The silence in the arena was a heavy, ringing thing. The image of the crippled, kneeling automaton was burned into the collective mind of the Lyceum. It was a physical testament to an impossible event.
The Senior Prefect's face was a mask of cold fury. The mortal hadn't just survived; he had humiliated the Lyceum's technology, its martial pride. But the man's composure was forged in the same fire as his power. He quickly suppressed his rage, replacing it with an icy contempt. The first trial was an anomaly of brute force. This next one was a matter of spirit, of essence. This was where the freak would be exposed.
"Proceed to the second trial," he commanded, his voice echoing in the unnaturally quiet arena. He gestured imperiously towards the simple pedestal in the center of the training ground.
Kael gave the broken machine one last, dispassionate glance before turning. He walked towards the Resonance Stone, each step measured and deliberate. The aches from the automaton's blows were a dull thrum beneath his skin, but the drain from the parasite in his chest was a sharper, more intimate pain. This next act would cost him more than bruises.
To the crowd, the Resonance Stone was a simple tool. To Kael's Qi-sight, it was a thing of perfect, crystalline beauty. He could see its internal structure, a flawless lattice designed to vibrate and emit light when touched by the flow of directed, refined Qi. It was a musical instrument waiting for a musician. The masters were confident Kael had no instrument to play, no breath to make a sound.
They were right. He couldn't channel the ambient Ice or Light Qi of Aeridor. But they were also wrong. He had his own song to play.
His plan was a desperate, heretical gamble. He would not use the Qi of the world. He would use the Qi of his own life. He would command the parasite, the creature fused to his own heart, to do something it was never meant to do: to become a pump, to push a single, controlled pulse of his own golden vitality into the stone. It would be like opening a vein to paint a single brushstroke. A costly, perhaps fatal, act. But the prize was worth the risk.
He reached the pedestal. He could feel thousands of eyes on him. Lyren watched with an unnerving intensity, his mind clearly struggling to reconcile the brute force he'd witnessed with the absolute spiritual failure he was about to see. The Senior Prefect had a cruel, triumphant smirk back on his face. The mouse had escaped the cat, only to find itself before a locked door with no key.
Kael placed his hand on the smooth, cool surface of the stone.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the world, shutting out the crowd. He focused his entire being inward. He plunged his consciousness deep within himself, past the ache of his muscles, past the beat of his heart, until he was face to face with the crimson-silver web of the parasite. He felt its constant, gentle pull on his life force. Now, he would pull back.
Push.
It was not a thought. It was a command of pure, unadulterated will. The same will that had endured the sludge pools, that had faced down death 137 times, that had chosen to fight a war against fate itself. He focused that will on the parasite.
He felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest, a sickening lurch as if a part of his core had been violently ripped away. It was a pain far deeper and more terrifying than any physical blow. The parasite obeyed.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The stone remained dark. The Senior Prefect's smirk widened. This was it. The final, definitive failure.
Then, deep within the crystal's heart, a light flickered.
It was not the brilliant, pure white light of a disciple channeling the Qi of Aeridor. It was not the sharp silver of Metal Qi or the cold blue of Ice Qi.
It was a faint, stubborn, golden glow. The colour of honey, of the setting sun. The color of Kael's own life force, raw and untamed.
It was weak. It was a candle flame in a world of bonfires. A pathetic glimmer compared to the radiance Lyren could produce with a lazy flick of his wrist. But it was undeniably, irrefutably, light. The stone, which by all the laws of their cultivation should have remained inert, was glowing.
The smirk on the Senior Prefect's face vanished, instantly replaced by an expression of slack-jawed, horrified disbelief. A collective gasp, sharp and sudden, swept through the crowd.
Lyren's eyes were locked on the faint, golden light, his face pale. His deep understanding of cultivation told him that what he was seeing was impossible. It was the wrong energy. It was the wrong color. It was like watching a stone bleed. It was a violation of natural law.
Kael removed his hand, a wave of dizziness washing over him. The drain had been significant. The world tilted for a moment before his indomitable will forced it back into place. The golden light in the stone sputtered and died, plunging back into darkness.
He stood, breathing a little more heavily than before, and looked directly at the Senior Prefect. He had met the conditions. He had passed the impossible trial. He had done it twice.
The Senior Prefect stared, his mind reeling. The boy had no root. He had no Qi flow. Yet he had displayed the durability of a Golem and had made the Resonance Stone glow with a strange, vital energy. Every law of the Theocracy, every fundamental truth he had built his life upon, screamed that this was impossible. But the evidence was before him. He was trapped. Trapped by his own arrogance, trapped by his own laws.
His face cycled through a storm of fury, confusion, and utter humiliation. Before the entire Lyceum, he had been outmaneuvered and proven wrong by a rootless, mortal cleaner. Finally, with a voice choked with a rage he could barely contain, he was forced to give the verdict.
"The petitioner... has passed the trial."