The next day brought a surprise.

  First—

  the instructor had changed.

  Second—

  the new instructor looked like someone who had been training storms

  long before the Academy itself was born.

  Third—

  he brought… stones.

  Not just stones.

  Boulders weighing over a hundred kilograms each,

  every one of them the size of a small chest.

  He placed one in front of every student and said calmly:

  “The exam is in two weeks.

  Your task is to cut this stone with wind.

  Any method.”

  The classroom fell silent.

  “…”

  “…”

  “…”

  “WHAT?!”

  Finn:

  “A stone. With wind. CUT it?

  Instructor, that’s physically impossible!”

  Tara:

  “Is he mocking us?”

  Siren:

  “Or testing our sense of humor?”

  Astra:

  “Instructor, are you sure this is our class?”

  The instructor replied flatly:

  “I said: cut it.

  And I won’t accept complaints from latecomers.”

  Eyes shining.

  Confidence of a hero.

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  That “watch this” expression.

  He stepped forward, inhaled…

  Raised his hands…

  Focused.

  “Watch and learn,” he said.

  One—two—

  BOOM

  The stone didn’t even tremble.

  Kairen:

  “…”

  Alright. Second attempt.

  BOOM—BOOM

  The stone remained silent,

  a monument to nature’s superiority.

  Third.

  Fourth.

  Kairen turned red.

  “What is this… ABNORMAL ROCK?!”

  The princess stepped forward, serious and focused.

  She gathered wind—

  and struck so hard that

  the desk shattered.

  Splinters everywhere.

  The stone?

  Perfectly intact.

  As if mocking her.

  Elinia muttered through clenched teeth:

  “This… is impossible…”

  A quiet whisper from behind:

  “The princess broke the furniture,

  but the stone isn’t even scratched…”

  “Instructor, this is torture!”

  “This is unfair!”

  “This can’t be done without second-year magic!”

  “Do you want us dead?!”

  “Why is the stone so… stone-like?!”

  The instructor didn’t blink.

  “I’ll demonstrate.”

  He raised his hand.

  Formed an incredibly thin blade of air—

  and with a single motion made a perfectly smooth hole straight through the stone.

  Just a hole.

  As if slicing butter.

  The class:

  “…”

  “…”

  “WHAAAT?!”

  Me, internally:

  “Fantastic.

  Now I have to look weaker than people who can’t cut a rock.”

  The instructor looked at me.

  “Helvard. Try.”

  Inside my head:

  “CAN I LEAVE?

  JUST LEAVE?

  WHY AM I HERE?!”

  But… everyone was watching.

  So I made a careful, tiny air blade.

  As weak as I could make it

  without destroying anything.

  And quietly—

  almost invisibly—

  pierced the stone clean through,

  leaving a small hole—ten times smaller than the instructor’s.

  The instructor nodded.

  “You see? Even Helvard managed.”

  Me:

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘EVEN HELVARD’?!”

  The class stared.

  Silent.

  Heavy.

  Sad looks in my direction.

  I didn’t feel like just a weak student anymore.

  I felt like the official unit of weakness.

  As in:

  “If even Zen can do it, what kind of disgrace are we?”

  Everyone tried.

  No one succeeded.

  Kairen struck the stone fifty times.

  Finn added fire (and got reprimanded).

  Edgar tried vibration—only polished the side.

  Lucille created a spatial blade… which bounced off, of course.

  I stood in the corner, thinking:

  “Why is no one asking me for help?

  Where’s ‘Zen, show us how you did it’?

  Where’s ‘give us a hint’?

  Where’s ‘help us’?”

  Instead, everyone acted like:

  A) I didn’t exist

  B) My hole in the stone was an accident

  C) They were too proud to ask the weak guy

  And only the instructor looked at me—

  as if he understood everything.