The candidates were led through a side passage into a circular hall.
Unlike the examination room, this chamber had no desks or benches. Its floor was divided into concentric rings, each marked with thin silver lines. Tall pillars stood around the perimeter, their surfaces covered in permanent runes. Small crystals rested on waist-high pedestals between them.
Caelan counted twelve pedestals.
At the far end stood three instructors. One was Master Merrow, who had supervised the written examination. Beside him stood a woman with short grey hair and a younger man wearing a dark academy uniform.
“Welcome to the second stage of your entrance assessment,” Merrow announced. “This evaluation measures your ability to control mana. It is not a competition of raw power. Candidates who misunderstand that distinction often perform worse than those who understand their own limitations.”
Several students exchanged glances.
Adrian Valcrest stood two places ahead of Caelan, his posture relaxed. “How much control can they expect from someone our age?” he murmured to the candidate beside him. “Some families begin formal instruction years before others even discover their sensitivity.”
The boy beside him nodded eagerly.
Caelan said nothing. He had begun lessons with Serah long before receiving his invitation, but he knew that practice at home was not the same as training under academy instructors. He had no reason to assume his preparation made him superior.
The grey-haired woman stepped forward.
“I am Instructor Veyra. You will each approach a pedestal when called. The crystal will respond to mana supplied by the candidate. Your task is to bring it to the first marked level, hold that level steadily, and then reduce the flow without extinguishing the response.”
She pointed to a narrow silver band engraved around each crystal.
“Do not attempt to impress us. Excessive mana will not earn extra credit. An unstable result is an unstable result.”
The first candidate was called.
A broad-shouldered boy approached the nearest pedestal and placed both hands beside the crystal. A faint glow appeared almost immediately, brightened, then surged past the silver band.
The crystal flashed.
He pulled back in surprise, and the light vanished.
“Too much mana, too quickly,” Instructor Veyra said. “You sensed the response but failed to regulate it. Next.”
The boy returned to the line, his ears red.
One by one, the candidates took their turns.
Some couldn't produce any visible response. Others managed a glow but struggled to keep it steady. A girl with braided hair held the crystal at the required level for several seconds before it began flickering. Another candidate maintained a brilliant light but lost control when instructed to reduce it.
Caelan watched carefully.
The crystal's brightness wasn't the only thing changing. Each time a candidate lost control, the runes etched into the pedestal briefly shimmered. Sometimes the light faded gradually; sometimes it broke apart in an instant.
The apparatus appeared to be measuring more than whether mana could be supplied. It was responding to how that mana entered and left the crystal.
He filed the observation away.
“Adrian Valcrest.”
Adrian stepped forward confidently.
He placed one hand near the crystal and closed his eyes. A pale golden glow appeared, spreading evenly through its centre. The light rose until it reached the silver band and stopped.
For several seconds, it remained steady.
The brightness dimmed smoothly. Adrian stopped at a faint glow and held it there until she raised her hand.
“Acceptable control,” she said.
Adrian stepped away with a small smile.
As he passed Caelan, he murmured, “It helps to have proper instructors.”
There was no need to answer. Adrian had performed well, and pretending otherwise would have been pointless.
“Caelan Veyr.”
Caelan approached the pedestal.
Up close, the crystal was cloudier than he had expected. Fine lines ran through its interior, almost invisible beneath the polished surface. The pedestal's runes formed a connected arrangement, with several narrow channels meeting beneath the crystal.
He resisted the urge to study them for too long.
“Begin when ready,” Veyra said.
Caelan steadied his breathing and reached for the mana he could sense within himself.
The first attempt produced nothing.
He adjusted his focus and tried again. This time, the crystal responded with a weak blue glow that rose unevenly toward the silver band.
He fed it a little more mana.
The glow brightened, but one side of the crystal became noticeably stronger than the other.
Caelan stopped increasing the flow.
He remembered Serah's lessons. When the three practice crystals had refused to shine equally, adding more mana had only made the difference worse. He had succeeded by adjusting the amount he supplied and giving each response time to settle.
He eased the flow down slightly.
The bright side dimmed. The weaker side caught up.
For a moment, the glow became nearly uniform.
Then his concentration slipped, and the light fell below the marked level.
“Your second attempt was better than your first,” Veyra said. “You noticed the imbalance, but correcting it took too long. Try once more.”
Caelan nodded.
He began again, this time using less mana from the start.
The crystal glowed blue. Its brightness rose slowly, approaching the silver band. When the left side brightened ahead of the right, he adjusted the flow before the difference became pronounced.
The light reached the mark.
He held it there.
One second.
Two.
Three.
At five seconds, the glow began to tremble. Caelan felt the urge to push more mana into it, but held back. Instead, he made a small correction, then another.
He reached ten seconds before Veyra raised her hand.
“Reduce the flow.”
Caelan lowered it gradually. The light faded, passed through the silver band, and settled into a faint blue shimmer before disappearing completely.
He stepped away, aware of the tension in his shoulders only after he released it.
“Moderate precision,” Veyra said as she marked her sheet. “Your initial control is inconsistent, but you can correct errors once you recognize them. Your improvement during the test is notable. Continue practising.”
It wasn't praise that would turn heads, but it was a clear result.
Caelan returned to the line.
Adrian glanced at him. For the first time that morning, his expression held something other than casual amusement.
“You've practised that before,” he said.
“Not with this kind of crystal.”
“Then you learn quickly.”
“Sometimes.”
Adrian seemed to consider whether that was an attempt at modesty. Apparently deciding it wasn't worth pursuing, he turned back toward the instructors.
The remaining candidates completed their evaluations. When the last student stepped away from the pedestal, Instructor Veyra conferred quietly with Merrow.
The younger instructor then moved to the centre of the hall.
“The control evaluation is complete. Your results will be considered alongside your written examination. Neither result alone determines admission.”
A few candidates looked relieved. Others appeared disappointed that no scores had been announced.
“You will now be given a short break,” he continued. “Afterward, a selected group will proceed to the next stage. The rest will receive further instructions.”
Caelan rubbed his fingertips together, working out the lingering stiffness.
He had passed the control exercise, though he didn't know how his performance compared with the other candidates. He had also confirmed something useful: when he stopped trying to force a result, he could sometimes correct the mistakes that had caused it to fail.
Across the hall, Adrian was speaking with another noble candidate. Neither looked in Caelan's direction.
A bell sounded beyond the chamber doors.
The candidates began filing out, and Caelan followed them into the corridor, where academy attendants had arranged water and a small table of bread.
He took a piece and found a quiet place beside one of the tall windows.
Beyond the academy's outer grounds, the forest stretched toward the distant hills. The assessment had barely begun, and already the academy had shown him how much separated understanding a principle from applying it under pressure.
He finished his bread as an attendant approached with a stack of sealed notices.
“Candidates,” the attendant called, “remain nearby. The next stage's instructions will be distributed shortly.”
Caelan straightened and set the empty cup aside.
Whatever came next, he would meet it one test at a time.