Event (4): The Mana Control Catastrophe
The professor’s gentle, middle-aged voice said, “Alright, you can start now.” But her tone was inflating my tension more than ever before.
I can’t screw this up…! Praying for a miracle, I placed my hand on the measuring device.
A low hum vibrated through the air the moment it activated. I poured every ounce of focus I had into controlling my mana, straining with everything I had.
I’m going to break my limits!
Back at the lab, my best mana control score had hovered around seven hundred. It wasn’t hero-tier; it was actually worse than the civilian average. But I was different now. Who was I? The top scorer on the academy entrance exam. After taking all those classes with my head held high, my control had to have improved. So maybe—just maybe—a miracle that pushed me into double digits wasn’t completely impossible.
“Hup…!”
I felt my concentration pierce its old ceiling. Surpassing my limits should have felt amazing, but the only reason I’d done it was to avoid embarrassment. Not exactly glorious, but hey, good was good. I gave the measurement everything I had and—
“ACHOO!”
A speck of dust tickled my nose and I detonated like a dog in a cartoon.
Points Awarded: 0
“This is total bullshit! Getting random dust up your nose is straight-up cheating!”
“Even so, one sneeze shouldn’t tank your score that badly…”
Aria stared at the report card I’d handed her with open pity.
“…It’s historic. In every possible sense of the word.”
Aria’s expression made it clear just how catastrophic the number was. Twenty thousand. Basically the mana control of a backwater mutt.
“Wow… I didn’t know a human being could actually produce a five-digit score…”
I whipped my head toward Siwoo, who was busy scraping at my last nerve. The moment our eyes met he realized his mistake and frantically looked away.
“Um… Plea? With mana control around twenty thousand… how many points did you get?”
“What do you think? Zero. Zilch.”
“Whoa… I’ve heard even zero points counts as a kind of talent…”
Aria’s mouth was starting to twitch with the effort of not laughing. I shot her a glare too. She cleared her throat loudly and changed the subject.
“So… how many booths are left?”
“Three.”
The ones I’d already done—mana measurement, shooting, and control—had just been appetizers before the real exams.
“Close-quarters combat test, ability power measurement, and finally comprehensive combat power measurement. Those three are the actual tests.”
“Definitely harder than what we’ve done so far,” Siwoo said. Nervousness and excitement warred on his face, ending in a competitive little smile.
I led the two of them to the close-quarters combat booth. The rules were simple: one-on-one against the supervising professor. Abilities, weapons, and magic were all banned. Pure hand-to-hand only.
Not that it’s a disadvantage for us.
I’d already learned close combat from Dana. My skill level was way beyond what any first-year should possess. The same went for Siwoo and Aria. They hadn’t had a special instructor like I did, but their raw talent was so ridiculous that even though they started behind me, their brutal training had brought them right up to my heels.
The three of us put on performances no first-year had any right to deliver and walked away with perfect scores.
After finishing the combat test in record time, we moved on.
“Ability power measurement, huh…” Aria glanced at me. “Can we expect another record-breaking result this time, Plea? A good one, I mean.”
If I actually participated, I could probably set a real record. The positive kind, not the sneeze-induced disaster from before.
Too bad I wasn’t planning to.
“Unfortunately, I’m sitting this one out.”
“Why?!”
“Why not?”
Both of them stared at me with wide eyes.
“If you skip the test you’ll earn fewer points! It’ll hurt your final ranking!”
“I know. I’m still not doing it.”
I understood the math. Event rewards were based on total points from every booth. Skipping one meant throwing away points. Might as well announce I was giving up on placing. It stung, sure, but what choice did I have?
It’s not exactly a controllable ability…
The enormous sun sitting inside my chest. I’d spent years at that lab, but controlling this power still felt impossible. Trying to shape it was like carving a massive iceberg with a plastic knife. The lump of energy was simply too huge for delicate processing. So instead of trying to control it, I’d chosen to let it run wild and fire the whole thing at once. Sure, it was like throwing the entire iceberg instead of trimming it, but the raw power was undeniable.
The only problem was that the power was too undeniable.
“Anyway, I’m not doing it. You two go ahead.”
“…Got it. Looks like there’s a reason.”
Kid’s intuition was sharp. I smirked and waved them off. He nodded and headed into the booth with Aria.
“…It really is a shame. If I could control it, a perfect score would’ve been free real estate.”
Still, what could I do? Using my ability here would turn half the students into charcoal.
“Guess I’ll eat ice cream while I wait…”
The line at the ability measurement booth was long. I bought a cone from a nearby stand and started munching. By the time Siwoo and Aria finally emerged, the trash can beside me was overflowing with wrappers.
“You’re back? How’d it go?”
“There were a lot of people, so it took forever. Results are… exactly what you’d expect.”
Siwoo: Perfect Score
Aria: Perfect Score
They both smirked and showed me their sheets. Perfect scores, as expected. All that special training hadn’t gone to waste.
“Then this is the last one.”
“Comprehensive combat power measurement…” Aria murmured. “This one actually makes me nervous. The name sounds like a final boss.”
It wasn’t like a final boss. It was the final boss. The description was longer than the others and the map even had a star next to it.
“You’re not skipping this one too, right? Let’s hurry up and get it over with.”
I grabbed their hands and headed for the last booth, where I spotted a very familiar face.
“You’re only showing up now? You’re a little late.”
“Professor Dana?”
The professor waiting for us was none other than Dana herself. These booths were usually run by teachers who either loved teaching way too much or had drawn the short straw. I couldn’t think of any reason why someone of her caliber would be here.
When she noticed my puzzled look, Dana stepped out of the booth with a smirk.
“Well… it’s a bit awkward, but I suppose we need to settle our rematch, don’t we?”
“Ah.”
She was still hung up on that? It had been over two years since I first beat her. Wanting revenge after a single loss from that long ago… Yeah, that was very Dana. I knew she was competitive, but I hadn’t realized it ran this deep.
“You’ll do it, right?”
“Uh… yes. But first let these two take their tests.”
“That’s fine. Who wants to go first?”
“Give me a second…”
Siwoo dragged us over to a nearby bench.
“Plea? What did she mean by rematch?”
So that’s what he was curious about.
“It’s nothing special. We fought once a long time ago and she lost. She wants her revenge here, that’s all.”
“That’s incredible. One of the 5 Greats is personally calling for a rematch… Does this mean we can expect a real record-breaking performance this time, Plea? I’ve already drunk three glasses of cold water just from anticipation.”
“Yeah… you can look forward to it this time!”
I planted my hands on my hips and answered confidently. The combat measurement booth was packed with state-of-the-art mana and defense equipment. It wasn’t quite the lab built specifically for me, but it was close enough. My sun summoning should last a few seconds at least.
I haven’t had a proper fight since enrolling. It’s been a while since I could really cut loose.
The only decent fight I’d had was against an S-rank demon, and even that one retired after a single sun blast. Feeling a pleasant tension I hadn’t experienced in ages, I decided the order.
“Aria, Siwoo, then me. Sound good?”
“Fine with me.”
“Same.”
With both of them nodding, we stepped into Dana’s booth one after another.