"You have shown the minimum required potential in sensing, casting, strength, or aptitude. But potential is meaningless without the will to wield it. The final test determines your place... or your departure. This is the Test of Willpower!"
Marius gestured towards a row of small, identical stone huts at the edge of the training field. "Each of you will enter one of these Meditation Chambers alone. Inside, you will face an illusion tailored to your deepest fears and regrets. The trial tests your mental fortitude, your ability to confront your inner demons and overcome them. You have until dawn tomorrow to emerge. Succeed, and you pass the final test. Fail to emerge, or emerge broken... and you are disqualified. Instructors will monitor the chambers. Enter when your name is called."
A new wave of fear washed over the remaining examinees. 'Confront fears? Inner demons?' Kenji thought, a cold dread settling in. 'What will I see? Takahashi? The lorry? Or...' He pushed the thoughts away.
Names were called out, and examinees were led, one by one, into the small stone huts, the heavy doors closing behind them with an ominous thud. Kenji waited, his anxiety mounting. Finally, "Kenji!"
An instructor led him to an empty hut. The interior was bare stone, windowless, with only a single cushion on the floor. "Enter. The trial begins when the door closes."
Kenji stepped inside. The heavy stone door swung shut, plunging the small space into near darkness, save for a faint magical glow emanating from the walls. The air grew still, heavy. He sat on the cushion, trying to calm his racing heart. 'Okay. Fears. Regrets. Just illusions. It's not real.'
The faint glow intensified, swirling. The stone walls seemed to melt away, replaced by the familiar, soul-crushing grey carpet and flickering fluorescent lights of his old Tokyo office.
Mr. Takahashi stood before him, face purple with rage. "Tanaka! The server crashed again! The client is furious! This is YOUR fault!"
"But.. I had mentioned about this issue to you earlier.." Kenji tried to defend himself.
"You're incompetent!"
"Useless!"
"Why am I paying you? What do you even do?" The words struck him like physical blows, echoing the countless times he'd felt like a failure.
The scene shifted. He was younger, in a cramped apartment.
Harsh voices echoed – a man's drunken yelling, a woman's shrill accusations. 'Failure... burden... never amount to anything...'. Though the faces were blurred, the weight of disappointment and disapproval felt crushing, familiar aches from a past he tried not to remember. '
Not real,' he chanted inwardly, but the shame felt real.
Then, the scene warped again. He stood in the Academy training ground, but Lady Annelise was there, her face a mask of cruel amusement. "Still alive, worm? How inconvenient." Arcane bolts slammed into him, the phantom pain sharp and real. "You're nothing. Disposable. Your struggles are meaningless." Her laughter echoed.
The background shifted to the void where he met Malakor. The spirit hovered before him, but his face was etched with disappointment. "A successor with no aptitude? Who relies on tricks and borrowed time? You shame the Codex. You shame me. My legacy will die with you." The weight of the necromancer's regret pressed down on him.
Finally, the illusion solidified into the graveyard. A small, translucent figure stood before him – the errand boy whose body this was. The boy's eyes were filled with hollow accusation. "You stole my body," the spirit whispered, its voice filled with chilling emptiness. "You live, while I fade. You use my flesh, my chance, but you are just as worthless as they thought I was. You failed in your world, you'll fail in mine. It's all your fault."
'My fault?' Kenji staggered back from the accusing spirit. Takahashi's yelling, the blurred faces of disappointment, Annelise's cruelty, Malakor's regret, the boy's blame – it all swirled together, a cacophony of failure and accusation. 'Is it? Was it all my fault?'
He thought of the lorry crash. 'My fault for rushing.' He thought of the failed projects. 'My fault for not being better.' He thought of his parents' unhappiness. 'My fault for being a burden?' He thought of the boy's death. 'My fault for taking his place?'
The weight became unbearable. He felt himself sinking, drowning in guilt and self-loathing.
Then, something clicked. A spark of defiance from his modern, cynical soul.
'Wait a minute.'
'Takahashi? He set impossible deadlines! He blamed everyone but himself! His failure, not mine.''
My parents? They had their own problems. I was a kid. How was that my fault?''
Annelise? She's a sadistic bully! Her actions are hers alone!'
'Malakor? He chose me cause he did not have another choice! He gave me the Codex and the gold! If he regrets it, that's his issue!'
'And this boy...' He looked at the accusing spirit. 'I didn't kill you. Annelise did. I didn't ask to be here. I'm just trying to survive, same as you were. Blaming me is pointless.'
A sense of clarity washed over him, sharp and bracing.
'None of it was truly my fault. Maybe the accident, sure, but not the job, not my parent's expectations, not Annelise's cruelty, not Malakor's legacy, not this second chance.'
'I spent my whole first life drowning in guilt and obligation, trying to meet impossible standards set by others. Always feeling like a failure because I couldn't live up to their idea of success. Screw that.'
'This isn't about their blame or their expectations. Malakor wanted his art restored? Fine, I will do it, but he can't expect me to go and do everything in one day, right?. The System wants my gold? Fine, I'll use it. Annelise wants me dead? That bitch just needs to wait for what is to come to her.'
'This time... this life... I'm living for myself. Freely. I'll use the Codex, use the gold, use whatever I can to survive, to get stronger, to carve out my own space. Not because of guilt or obligation, but because I want to.'
He stood tall, facing the swirling illusions, the weight miraculously lifting from his shoulders. "It wasn't my fault," he said aloud, his voice clear and steady in the illusionary space. "And I'm done carrying it."
The illusions wavered, flickered. The accusing faces, the harsh voices – they dissolved like smoke. The office, the graveyard, the void – all vanished.
Kenji found himself sitting on the cushion in the small, dimly lit stone hut. The door was still closed. He glanced around. It felt like hours had passed, but the faint magical glow from the walls seemed unchanged.
He pushed himself to his feet, feeling strangely lighter, clearer than he had in either life. He walked to the door and pushed. It swung open easily.
Bright sunlight streamed in, making him blink. He stepped out onto the training field. Instructors and the remaining examinees stared. An instructor near the hut checked a timer.
"Fifteen minutes?" the instructor muttered, bewildered. "He was only in there fifteen minutes?"