
The arena waited, the tension a thick, crackling blanket over the crowd.
—--
The lead judge held up a hand, silencing the deliberation.
She looked down from the dais, her gaze sweeping past the crowd, past the other judges, and landing directly on Kael.
Her expression was still stern, still severe. But the open contempt was gone, replaced by something else. A grudging, almost imperceptible respect.
She activated her microphone. The soft click echoed through the silent arena.
"The purpose of this evaluation is to assess a candidate's potential as a future hero."
Her voice was cold and clear.
"This includes not only raw power, but also control, creativity, and the ability to perform under extreme pressure."
She paused, letting the words hang in the air. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through him.
"A hero is not merely a weapon. They are a shield. A symbol. A mind capable of finding a solution when brute force fails."
"While Candidate Mori's display lacked conventional offensive or defensive capability, it demonstrated a level of fine control and problem-solving that is… noteworthy."
A murmur of protest rippled through the crowd.
Ren's hands clenched into fists at his sides, his knuckles turning white.
The judge ignored them.
"The panel's score is… 42 out of 100."
The number landed like a stone in a silent pool.
"Passing threshold: 40."
Kael's mind went blank. 42. He had passed. By two points.
The crowd erupted.
"That counts?!"
"Are you serious? He did nothing!"
"He found a loophole! That's not what being a hero is about!"
"This is an outrage! He cheated the system!"
The lead judge slammed a hand on her desk, the sound a deafening boom that silenced the protests instantly.
"The panel's decision is final," she declared, her voice an iron command. "We are moving on."
Ren was trembling with a rage so profound it was almost silent. He was grinding his teeth so hard it was audible. He stared at Kael, his eyes promising a future of pain.
"How dare he? That… that trick…"
But Kael didn't see him.
He barely heard the crowd.
All he could feel was the tension leaving his body in a single, gut-wrenching wave of relief. He exhaled, a sound that was half a gasp, half a sob.
His legs, which had held him steady through the entire ordeal, finally gave out. He staggered, catching himself on the stage railing.
He had done it.
He had faced them all, at his absolute lowest, and he had won.
His internal voice, no longer a faint whisper, spoke with a newfound, exhausted certainty.
"Mom… I'm still here. I'm still fighting."
"It wasn't flashy. It wasn't perfect."
He looked up, a small, weary smile touching his lips for the first time.
"But it was enough. I'm still here."
—--
End of Chapter 9