Lyra Aetherion paused as the skin along her forearms reacted—the specific hair-line rise that her body was signalling to her for an imminent danger.
Her mana flared immediately, which meant that she activated her A-rank: [Clairvoyance].
"Wake up!" Lyra commanded.
The three remaining members of Group 2 looked at her in compliance. One with E-rank skill she and two with F-rank skills. They have been, frankly speaking, liabilities to her rather than an actual help. That wasn't necessarily because of the quality of their skills, but because of the mindsets that followed along.
Lyra then stated in grimace. "Scatter!"
As she said so, the world turned translucent blue. Three seconds into the future, the grey ceiling ceased to be a ceiling. There was only a singular pillar of violent light. At this point, this wasn't a projectile. Rather, it was judgment. The impact that a S-rank skill was capable of was something that calculation alone couldn't overcome.
[Lightning Spear].
Even as the word left her lips, she knew it was a mercy she was giving them rather than a solution. Three seconds wasn't enough for those who aren't physically apt to react. It was barely enough for Lyra.
She threw herself into a low roll desperately, with shoulder tucked. She braced for the impact.
The strike arrived.
The concussive force descended out of nowhere. The world illuminated in crackling blue. It didn't hit Lyra, but the force that arose as the aftermath was enough to send her body flying by five meters.
She huffed, having survived the impact. However, all her three teammates gone. They hadn't seen the strike. The world had simply stopped for them and restarted elsewhere.
Lyra scrambled upright, with her saber—which she picked up from a weapon crate—drawn.
the crater's center stood Silas Fulgur with violet arcs threading lazily between his fingers—the demeanor of one who had been "playing" the assessment rather than surviving.
"Finally found you, princess." His voice had the specific carrying quality of someone who had never once considered moderating its volume. "I've been curious of how it's like to go against [Clairvoyance]."
"You think you have the world, Silas? Because you got the S-rank skill?" Lyra spat, with the metallic taste of blood lingering in her mouth. "There is more to war than skill supremacy."
"With due respect, princess—" He laughed, a dry, crackling sound. "Have you ever heard of a low-ranked skill beating a high-ranked skill? Skill is all that matters. You know that yourself—you were gifted with A-rank."
He raised his hand, but this was something that she already foresaw with [Clairvoyance].
She couldn't win this. She couldn't stay.
Lyra used what [Clairvoyance] gave her and immediately drove herself into the treeline's dense cover.
Then, [Lightning Spear] struck the site in split second. It was the speed of development and discharge that no normal human being could react against.
"Hah! Running?"
The roar of the discharge behind her wrecked the clearing she had just left. Then, a wash of heat reached her even through thirty meters of constructed timber. At the best of her speed, she ran. Her mana reserves were falling—even with her S-rank Total Reserve and S-rank Mana Efficiency.
She had survived the apex, but it wasn't over yet.
Silas was after her.
___
The maintenance crawlspace that Isaac and Cassiopeia discovered offered no complete relief from the ceiling's unchanging light. It did offer, however, an enclosed space.
Isaac was already operational.
One by one, water dripped from the tip of his finger. [Condensation] ran, stealing the moisture of this environment to optimize humidity. The specific humidity that had been pressing against cognition began to ease.
Cassiopeia collapsed against a limestone pillar at the space's center. As the humidity fell by increments, the observable tension in her posture reduced along with it.
"Everyone was wrong," she murmured. Her eyes were on Isaac's working hand. "You aren't a humidifier. [Condensation] wasn't about adding moisture. It takes the moisture away to generate water."
It was a correction to a mechanically false assumption that had been propagated long enough to become common knowledge.
"They should've called you dehumidifier instead."
"No one was ever interested enough in F-rank: [Condensation] to correct it."
Cassiopeia looked at him with the specific attention of someone who had been filing a person under one category for weeks and was now running the accumulated evidence against a different framework.
"You are… different. From others." Something had shifted in her voice. It wasn't about being analytical. It was about an acknowledgement. "You have the resilience that none of us do. If you were the one to awaken a high-rank skill instead of ones like Silas Fulgur..."
Isaac held her gaze for a moment.
Technically, he already had a high-rank skill, skill with the rank that the history has never seen before. As much as he hated to think about it, it was ultimately true—that skill ranks played a significant role in people's lives, including his.
The world is cruel. It always has been.
"Sleep, Cassiopeia." Therefore, he didn't answer. Instead, he stated.
"I really shouldn't be sleeping..."
Her voice was already dropping as she whispered. She was fighting the fatigue visibly, but was at her limit.
"Sleep. No harm will come on your way." He said once more, resolutely.
Eventually, her body complied. She was out in seconds.
Silence.
Isaac exhaled quietly. He sat on a nearby stone. Although his mind remained vigilant, the same couldn't be said for his body.
Nevertheless, the intuition granted by [The Prism] indicated him that they were more than halfway through the three-day-long period. He knew that he could persist. Instead of joining Cassiopeia in sleep and leaving themselves completely vulnerable, he decided to think.
Elara.
Now given a moment of peace, the thought of Elara entered his mind. She was the only person who had supported him without calculation since the first year. The iron charm that she gave him was still in his pocket.
With there being thousands of second-years in this Mechanism Room, it was impossible to sight her. To some extent, he was glad that he didn't meet her, for they may have ended up facing each other.
He breathed out. The thought of Elara left him, knowing that there was nothing that he could do to help her.
Then, another thought entered his mind.
Find the exit, they said.
He closed his eyes.
It doesn't exist.
To be honest, there wasn't enough evidence to make such conclusion. However, it was safer to assume that there was no exit—there was no greater danger than wasting further energy looking for said exit.
He already lost the count of how many people whom he disqualified. He too was just as prone to getting disqualified like them.
Must you try this hard, Isaac?
A second thought then spoke to him.
The result of this assessment provides no benefit to you in the upcoming duel against Silas Fulgur. Shouldn't you intentionally get disqualified and spend your time on practicing your skills? Won't that be more efficient?
Someone would say that he wasn't being wise. However, he didn't want to give up.
He didn't want to lose. This was no longer about efficiency. If he were to talk of efficiency, there was no point in trying to pull off victory against Silas Fulgur in the first place.
This was about proving to himself and his deceased mother—of what kind of person he was.
He opened his eyes, with his thoughts having reached conclusion. At the same time, a disturbance was felt.
Isaac stood.
The disturbance was coming from the surface, subtle but noticeable with the accuracy of [The Prism]. They were the footsteps with the specific quality of movement that knew where it was going rather than movement that was searching.
The only explanation for that quality of movement was that they had been tracking the group 13 for long enough to know Isaac and Cassiopeia's location.
For the ration?
Isaac ensured that prior to settling in this crawlspace, there was no one tailing them. This meant that these strangers were observing them from a very far distance away, taking note of their direction rather than specific location. Now, they were sneaking upon them—a strategic move.
However, something seemed off. They are group 13, which meant that objectively speaking, they are one of the most competitive groups in the entire Mechanism Room. There are many food crates and extracted rations that these strangers can target. There probably are easier groups to target. Yet, the strangers went to this extent to target them.
The memory of his wand breaking surfaced. His eyes narrowed.
…They are here for me.
Isaac looked at Cassiopeia who was in a slumber. Turned around.
The only available response was to meet it directly.
Isaac walked out and stood in the forest. The grey light pressed down with its unchanging weight. He closed his eyes. Drew a breath. His body was still; his awareness was not.
Now, he revealed himself in the open. This saved them the time of searching. They may think that this was a mistake, and would ambush him.
However, he let them know of his position on purpose.
He knew that their next move will, for certain, be an ambush. If there was something to expect, there was time to plan the reaction to it.
His eyes opened.
The first strike came without sound. It was an invisible force that displaced the air cleanly, the specific signature of a skill with a physical form but transparent in view.
Isaac's body had already moved. [The Prism]'s full-resolution awareness of the space around him had registered the compression in the air before the force reached him.
The shadows blurred through the treeline, indicating the presence of enemies. They were rapidly moving in a manner that was attempting to induce fear in him, by telling him that he was outnumbered.
There was no fear. Just stillness.
[Condensation].
A dense droplet was fired toward the shadow he had been tracking—less than maximum compression, calibrated just enough that it wouldn't surpass the disqualification threshold. It struck, and then a grunt.
Isaac approached carefully, keeping in his mind that a typical group has four members at maximum.
He found one boy on the ground, clutching his chest. Wheezing.
"Group number?"
Instead of answering, the boy raised his hand. "E-rank: [Spark]!"
A light bolt fired from the boy's palm. Isaac responded with an instant formation of deionized droplet, which completely nullified the attack.
E-rank: [Spark]. Group number is likely below 100.
Isaac immediately deduced.
Low-rank skills in the decoy positions means the high-rank skill holder is elsewhere in the formation.
Then, the invisible force returned—the same smooth displacement, approaching from a new angle.
As it arrived and Isaac evaded, his eyes captured the outline of this transparent force that the humidity had revealed: an abnormally elongated arm.
An arm. Stretched to an abnormal extension. At least B-rank based on the smoothness of its operation.
The rest of the formation are decoys—likely to be D-rank or lower. If any other high-rank existed in this group, the approach wouldn't rely on concealment.
Isaac struck a dense droplet to the [Spark] user, who had been building a second discharge. White Light. Immediate disqualification.
Another shadow moved in the treelines.
[Condensation].
He placed a droplet of water precisely on the compressed earth surface ahead of the movement's trajectory. There was a crash. At the same moment, the invisible hand struck again, finding the position Isaac had just left.
Isaac walked toward the crash site. There was another student down, body convulsing.
He stopped.
The student was acting strange. The veins were surfacing through the skin. There was an abrupt color change. The trembling, mouth foaming—Isaac recognized the specific physiological pattern—Mana Overload, acute.
The device on the student's wrist turned red. Red light—not white. Emergency protocol. The student vanished.
Isaac's expression turned stoic. It was an outcome that he didn't expect or wanted. Nevertheless, now wasn't the time to dwell on such matter.
Another student then launched from the side with a blade, which was clearly acquired from a weapon crate. At the same moment, Isaac tracked the invisible hand's fourth approach.
His thought ran quickly. His body moved immediately just as his thought concluded, in one smooth motion—by taking one step back and placing the knife-holder in the invisible hand's path.
The invisible hand caught the knife-holder instead.
[Condensation].
The dense droplet struck the knife-holder before the invisible hand released. White light.
The invisible hand retracted.
"...Nice."
A masculine voice came from no specific location, echoing through the humid air.
"I wanted to see if these dead weights could be of any use. It turns out you are one of a kind."
"Why are you after me?" Isaac said. "No personal connection. No declared motive. You see right now that I don't carry ration with me. You concluded that Cassiopeia Terra is the one with ration at the moment, unavailable to join me in this battle. Yet, you are pursuing me."
Silence.
"…Who hired you to disqualify me?" Asked Isaac, sharply.
Then—
Everything happened very quickly. Even he, Isaac, lost the incoming assault.
The invisible hands rapidly flew toward him from all accessible angles simultaneously—not one arm but multiple. Clearly, the enemy was going all-out, running his mana output at its full capability. It was a bombardment in a split second that he was caught off guard to, even as he stayed on maximum guard. It was something that he couldn't dodge or block with the scale that his [Condensation] or its current applications could achieve.
Then, something bizarre happened.
[The Prism], independent from his perception, registered those incoming hands. Its perception was integrated into his body. His senses became hyper-activated. His perception instinctively perceived those chances to his senses, and therefore, perceived the operation of [The Prism]. It was the act of perceiving an alternative perception.
This unintended act of looping perception granted a strange phenomenon where… his cognition became hyper-accelerated. As in, the world around him has slowed down. By a lot.
With widened eyes, Isaac raised his finger, or he tried to. He couldn't. The movement of his body was just as slow. Unlike his cognition, his body was still bound by the time.
[Condensation].
However, the skill operated at the same speed as his current speed of cognition. It was an unbelievable discovery, something that he never he that he could do.
[The Prism] truly deserved the rank of SSS.
Then… how do I deal with this situation by leveraging the current advantage?
F-rank: [Condensation], by conventional application, couldn't resolve this. All that he is capable of forming were at a scale of droplets.
Repetition.
He drew an answer.
Evaporation. Flood the environment with humidity. Reach the saturation point.
The moisture in the surrounding, generated by this repeated evaporation, would be imbued in his mana. This meant that even if his skill were to be a meager [Condensation], he could manipulate his surroundings at once, at a far larger scale.
Within the extended moment, the invisible hands moved at a fraction of their approach speed.
He activated [Condensation], not in the form of a droplet but in the form of its reverse—Evaporation.
The moisture was already present in the air around him, already at 75% humidity—
Evaporation. 75.1%.
Evaporation. 75.2%.
In this extended cognition window that [The Prism] had opened, Isaac's mana thread, running rapidly in his Manafold Circuitry at the same speed as his cognition, executed the application repeatedly.
99.9%.
The humidity finally reached a total saturation.
[Condensation].
As the time resumed its ordinary pace, Isaac snapped his fingers.
From every direction around him, dense, extremely compressed droplets were generated simultaneously—not from his fingertip, but from the saturated air itself. They fell, struck each and every single invisible hands accurately. Pinned them to the earth.
There was a light nosebleed from Isaac's nose, which he quickly wiped. He then heard a yelp—the sound of someone who encountered a problem that they couldn't get a sense of.
Isaac dashed toward the direction of the sound.
The owner of the invisible hands was revealed—a young man who released his skill just before Isaac's arrival to his proximity.
The moment he saw Isaac, he panicked.
"PHANTOM—"
[The Prism] flared. The surrounding slowed down once more.
Another application instantly appeared in Isaac's mind.
Something that can hold him immobilized.
The opposite of deionized waterdrop—the hyperionized waterdrop.
Extreme ionic content in the saturated environment enables the suspension of waterdrops. With right modulation, it also generates an electrostatic repulsion against a human body… perfect.
Time resumed. Isaac snapped his fingers.
[Condensation]: Atmospheric Density Lock.
The moistures surrounding the enemy suddenly condensed into numerous, dense waterdrops. He froze, for his body was held in place by the very moisture he was breathing.
"W-What is going on?!"
"Name," spoke Isaac.
The enemy paused. Then, "Hah. Why would I—"
Evaporation.
100%. Total saturation.
The air the enemy was trying to breathe no longer had the water-to-air ratio that breathing required. He coughed. His body attempted the intake and received what the saturated atmosphere could provide—which wasn't enough.
Isaac held it for three seconds. Then applied [Condensation] to reduce the saturation by a margin. Breathing eased up by a little. The enemy's eyes were streaming from the biological response.
"Name."
The enemy stared at Isaac in the total state of shock. There was an embarrassment beneath the shock, unable to believe that he was being threatened by the owner of F-rank: [Condensation].
Then, a flash of fear entered the enemy's eyes.
"A... Atticus." At last, he submitted.
"Skill?" Isaac continued.
"A-rank... [Phantom Limb]..."
[The Prism] filed it.
"Who hired you to target me?"
"I…I don't know. The person wore a hood." Atticus measured his words carefully—each one costing something in this atmosphere. "Tall. Old. Male. A ring."
"What ring?"
"Silver... pillar insignia."
Pillar insignia. This meant that whoever was interested in him failing belonged to one of the five—Ignis, Zephyr, Terra, Fulgur, or Valerius.
Isaac's eyes sharpened.
"What else?"
"That's all. I swear. That's all."
Without further words, Isaac reached out and pressed Atticus's wristband.
Disqualified. White light. Gone.
Isaac released the atmospheric hold. The 99% saturation collapsed outward as a sudden, brief curtain of rain, hissing against the hot compressed earth of the Mechanism Room.
His head rang. He slumped against the treeline wall, now handling the dull repercussion that came after [The Prism] ran at the output it had just run at.
Someone from one of the five pillars… you got to be kidding me.
Isaac pressed two fingers to his temple.
How fun.