"Director’s student."
Kaiden heard the two words from two students passing beside him in the corridor, in a tone that was not completely friendly. "Gets private training every morning while the rest wait for their turn in normal classes."
Kaiden did not stop to respond, even though the sentence reached him clearly enough.
In the applied magic class, he noticed that some students began to avoid standing beside him during pair exercises, while others, a little younger than him, began to approach him with questions about his techniques, with admiration that did not hide their desire to imitate him.
Professor Farin stopped his direct criticism, but he did not stop the cautious watching. "Do not let attention make you careless," he said once, without additional details, then walked away.
One evening, Kaiden heard a conversation he was not meant to hear, behind a half closed door in the academy library.
"His talent is exaggerated," said a professor’s voice he did not recognize immediately. "If the director had not chosen him, he would have remained just another ordinary mage graduating with average grades."
"Maybe," another voice replied. "Or maybe the director saw something we have not seen yet."
Kaiden did not continue listening, walked away quietly before his presence was discovered, but the first sentence stayed with him all the way to his room.
He sat on the edge of his bed, thinking about it more than he wants to admit. This was not a completely new feeling, something of self doubt had visited him before, but he had not heard it this clearly from another person’s mouth, someone supposed to evaluate his abilities objectively.
The next day, he found Eveline waiting for him at the entrance of the training arena, her arms folded as usual.
"I heard something interesting," she said without greeting.
"What?" Kaiden asked, not sure of the direction of the conversation.
"That some professors doubt your talent," she said simply, as if discussing the weather. "That the director may have made a mistake choosing you."
Kaiden stopped, angry for a moment at her excessive frankness. "And you? What do you think?"
Eveline thought for a second, her eyes studying him the same way she studied her opponents in those margins. "I think you are slow, and rely on your raw power too much," she said finally. "But this is not the same thing they say. You are talented, just not complete. No one is complete."
Her words were not completely reassuring, but they were more honest than any praise he heard from others recently.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"Because you will fail if you think everyone likes you," she said, and walked away without further explanation, leaving Kaiden standing there rethinking everything he heard in the last two days.
The following weeks passed at a faster pace, double training with the director, additional hours in the library studying quick control techniques that Eveline suggested unintentionally, and consecutive matches in which he tried to apply what he learned, with varying success.
In one of the joint classes, another advanced student challenged Kaiden publicly, with a smile that does not hide his desire to prove that Kaiden’s success was mere luck.
"Let us see if the director’s student deserves the title," the student said in front of everyone.
This time, Kaiden did not rely only on direct rush. He used a faster spell, less powerful as Eveline suggested, to break his opponent’s concentration at close distance, then followed it with a stronger blow when his opponent opened a field for attack.
He won, by a small margin this time, not by the overwhelming margin he was used to previously, but a win built on thinking not only on raw power.
Eveline noticed the match from afar, and did not comment on it directly, but Kaiden saw a small nod of her head before she turned and left.
At the end of that week, Kaiden was summoned again to the administrative tower, but this time the director was not alone in the office. There was another man, wearing the outfit of a royal messenger, carrying a seal Kaiden did not recognize immediately.
"Kaiden," the director said, in a tone more serious than usual. "A message arrived concerning you, from a source I did not expect."
The messenger extended a sealed file, and the director took it with a steady hand, but his eyes narrowed slightly as he read its content.
"What is it?" Kaiden asked, a feeling of discomfort creeping into him.
"It seems someone in the capital heard your name," the director said finally.
Kaiden raised his eyebrow. "And who?"
The director did not answer immediately. He looked again at the bound seal on the letter, then lowered his head for a second before raising his eyes toward Kaiden.
"Someone who does not usually send letters to students."