The following few days, Lena is almost used to the foreign presence on academy grounds.

The government representatives walk amongst students, learning their schedules and blending in with their classes. While Lena has been nervous, the rest of the students are only fuelled by the authorities' presence, working harder to make an impression.

And while Caelus has been cautious, their two other friends, Neesha and Roen, have been seemingly unbothered by the observation they receive as if used to it. The two of them undeniably have quite some attention too, considering the strength and nature of their abilities—they prove to be quite powerful ability users who might one day serve as Catalysts. Some of the on duty officers have already approached them, offering opportunities. Neesha had been approached by Wren who'd been observing some of their lessons, asking her to have a go at the main Catalysts force because of the destructive nature of her abilities. Roen, on the other hand, is given multiple opportunities due to the versatility of illusion manipulation.

Neither of them have yet to decide where they will take their future though.

Meanwhile, Lena has been successful in staying low. Everyone is busying themselves with the upcoming trials that they do not bat her an eye. Those intimidating seniors who sometimes drop by their building wing to challenge the younger, more talented students are also no where to be seen.

Less duels take place on academy grounds, as the students fight the urge to compete against one another and instead for themselves, to the authorities.

The competitiveness still exists—only in a different form.

Lena herself isn't too keen on the trials. She hasn't been slacking off, but she isn't putting too much effort either. Her mind is always occupied, thoughts scattered. In the day she attends her lessons, trying her best to do just above average in physical classes and concentrate in theory classes; in the evening after school and after extra practice, she wanders about the City alone, understanding this world she lives in on a deeper level, searching for something she can't quite grasp.

Her after school hour practice sessions are now without Caelus. The first day of the pre-trials, she went to the Precision room as usual, warming up with the simulation it offers. She waited for Caelus to arrive as he always does, even if he's sometimes late. But Caelus never came. He never came for the first time since they did this together every day; never told her he won't be coming.

Lena was not really surprised, even if she was slightly disappointed. She'd expected it after their silent conversation in class. Caelus is cutting her off because he doesn't want his garnered attention to be unintentionally passed to her; she doesn't really blame him, considering the situation she is in. He even avoids talking to Roen or Neesha, his two best friends.

Indeed, every single one of the government representative recognises Caelus, some even treating him with a level of respect. A few of them, however, either look at him with a face of envy or a sort of silent challenge. It reminds Lena of professional Catalyst Arius from the Aerotrain incident who had been rather bothered by Caelus and his natural talents that he started lecturing him about following orders and the system, including working hard.

Lena has since learn which of the authorities to avoid.

She can't fathom being Caelus, who has eyes on him, every time, everywhere—not just the students now, but also the authorities. The students' constant attention on him all this while as either a role model or a competition no doubt put him in unwanted spotlight for someone who prefers the sidelines; the government has long been keeping close tabs on him too with the wristband that monitors his actions or movements, given Caelus' position as one of the top tier ability users in the City.

A great power always comes with cost to be paid dearly.

It's such a direct way of explaining her missing memories and how she'd gotten here, but Lena realised that it equally means that the higher an individual climbs in strength, the more the sacrifice in terms of the freedom from expectations.

But there's no point for her to mull over the rights and wrongs of this universe. Lena aligns her thoughts and returns to the present, focusing on the obstacle ahead of her. Even if Caelus isn't here to guide her for now, she'll follow through her own training. Since she doesn't know what to expect of the trials, she'll have to b ahead of the game.

Obviously lacking in strong physical attributes such as combat, Lena makes up for it with her gifted long range accuracy using her weapon of choice: throwing knives or darts and short daggers. And with the latent nature of her abilities, she must use her wits and tricks up her sleeves.

Lena figures that if she's going to use the mini clairvoyance lie, she might as well train her agility in case they test her.

In the Precision room, she's already passed three of the general simulations—fears. After a number of those and depending on performance, the system changes its challenges according to the individual. There are a few stages to achieving mastery toward simulation practice. And because the technology is so powerful, essentially only the strongest—top ranking—students in this academy have finished all of its challenges.

While classes such as Weaponry and Ability Mastery are conducted with simulations, Precision is on an entirely different level. It is a training room which is completely optional and not included in official syllabus, given its complexity and difficulty.

Students who try accessing Precision will find themselves faced with their most general fear without warning—Lena herself stumbled across the room in the earlier days she enrolled in this Academy, opening the door to find herself hanging on a ledge of a tower. She'd had to let go of her fierce grip and let herself fall to pass the simulation. That's the first of three stages of Precision's pyramid of tests: general fears. It's not specific enough so some students claim to have faced odd realities of which they do not know they are afraid of until presented a scenario. There is also no telling just how many fears an individual has, because there can be multiple fears stemming from even the smallest, unnoticed detail.

The average student has around nine fears, and take approximately three to four weeks to master them. Precision doesn't really force you to master your fears; instead it allows you to be more accepting toward them.

Only less than 25% of the students endure pass the first stage to the second and third stages, and it only gets harder after that.

Lena doesn't know what lies in the second and third stages, but she has heard of something about demons. She isn't sure if she's ready for that sort of thing yet. Besides, she still hasn't been cleared for the second stage, since she's still facing her random fears.

Today, though, she has already passed three of them quickly in the first twenty minutes here—heights, the feeling of not belonging or not being good enough, and the most recent one having to confront a faceless government representative.

The simulation of the strict man disappears, and the room powers up to a typical obstacle course.

Lena shudders as the familiar robotic voice Caelus names Ruiko chimes, "Welcome to Precision."

The Enhanced Artificial Intelligence Unit (EAIU) doesn't proceed to say anything else because it knows Lena is frequently here, and has been challenging her few fears for the past few days to gain access to Precision's training room.

While only the best students who have proved themselves through almost 33 trials in Precision have earned the full autonomy of Arcane Academy's EAIU, students who find the need to harness their abilities can access Precision anytime after passing at least one of their general fears. This resets every time a student enters the room, unless they clear the stage or the entire package of Precision.

Lena has just faced three of her little fears, and she doesn't know if she is able to take another. A hovered screen appears before her, enabling partial control of the room. The options are either to continue with Precision's Pyramid of Challenge, or to stop and proceed with training selection.

Sighing, she selects the latter option. An invisible knot in Lena loosens now that she can relax without having to face another of her nightmares. But as the endless list of training options reveal itself, she longs for Caelus' presence that had become endearing over the last weeks, and his constant guidance and navigation of this room. Without him, not only can she not utilise Ruiko efficiently and to its full potential, Lena is also lost about what she should focus on in improving her abilities. She just feels alone.

And yet she never stops coming. If she is to master her real abilities and regain what she's lost, the only way is to keep going.

However, her primary focus for the past few days is merely to improve her own agility that she's been told is lacking.

Selecting the level of difficulty and setting the obstacle course, the room changes.

A maze of glass appears. Different visions show at every angle, and the slight reflection does not help Lena focus.

But she remembers Caelus' words, and might as well have a go at it.

"Your clairvoyance serves as a director of where you go, and what you see are basically areas where you're able to teleport to. That part is your supposed foresight."

Her reaction time must be convincing. The maze of glass is her best practice—to be actively weaving through the space and dodging whatever the maze throws at her. Lena selects more obstacle to the course, forcing herself to travel the space with more challenge. The only way they can test her is to make her run through random simulations and observe her reaction toward different scenarios. And hence that's what she will work on.

The screen counts down, and she launches herself into the labyrinth of headache. Lena ignores the pictures that form before her, and concentrates on finding a way through without running into a surface. Every move she makes, she reminds herself of the lie she must uphold: a clairvoyant through glass. A clairvoyant should be able to pass through a maze easily, having the precognition of wrong turns or expectation of any small hurdles.

Because it's a glass maze, the reflections from each side and angle adds to the difficulty under the light of the room. But Lena forces her mind to concentrate and forget the minor details, eyes focusing on areas where her visions do not appear. Her body attunes to her thoughts, following its orders. She jumps over a sudden opening in the ground and swerves right without much debate when she notices a path, her limbs quicker and nimbler each time she does a set of training.

Over another turn, light flashes, and Lena is forced to advert her eyes, but her hearing catches an approaching entity—

She slides down and to the corner, throwing two of her knives she has tied over her thighs toward the source of the sound and proceeding with the path once she regains her sight. The first thing she takes in is all the visions at once and everywhere, giving her a mild pause, but when she finds her throws have landed true over a robotic training dummy, she regains her confidence and finds the route that is clear of any swirling images.

As she ventured deeper into the maze, the glass walls around her grow closer, narrowing the space she can weave through. The ground becomes less stable, the surface not only giving in but also changing in its density and friction; even more training figures appear out of no where, attacking her with simulated abilities such as lightning, enhanced speed and strength, as well as official laser guns equipped by the government. Lena is soon forced into one side, her shoulder hitting the surface of the glass pane hard. But she doesn't stop. She can't afford to stop, if she is to prove herself.

The side she is leaning slightly on burst apart, glass shattering. A beam of power shoots through, and she has no time to think where to dodge except to jump toward a flying piece of glass shard, forcing herself into its welcoming portal. She disappears even before the shard hits the ground.

Lena soon reappears on the other end of the narrow path, leaving the shattered remains of the power blast behind. She takes another leap just as simulated demons are conjured before her, pushing herself through the very wall to her left. Preferring speed over being able to take down every single obstacle that pops before her, Lena teleports almost immediately when she resurfaces just as the ground gives away.

Two glass travels in a row has her breathing hard, but she pushes herself forward. Three flying targets hover over the next turning and she dismisses them by leaping into the air and hurtling three needle-like darts toward their centres. They burst open just as Lena chooses not to land but to jump over another unnatural strike.

Sliding over one more turning, she spots the end of the labyrinth. As if alive and knowing its prey is about to escape, the entire simulation trembles, the walls of glass beginning to fall apart. Lena's end goal begins to diminish from her sight, and she desperately throws herself into the glass space one last time.

Darkness consumes her.

Did she overdo it, over-expended her abilities?

There is no sound, no light in this space. Only darkness.

Lena plunges through the dimension, pushing herself. All she can think about is to get to the end.

And she does. The next time she can breathe again, her hands and knees are on the flat white ground, destruction behind her wake. Her hand scrapes a lone glass piece that has flew all the way here from the quake and damage—the glass shard that transported her here.

A sound beeps, signalling the end of the simulation. A blue screen reappears before Lena, marking her performance and statistics, with detailed fields including speed, time to complete obstacle, reaction time, objects destroyed, number of times abilities activated, and more.

Lena cross references her current data with her previous runs, looking for an improving trend and scrutinising her worst areas to further refine in the next training. Her heart pounding from the exercise, she takes a minute to relax as she touches the on-screen option to 'clear current obstacle map'.

As everything vanished from the room on her command, a sudden, echoing clap reverberates the now empty space.

Lena jolts, noticing the presence standing against a white-walled corner of the room for the first time—when did she get here?

Back straight against the flawless wall with a Japanese sword resting by her side, the girl's eyes are closed as she lowers her hands. Her amused but stern expression reaches Lena as the senior tosses back her long black ponytail. Pushing away from the wall, her eyes open to reveal a pair of startling azures.

"Azalea," Lena says, more in shock and confusion at her sudden appearance than in greeting.

A smirk forms on Azalea's confident, snarky features. "Hello, Lena."