The Mechanism Room was not a room.
It was far too vast to be considered one.
The ground was the compressed earth with the specific density of terrain that had been walked across for years, which indicated that Mechanism Room has been in use for a long period of time. The ceiling above—filled with grey-blue, sky-like lights, illuminated this artificial wilderness at a terrifying consistency.
"So this is the fabled Mechanism Room of the Aetherion Academy..." Silas made a feral grin as he witnessed the vast space ahead of him. The three teammates of his winced at the slightest of his movement.
The landscape ran in every direction. Low ridges. Sparse treelines of constructed timber that cast real shadows. Open ground that funneled movement between natural corridors. Supply positions marked by the stacked geometry of crates—wood, iron-banded, distributed at intervals that weren't random. Food crates marked with a single carved line. Weapon crates marked with two.
The students swiftly moved through the entrance in a continuous flow and spread, knowing that clustering won't help in an assessment that was likely to be "relative" in its criteria.
Then, the wristbands appeared.
Not handed across by waiting faculty, but suddenly sprang into existence and latched themselves on each and every student present in the facility.
This wristband, on Isaac, was made up of hardened mana.
This flow of mana... His eyes narrowed. Thorne's [Grounded Circuit].
Then, the Proctor's voice carried from everywhere and nowhere—speaking through the speakers that were laid out all across the vast system.
"The devices on your wrists are the combined product of three skills."
What came was the announcement.
"Master Thorne's [Grounded Circuit]. Master Andrias's [Mana Mimicry]. Mr. Raul Ignis's [Synthesis]. They are not meant to be decoratives."
Isaac turned his wrist, further inspecting the wristband.
Thorne's [Grounded Circuit] is much more stable in this band than what I observed two days ago. Isaac recalled when Thorne absorbed Jax's [Bolt Streak] which he deflected. It serves as the engine of this device's hardware, the production of Andrias's [Mana Mimicry]. They complement one another in a very profound manner such that they elongate the overall lifespan of this wristband...
Isaac deduced that it must be the doing of the third skill mentioned, Raul Ignis's [Synthesis]. It was more than just what the name of the skill suggested.
"The Manafold Circuitry of this room is connected to every device you are wearing. The room reads your device the way it reads itself—as an extension of its own architecture. Any damage inflicted upon you beyond the established threshold will be registered as damage to the room's own system. The room will respond accordingly. You will be expelled from the assessment."
There was a pause with the weight of something that was going to be followed immediately.
"And that means disqualification."
Some students flinched at that. Some others remained composed.
"This is ridiculous," growled Tomlin. "We don't even know what this assessment is for, and now, there is disqualification?"
"...I do have an idea of what it may be." Seren then voiced, earning Tomlin's attention. Instead of finishing her words, however, she turned to Cassiopeia. "Are you thinking the same as I am, Cassiopeia?"
"High nobles must have gotten the hint by now." Cassiopeia, as she filed something in her notebook, stated without looking up from it. "Class designation."
"Huh? But—" Tomlin objected, wide-eyed. "I thought that class designation is done through a tournament-based, one-versus-one format! I swear I heard it from someone!"
Neither Cassiopeia nor Seren replied to Tomlin, much to his awkwardness.
Isaac raised his head up at the high ceiling of the Mechanism Room as he listened to the conversations of his teammates.
"The devices also monitor physiological state. Excessive malnourishment. Dehydration. Any condition that crosses the threshold of what this institution considers an acceptable margin of physical deterioration. These conditions will trigger the same response."
The voice moved across the dispersed students, such that no one missed the information.
"Food crates and weapon crates are distributed throughout the terrain. One carved mark. Two carved marks. You have eyes."
The grey light held. The constructed treelines cast their real shadows across the open ground.
"Your objective, again, is to find the exit," the Proctor said, "Three days. The assessment concludes at the seventh bell on the third day. Any student still present at that point will be evaluated on their performance within the room up to that moment."
He paused.
"Good luck."
The voice ceased.
The Mechanism Room received 4,384 students in silence.
Isaac stood among his group, thinking.
Wristband. Exit. Class designation.
[The Prism] was already running. It was always already running.
Class designation as in... the separation of 4,384 students into four groups. Higher class—the representatives of the grade. Elite class—destined to be the officers of the militia. Combat class—those with combat potentials. And the commoner class—the general stream.
Class designation involved the stratification of the entire grade. It was an assessment of enormous scale, commonly known to be held via a long series of one-versus-one tournaments, as Tomlin had stated.
If this assessment is truly about class designation, the rumor—which Elara relayed to me—that the evaluation is entirely team-based must be the false information.
And this aligned with the thoughts that was ongoing in him for some time. Nothing changes.
Exiting his thoughts, Isaac observed his surroundings. His teammates seemed to be in thoughts of their own.
Currently, there were two motives driving students forward.
One, the exit. Two, avoiding disqualification.
Both incentivize those who move. In other words, the evaluators want students to combat. They want to generate a situation that mimics a war.
"What now?" Tomlin was the one to break the ice. "We need to secure food before starting our search for an exit, don't we?"
It was a logical solution.
"Yes." Cassiopeia, the previously elected leader of Group 13, closed her notebook. "Three-day window is very long for a test. Expect little to no sleep. Given how we don't know the total amount of food scattered throughout the room, the safest option is to discard searching for the exit entirely and focus on stacking enough food to prevent disqualification."
Seren nodded. "I agree. It is the safest measure that we can take."
Tomlin peeked at Isaac, who remained silent. Returning his gaze to Cassiopeia and Seren ahead of him, he voiced, "Well then, it looks like our course of action is decided. Shall we get going?"
Cassiopeia, with eyes that held a cold, calculating gleam, led the group forward by taking the first step. Seren followed immediately, and Tomlin walked behind the two, trying not to fall back.
Isaac, being the one to tail them, began moving as well.
The lower the assigned number of a group, the more danger they likely are.
After all, one user of a high-ranked skill tends to be more dangerous than four users of generic, D-ranked skills.
Silas Fulgur and Lyra Aetherion.
Isaac remembered the brief exchange between the two just before entry into the Mechanism Room.
This assessment will definitely be eventful.
___
Silas and his three teammates had moved northeast from the entry point within the first two minutes.
Not because northeast offered any particular strategic advantage. Because northeast was the direction Silas had chosen, and he had never spent more than three seconds on direction.
The three F-ranks followed in silence. The worthless bags designation had settled over them like weather—not argued against, simply carried. They moved because the alternative was being left alone in terrain they didn't understand, and that seemed worse.
He found the first weapon crate at the forty-meter mark. He didn't open it. He looked at it, confirmed it contained weapons, snorted it off, and kept moving. He had [Lightning Spear]. The crate had nothing that improved on that.
It was the three F-ranks who cracked it open instead and took what they could carry—short blades, a buckler, a single reinforced staff. Their hands were less empty now. Whether that mattered was a different question.
This silent advance was stopped sooner than Silas had expected.
"Surrender yourself, Silas Fulgur. We have the high ground."
He found them at the ridge.
Eight groups. 32 students. Arranged across the elevated terrain in a perimeter that surrounded him and his group in every direction. The draw results had been public since yesterday. They had known Group 1's composition since the tile assignments.
Silas stopped.
He looked at the perimeter.
Then he grinned.
It wasn't a pleasant grin. It was the specific expression of someone who had walked into a room expecting a meal and found a banquet.
"Eight groups," he said, to no one in particular. His voice suggested that defeat didn't cross his mind once, even when vastly outnumbered. "Numbers?"
"From three to ten," one answered.
Silas laughed. He looked across the ridge with the bright, dangerous attention of someone whose interest had just been genuinely caught. "I didn't think this room had anything worth my time except group two. I'll correct that assessment—I see that you prepared an entertainment for me."
From the ridge's center, a young woman with the composed bearing of a high noble stepped forward.
"I am Camilla Hedron of House Hedron. The leader of the alliance who will take you down here and now."
Seven blades of condensed mana orbited her ambient surroundings in slow, deliberate rotation.
"Skill?"
"A-rank: [Mystical Swords]." Camilla's eyes exhibited a daring gleam. "And I am not the only one."
To her left stood a broad-shouldered young man with both palms pressed flat against the ridge's surface.
"Bart Ossel, A-rank: [Earthshatter]."
The ground beneath Bart Ossel was already responding, fissures spreading outward from his palms in controlled fracture lines, the ridge's terrain cracking into raised slabs that tilted and locked at his direction.
"Neve Cassin, A-rank: [Mirage Slash]."
Beside Bart, a lean young woman stood with blades—acquired from weapon crates—which had the sharp-looking mana draped around it.
"Pol Drevin, A-rank: [Juggernaut]."
Further along the ridge, a heavyset young man exhaled once before he underwent a full physical transformation, where the user's mass and density multiplied to a degree that made the ground compress slightly under his feet. His skin appeared iron-hard.
"Sera Voss, A-rank: [Ashfall]."
"Idris Callow, A-rank: [Chain Labyrinth]."
"Oriel Fenn, A-rank: [Storm Veil]."
Seven A-rank skills. It was a scene that made the groupmates of Silas fumble in terror. The other twenty-five groupmates of these seven people were irrelevant to the calculation.
"We have seven with A-rank skills." Camilla's [Mystical Swords] continued their slow orbit, in the unhurried, patient manner of someone who had never needed to rush. "Even if you have the fabled S-rank: [Lightning Spear], the very skill that the current Fulgur Patriarch owns, you cannot match all of us at once."
"Last name, and therefore, nobles, all of you." Silas remarked, sweeping his gaze through them in an arc, grinning as he did so. What Camilla said meant nothing to him. "A-ranks as well… good. Even better."
"You...." She paused, as if not having expected such reaction out of him. Finding his reaction unreasonable, however, she maintained her stance. "Surrender your wristband. This is your last chance."
Silas looked at the seven A-rank signatures arrayed across the ridge. He could indeed feel them—the mana output of skills that were much more significant than the peasants.
His grin widened. And it was enough of a signal for them to attack.
[Earthshatter] fractured the ridge's foundation in preparation. [Mirage Slash] sent invisible cuts through the air at every position. [Juggernaut] radiated the dense, immovable output of a transformation already completed. [Ashfall]'s suspended cinder field waited overhead. [Chain Labyrinth]'s geometry already half-constructed between Idris's hands. [Storm Veil] generated thirty meters of wide, barrier-like wind that was ready to block whatever was to come.
And Camilla's [Mystical Swords], the seven blades whose orbits had tightened fractionally since she stepped forward, flew.
"I've been wondering," In this dire situation, Silas said, completely casual, "what I can actually do."
He raised his hand.
"Let's find out."
The air began to crackle. The smell of burnt ozone spread rapidly. Then—in a split second—there was the monstrous calamity, the unkempt judgment of the thunder god. [Lightning Spear] arrived in his hand.
Camilla's eyes widened.
"Everyone, now—"
Then, a flash.
The sheer force generated from the lightning strike was enormous.
What had been a ridge became a crater. The blast radius sent compressed earth, severed timber, and ionized air in every direction simultaneously. Camilla's [Mystical Swords] shattered on contact. Bart's barrier wall of heaved earth was consumed in the same instant it rose. Oriel's [Storm Veil] was immediately swallowed. The [Chain Labyrinth] disintegrated. [Ashfall]'s curtain scattered. Pol Drevin's [Juggernaut] wasn't enough to fend off the lightning of this scale.
The three F-ranks behind Silas, even with their arms shielding their faces, were knocked back, rolling powerlessly.
When the smoke and the dust cleared, none of the enemies remained.
With a single [Lightning Spear], all thirty-two—the seven with A-rank skills and their groupmates—were disqualified. The coalition that had taken ten minutes to assemble across a ridge had been removed from the assessment in under a second.
"Hah... hahahaha!"
Silas roared as he looked beyond the crater at the terrain ahead. The artificial sky held its grey light unmoved. The constructed treelines spread in every direction with the deliberate geography of a battlefield built to generate movement. "Do you see that?! The might of the S-rank skill?!"
His voice carried across a significant portion of the Mechanism Room. Students who had already put distance between themselves and Group 1's entry vector heard it anyway. Some moved faster. Some stopped moving entirely and reassessed their direction.
Silently, almost to himself, Silas said, "There is no one who can oppose me in this test."
His grin didn't fade.
Somewhere in the grey geography ahead, Group 2 was moving.
Lyra Aetherion.
Don't you think you're going too far?
The question had been sitting in his awareness since the grand hall. Not bothering him—no, it didn't bother him at all. He simply wanted to fight the princess of the kingdom, the supposed genius who walked in the footsteps of the infamous Prince Gladius Aetherion—the royal heir, the next king, the name the kingdom said with a specific reverence it reserved for very few things.
He wanted to see what the shadow of that name actually contained.
He turned to the three F-ranks, who had not moved from their original positions. They were looking at the crater the ridge had become with the specific expression of people revising a prior understanding at significant speed.
"Keep up," Silas said. Already moving. "Or don't. I have somewhere to be."
He descended from the shattered ridge and moved into the terrain.
The hunt for Group 2 had begun.