"Thirty minutes remain."
Lily Virelith's voice cut through the examination hall like the crack of a whip. Her tone, cool and imperious, made even the air hesitate. Dozens of students flinched in unison. Others sat straighter, gripping their quills like lifelines as the magical scrolls in front of them shimmered and morphed.
The questions grew harder.
Where once they had asked about magical law and theory, now the scrolls demanded creativity. They showed fractured rune matrices and asked for reconstructions. They described unstable potion reactions and asked for hypothetical corrections. In some cases, entire combat scenarios were presented, asking students to devise magical solutions without using violence.
The hall became deathly silent—except for the occasional scratching of ink and the muffled sound of panic-induced breathing.
Aaron Aetherwyn tilted his head from the observation balcony, watching it all with idle curiosity.
"They're really focused," he murmured.
The way his voice softly echoed down into the chamber was not intentional. A faint amplification field surrounded the balcony—a magical barrier that broadcast the examiners' comments to the overseers stationed across the dome.
So when Aaron said it, casually, thoughtfully…
A dozen students froze mid-word.
One even dropped his quill, hands trembling.
Another turned pale and vomited beside his scroll.
"Ah—did I say that too loudly?" Aaron asked, frowning. "Oops."
Professor Halter blinked in horror. "Y-you didn't cast anything… right?"
"Of course not," Aaron said with a confused smile. "I wouldn't interrupt their test. Why?"
Vice Headmaster Kaelen Raventhorn rubbed his temples with both hands. "Gods help us."
Nova, seated with perfect composure nearby, said nothing. She merely smiled and crossed one leg over the other. Her eyes glinted with amusement.
On the floor below, Axel Myrravelle did not look up.
Though a cold sweat dotted his brow, he worked fast—faster than any other student in his row. His answers were precise, his logic crisp, his handwriting unnervingly perfect.
But it wasn't talent alone.
From the edge of his sleeves, a faint glimmer of enchantment leaked—spells etched onto his skin, buried beneath illusion runes. Not enough to be noticed by the proctors. Not enough to cheat directly.
Just enough to enhance his focus.
I was right, he thought. This is not an academy. This is a crucible.
And above it all, that man—Aaron Aetherwyn.
Axel didn't dare meet his eyes. No, he didn't need to.
Just sitting there, arms folded, Aaron's presence filled the entire chamber like a sleeping beast. Silent. Still. Terrifying.
Axel thought he knew fear. But this was… something older. Something primal.
He's the wall I must climb. No… the mountain I must demolish.
He pressed harder, pushing the enchantments within himself to their limits. A small crack formed in the ink vial on his desk.
Elsewhere, Lily Virelith raised a hand, casting a brief spell that projected the current standings—without names. Just numbers. Ten sets of golden symbols floated in the air, showing the quality and consistency of each top-tier answer.
Slot 1: Consistency – 98%, Accuracy – 97%, Creativity – 96%
Slot 3: Consistency – 95%, Accuracy – 95%, Creativity – 91%
Kaelen narrowed his eyes. "That one in third place… impressive. Who is it?"
"Axel Myrravelle," Lily said coolly, arms crossed. "Instructor Vale's student."
Kaelen looked unimpressed. "Vale. Of course. Always aiming for flash."
"And number one?" Nova asked, glancing at Lily.
"Unknown girl," Lily said. "Black hair. Cold eyes. Name: Saria Vonn. Background: Unknown. Magic: unclassified."
Nova's interest visibly deepened.
Aaron, meanwhile, stared at the projections with a frown. "I have no idea what any of that means."
Every professor within earshot paled.
Kaelen nearly dropped his teacup.
"W-wait. You don't understand the metrics?" Halter whispered.
Aaron blinked. "Should I?"
The others shivered.
He's judging the test… as beneath his level…
Nova whispered under her breath, "And yet he's the junior professor."
Aaron leaned closer to the glass dome. "I just hope they're not being too hard on themselves. They look so tense down there."
A third student fainted.
---
Twenty minutes remain.
A fresh set of glowing glyphs appeared on the enchanted scrolls. This time, the problems shifted from creative applications to live magical analysis.
Suddenly, miniature illusion constructs hovered above each student's desk—a shimmering magical array frozen in time, mid-collapse. Their task: identify the structural flaw, theorize its consequences, and write a correction sequence.
For even the most diligent students, this was brutal.
One rune out of place could mean catastrophic instability.
The illusion constructs occasionally sparked or shimmered in protest when students proposed flawed solutions—delivering jolts of mild magical backlash. A passive feedback enchantment had been set in place to train instinctive caution.
And for those trying to brute-force a wrong answer?
Boom.
Not literal explosions—just harmless bursts of color and sound—but it still earned gasps, panic, and a few shrieks.
"Question seven," Lily Virelith announced with steely authority. "Failure rate exceeding seventy percent. Raise it."
Professor Halter blinked. "Raise it? Lady Virelith, this is already—"
"Raise it," she repeated, eyes glowing with thin trails of fire. "Or are you questioning my judgment?"
Halter coughed and adjusted the enchantments.
Aaron quietly leaned over. "Is it really okay to make them faint?"
"They're not fainting," Lily said coolly.
A loud thump echoed from the floor below.
"…That one just fainted," Aaron pointed out.
Lily didn't even glance down. "That one was weak."
Aaron looked slightly horrified.
"She's… just really dedicated to education," he muttered, assuming this was how things worked at elite institutions.
From his spot at the end of the examination chamber, Axel Myrravelle was now sweating through his uniform. Not from magical stress—but from the sheer pressure of Aaron's quiet presence above.
Every so often, he could feel Aaron glance his way.
No words. No gestures.
Just… that presence.
Unshakable. Unreadable.
In the deepest part of Axel's twisted heart, fear festered. That man… no one told me there'd be someone like that. Is he even human?
But Axel couldn't stop now. He grit his teeth and scrawled down corrections with supernatural speed, muttering under his breath as his illusion matrix flickered wildly.
Then it stabilized.
Axel's construct shone brighter than any other. Even brighter than the girl named Saria Vonn.
Lily's eyes narrowed.
He's progressing.
Nova smiled faintly. "Interesting."
Aaron clapped softly from the balcony. "Oh! That looked stable. Good job, whoever that was."
His voice echoed softly across the chamber once again.
Axel's hand froze.
The construct shattered.
Magic backfired. Not violently—but with enough force to blast his ink bottle sideways and sear the edge of his scroll.
"Eeep—!"
Axel hit the floor with a soft thud, smoke trailing from his robe.
Aaron blinked. "Did I say something wrong again…?"
Kaelen Raventhorn slowly pressed his forehead to the balcony rail. "Again…?"
Nova leaned back, positively gleeful. "This is so much more fun than the last decade of exams."
Down on the floor, several students had given up entirely, choosing to preserve their dignity by submitting partial answers early. Others were clearly trying to copy from their illusions without understanding the theory.
Lily noticed, of course.
She didn't say a word.
The constructs surrounding the cheaters silently rewrote themselves into gibberish.
"You'll be disqualified if you're not careful," she whispered.
The room trembled with tension. Literally.
A minor tremor rattled the walls—not from a spell, but from the aura of Aaron's quiet disapproval.
He wasn't doing anything. He hadn't cast a single spell.
He just looked disappointed—and the room responded like it had been struck by divine punishment.
To Aaron, he was simply sighing.
To everyone else, it was like a god exhaling judgment.
Nova was nearly doubled over in quiet laughter, hiding her grin behind a scroll.
"Fifteen minutes remain," Lily announced sharply, ignoring the chaos.
Aaron turned to her and asked innocently, "Are you sure we're not being too harsh?"
Lily's crimson eyes met his, unblinking. "This… is mercy."
---
The final quarter-hour descended like a guillotine.
Even those with firm magical foundations now trembled beneath the scrutiny of the proctors and the choking silence of the chamber—broken only by the scratch of quills and the soft hum of illusion matrices.
Some students began whispering incantations under their breath—not to cheat, but to calm their nerves.
Several illusion arrays across the room shimmered and cracked under the pressure. Others fizzled out entirely, unable to maintain coherence as panic overtook logic.
Only a few remained stable.
Among them: Saria Vonn, the black-haired girl from House Vonn, her hands moving in precise, controlled lines; Kirin Zecht, the silver-eyed boy from the eastern provinces, whose scroll glowed with a steady golden rune; and of course, the girl no one had yet dared to approach—Velis Noxen, whose desk was surrounded by a faint ring of dark flame.
Each of them held strong. But not without effort.
Velis' array sparked violently once—she didn't flinch.
Kirin's fingers were bleeding from the strain of continuous inscription—but he kept going.
Saria closed her eyes for a brief second and murmured, "Just like rehearsed… just like rehearsed."
Axel, on the other hand, looked… haunted.
He was still on the floor, staring wide-eyed at his singed parchment, hand trembling as if expecting Aaron's gaze to strike him again.
Above, Aaron leaned closer to Lily.
"They all seem kind of… intense," he whispered.
"That's the bare minimum if you want to survive in this world," she replied, her voice colder than frost.
Aaron tilted his head. "You know, when you say things like that, it's a little scary…"
Lily blinked at him. "Isn't that… the point?"
"…Huh?"
Before Aaron could spiral further into confusion, Nova stood up with a graceful clap.
"Ten minutes. That means question ten," she said cheerfully. "The special essay."
A fresh scroll floated in front of each student.
This one didn't require calculations. Instead, it posed a brutal philosophical challenge:
"In a magical society where strength defines justice, how should a mage with overwhelming power act in the face of corruption from their own kingdom?"
It was a trick question—one that had no right answer.
Any naive talk of rebellion would trigger detection spells and get the student flagged as a potential radical. Cowardice would mark them as spineless.
And worse, some students realized this too late.
Velis smirked faintly as she began writing immediately.
Axel stared at the scroll as if it had personally betrayed him.
Saria hesitated only a moment before beginning her structured argument.
Kirin frowned but started writing steadily, his answer firm but balanced.
Meanwhile, a girl with light blue hair near the back stood up in silent rage.
"What is this supposed to mean!?" she barked.
"Sit down," Lily snapped.
"But this is entrapment!"
Lily's eyes flared like twin stars.
The girl sat.
Nova twirled her pen like a wand. "Oh, I do love watching them struggle with ethics. It shows who they really are."
Aaron, ever the outsider to all this, raised a brow. "Isn't this a bit… dark for an entrance exam?"
Lily crossed her arms. "They'll be casting war magic by next semester. If they can't handle this, they're not worth wasting time on."
Aaron squinted. "You sound just like the villainess in a story I read once."
"I am a villainess," Lily said flatly.
Aaron blinked. "What?"
"Hmm?" she replied, as if nothing had happened.
Aaron opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Across the floor, Axel began to write again, hands trembling as he forced out an answer—half truth, half manipulation. He wove in heroism, false humility, and just enough vagueness to survive inspection.
Then he glanced up.
Aaron was watching.
Axel dropped his pen.
"…Just breathe," he whispered to himself. "Just… breathe…"
The bell rang.
Parchments sealed themselves in golden light and floated upward, vanishing into enchanted receptacles. The illusion constructs dissolved into motes of light.
It was over.
The entire room sat in silence for several long seconds—until Nova stretched like a cat and smiled.
"Well done," she said sweetly. "Only twelve scrolls ignited this year. That's a new record."
Lily nodded.
Kaelen looked pale.
Aaron just tilted his head. "I… guess they passed?"
No one answered.
Because at that moment, nearly a hundred students slowly turned their gazes upward—to the balcony where the calm, ethereal man stood with arms folded and expression unreadable.
Some had sweat pouring down their faces.
Others clenched their fists.
One girl near the middle whispered, "He didn't move… not even once…"
"He was evaluating us," a boy muttered.
"Like we were insects."
"…Is he even human?"
Aaron gave a small wave.
Dozens flinched.
He withdrew his hand awkwardly. "They must hate me for looking smug…"
Lily sighed in irritation. "You weren't looking smug."
Nova, watching from the side, whispered gleefully, "No, dear Aaron. You were looking divine."
---