The Butterfly Effect: I Refuse This Ending

"Kael Ardyn."

I walked onto the field.

I have to complete the mission also.

I stood in the center of it and thought about what Hiratsuka had said.

Show me what you have and how you use it.

I started with Ether Authority.

The mana responded immediately, drawing from nature the ambient field around the training ground dense enough that the aspect could run without significant internal cost. The light it produced moved along my arms.

I cast Vector Authority across a section of the field to the left at full strength, but enough to show the mechanics. The earth in that section compacted under seven times gravity, the grass flattening, the stone beneath cracked.

Then I released it and cast Aether Step.

I went forty meters and held the position, moving through the air above the field with the control I had been building in the gap between coming down and going back up since the early mornings at the estate. The mana cost was significant but within what I had for fifteen minutes of output.

I came down and let the Ether Authority reconfigure.

Then I thought about what I had not shown yet.

Sanguine Pulse was Nythera’s technique and I had not decided how much of what she had taught me I was putting on display today. I set it aside.

Crimson Veil I used for ten seconds the compressed blood mana running across the surface of my skin, absorbing the minor impacts I generated against the nearest stone formation, the technique visible only in the way the stone’s impact distributed rather than landing cleanly.

Hiratsuka’s pen was moving.

Last.

I raised my hand and tried to build Hell’s Fire.

The field around it warped slightly. The temperature dropped rather than rose because the flame did not belong to the heat category despite looking like it should.

I held it for thirty seconds.

And suddenly a puke a mouthful of blood.

"What the hell!" I muttered.

The system flickered.

[The skill Ether Authority is locked using again will cause immense pain next time.]

Huh!

Then I closed my hand.

I walked back to the observation line.

Hiratsuka was looking at where the flame had been rather than at me.

***

After the final candidate completed their assessment Hiratsuka stood.

"You all are mournels."

"Observations will be brief ones today. Full individual feedback tomorrow morning before the first session begins."

She looked at Lina.

"The spirit arts combination healing distribution and sustained flight simultaneously is the most immediately useful dual-output technique I have seen from an incoming student in four years. The limitation is transition time between outputs. Address that."

Lina nodded.

"Rael. The dual contract is real. The control at the boundary is not finished. You know that. Stop performing it until the performance matches the capability."

His jaw tightened.

"Valtier. The domain is complete. The illusion of precision is excessive. You spent more mana on accuracy than the assessment required, which tells me the accuracy is a habit rather than a choice. Habits in combat become predictions. Predictions become counters."

Sylvaine looked at her with complete composure. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"Ardyn."

"Find the limit of what is yours before you lean on what was given to you."

I said nothing.

***

The session ended .

The twelve of us began moving back toward the main building. I was walking back along the edge of the field when I heard someone fall into step beside me.

Lina was walking with Aria, the two of them talking in low voices about something.

I looked to my left.

The novel’s female lead walked beside me.

She was looking at the field rather than at me.

"Hell’s Fire," she said. "I have read about it. Academic sources. Historical accounts from the third daemon incursion. I have never seen it cast."

"Now you have,"

"The blue flames, The accounts describe it as consuming everything it touches."

"The accounts were written by people who saw it from a distance,"

She looked at me then.

"You knew that from experience rather than sources,"

"Yes."

"How close."

"Close enough,"

She held the answer for a moment without pushing it further, which told me something about her that I filed alongside everything else I had filed.

"My name is Elysia Valecrest. , Since we will apparently be in the same class for the foreseeable future."

"I know,"

"You know my name,"

"I know several things, some of them relevant to you specifically."

She was quiet for a moment.

"That is either reassuring or concerning, I have not decided which."

"Both, Depending on the day."

She smiled.

"The lightning, This afternoon. You held it back."

She looked at me.

"What you showed Hiratsuka was mid-level, The technique was accurate and the control was clean and it was a mid-level spell. You made a decision before you walked onto the field about how much to show."

She was watching me now with full attention.

"Hiratsuka noticed, she just did not comment on it."

"You read people," she said.

"I read situations People are part of situations."

The main building was ahead. Other students from the S class had reached the entrance.

"That is a strange answer," .

"Yes,"

"It is also an honest one.

We walked the rest of the way to the entrance without talking.

At the door she stopped and looked at me one more time .

"Well see you tomorrow.’

"Tomorrow,"

She went through the door.

I stood at the entrance and thought about the novel that had been written around this person built from the beginning to show the world through her lens.

I went through the door.

Behind me, Hiratsuka’s voice reached me from the training ground entrance.

"Ardyn."

"The blood mana," she said. "Whoever taught you that technique has been fighting for a very long time."

I turned.

She was standing with her cup and her documents.

"Are you marked?"

"Yes"

She looked at me for a moment.

"Tell them I said their control work is still some of the best I have seen, whoever they are.

She walked back toward the training ground.

****

[Task completed.]

[Reward received successfully.]

[Received a gift from higher beings.]

[Massage chair.]

Huh!