One week passed quietly—or so everyone thought. Most people dismissed the fireball incident as an accident.
Richard himself seemed calmer.
But his eyes still burned like embers.
Rush noticed his gaze whenever they crossed paths. He said nothing.
Two days ago, Professor Spellworth had walked into the Magic Foundation Studies and announced the core appraisal. Now, everyone gathered in the waiting room of the Appraisal Hall on the northern edge of the Academy grounds.
It was a long, rectangular room with stone benches along both walls and a set of heavy double doors at the far end. The air smelled of cold stone and metal.
The students tried to hide their nervousness in their own ways. Some talked too loudly. Some sat in rigid silence, staring at the floor. Some pretended to read. Slavic had his notebook open and was sketching what appeared to be a theoretical diagram of the device he had never seen, based entirely on secondhand descriptions overheard in the corridors. Ethan sat with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, which either meant he was sleeping or thinking — with Ethan it was impossible to tell.
Jennifer sat a few benches away beside Nia. Another girl sat on her other side–Sophie, Jennifer's childhood friend.
The three of them speaking in low voices.
Surprisingly, despite Richard's arrogant behavior and sense of superiority, he had managed to make a few friends.
Rush sat with his back against the wall and watched the double doors.
One by one, students were called through. One by one, they returned — some flushed with excitement, some carefully neutral, some trying and failing to suppress enormous grins. The results spread through the room in whispers and fragments.
Rush listened without appearing to.
Beelzebub observed.
" You are more anxious than usual."
The double doors opened.
"Rush Ryanheart. "
The Appraisal Room was unlike anything else in the Academy.
Rush stepped through the doors and understood immediately why students came back looking slightly unsettled regardless of their results. The room felt like a machine — the walls lined with embedded mana crystal that pulsed in slow, measured rhythms, the air dense and deliberate, the silence of a space designed to do one specific thing and nothing else.
At the center of the room stood the platform.
A raised circle of dark stone, its surface carved with overlapping rings of ancient script.At its center sat the Core Appraiser — dark metal and mana crystal, its components shifting in continuous patterns too fine to follow individually. Through a clear panel in its casing, a dense sphere of compressed mana rotated at its core.
Rush studied it for a fraction of a second.
Professor Spellworth sat to the left, a leather-bound record open across his knee. Rosetta stood to the right serving as a trainee for the day, her notepad ready. She offered a brief, professional nod.
"Head over to the platform," Spellworth said.
Rush walked forward and stepped up.
The moment his feet touched the pale stone, the Core Appraiser responded. Its surface shifted — the fine lattice of components reorganizing fluidly, a flat panel rising from the device's face with a set of specific runes inscribed across it that had not been visible a moment before.
Spellworth instructed.
"Place your palm on the panel.Push a controlled stream of mana into the runes. Hold it steady."
Rush raised his right hand.
The Khaos Blocker hummed against his wrist as his palm met the cold surface.
The runes flickered once.
Then again.
A faint vibration spread through the platform—low, unstable, wrong.
Spellworth's brow furrowed.
"That's… unusual."
Then Beelzebub moved without a warning.
Rush fell to his knees as a violent pressure erupted from his core—like something foreign forcing its way into a space that could not contain it. Even so, his hand remained stuck to the panel.
Beelzebub spoke inside his head.
"Pure mana source detected. Initiating repair protocol. "
Rush groaned, his teeth grinding together.
Stop... it...
The Appraiser was working in reverse. Instead of reading his power, all the mana from the monster core was flowing directly into Rush. His Khaos Blocker activated instantly, absorbing the brunt of the surge.
Spellworth was already on his feet.
"Step back," he snapped sharply, the first crack in his composed demeanor.
Rosetta moved instantly, grabbing his shoulder—and the connection snapped.
"Protocol suspended. Core stability increased to 17%"
Before anyone could fully understand what they were seeing, it was over. Rush's hand fell away from the panel as Rosetta held him steady by his shoulders. Rush's breathing was heavy and labored. The Core Appraiser had already ceased functioning; the high-ranking monster core had disintegrated into a pile of fine, grey ash.
"Are you alright?" Spellworth and Rosetta asked in near unison.
"I'm fine," Rush said, his voice steady despite the lingering strain in his chest.
The room fell silent.
Spellworth stared at the grey dust.
"…That was a high-ranking mana core."
Rosetta's grip tightened slightly on Rush's shoulder.
Neither of them looked at each other.
They were both looking at him now.