A day passed since the conclusion of the assessment.
The announcement reached the second-year students through the standard institutional channel—a notice posted at each dormitory wing's board before the morning bell, brief and without ceremony.
Second-year students are granted a two-day rest period following the completion of the Mechanism Room assessment. Standard academic sessions are suspended for the duration. Students requiring medical evaluation should report to the wing at their earliest convenience. Assessment results will be communicated through official channels.
Two days.
For most of the 357 students who had survived until the seventh bell, two days meant something simple and immediate—sleep, have food that wasn't rationed by a carved mark on a wooden crate, and enjoy a specific relief of a ceiling that changed with the light.
For the 4,027 who hadn't, two days meant waiting for results that would tell them what their disqualification had cost them.
For Isaac, two days meant one.
The date of the Trial—the duel—was on the second day of the rest period. Eastern Trial grounds, seventh bell.
...
Elara appeared at Isaac's dorm in the morning.
"I heard things," she said. "About the Mechanism Room." She looked at him. "About Group 13."
It was sudden, but done out of her worry regarding her friend.
He chuckled, "Aren't you fast as always."
Elara folded her hands on the table. "Someone said that you redirected a [Mana Blast]. That Vane Abias retreated from your group. That someone with an A-rank skill was found immobilized on the third day, that you were responsible for that." She paused. "Is any of that true?"
"Which part intrigues you most?"
"The last part." Her voice was level. "Externally pressing someone's wristband is—Isaac, that's not something anyone would expect from [Condensation]."
Isaac looked at her for a moment. Then, he replied, "They are all true."
Elara was quiet.
"A lot happened over three days for you, didn't it," she said, after a moment. "In a way, I am glad that my group didn't encounter you. And then, I also think, of what's the point of making such a thought."
Elara sat on a chair, sighing.
"I was disqualified on the second day," she said, bitterly. "My group held until then. [Lightning Spear] just came out of nowhere, and at the next second…" She paused. "It was terrifying. And you are to go against someone like him."
She paused, collecting her thoughts.
"The assessment," she then continued. "They told us it was team-based. That the evaluation was entirely team-based. But… if it's entirely team-based, our team, our performance was…" She stopped. "You said that that's likely to be a false information, right?"
Isaac nodded, "I did say that."
"The individual performance is what matters."
"The team dynamic isn't entirely negligible. However, it is true that individual performance, in a war setting, matters more." Isaac reasoned. "I do believe that if this 'skill' didn't exist, however, the team dynamic would matter far more than an individual performance."
Elara looked dejected. After having luckily awakened a B-rank skill out of blue, her performance in the Mechanism Room was worse than her expectation of herself.
Seeing this, Isaac spoke truthfully, "your [Healing Bloom] probably kept your group functional through the first day and most of the second. With your skill being a support skill rather than a combat-based one, there wasn't much that you could have done should your teammates not be as competent."
She looked at him. "You don't say things just to make people feel better."
"No."
"So you mean it."
"Yes."
Her expression lightened, and her posture gained a relaxed tone. She spoke as if talking to herself rather than to him, "results aren't announced yet. Nobody knows where they stand. It's… there's a specific kind of anxiety that produces from not knowing, but there is no point in worrying until then. The matter has left our hands."
"Exactly."
She looked at him. "…You're not anxious."
"Because as you said, there is no point in worrying until then."
She nodded, slowly.
Then, a knock—the specific three-beat pattern—was heard by the door. The unlocked door opened, and Marcus Bale arrived with a mischievous expression of wondering how the second-years were faring after the Mechanism Room.
"You both look like you've been underground for three days," he said.
"One of us was," Elara said.
"Fair." He looked at Isaac. "Heard the rumors."
"Everyone has," Elara was the one to answer.
"The difference is I know which parts to believe." Marcus leaned back. Then gazed at Elara. "I bet that conflicting information is bothering you at this stage."
"…It is," Elara confirmed.
"It's a tradition," Marcus said, without particular weight. "Upper years leak the false assessment parameters to the incoming cohort every cycle. Has been for—longer than anyone bothers to track. The Academy knows. The faculty knows. It's considered part of the assessment."
Elara frowned. "That seems—"
"Deliberate," Marcus said. "It is deliberate. The decoy changes every year, specifically so that it can't be passed down accurately. The year before yours, the rumor was that the Mechanism Room would have a time-limited resource generation mechanic—you could only collect supplies in the first six hours before everything locked. Students spent the first six hours hoarding—and therefore, engaging." He paused. "Apparently in the long past, the students were told the assessment would end the moment any single student reached a specific 'disqualification' count. Everyone went offensive immediately."
"And your year?" Elara asked.
Marcus frowned slightly as if remembering something that had not been amusing at the time. "We were told we were heading to the Training Room for a standard drill session by the faculty. Our seniors told us that an assessment would happen three days before the actual day. Standard notifications, standard routing—we were halfway down the east corridor before we walked through the Mechanism Room's doors, and boom, locked for three whole days."
Elara stared at him.
"The look on the first four students' faces when the wristbands appeared—oh, the group size was 5 during my year, by the way—" Marcus said, "is something I think about sometimes."
"So the decoy is specifically designed to be wrong in a different way each year," Isaac said. It wasn't a question.
"Different wrong each year. That's the point. Whatever a second-year hears from a third or fourth-year, even if they hear what could be considered the truth in the perspective of the upper years, the information is wrong in the end simply because the faculty also tells false information." He looked at Elara. "The team-based framing you received may have been passed down in good faith by whoever told it to you. They believed it because they'd heard it, and they'd heard it because someone designed it to spread."
Elara processed this with the specific expression of someone filing information that retroactively altered several prior decisions. "That sucks."
"Agreed," Marcus said.
A moment of quiet settled over the three of them.
Then, Elara looked at Isaac. Marcus looked at Isaac. The nature of the looking was the same from both—the specific attention of people who had something they wanted to ask and were deciding how to ask it.
"Tomorrow," Elara said, finally.
"Yes."
"The fight." She set her fork down. "Isaac. We are talking about Silas Fulgur. S-rank: [Lightning Spear]." She said it with an evident worry in her voice. "Will you be alright?"
Isaac looked at her. Then at Marcus, who was watching him in interest, with his arms crossed.
"Yes," Isaac replied, confidently, although he knew that his confidence will reach Elara and Marcus as not-making-sense.
Elara held his gaze for a moment. Then she nodded—a nod that looked like it was choosing to trust than to follow the logic.
Marcus said nothing.
The cellar held its quiet.
___
The eastern training grounds were empty.
Silas stood at the grounds' center, training.
The charge built in his hand. The vigorous [Lightning Spear] burst into its existence. He then threw it, and the skill crashed into the training dummy at the far post.
The dummy was completely burned and shredded. It was demolished to an extent that it was no longer possible to retrace its original shape.
He observed the remains of the dummy for a minute. Then, he called the charge again.
"You're going to spike your Overload Risk before the fight," Vane commented, from the training ground's entrance.
Silas didn't look up. "I didn't invite you."
"No." Vane walked in anyway. He stopped at the ground's edge—close enough to observe, far enough from the discharge radius to make the distance a statement. "Meditation would serve you better right now. Manafold Circuitry stabilization before and after a high-output engagement is the standard preparation methodology."
"I know the methodology. But that can wait."
"You're ignoring it."
"Skill improvement takes priority."
Vane looked at the fractured post. At the row of scorch marks that indicated the previous posts' positions. "How many discharges since your arrival in here?"
Silas finally looked at him. "Enough."
"Your overload risk must be greater than the initial value of 32% now. Each unmanaged discharge at full output pushes your mana output to its extreme," said Vane, solemnly.
"The potency is increasing."
"The potency is increasing at the cost of your safety."
Silas was quiet for a moment. Then, he spoke coldly, "What did you come here to say?"
Vane looked at the training ground.
"I want to talk about the Mechanism Room," Vane said.
Silas crossed his arms. "Talk."
"Isaac Nameless survived three full days." Vane said directly. "Seren Ashveil was disqualified on day two via physiological threshold breach. Tomlin Greave was disqualified on day one, by me. Isaac Nameless survived until the seventh bell."
"I know."
"You know the outcome. You don't know the mechanism." Vane paused. "I engaged Group 13 on day one. My formation was designed for the group's composition. [Mana Siphon] passive negates Cassiopeia Terra's C-rank outputs. The [Gravity Field] contained the two girls. My fourth member—owning the same F-rank: [Condensation]—was placed to occupy Isaac Nameless."
Silas was listening now, interested in Vane's words more than he had expected.
"My fourth member was disqualified in under ten seconds," Vane said. "I have no idea what specifically happened."
Silence.
"Fists," Silas said. "What else can it be?"
"Isaac Nameless doesn't have a build of a brawler. And that's not the end." Vane's expression didn't change. "My [Gravity Field] teammate was disqualified while I was engaged with Cassiopeia and Seren. I had allocated zero attention to that threat vector. When I tracked back to identify the cause, the ground in that position was wet—[Condensation] as a lubrication layer."
"He made them slip." Silas snorted, "Irrelevant in my case."
"One of my members slipped and fell. Then, suddenly, the [Gravity Field] teammate received a direct impact consistent with a high-density projectile while he was down. Threshold breach. Gone. He… shot a waterdrop that was heavy and dense, somehow. My [Poisonous Sting] teammate received a same projectile and was disqualified as well."
Silas was quiet for a long moment.
"He survived the full assessment with F-rank: [Condensation]," At last, Silas said. "While Seren Ashveil and Tomlin Greave didn't."
"Yes."
"He disqualified your entire formation."
"Yes." Vane nodded stoically.
Silas looked at his own hand.
"He's dangerous," Vane said, conclusively.
Silas looked at him.
"He is dangerous in a way that doesn't appear in the measurement layer," Vane continued. "F-rank: [Condensation]. The rank tells you nothing about the threat. I built my entire formation on what the rank implied and the formation failed." He paused. "I am telling you this not because I think you will lose. I am telling you because you want a perfect victory."
Silas held Vane's gaze for a moment. Then he looked at the fractured post. At the row of scorch marks.
"Go back, Vane," Eventually, Silas said.
Vane looked at Silas.
"Good luck," he eventually said before he left.
"Luck?" Silas muttered to himself, "I don't need any luck in destroying a nobody like him."
He raised his hand again.
The charge built.
His training resumed.