Chapter 61: Examination
The practical assessment was held in the training courtyard.
Students in groups of four. Three examiners: output, control, ceiling. And the fourth metric that was not listed anywhere, which was the gap between what you demonstrated and what you appeared to be sitting on.
The examiner on the left tracked that gap. She made fewer notes than the others but caught things the others were looking at their boards and missing.
Groups went in sequence. I was in the third block of the afternoon session.
I watched the morning session through the observation corridor on the east side, which was technically student-accessible during the practical week.
The third group of the morning contained the student Tessira had identified as the one who trained at the western stairs.
A tall boy with a sword scholar’s badge who drew his sword for the bladed component and cut the target from four meters without the blade reaching it. Wind technique shaped through the weapon rather than cast from the hand.
The examiner in the center stopped writing mid-note and started a new page.
He stepped back from the marked position and looked at the observation corridor with the equanimity of someone who had performed well and knew it and was not going to pretend otherwise.
Reinhardt.
The last group of the morning contained Sera Halvane. She went third in her group. Her wind affinity hit the upper end of D-tier and then kept going, the crystal registering past the standard D bracket and into the lower C range. The examiner on the right wrote quickly without looking at the board.
She held the technique for six seconds.
The examiner in the center made a note after the fifth second that he had not made at any point before.
She stepped back having shown exactly what she came to show.
The afternoon session began.
My group was called third.
The other three students performed adequately. The first had a fire affinity with good output and limited control. The second was precise across everything she demonstrated, the kind of precision that came from training for the examination specifically.
The third had ceiling and no control to match it, mana output running past the direction it was supposed to go, the examiner on the left watching with interest.
My turn.
Baseline. Fireball at controlled output. Wind Blade at controlled range. A basic mana pulse that registered in the lower tier of what I could actually produce.
Then the Gale Vortex, held for eight seconds.
Nobody else in any session had held a maintained technique for eight seconds. The examiner on the right’s pen stopped moving. The examiner in the center looked up from the board. The examiner on the left had not been looking at the board since I stepped onto the marked position.
I released it.
Then Hell’s Fire. Minimum viable output. Three seconds.
The color of Hell’s Fire is black.
Mine was blue.
The examiner in the center stopped writing mid-stroke.
In the covered balcony above the courtyard, faculty access only, movement stopped in my peripheral vision. Someone who had been walking. They did not start again.
I held it for three seconds and released.
The examining table was quiet.
The examiner on the left was looking at her board and not at me.
The examiner in the center came forward.
"Affinity classification," he said.
"All Elements."
He wrote it without reacting.
"Mana Heart grade."
"Silver, mid-tier."
"Can you demonstrate the Aether Step technique recorded from the House Amagi succession duel."
"Not today," I said.
He made a final note and directed me to the waiting area.
The figure in the balcony had not moved when I walked off the position.
Tessira was already in the waiting area.
"She asked about the domain," she said, before I could ask anything.
"And."
"I told her it was a developing affinity."
"Is that true."
She looked at the courtyard.
"It will be," she said.
Two more groups cycled through while we waited. The second group contained Valeria Valentine.
She went last in her group.
The first three students performed well. Well enough that by the time the group finished, the examiner on the right had more notes than usual and the examiner in the center had stopped starting new pages and was continuing on the existing one.
Then Valeria Valentine stepped onto the marked position.
The training courtyard went quiet when she cast.
Ice. Not the basic ice technique that appeared in the elemental classification curriculum. Ice as a domain. The temperature dropping across the entire courtyard, frost appearing on the stone three meters from the marked position before she had done anything.
The examiner on the right looked at the measuring crystal.
She held for four seconds. The courtyard temperature was seven degrees lower at the two-second mark. She released cleanly and stepped back and the temperature returned to normal faster than passive ice should have allowed it to.
Three seconds of silence from the examining table.
Then all three examiners wrote simultaneously.
She crossed to the waiting area and sat down three seats from me and opened a book.
She read.
"Reinhardt," said a student beside me, to someone across the waiting area. "He’s asking about Hell’s Fire changing color."
"What about it," the other student said.
"He wants to know if it’s a documentation error."
"Is it."
"The crystal doesn’t document color," the first student said. "It documents output. The color changed and the output didn’t register on any existing scale."
A pause.
"The examiner asked him not to demonstrate the third technique."
"He refused?"
"He said not today," the first student said. "Which is different."
Valeria Valentine turned a page.
Anastasia appeared at the side entrance thirty minutes later. She crossed the courtyard, sat down, straightened her dress.
"Seven examiners," I said.
"Seven," she said. "Then the head of the assessment division."
She produced the form from her sleeve.
Ancient Entity, Academic Status Pending.
Tessira looked at the sky.
"They created it while I was waiting," Anastasia said. "They also asked whether I would accept an unranked category so as not to affect the general placement curve."
"What did you say," I said.
"I said I would think about it," she said. "Which I am doing now."
Three seats away, Valeria Valentine turned another page.
She had either not heard any of this or had decided not to show that she had.
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