[Timeline: Year 2041 – 14 Days Before the Tournament]

[Location: Training Hall 4 – The "Old Gym"]

The rookie tournament was something held around the start of every school year.

In anticipation of it, the first years of most classes were currently in a buzz, and more experienced students were relatively calm; however their eyes still shone bright

And like everything in the school, class F was assigned to the worst training grounds.

They only had access to the 'Old gym'.

The "Old Gym" was a relic of the Academy's past.

Located in the basement of the combat wing, it was a windowless box of reinforced concrete, smelling of stale sweat and old mana.

It was the only place in the school sturdy enough to contain Class F.

"Formation," Mozart ordered, his cane tapping against the stone floor.

Alaric, Lukas, and Elena lined up. They looked nervous.

Alaric was still wiping the Imp guts off his uniform. Lukas was keeping his hands in his pockets to avoid accidentally burning the oxygen in the room.

Elena stood perfectly straight, though her eyes darted around the dingy room with disdain.

"You have a problem," Mozart began, pacing in front of them.

"We know," Lukas muttered. "We're weak"

"Correct," Mozart said. Among you three, the weak are extraordinarily weak, and those with a little bit of strength can't control it"."

"If you go like this to the tournament, you'll be disqualified in five seconds for accidentally killing your opponent or just straight out loose."

Mozart waved his hand.

From his spatial storage, he pulled out three items and placed them on a small wooden table.

A crate of raw eggs.

A box of cheap wax candles.

A sewing needle and a spool of thread.

The students stared at the items.

"Uh, Professor?" Alaric raised a hand. "I thought we were going to learn how to crush Prince Nero and other nobles. What is... this?"

"This," Mozart said, picking up an egg, "is your opponent."

He tossed the egg to Alaric.

Alaric caught it but his heart jumped. He treated the fragile shell like it was a live grenade.

He managed to catch it without crushing it, cradling it in his massive, callous palms.

"Good," Mozart noted. "Now, hold it."

"Okay..." Alaric said slowly. "I'm holding it."

Mozart snapped his fingers.

RUMBLE.

The floor at the far end of the gym opened up.

A massive stone golem rose from the pit. It was crude, designed for impact training, with arms like tree trunks.

"Alaric," Mozart said cheerfully. "That Golem is going to try to hit you."

"Okay?" Alaric braced himself. "I can take it. Thanks to the titan heart this alone should be easy."

"I know you can take it," Mozart corrected. "But the egg cannot."

Alaric froze.

"Your objective is to dodge, block, or parry the Golem's attacks without cracking the egg in your hand. If the shell cracks, you;ll restart."

"If the yolk spills, you do five hundred burpees."

Alaric looked at the egg. Then he looked at the Golem.

"Professor, that's impossible! If I block, the shockwave alone will—"

"Begin."

The Golem roared and charged.

….............….

[Lukas's Station]

While Alaric was running for his life, trying to protect a dairy product from a two-ton stone monster, Lukas stood in front of a single unlit candle.

"Light it," Mozart ordered.

Lukas sighed. "Professor, I vaporized a table this morning. I can't do small fires anymore."

"Then learn," Mozart said coldly.

"Prince Nero uses ice armor. If you just blast him with raw heat, he will deflect it. You need a concentrated, needle-point flame to pierce his defense."

He pointed to the wick.

"Light the wick. Do not melt the wax. Do not scorch the table."

Lukas took a deep breath. He stared at the candle.

'Just a spark. Just a tiny, baby spark.'

He extended his index finger. He squinted. He squeezed his mana core, trying to let out just a trickle.

HISSS.

A beam of blue plasma shot out of his finger.

It missed the wick. It hit the candle.

It turned instantly into gas. The blast continued through the candle, punched a hole through the table, and scorched a black circle on the concrete floor.

Lukas looked up at Mozart.

"I... I think I missed the wick."

"Reset," Mozart said, marking a failure on his clipboard.

"We have five thousand candles, Mr. Lukas. We are not leaving until you light one."

…..............

[Elena's Station]

Elena sat in a lotus position, floating an inch off the ground.

In front of her, floating in a small wind vortex, was a needle. Next to it, a piece of thread danced in the air.

"Thread the needle," Mozart instructed. "Using only wind. No hands."

Elena scoffed. "Child's play. My control is perfect."

She flicked her finger. A gust of wind pushed the thread toward the eye of the needle.

SNAP.

The wind was too sharp. It sliced the thread in half.

Elena blinked. "A fluke."

She tried again. She summoned a gentler breeze.

TING.

The breeze hit the needle, but the turbulence was too high. The needle spun wildly out of control and embedded itself in the wall.

"Your magic has changed, Princess," Mozart observed from behind her. "Since the lab, your mana has become aggressive. It wants to cut. It wants to burn."

Elena flushed. She remembered the feeling of the Photon Lance. The feeling of judgment.

"You need to remember that wind can be a blade," Mozart whispered. "But it can also be a breath. If you cannot be soft, you will never hit your target."

Elena grit her teeth. She summoned another needle.

"Again."

…..................

[Two Hours Later]

The Old Gym looked like a crime scene.

SPLAT.

"NO!" Alaric screamed.

He had successfully dodged the Golem's haymaker.

He weaved under a stomp. But when he rolled to safety, his grip tightened for a microsecond.

The egg exploded in his hand. Yolk dripped down his fingers, sticky and yellow.

"Death," Mozart called out from his chair, where he was sipping tea.

"The egg is dead, Alaric. And so are you. Burpees. Now."

Alaric dropped to the floor, groaning. "I hate eggs. I'm never eating breakfast again."

BOOM.

Across the room, another table exploded.

Lukas was covered in soot. He looked like a chimney sweep. He was staring at the charred remains of his fiftieth candle.

"Why?!" Lukas yelled at his own hand. "Just be small! Why do you have to be so huge?!"

TING. SNAP.

Elena was surrounded by broken needles and cut thread. Her perfect hair was slightly frazzled. She was vibrating with frustration.

"Stupid... inanimate... object!" Elena hissed, blasting the needle with a wind blade out of spite.

Mozart watched them.

To anyone else, they looked pathetic. The "Hydra Squad" was being defeated by groceries and sewing supplies.

But Mozart saw the progress.

He saw Alaric instinctively shifting his center of gravity to compensate for his heavy bones.

He saw the blue in Lukas's flame becoming darker, more condensed.

He saw Elena stopping to breathe, realigning her turbulent core.

"Stop," Mozart ordered.

Both golemn and students instantly paused.

"This is humiliation," Lukas wheezed, lying on the cold floor.

"If Nero sees us like this, he won't even fight us. He'll just laugh."

"Let him laugh," Mozart said, standing up.

He walked over to Alaric. He took a fresh egg from the crate and held it out.

"In the tournament, Nero will try to bait you. He will try to make you overextend. If you swing with full power and miss, you'll leave an opening. If you grip too hard, you'll break your own weapon."

He tossed the egg to Alaric.

Alaric caught it. Softly.

He looked at his hand. The egg was intact.

"Control is not about weakness," Mozart said, looking at his three students.

"It is about condensing your lethality. I don't want you to be a bomb that blows up the whole room."

"I want you to be a bullet. Small. Precise. And ignores armor."

He checked his pocket watch.

"Lunch break is ten minutes. Then we start Impact lessons."

Alaric groaned. "More eggs?"

"No," Mozart smiled. "For the afternoon session, Leona has sent over some... specialized training equipment."

The ground shook.

The doors to the gym opened.

Three massive, heavily armored Clockwork Knights marched in. They held blunt steel greatswords.

"Alaric," Mozart pointed to the knights. "You can break those."

Alaric's eyes lit up. He wiped the egg yolk off his hand.

"Finally," Alaric grinned, the Titan's Capacitor thumping in his chest. "Something I can hit."

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