Chapter 3: The Grand Gate and the Chasm of Talent
The journey, which had been a grueling internal campaign for Kaelen, concluded abruptly at the Imperial Capital's outer perimeter. The guards, relieved to have discharged their duty, bowed hurriedly and turned back toward the familiar, boring safety of the Viscount's domain.
Kaelen stood alone at the base of the Aether-Glass Walls. They were not stone, but colossal, shimmering panes of hardened magical energy, fused together millennia ago by the first High Wizards. They soared hundreds of meters high, pulsed with a silvery-white light, and exuded an aura of such profound arcane power that the air felt thick and buzzing.
He was still running the minimum maintenance layers of his Self-Optimization—the constant, low-level mental shield that suppressed fatigue. Without it, the combined trauma of the Deceptive Echo and the Illusory Time-Warp would have rendered him a mental wreck.
[ATTRIBUTES:]
[MIND: 9 (Critical)]
His MIND attribute was dangerously low, held steady only by the constant, desperate reinforcement of his Mind Fortification skill. He looked like a normal, slightly drawn young man, but internally, his mind was a patched-up engine running on volatile fuel.
He joined the flow of aspirants moving towards the Grand Gate, a massive archway carved from black obsidian and laced with complex, glowing script that continuously scanned every entrant.
It was here that Kaelen first truly saw the competition.
He had always known high-grade talents existed, but seeing them was different. They didn't walk; they glided with an almost arrogant carelessness. They wore robes of exquisite silk that whispered with faint enchantments. Their hands, unused to labor, crackled occasionally with stray mana.
One novice, a girl barely fifteen with silver hair, stood nearby, impatiently waiting for her retinue to catch up. She idly extended her hand, and a perfect, fist-sized sphere of contained lightning—an Elemental Orb—danced effortlessly above her palm, holding its shape without visible concentration.
Kaelen glanced at his panel. To create that sphere, he'd probably need to dedicate 100% of his effort for five minutes, likely leading to total mental collapse.
[Basic Illusory Veil: 2.50%]
[Target: 10.00%]
He had only reached a quarter of his goal, gained through weeks of self-torture and mental fraud, and these people achieved true magic with an effortless flick of the wrist. The chasm between F-grade and A-grade talent was an abyss.
As he walked through the gate, the obsidian scanned him. A faint, almost sickly green light flickered across his body, lingering briefly on his head. The guard, a muscular, fully-formed Wizard in a lower-tier uniform, checked the reading. His face remained expressionless.
"Kaelen Torvinson. Viscount Torvin's territory. Echo Affinity. Proceed to the Academy Novice Quarters."
The guard did not salute, nor did he offer any congratulations. Kaelen was just another name on a massive list.
The Novice Quarters were not the grand, storied halls Kaelen had imagined. They were barracks—spartan, uniform, and filled with a tension thicker than the humid air. The building itself was a sprawling, magically enforced structure on the Academy's outermost campus.
He was assigned a small, private room, thankfully equipped with a thick, sound-dampening enchantment. Privacy was crucial for his unique training.
Kaelen wasted no time. He found his assigned training location—a small, enclosed study circle—and immediately resumed the grind. He had twenty-eight days left.
He focused entirely on the Illusory Time-Warp. He needed to maximize the perceived time spent practicing without letting his MIND drop below 8, the point of near-catatonic mental failure.
He spent the rest of the day in a harrowing cycle: three hours in the Time-Warp, six hours of Mind Fortification stabilization, and three hours of maintenance. In perceived time, Kaelen practiced for over forty hours in that first real day.
Day 28 remaining: Illusory Veil 3.10%
Day 27 remaining: Illusory Veil 3.75%
Day 26 remaining: Illusory Veil 4.40%
The gain was accelerating, but the internal pressure was immense. His focus was so intense that when he finally broke concentration to eat, the sudden rush of sensory input—the taste of the salt, the sound of the spoon hitting the bowl—felt overwhelming.
Five days later, an announcement was magically broadcast through the Novice Quarters. All candidates were summoned to the Grand Assembly Hall for the official briefing on the Trial of Ascension.
Kaelen, now at 6.75% proficiency and holding a dangerously steady MIND 8, joined the procession. The hall was breathtaking—a dome of pure, magically reinforced crystal, beneath which hundreds of the world's most promising young talents milled about.
At the center of the hall, a platform rose, and upon it stood a single, towering figure: Arch-Wizard Rian. His authority was absolute, his robes shimmering with a rainbow of impossible colors, marking him as one of the true regulators of the continent.
"Novices," Arch-Wizard Rian's voice boomed, amplified not by sound, but by a direct, soft pressure on every mind in the room. "Welcome to the Academy. You are here for the Trial of Ascension. You have been informed that the goal is to reach Apprentice Stage 1, 10.00% proficiency in a core skill."
He paused, his eyes sweeping the assembly.
"What you were not told is the setting of this trial. The final twenty-four hours of your term—the trial period—will take place not here, but within the Echo Chamber of Exhaustion."
A collective murmur swept through the crowd. Even the arrogant, silver-haired girl looked unsettled.
Arch-Wizard Rian smiled, a cold, frightening expression. "The Echo Chamber is a relic of the First Wizards. Within its confines, all magical energy is slowly, continuously drained. Any external assistance, any innate Mana recovery, is suppressed. It forces an environment of zero natural regeneration."
Kaelen felt a jolt of alarm, immediately followed by a terrifying realization.
The Arch-Wizard pointed a slender, bone-white finger towards the chamber entrance—a heavy, sealed arch of dull grey stone.
"In the Echo Chamber, your talent does not matter. Your innate Mana pool does not matter. Only your ability to force magical output in the absolute absence of regenerative energy matters. Your capacity for repetition, your mental grit, and your sheer efficiency in utilizing every molecule of available Mana will determine your success."
He was speaking directly to the high-grade talents. Their innate Mana pools, which allowed them to cast effortlessly, would quickly dry up, and the Chamber would prevent them from refilling it. Their breakthroughs would stall. They would become reliant on their reserves and their ability to endure.
Kaelen, however, had spent the last five years functioning as if he already lived in a state of zero natural regeneration. His entire strategy—the Self-Optimization, the Deceptive Echo, the Time-Warp—was built around the concept of maximizing efficiency of a near-zero resource. He did not rely on spontaneous Mana recovery; he relied on sheer mental force.
The announcement was a death sentence for many of the prodigies, but for Kaelen, the F-grade clerk, it was an unforeseen, impossible advantage. He didn't need to compete with their genius; he only needed to out-grind their stamina.
"You will enter the Chamber in twenty days," Arch-Wizard Rian concluded. "Prepare yourselves."
Kaelen left the hall, his pulse hammering. He had twenty days to push his proficiency from 6.75% to at least 9.50%. He knew he could achieve the final 0.50% during the trial itself, by leveraging the unique environment.
The Illusory Time-Warp was now his primary and only focus. He had to push his system to the point of breaking, knowing that the environment designed to destroy the talented was perfectly suited for his unique, manufactured strength.