The moment Cassiopeia woke up, she felt that something felt different.
She sat up.
Isaac was seated on the same stone he had been on when she lost consciousness. His posture hadn't changed—still and hands loose at his sides with the composure of someone who had been staying still.
However, his jacket said otherwise. The left sleeve had a tear along the forearm. A second tear ran diagonal across the right shoulder. They were clear signs of a battle.
She looked at the damp radius on the floor. At the tears. At the ceiling above the grate, where the grey light pressed down with its unchanging patience.
"You had visitors," she said.
"They've been handled."
She reached into her small pocket on her student uniform and revealed a miniature notebook. The notebook then responded to the mana she fed into it—expanding from the width of two fingers back to its full volume.
C-rank: [Minimization], thought Isaac. She arranged a user of said skill to apply and maintain its effect on her notebook. Apply mana to return it to its original size. Apply mana once more to shrink it back.
She opened it. Then paused, wondering why she opened it. Close it again without writing anything. The habit had run ahead of the decision, and the fact that her habit was acting up meant that some degree of stress was relieved by her sleep.
"How long was I asleep?"
"Long enough."
She stood, brushing limestone dust from her knees. The exhaustion was still present, but not as bad as before. She looked at Isaac's torn sleeve once more.
"Then, let's move. Staying for a long period in one location is not a good idea," she said, and climbed out of the crawlspace.
The terrain above had the quality of an environment that had been taking blows from numerous combats. The compressed earth carried more impact craters than it had at the start. The treelines were thinner in several directions.
The grey ceiling still held its unchanging light over all of this.
Isaac and Cassiopeia moved.
After covering around two hundred meters northeast, they registered a vibration off the ground.
It was a distant, propagating vibration through the earth.
They looked up. Witnessed a pillar of violent lightning erupting along with an explosion. Another vibration.
Silas was moving toward them.
"Did he find us?" Cassiopeia muttered.
"I believe not," Isaac spoke, "he's grown accustomed to how others respond to [Lightning Spear]. He may simply be cornering the remaining students into a single point. To him, this assessment is a game of hunt—although three days without a proper rest must be taking a toll him as well."
Cassiopeia processed this. "Which direction to go then?"
"North is where Silas is coming from. East runs into the edge of the room. West—"
Isaac registered a small, distant noise from the treelines at the west.
It wasn't Silas—he was at north. Someone else was boldly moving toward this area prone to [Lightning Spear] with deliberate intentions.
"South."
It was the only open direction.
They moved.
The southern sector's treelines were denser than the north. The artificial geography of the room's design produced a corridor that narrowed as they ran. The ground's humidity had reached a sustainable equilibrium that made each step carry slightly more weight than it should.
As they ran, they found that the path which they were running at converged with another narrow path.
And that was when Isaac heard someone—the specific pattern of breathing that belonged to someone running at the edge of their reserves.
Then, a figure broke into their view at full sprint.
Princess Lyra Aetherion.
Her jacket was gone, probably lost somewhere in the terrain. She was holding onto a saber.
Her silver eyes registered Isaac and Cassiopeia's position in the corridor. Yet, she didn't seem surprised, which meant that she foresaw this event via her [Clairvoyance].
She didn't stop running, without an intent to fight them. She instead adjusted her vector slightly and ran parallel to them.
"North is Silas," she said. "He's two minutes behind me."
They were in the same circumstance. An enemy of one's enemy is one's friend. No talk was needed. Mutual truce has already been established.
"We know," Cassiopeia replied, matching her pace. "There is someone else from the west."
Lyra processed this. She took a peek at Isaac, filled with an inquiry of how he managed to survive this far with [Condensation].
"South should be open for now," she said.
The southern corridor opened into the widest clearing Isaac had encountered in this room, flat ground and no trees nearby. It was the kind of space that rewarded the person with the longest range.
They were thirty meters into the clearing when Silas stepped out of the northern treeline.
Now, running was no longer an option when they were out in the open. Silas was deliberately pitting them to this location.
He looked at the three of them with glee, although Isaac caught that he appeared just as exhausted as others.
"Who knows how long it's been." His voice carried without effort. "I've seen enough failures whining in corners. Day or night or whatever it may be, I wasn't here to take a stroll."
His eyes moved across the group. They held on Lyra for one beat. Then moved to Isaac. A pause. "Isaac Puddle Nameless. What trickery did you pull to last this long, with that [Condensation] of yours?"
"Take a guess," replied Isaac, coolly. His mind was already undergoing series of calculations. He was starting to see a way to counter [Lightning Spear].
Accelerate cognition. Repeat the use of [Condensation] and therefore, accumulate humidity. Then, the simultaneous application of supercritical fluid.
"Silas Fulgur," Lyra then said. Her saber was raised. The exhaustion in her body was real and present and invisible in the way she was standing.
"Princess," said Silas raised his hand. The ambient air began its low crackle.
0.3 seconds.
Instantly, after the exact 0.3 seconds that Isaac's [The Prism] calculated, [Lightning Spear] burst into the existence, sitting on Silas's hand. "Where were we?"
Lyra and Cassiopeia grimaced.
The charge was building. There was a specific quality change in the air that [Lightning Spear] at full draw produced—the static on hair-line, the taste of ozone, and the vibration in the compressed earth below their feet that came before the sky answered.
The distance between them and Silas was fairly long.
"…Huh?" Cassiopeia raised her hand. "The humidity… it suddenly spiked."
She and Lyra looked at Isaac, whose eyes were fixated on Silas.
Then, from the southern treeline behind them, another voice boomed,
"This is a convenient arrangement."
Vane Abias stepped into the clearing from the south. It appeared that he was the pursuer from the west, who eventually decided to circle them around from south instead. He walked with the casualty of someone who had made a calculation he was satisfied with.
His eyes found Isaac.
"I told myself I'd revisit this. Revenge will be served," Vane said. "Call it petty, a flaw, whatever you like. I prefer to think of it as a standard."
"Revenge as methodology," Isaac said, finding what lies underneath Vane's words, "are you thinking that a driven mindset will give you an edge for the assessment?"
Vane looked at Isaac with surprise that belonged to someone who didn't expect his thought to be read.
"Isaac Nameless," Vane growled, "were you hiding your strengths? A failure my ass."
Isaac didn't respond. He assessed the current situation instead.
Silas in the north, [Lightning Spear] built and ready to be thrown.
Vane in the south, [Mana Siphon] works only in his proximity and to objects within his perception.
Cassiopeia's hands were at the earth's surface. [Bedrock] and [Ferrous Bind], ready. Lyra's saber was tracking Silas. Isaac stood at the group's center with his hands at his sides.
Nobody else remained nearby. Whatever students had been moving through this sector had read the gathering of its variables and put distance between themselves and it with the specific efficiency of people who understood that the correct response to this particular convergence was to not be present for it.
The clearing held it all for one moment—the specific suspension of a situation that had identified all of its variables and was waiting for the first one to move.
Then, Lyra's form suddenly relaxed.
"…It's over."
"What?" Cassiopeia narrowed her eyes.
Finding an ideal opening, Silas drew back his hand to throw.
And that was when the seventh bell rang.
It didn't arrive as sound.
It arrived as a condition—the Mechanism Room's Manafold Circuitry executing its terminal protocol simultaneously across every active wristband in the room.
The signal propagated at the speed of the room's architecture rather than the speed of air, and every device registered was put under its effect.
Isaac saw that a slow luminescence rose from the wristband and expanded outward, containing his view. He was forced to close his eyes.
When he opened them back up, he was standing back in the grand hall, out of the Academy. Around him were other students who looked around in confusion, relief, and that of an accomplishment.
Some students collapsed on the floor where they had appeared. Some looked at their hands. Some looked at their wristbands, which had gone dark and were disintegrating. Some looked at the doors the Mechanism Room had been behind and found the doors closed and ordinary.
There were only a couple hundreds of students remaining from what Isaac could see.
Nobody spoke at volume.
The side door opened.
The Proctor walked to the dais. He looked across the remaining students distributed across a hall that was built to house thousands.
"The assessment has concluded," he said, flatly. "Your wristbands will soon automatically dissolve. You will be directed to the medical wing for physiological evaluation before dismissal. Results will be communicated through official channels at a time to be announced."
He paused.
"You are dismissed to the medical wing. Move when you are ready."
He stepped down from the dais.
That was all. Even at the end, there was no information on what this assessment was for, although Isaac guessed that it will be known soon enough.
Nevertheless, the assessment had a result. The result would be processed. The Proctor walked back toward the side door without receiving any question of students whose hands were raised.
The door closed behind him.
The hall returned to its quiet.
Silas stood at the position the white light had placed him.
The [Lightning Spear] that he previously held dissipated with the bell. He watched it go with the flat attention of someone observing a task interrupted before completion.
He looked at the three students he had been about to engage. Lyra, thirty meters to his left. Cassiopeia and Isaac, ten meters behind her.
His jaw was clenched.
"Three days," he said, as he gazed at Isaac. He then crossed his arms and looked at the closed doors of the Mechanism Room with the expression of someone who had a complaint and no available recipient for it.
Cassiopeia found Isaac three meters from where the white light had placed her.
"It's… over. At last."
She looked at him for a moment—the specific look of someone who had accumulated a significant number of observations about a person over three days and was aware that her notes needed a revision.
"It was nice working with you," Cassiopeia said, her voice lower now. "You… have been helpful over three days."
Isaac nodded, "Likewise."
Cassiopeia was quiet for a moment. Her notebook was in her hand. She held his gaze for one moment longer before left the scene.
He turned around. Found that Lyra was staring at him, in intrigue in particular.
F-rank: [Condensation].
The question of how he survived for three days seemed to be in her mind. Nevertheless, she didn't approach, and he wasn't obliged to explain.
Isaac decided to leave and take rest.
Outside, the Academy went about its morning.
The seventh bell's echo had already faded.