A proctor called out names from a roster, sending students toward different testing stations around the hall. Vell watched them go, some returning pale and shaken, others strutting with confidence they probably didn't earn yet.
"Vell, station four," the proctor called, and he felt his stomach tighten.
He stood up, walked past the rows of watching students, and reached the marked area where a senior student waited with a bored expression. The station was simple, a circle drawn on the floor with chalk and a mana measurement crystal mounted on a wooden stand.
"Combat aptitude first," the senior said, not looking up from his slate. "Show me your best strike. This crystal measures force, control, and mana output, and you get three attempts with the highest score counting."
Vell stepped into the circle, rolling his shoulders and trying to remember how it felt to throw a proper punch with a stronger body. His current arms felt light, untrained, barely carrying the muscle memory he needed.
'Just swing,' he told himself, curling his fingers into a loose fist. 'Don't think about what you used to be. Work with what you have.'
He threw his first punch at the crystal, putting his weight behind it and channeling what little mana he could gather. The crystal flashed dull red, then showed a number that made the senior student snort.
"Twelve points," the senior said, marking it down. "Try again."
He gritted his teeth and tried a second time, adjusting his stance based on techniques he remembered from years of training. The crystal flashed orange this time, but the number only rose slightly.
"Fourteen this time," the senior said. "You have one more attempt."
Sweat ran down Vell's back as he readied himself for the third attempt. Twelve or fourteen points wouldn't get him anywhere near Class A. At this rate he would be lucky to scrape into Class C, maybe even fall back into Class D where he started last time.
'Dammit,' he thought, clenching his fist harder and feeling his palm grow warm. 'There has to be something I can use. Four years of fighting monsters and I can't even impress a student proctor?'
A warmth spread up his arm but he barely noticed. His mind had drifted back to that tunnel, to the heat, smoke and the girl walking toward him wrapped in white fire. Mariel standing there with a spear made of flames, her face pale, her eyes empty and her voice, barely a whisper, asking him to help her.
'Help me,' she had said, right before killing him.
Vell's fingers tightened until his hands hurt. He had died helpless, unable to do anything but watch, unable to save himself let alone her. The academies created these calamities, broke people like Mariel, and then covered it up while students like him got thrown into the meat grinder.
'Not this time,' he thought, anger boiling up from his chest and spilling into his shoulders, arms, and clenched fist. 'I'm not dying helpless again. I'm not letting them turn another girl into a weapon. I need power, enough to stop what happens, and I won't get there with twelve fucking points on a combat test.'
Something cracked open inside him, like a seal breaking under pressure. His fist started glowing with faint golden light and the air around him grew heavy, pressing outward in a wave that made the senior student yelp and stumble backward.
"What the hell?" the senior shouted, dropping his slate.
Vell didn't hear him. He pulled his arm back and threw everything he had into one punch aimed at the crystal. The golden light surged, blinding for a split second as his fist connected with a sound like thunder.
The crystal shattered, shards of it spraying across the station, bouncing off the floor and walls, while Vell stood there breathing hard, his hand throbbing, staring at the empty stand where the measurement crystal had been. The golden light faded from his fist, leaving behind a strange tingling sensation.
The senior student stared at the broken crystal with his mouth open, then looked at Vell with wide eyes.
"You broke it?" the senior said, his voice shaky. "You actually broke the measuring crystal?"
Vell flexed his fingers, feeling the pain now, sharp and insistent. "Is that bad?"
"Bad?" The senior laughed, sounding slightly hysterical. "Those crystals are enchanted to withstand strikes from B-Rank fighters. Breaking one shouldn't be possible for a first-year, hell, it shouldn't be possible for most third-years. Only the absolute top students manage it, the ones who end up as academy monsters."
He looked down at his empty hands where his slate had been, then knelt to pick it up from the floor, still staring at Vell.
"How did you go from twelve points to breaking the crystal? What just happened?"
Vell looked at his own fist, turning it over and watching the faint golden afterimage fade from his skin. The system, the trait, whatever it was, had responded to something. His anger, his determination and the raw refusal to stay weak.
"I don't know," he said, which was mostly true.
The senior shook his head and scribbled something on his slate with hands that still trembled slightly. "When a student breaks the measurement crystal, protocol says they receive the maximum score for that section. Full forty points, doesn't matter what the previous attempts showed."
He looked up at Vell with something that might have been respect or fear.
"You just earned yourself a perfect combat score, first-year. I have no idea how you did it, but forty points is forty points."
Vell stood in the circle, surrounded by crystal shards, feeling the ache in his hand and the strange hollow sensation in his chest where that burst of power had come from. Forty points, with a decent showing on the other two sections, he might actually have a shot at Class A.
"Mana control is next," the senior said, leading him to the second station where a smaller crystal sat on a pedestal. "This crystal measures your ability to maintain steady output. Place your hand on it and hold a consistent flow for ten seconds without surges or drops."
"And you don't want me to break this one too, right?" Vell said.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't," the senior said.
He placed his palm on the surface and closed his eyes. His Null affinity had always made this difficult, mana slipping through his channels like water through loose fingers. He reached for his core, found the thin thread of power there, and pushed it outward.
The crystal flickered immediately, wavering between colors. He focused harder, remembering meditation tricks from his second year, ways to calm the mind and steady the flow. The glow settled into pale blue, weak but consistent.
"That's ten seconds," the senior said, checking the reading. "You scored twenty-one points, which is better than expected for someone with a Null affinity."
Vell pulled his hand back, surprised himself. Last time he scored eleven, the trait was already changing things.
"Tactical knowledge is the last section," the senior said, handing him a folded paper. "This is a written scenario and you have fifteen minutes to complete it."
Vell took it to a small desk and unfolded it. The scenario described a three-person team facing a C-Rank monster in a collapsed ruin, asking for positioning, signals, and retreat timing.
He almost laughed as this exact setup killed two students in his first life because their instructor gave wrong advice.
He picked up the pen and wrote, filling the page with formations he knew worked, signals he had used in actual combat, contingencies only experience taught. When he finished, the senior collected it and tallied the score.
"Combat forty, control twenty-one and tactical thirty-eight," the senior said, doing the math aloud. "Total ninety-nine points, congratulations, you have made into class A."
"Yesssss!" Vell shouted in excitement, raising his fist high in the air.