The noise of the coliseum had shifted from celebration to unease.
Where there had been cheering minutes ago, there was now only a low thrum of confusion and murmured disbelief that spread through the stands like static.
The medical ward below the arena was a blur of motion. Healers rushed between rows of injured students, lamps flickering over their exhausted faces. None of them looked at each other for long. It was easier to pretend this was just another round of exams, that a student hadn't actually died.
Elijah sat on the edge of a cot, his arm wrapped in a cooling bandage. Every so often, a faint pulse of energy rippled across his skin, small sparks that glowed and then vanished, like something beneath the surface of his mana flow couldn't quite settle.
He flexed his hand once, then again. The energy flared brighter the second time.
"Try not to melt the bed," one of the nurses muttered wearily, adjusting the stabilizer crystal beside him. Her voice was tired but kind. "Your readings are stabilizing. The Overseer and Principal Gravelle want to see you as soon as possible."
Elijah blinked, trying to collect himself. "Now?"
"Now." She paused, hesitating like she wanted to say more. "You did good up there, kid. Just… don't blame yourself for what happened. No one should've been able to break a shield like that."
Her words hung in the air long after she left.
The room they brought him to wasn't an interrogation chamber, at least, not officially. It was circular, lined with projection screens showing still frames from the match. The moment the berserk student lost control. The instant his threads turned crimson. The bright flash when Elijah and Nysar struck together.
The Overseer, Dareon Vask, stood by one of the screens, his usual confident grin replaced by something tighter, quieter. His extravagant cape was gone, leaving him looking oddly normal.
When Elijah entered, Dareon gestured at the images. "Quite a spectacle you made, Mr. Eneri. I've run these exams for twelve years, and that… was new."
Before Elijah could respond, another voice spoke from behind him, calm, clipped, and steady.
Principal Ardia Gravelle entered the room, her silver hair pulled into a strict braid, eyes sharp behind her glasses. She closed the door softly before stepping forward.
"Sit," she said, motioning to the chair across from her.
Elijah obeyed, the room suddenly feeling smaller under her presence.
"Tell us what you saw," she continued. "From the moment the match began until the end."
Elijah exhaled slowly. "He… the student who lost control, he wasn't normal even before it happened. He kept jerking like he was fighting something inside him. His mana felt… unstable. The color of it kept shifting, and the air around him was humming, like something vibrating too fast."
He hesitated, remembering the moment the threads changed. "Then the strings he controlled turned red, and the mana around him just, exploded. The shield of the student he hit didn't even slow it down."
Ardia tapped the crystal tablet in front of her, bringing up a magnified frame of the incident. The shield glyph around the dead student fractured like glass, then disintegrated entirely.
"That shield was rated to withstand high-output bombardments," she said softly. "This shouldn't have been possible."
Dareon frowned, rubbing his chin. "Unless he had help. Or something pushed him past the threshold. Maybe an interference with the shields mama source?"
They exchanged a glance that Elijah didn't understand, then Dareon waved the thought aside. "And then there's you."
Elijah blinked. "Me?"
The Overseer gestured to another replay, the one showing Elijah surrounded by faint arcs of light as he fought. "That," he said, pointing, "wasn't adhesion."
Elijah hesitated. "I… don't think so either. I didn't feel like I was sticking things together. It was more like…" he searched for the words, "…like the air and mana around me were reacting to my intent. Following it."
"Interesting way to put it." Dareon shot a look at Ardia. "His ability test months ago, anything unusual?"
Ardia pulled up the record. "Nothing conclusive. One brief fluctuation in his mana signature during calibration, but it was marked as noise. No elemental or particularly powerful ability markers."
Dareon gave a low whistle. "Guess the machines missed something."
Ardia ignored the comment. "Elijah, your original test results classified your ability as a weak form of Van der Waals manipulation, adhesion through molecular attraction. But what you displayed today…" She looked directly at him. "You interacted with external mana fields with what seems to be a form of elemental manipulation. That's an entirely different scale of control."
"So what does that mean?"
"It means your ability will need reassessment," she said. "Your true classification may not be adhesion at all. We'll conduct a full retest after the trials conclude."
He nodded slowly, trying to process that. "Is that common?"
"Rare," Dareon said. "Happens every few years. Most people's ability signatures are locked from birth. The few that evolve? They tend to end up in history books."
Elijah looked down at his hands again. The faint sparks flickered along his skin, reflecting in the polished metal of the table. "I should be happy but it feels kind of empty right now."
"Power isn't always as glorious as people make it seem. It comes with…a weight few can bear," Ardia replied.
By the time Elijah left the chamber, the halls of the coliseum were nearly empty.
Night had fallen, and the only light came from the faint glow of the mana barriers surrounding the arena. His footsteps echoed on the smooth stone as he walked, still dazed from everything that had been said.
He was halfway down the outer corridor when he saw Kat Gravelle waiting near the exit, arms folded, hair slightly disheveled from hours of combat. Her sharp, analytical gaze softened a fraction when she saw him.
"You look like they put you through another exam," she said quietly.
"Kind of feels like it." He managed a tired half-smile. "Your aunt doesn't waste time."
"She never does." Kat motioned for him to walk with her down the corridor. "She told me to check on you. Said you'd been involved far more than a student like you should ever have to be."
"That's one way to put it."
Kat glanced sideways at him. "So? What really happened in there? The officials' statements don't match what we saw."
Elijah hesitated. "You saw the feed?"
"Everyone did." She stopped, facing him. "The barrier held for the other platforms, but yours… It wasn't normal. I want to know what you noticed before it all went wrong."
He thought back, the sound, the flicker, the hum. "He looked like he was burning from the inside out. His mana changed color, started thrumming like it was alive. I felt it before it happened. Like pressure in my chest."
"Pressure?"
"Like the air itself was warning me. As if it was supercharged somehow. I didn't understand it then, but I think my ability was reacting to him. Maybe that's what made the sparks happen."
Kat frowned, arms crossing. "Your ability's adhesion, right? That doesn't explain the discharge."
"That's what they said too. But apparently it might not be adhesion after all."
Her brows lifted slightly. "They're reclassifying you?"
"After the exams."
Kat was quiet for a moment, her gaze distant. "My aunt doesn't reclassify lightly. If she's considering it, she thinks you've touched something beyond normal parameters."
"That doesn't sound good."
"It's not bad either." She looked at him again, eyes sharp but not unkind. "Just rare."
He gave a small laugh. "You sound like her when you say that."
Kat allowed a faint smirk. "I'll take that as a compliment."
They walked in silence for a while, the sound of their boots echoing down the hall. Eventually, Kat spoke again, softer this time.
"I saw the way you reacted during the chaos," she said. "You didn't freeze. Most students would've panicked. You stepped forward."
Elijah shrugged. "Someone had to."
"That's not the point." Kat's gaze met his. "You made a decision that most adults wouldn't. You kept fighting even when you shouldn't have been able to. That's… rare too."
He felt his face warm slightly. "Thanks. I just did what made sense."
She studied him for a moment longer, then nodded once. "Good. Keep doing that."
She turned to leave but stopped after a few steps. "Elijah?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad you made it out."
He blinked. "You're… glad?"
"Don't make me repeat it." Her voice carried a faint, teasing edge, but her expression was earnest. "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be worse."
And with that, she walked off into the shadows of the corridor, leaving Elijah standing under the pale glow of the barrier lights.
For the first time all day, he felt something settle inside him, not peace, exactly, but resolve.
Whatever his ability was becoming… he'd face it head-on.
The night air was cool against Elijah's skin as he left the administrative tower. The lights of the academy grounds shimmered against the dark sky, reflected by the faint mana barrier encasing the coliseum. It felt… quiet. Too quiet for what had just happened.
He exhaled, running a hand through his hair.
So that's it, he thought. I'm getting reassessed.
He should have been excited. For the first time since awakening his "F-tier Adhesion" ability months ago, there was a chance it wasn't actually some pathetic offshoot of glue magic. He'd finally shown something no one could explain away as luck or clever tricks. But every time his heart tried to rise, the memory of that student dying pulled it back down again.
He'd barely taken ten steps toward the dorms when a familiar voice rang out.
"Elijah! Hey!"
Tim was jogging up, grinning from ear to ear. He was still wearing his academy coat, sleeves rolled up, hair a mess like always. The crowds were dispersing behind him, still buzzing about the chaos that had unfolded, but Tim's focus was entirely on his friend.
"I saw the replay," Tim said, practically vibrating with energy. "The entire thing. Man, I thought you were dead for sure! Then you and that shadow guy, what was his name? Nysar? , pulled off that crazy finisher! Dude, you were incredible!"
Elijah managed a small laugh. "Thanks, Tim. I didn't feel incredible at the time."
"Come on, don't downplay it!" Tim said, punching him lightly in the shoulder. "You're the only guy I know who walks into a berserk massacre and decides, 'Yeah, I'll solo this boss.'"
Elijah smirked faintly. "I wasn't trying to solo anything. I just… couldn't walk away."
Tim's grin faded slightly. He tilted his head. "Yeah. I get that." For a moment, there was a rare seriousness in his eyes. "So, what's gonna happen now? They going to give you a medal or something?"
"Hardly," Elijah said with a dry chuckle. "They're scheduling a reassessment."
Tim blinked. "Wait, seriously? Like, a full ability reevaluation? That never happens unless…"
"Unless they think your ability isn't what they thought it was." Elijah nodded, hands in his pockets. "The Overseer and Principal Gravelle both said the mana readings went off the charts when I fought the berserker. They think I've been misclassified."
Tim gave a low whistle. "Man, from F-tier Adhesion to who-knows-what? That's… kinda huge."
"It's weird," Elijah admitted. "When I first got my ability, I hated it. Everyone else had something flashy or powerful, and I got stuck with the world's weakest glue trick. But I worked with it, you know? Learned its limits. Learned how to make it useful."
He looked down at his hands. "And now suddenly they're saying it's not even that. Like everything I learned might have just been the surface of something else."
Tim was quiet for a moment. Then he said softly, "Sounds like you'll be able to use the old tricks you learned together with the new power understanding they uncover. Don't worry buddy you'll still always have those sticky fingers of yours, just with somethin' new on top of it, ya know?"
Elijah laughed under his breath. "That's one way to look at it."
They started walking back toward the dorms together. The campus streets were mostly empty now except for a few repair crews fixing cracks left by stray magic blasts. The air still smelled faintly of burned mana.
Tim nudged him again. "So, come on. What was it like? When you fought him."
Elijah hesitated, then said, "It was… strange. He didn't feel human. Not like us. It was like fighting a storm that forgot what it was supposed to destroy. I could feel the mana around him tearing at itself instead of just its surroundings. It was unstable, wild." He frowned, remembering the shimmer of that student's eyes. "And the worst part was that he didn't even seem to know what he was doing."
Tim nodded slowly. "Yeah, I heard some of the staff whispering. They're saying he might've been part of some old research program, but nobody knows the details."
"Maybe." Elijah's brow furrowed. "The Overseer and Principal Gravelle both looked like they'd heard of something. I don't think this was random."
Tim shrugged. "Well, whatever it is, it's above our pay grade. You just focus on not dying in the next trial, yeah?"
Elijah smiled faintly. "Yeah. One day at a time."
They parted ways at the courtyard, Tim heading back toward his dorms while Elijah took the path leading home. The lights of the coliseum dimmed behind him, replaced by the familiar glow of the residential district's lanterns. His steps slowed the closer he got to the little house at the edge of the district.
The door opened before he could knock.
Marcus Eneri stood there, tired eyes and calloused hands, the faint hum of tools still echoing from the workbench behind him. He looked Elijah over once, mud-streaked, bruised, eyes a little hollow, and sighed with quiet relief.
"You're alive," Marcus said simply.
Elijah tried to smile. "Barely."
Marcus gestured him inside. "Sit. You look like you've been dragged through a mana storm."
Elijah sank into one of the old chairs while his father set a kettle on the small mana burner. The smell of mint tea filled the air, grounding the chaos still swirling in Elijah's chest.
"I saw the broadcast," Marcus said after a moment. "Everyone did. They were showing it on half the crystal boards downtown. People thought it was part of the test until…" He stopped himself. The silence after said enough. "You did what you had to do."
Elijah stared at the table, tracing a scar in the wood with his thumb. "I couldn't just stand there. If I ran, someone else would've died."
Marcus nodded. "That's what your mother would've done too."
That name hung in the air like a faint echo. Elijah swallowed hard. He didn't say anything. His father didn't talk about her much. Marcus poured the tea.
After a moment, Marcus leaned forward. "The Overseer contacted me. He said they're reevaluating your ability?"
"Yeah," Elijah said quietly. "They think it's not Adhesion. The readings didn't match. They said it's evolving."
Marcus sat back, thoughtful. "Evolving, huh. That's not unheard of. Rare, but not unheard of. Especially when someone's connection to their mana strengthens under pressure." He gave a small, proud smile. "Maybe all those nights practicing your 'useless tricks' paid off."
Elijah chuckled softly. "Maybe. It's strange, though. I'm not scared, just… curious."
Marcus nodded. "Good. Stay that way. Don't let them scare you into thinking change is a curse." His voice softened. "Elijah, I know how hard it was for you at the start. Watching everyone else awaken early, getting stuck with something everyone laughed at. But power's just a tool. It's the person behind it that matters."
"I know," Elijah said. His voice was quiet, but firm. "Still feels good to finally have people see me as something more than the guy with sticky hands."
Marcus smiled faintly. "You earned that, son. Don't forget it."
They sat in silence for a while after that, just the faint hiss of the burner and the distant hum of the city outside. Elijah finally leaned back, exhaustion catching up to him. "They said the next trial will be delayed till tomorrow. Guess they want to figure out what happened first."
"Smart," Marcus said. "After what happened, they'd be fools not to."
Elijah nodded. "That kid… the one who lost control. You think he was part of something? Some kind of experiment?"
Marcus's face darkened just slightly. "There've always been rumors about certain nobles funding off-the-books projects. Trying to push ability limits. Playing god." He took a long sip of tea before setting the cup down. "If that boy was one of them… it means trouble. For everyone."
Elijah didn't like the way his father's tone changed when he said that. But he didn't push. "Yeah. I got that feeling too."
Marcus looked at him a long moment, then said quietly, "Whatever this is, don't get yourself tangled in it. You've got enough to worry about just staying alive in those trials."
"I'll try," Elijah said with a small smile. "Trouble seems to find me anyway."
Marcus chuckled under his breath. "That it does."
When Elijah finally headed to his room, the adrenaline had drained from his body, leaving behind a strange mixture of pride and unease. The events of the day played behind his eyelids: the chaos, the sparks, the way the air itself seemed to bend around him when he pushed his ability past its limits.
He didn't understand it yet. Not fully. But deep down, he knew one thing for certain…
Whatever was happening to him… it was only the beginning.