The failure

The training hall looks like a warehouse built for war: long rows of polished stone, high ceilings with support beams wrapped in faint runes, and no decoration except for a single clock mounted crookedly on the far wall. Each student stands before a block of rock - not mana-packed ones Arthur is familiar with, but dull, lifeless chunks that look like they were hauled straight from a riverbed.

The door creaks open without fanfare, and Mike strolls in like he accidentally wandered into the wrong room. His cloak drags slightly, uneven at the hem, and his staff taps the floor with an irregular rhythm.

“Greetings, students. I’m Mike,” he announces, voice heavier and more detached than when he was teaching Arthur. “I’ll be your teacher from now until the end of the third test.”

He stops at the center of the room, blinks once, then waves a hand vaguely.

“We’ll begin with a surprise test. Surprise…”

He gestures at the rocks in front of them.

“Your task is simple. Try to do anything to that rock without touching it.”

The room is mostly filled with strained breaths and quiet frustration, until Asa lifts a hand with practiced poise.

“Sir Mike,” she says smoothly.

He doesn’t even look up. “Yes, Princess?”

“My ability requires contact.”

“You pass,” Mike replies while lying comfortably on his table.

Asa blinks, hand still half-raised. “Wait… That’s it?”

Mike glances back at her, voice dry.

“Everyone knows you are a genius and it is just dumb of you to choose this class.”

She tilts her head slightly. There is a smile, but her expression seems uncomfortable.

“You should be training with imperial mages,” Mike continues, “not wasting time in a room meant to humble beginners.”

Asa sighs, then quietly lays back as if a toy has just been snatched from her.

Thirty minutes slip by, though it feels like decades.

The room, once filled with cautious hope, now seethes with quiet desperation. Students shift on their feet. Some mutter incantations under their breath, hands stretched toward the unmoving rocks.

One student tries yelling at the rock. Another closes their eyes and hums softly, as if rocks can understand the language.

Arthur watches them all. Everyone is trying, struggling.

And yet, nothing is happening.

Arthur glances at the stone in front of him - unmoved, unchanged despite how hard he has stared at it.

At the far side of the room, Spidaract remains motionless.

While others sweat and whisper, throwing invisible pleas at their unchanging rocks, he stands behind them like a cloaked monument. Even the edges of his limbs stay tucked beneath the fabric, not expressing any pressure.

Arthur sneaks a glance at him.

Spidaract isn’t frustrated. He’s not muttering strange incantations or hovering his limbs on the stone like everyone else. He simply stands in complete silence like a child hesitates to show his parents an idea.

Arthur tilts his head slightly. Then leans forward.

“Hey,” he calls out with a voice just loud enough for the sound to bridge the gap. “You got this.”

Spidaract looks at him, his eyes seem to widen a bit. One of his back limbs clicks faintly against the ground. Arthur thinks he heard a long sigh like a man facing an unfair penalty.

There’s a long pause.

Then, beneath the cloak, a limb moves, pointing at the rock.

Spidaract leans forward slightly, almost reverently. A subtle line of something glistening and silver slips from beneath the cloak - a web strand gliding silently through the air until it lands on the surface of the rock so fast that it is launched to the wall.

“So we have two geniuses in this class? Neat,” Mike mutters while lazily waving his hand. “Pass.”

The noise in the room changes over the next hour.

The muttering dies down. One by one, students begin stepping away from their rocks, some with cracks across the surface, others with barely visible changes: a shift in color, a softened edge, a flicker of warmth or chill.

Arthur doesn’t move.

He remains planted in front of his rock, eyes locked, fingers twitching by his sides like he’s trying to grasp something that isn’t there. Every second, a stubborn refusal to give up.

He tries to imagine energy flowing from him, tries to feel the mana like he once did back in the quiet of the training room with Mike. But this rock feels dead, and no matter how hard he stares, nothing changes.

Some students glance his way, whispering just loud enough for him to hear. One snorts when he passes behind him. Arthur doesn’t flinch.

The clock on the far wall is still ticking, but nothing changes even for a single bit.

Finally, Mike stirs from his desk.

“Time’s up,” he announces, quietly looking at Arthur like it’s his own failure. “If your rock didn’t change, that’s a fail.”

Arthur lowers his eyes. The rock stares back, still unchanged and unaffected.

Arthur doesn’t lift his head.

His fists tremble at his sides, hidden by the folds of his tunic. Around him, students stretch, chat, and file out in pairs and trios, their voices light with relief or triumph.

He’s the one who charged into the capital with wide eyes and declarations of justice. The one who believed he was chosen, even with the weak body and sharp teeth. The one who thought just resilient is enough for a hero.

And yet here he is, in the most basic trial of the academy - and he failed, while everyone else succeeded.

Arthur stares at the stone, hoping to see a crack that he has been missing all this time.

But there’s nothing.

“Why…” he mutters, barely audible, “can’t I do it?”

His voice dies in the stillness, absorbed by the uncaring stone and the growing space between him and everyone else.

A shadow falls beside him, and then something rests lightly on his head. It’s not a hand, at least not a human one. The limb is chitinous and jointed, slightly cool to the touch, but the pressure is careful and steady.

Spidaract.

Arthur stares forward, jaw clenched, refusing to speak.

“It’s okay,” Spidaract says, his voice quieter than usual - still metallic, but lacking the usual edge. “When you try something new…sometimes you fail.”

Arthur doesn’t reply.

Spidaract keeps the limb there a second longer, then lifts it slowly, folding it back under his cloak.

They stand in silence.

From the crowd, Asa watches. She says nothing, but she doesn’t look away.