"Third attempt, registered," he said stoically and stared at me for a bit before spitting a bit of bloodied saliva on the ground.
The instructor's posture then shifted. His shoulders lowered a fraction, his center of gravity changed, and the air thickened with pressure.
"I say this to every student who came before you through those doors. If you fail to dodge my strike, you might actually die. Excellia does not care whether you come from a noble family or from a peasant household. The academy trains pillars for the future, not ornaments. Your future is a battleground, and death on a battlefield is heavier than death during training."
His voice stayed calm, but every word carried weight.
"Oh no, he did not say it that deeply to others in the novel..." I nervously chuckled
"This is only an assessment, yet the moment you signed those papers at the counter, you already placed your life on the line. You chose to walk the path of an Excellia graduate, and that path demands resolve. So steel yourself."
"Is he actually going to kill me?.. Is it too late now to say sorry?" I thought to myself as I sensed the tension rising in him.
"Dexterity test," he said. "Don't blink."
In the novel, the instructor always attacked from his right side. He always aimed at the student's left cheek and stopped short just before impact.
It was meant to test reaction time. If the student then manages to react and dodge, he would give chase, and if they try to block, he'll adjust the power accordingly.
This was also the reason why Finster passed it with a perfect score.
Finster could sense emotions through eye contact. He knew instantly that there was no intent to harm. The instructor's emotions were always restrained and controlled.
Finster did not perceive any malice at all, so he just stood there.
Without flinching.
Without blinking.
He stared straight into the instructor's eyes and let the punch stop a hair away from his face. It shocked everyone who was reviewing the recording of their assessment for school rankings. It earned him a flawless evaluation.
I inwardly cursed.
"God dammed cheating bastard. He got a perfect score by doing nothing. Meanwhile, I was just told that the instructor might actually kill me if I failed to react. Not to mention that Finster was not even using his biggest cheat yet: compared to that, my supposed cheat ability is self-implosion. Is the destiny of an extra having a niche power?"
I pushed the thought away and lowered into a stance.
The instructor vanished.
There was no footstep, no shift, not even the pressure of a swing. The only hint was the sudden vacuum in the air below my nose.
"tsk!.... too late." I was loathing the fact that even if I could react, my body itself did not respond.
I trusted the novel's pattern.
I used what was left that was not my body being thrum and coated the side of my face with a rushed enhancement, and rushedly time detonated it.
The punch missed in the air with brutal impact. That punch... was heavier, sharper, and way faster than the novel could have ever explained.
This was, without a doubt, a killing blow held back at the very last possible moment.
My skull whipped counterclockwise. The ground slammed into the back of my head with no enhancement to protect it.
The world rang like a broken bell, or was that my eardrum bursting? I could no longer tell.
I lay there, stunned, unable to breathe for a second.
The instructor stepped into view and crouched. His expression carried both annoyance and a hint of sympathy.
"You trusted something you should not have trusted. You trusted your skill more than your own body," he said.
"Do not move. You took a direct rotational impact. Mild concussion."
I groaned and forced myself upright slowly. My vision was blurry and bloodied.
He studied me with a calmer expression as if his previous irritation was now gone.
"What type of weaver are you," he asked, "and what is the color of your core."
I blinked, still dazed.
"You do not have to answer," he said. "But this information becomes public before your second semester. Knowing it now helps me evaluate you accurately."
I wiped the oozing blood from my head and answered.
"Astute weaver. Blue core."
He nodded.
"So your perception kept up with me, but your body failed to match it. Classic astute weaver's weakness."
He adjusted his posture, looking at me with a hint of curiosity.
"What age did you awaken?"
I let out a tired laugh.
"I awakened around last week."
The instructor froze for a moment. Then, for the first time, genuine interest filled his eyes.
A sudden spark of thrum flared behind me. It felt sharp, clean, and unmistakably powerful. Before I could turn, a voice spoke.
"Apologies. I was only supposed to observe from the background and wait until your assessment concluded. But you said you awakened just a week ago?"
I tried to look back, but my vision blurred. Dust and tiny fragments of the cracked floor had gotten into my eyes. Blood kept sliding down my forehead, mixing into my lashes. I rubbed at them clumsily, trying to clear my sight.
"I can barely see," I muttered, wiping the blood again. "But yeah. If you do not believe me, you can check the logs at the awakening ceremony."
The instructor straightened immediately. He bowed his head slightly.
"Good afternoon, Head Master Éclair."
Éclair.
My ear was still ringing, and I could only hear -lair. I tried to guess who it was, but my mind was still too scrambled to process it fully.
Éclair ignored the instructor completely. She stepped in front of me and examined my bloodied head.
The girl leaning closer to me made me aware of her unique, mesmerizing aroma and the color of her hair. It was pale indigo with violet highlights, which glowed intensely.
"So you did not lie on your documents," she said.
I nodded weakly.
She lifted her hand. Her index finger pointed directly at the injury on my forehead. I assumed she was going to heal me. She rushed to me when I injured myself after all.
I accepted the gesture without resisting.
Then my brain finally caught up.
-lair,..... violet highlights,.... a spark of energy behind me.
The electric stalker witch Éclair?
That Éclair?
The one described in the novel.The monster in human shape.
The woman who handled problems by striking the issues with the hammer of the sky.
The same person who kidnapped Finster once because she grew curious about his bloodline ability, and tried to rape him instead.
The lunatic head master of Excellia herself.
My body finally reacted.
I tried to step away from her finger, but it was already too late.
A bright light burst from her touch. It lit the entire room. It flashed through the reinforced walls. It leaked into the hall outside, making the examinees scream and jump back in shock.
____________________________________
Finster POV:
"That's the same guy, right, Helle? The one I can't read."
The tattoo behind my collar gave a faint glow, and a small yellow will-o'-wisp floated out, circling my shoulder like it was stretching after a nap.
"You must have been imagining things," Helle said. "But now that I'm sharing your physical vessel, I can finally see how you view others. All I see are twisted lines, like someone scribbled on their faces. Don't you get confused? How do you even tell people apart?"
"I've had this since the day I was born," I answered. "If it's all you ever see, you learn to make sense of it. Besides, you can fly around invisible and stare at people directly in their eyes. That helps more than you think."
"It also doesn't work with mirrors," I murmured.
Helle, drifting closer to my cheek, asked. "So you can see faces clearly when you wear glasses. Then why aren't you wearing them right now?"
"Because human nature's first defense is to lie," I said.
"I stick to what I'm used to, and that mainly includes protecting myself from scams. I grew up in the slums after all. To give a better explanation on why keep it that way, it's like jumping into your non native language and expecting to speak fluently while interacting."
Helle flickered, unsure. "But you actually saw his real face while looking him in the eye? A real one? No jumbled lines."
"I did," I admitted. "I saw his face clearly. For the first time in my life, someone didn't look like a broken sketch to me."
I tightened my grip on my sleeve, replaying the moment in my head. "What in the world was that?"