The Grand Hall of the Royal Academy was a cathedral of carefully designed elegance and majesty.
High above, the banners of the Five Pillars fluttered in a choreographed draft, representing the forces that held the Kingdom of Aetherion together.
The roaring flame of House Ignis.
The unyielding mountain of House Terra.
The swift gale of House Zephyr.
The crackling arc of House Fulgur.
At the very center, positioned with a precarious sense of fading prestige, hung the crested wave of House Valerius.
"Next," the Proctor intoned, his voice flat with the boredom of a man who had seen a thousand destinies decided by a glow of light. "Isaac Valerius. Evaluation of Mana Affinity."
Isaac stepped forward. His boots clicked against the polished stone, a solitary rhythm in a room suddenly gone silent. He could feel the weight of a thousand eyes—some curious, most predatory.
At the high table, the Patriarch of Valerius sat like a statue of granite. His aura was a heavy, stagnant pressure that seemed to demand a result to justify his seat. Beside him stood Caspian, the golden son. Caspian didn't look at his younger brother; he was busy adjusting the silk cuffs of his uniform, completely uninterested in anything else at the moment.
"The wand, boy," the Proctor said, gesturing to a standard-issue Oak Catalyst resting on a velvet cushion. "Expel a standard E-rank [Water Shot]. Let's see if that decade of 'meditation' gave you a spark or just a headache."
Isaac gripped the wand. To the onlookers, he looked tense, perhaps over-prepared. They saw a young man who had spent ten years refining his mana pathways to reach the standard of the average. In their eyes, he wasn't a noble; he was simply a failure.
Gather the mana. Transfer to the wand. Let the wand do the magic. By theory, it was simple. Yet, the micromanagement wasn't; Isaac couldn't understand why the wand wasn't shooting out the water.
Creeeeeak.
A faint, unsettling sound echoed from the round, stone-like catalyst located at the base of the wand. The Proctor leaned in, his brow furrowing, "What are you doing? Just release the flow, Valerius. Don't choke the catalyst."
"Look at him," a student snickered, leaning toward his peers. "He's turning red just trying to produce a mist. The 'Hardworker' is about to pop a vein."
"Valerius truly would've run dry," another noble whispered, a smirk spreading across his face. "If not for the great Caspian, that is." The reaction was objective and unanimous: Isaac was struggling. He was failing.
Isaac's eyes twitched in confusion. Then, there was a revelation—that this wand was faulty.
CRACK.
The sound was like a pistol shot. The Oak Catalyst didn't just break; it shattered. Shrapnel of enchanted wood whistled through the air, and a thin, high-pitched hiss—the sound of supercritical steam—echoed through the hall.
Among the debres of wood were bits of water, indicating that it wasn't the total failure. However, the fact that Issac broke the wand instead of successfully striking the target with [Water Shot] was all that remained.
"Wand destruction," the Proctor announced, his voice tinged with reflexive disgust as he brushed splinters from his robes. He didn't even look at the target. "Negligible output recorded. Complete failure in mana synchronization. Next!"
The Patriarch stood up. His mana flared, an erratic and embarrassed storm that made the nearby candles flicker. "Ten years," he hissed, his voice carrying to every corner of the hall. "Ten years of training, Isaac Valerius, and you can't even discharge a basic catalyst without destroying it. You are a liability to this name."
Caspian finally turned his gaze toward his brother. His eyes weren't filled with the heat of rivalry, but the cold, distant pity one might feel for a broken machine. "Tomorrow is your Rite of Manifestation, Isaac. Some are born to be the tide. Others are just... dry."
Isaac didn't argue. He didn't beg. No feelings of hurt entered him. He was used to all this, after all.
The fact that the wand was faulty, that he was framed—all of them didn't matter.
Isaac remained standing amidst the splinters, his gaze fixed on the floor. He didn't look at the mocking students, nor the disappointed King, nor his father's retreating back. He was mentally replaying the moment of the crack.
He knew his limits. He knew his mana was "stubborn"—it moved like sludge through his veins, requiring double the effort just to push it into a catalyst. But he also knew the physics of a wand. The way it had resisted him wasn't because he was weak; it was because he had tried to pour a river through a needle's eye. The wand hadn't been "faulty" in the way a broken tool is—it had been rigged to bottleneck.
'By whom?' he asked himself, his fingers brushing a jagged piece of oak.
The Rite was tomorrow. In the eyes of the Kingdom, today's failure was yet another proof that he was a defective vessel. But as he turned to leave the hall, the air around him felt... different. Instead of disgust, there was the active hostility.
Ignoring the sensation for now, Isaac descended the marble steps of the Grand Hall, the echo of the shattering wand still ringing in his ears. The heavy oak doors creaked open, revealing the sprawling courtyard of the Royal Academy.
"Isaac! Hey, Isaac!"
A young woman with a shock of messy auburn hair and a smudged face hurried toward him. She wore the soot-stained apron of the House Ignis junior mages—those whose job was to maintain the training furnaces. This was Elara, a student from a minor branch of the Fire House. Like Isaac, she wasn't a "genius," but she was the only one who had ever seen him train at 4:00 AM.
"I heard the noise," she said, her eyes scanning his face. "Did you... did you finally push the output to E-Rank?"
Isaac looked at his reddened palm. "I broke the wand, Elara. The Proctor called it a synchronization failure."
Elara's face fell. She knew how many nights Isaac had spent studying the internal flow of mana. "But that's impossible. Your control is the best in the junior class. If the wand broke, it's because it couldn't handle the—"
"It doesn't matter," Isaac interrupted gently. Elera immediately understood the sign, indicated by her trembling eyes. "Tomorrow is the Rite. If I don't manifest a high-ranked skill, the 'control' won't matter anyway."
"Don't say that," Elara hissed, looking around to make sure no High Nobles were listening. "You've worked harder than anyone. The System has to reward that. It has to."
"Reward, you say," Said Isaac, dryly. "I wonder if I was ever rewarded."
"Reward? Is that what they call pity these days?"
A group of students blocked the path. At the center stood Silas Fulgur, a tall, sharp-featured boy with eyes that crackled with static. He was a cousin to the main Fulgur line, and his hobby was reminding everyone beneath him exactly where they stood.
"Silas," Isaac said, his voice neutral.
"I saw the target, Isaac," Silas smirked, stepping up daringly. "Untouched? You spent ten years of your life to learn how to fail successfully? My family's servants can do better with their spits."
The students behind him laughed. Silas leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Your father is already talking to the King about 'redirecting' your inheritance to Caspian's future children. Even if you draw a C-Rank tomorrow, you're already a ghost in that house. Why bother showing up?"
Isaac didn't flinch. He didn't even look angry. He simply stepped around Silas. "Because the law says I have to, Silas. And unlike you, I actually follow the rules."
"We'll see how many rules you follow when you're scrubbing the dorm floors on Monday!" Silas shouted after him, but Isaac didn't turn back.
...
The Valerius estate was silent that evening. Usually, the eve of a Manifestation was a night of celebration, but the dining hall was cold.
His father sat at the head of the table, cutting a piece of steak with surgical precision. Caspian sat opposite him, looking through a tactical map of the borderlands.
"I have spoken to the Registrar," his father said, not looking up. "Regardless of your result tomorrow, you will be enrolled in the Academy's logistical stream. You will manage the water supplies for the border forts. It is a stable, quiet life. One befitting your... limitations."
"Father," Isaac started. "If I draw a skill above—"
"Do not argue," the Patriarch's voice was like ice. "Today was an embarrassment. You've always been an embarrassment. The Fulgur Patriarch laughed in my face. You are a Valerius. If you cannot be a tide, you will at least be a useful puddle. That is the end of it."
Caspian finally looked up, his expression unreadable. "It's for the best, Isaac. The world outside these walls is becoming dangerous. The Solari Empire is moving. You wouldn't survive a single day in a real battle."
Isaac looked at his family—the people he had spent ten years trying to make proud. He realized then that they didn't want him to succeed; they wanted him to be safe so he wouldn't embarrass them.
No matter the circumstance, he would be a liability, the imperfection to remove from their perfect house of Valerius.
"...Then so be it."
Unknown to the two, Isaac's fists curled up tightly under the table, trembling in rage. His face was calm, however.
...
The morning of the Rite was suffocatingly quiet. Isaac walked the path to the Dormitory of the Manifesting, a specialized wing of the Academy where students were placed in a magically induced sleep to interface with the System.
"Good luck, Isaac," Elara whispered as he passed the furnace rooms. She looked tired, her eyes red from a night of worrying. She pressed a small, cold iron charm into his hand—a commoner's good luck token. "Whatever the stone looks like... just remember who you are."
"Thanks. You as well." Isaac nodded, the iron heavy in his palm.
He felt the eyes of the other students on him—the "average" nobles and the talented elite—all of them waiting to see if the Valerius "Hard-worker" would finally bloom or wither away.
The Sleep Room was a hall of rows upon rows of silver-trimmed couches, each etched with runes of stabilization. The air smelled of lavender and cold ozone.
"Find your assigned couches," a Senior Inquisitor commanded, his voice echoing. "The Rite is not a dream; it is a resonance. Do not resist the pull. Your soul knows what it needs. Trust the System."
Isaac lay down. To his left, Silas Fulgur was already reclining, a cocky grin on his face as he adjusted his high-collared tunic. "See you on the other side, Valerius. Try not to wake up crying."
Isaac closed his eyes. He didn't focus on Silas. He focused on the rhythmic pulse of his own mana—the "sluggish" flow he had spent a decade mastering. He didn't want the System to give him something new; he wanted it to recognize what he had already built.
The incense was lit. The runes hummed. The world faded into a singular, crushing darkness.