Landen opened his eyes, returning to the darkness of the wisp assessment. He glanced up at the clock.

“Only five minutes have passed,” he said. “System, how long was I training for?”

"Thirty-three hours, four minutes, and twenty-two seconds."

"Wait. What happened to the six minutes for every hour?”

“That estimation was based on the computational ability of an average human being. Apparently cognitive bandwidth exceeds the average by a factor of five. As a result, the temporal dilation accelerated to match your higher cognitive bandwidth.”

Landen grinned, shaking out his arms. For the first time, this body actually felt like his own.

"Alright then. Time to see how all that extra time pays off out there.”

— — —

Five failed attempts later, Landen finally caught his first white wisp. It hadn't put up much of a fight, but the single point felt like a slap in the face.

“One point,” he muttered, checking the timer. “And more than half the time is already gone.”

“You might as well forfeit and prep for the next assessment,” the System chimed in.

“No, we still have other options.”

He watched the other color wisps, no longer seeing colors, but point values.

Blue wisps: two points. Red: three. Rainbow: ten.

“Time to find out how hard a blue one actually is.”

— — —

He lunged at the nearest blue wisp, only to lose it immediately.

“What?” He spun around, searching the dark. “Where’d it go?”

A few seconds later, it reappeared, drifting on the same trajectory as before. He tried again. Same result—poof, then back.

His eyes widened as the realization hit him. “It has an invisibility skill.”

He tested the pattern over and over, tracking every drop and reappearance until the mechanics clicked.

“It stays invisible for seven seconds, with a two-second cooldown. And when it's invisible, it can't change directions, which means—it's predictable!”

He swung a hanging rope towards the wisp—and right on cue, it vanished.

“One… two…” he counted, tracing its invisible path through the air. “Six!”

He dove, closing his hand around empty air.

“Seven!”

The wisp materialized right inside his grip, its sapphire glow pulsing wildly as momentum sent him sliding across the ground.

“Got you.”

He grinned, holding the captive wisp tight—just in time to see a red one drift lazily across his field of vision. If he could crack the blue ones, a red couldn't be out of reach.

— — —

The red wisp was faster—much faster. But all he needed was to decode its mechanics like he’d done with the blue, and the first two attempts gave him exactly what he needed.

Attempt one: it split in two. A decoy broke left while the real wisp bolted right—an illusion, except for a faint transparency in the copy that lasted half a second longer.

Attempt two: a burst of red dust exploded in his face, blinding him and sending him stumbling backward.

“Two abilities,” he said, wiping his eyes.

1. Decoy: Creates a two-second clone. Four-second cooldown.

2. Smokescreen: Releases a smoke burst that propels the wisp in the opposite direction. Seven-second cooldown.

He picked up two loose balls and gave chase.

The first ball he threw triggered the split. His eyes caught the copy's faint transparency immediately. He pointed at the real one, already throwing the second ball at the wall ahead of it. While the ball was still in the air, he cut around behind the wisp's escape route.

Trapped, the wisp panicked and triggered its smokescreen.

Red dust exploded forward, rocketing the wisp backward—straight into Landen’s waiting palm.

"Gotcha."

— — —

The next several minutes turned into a steady grind. Blue wisps blinked in and out on cue; red wisps split and smoked right into his hands. Landen read their patterns, adapted, and collected. What had felt impossible twenty minutes ago was now as natural as breathing.

A quick glance at his basket confirmed he was actually making a comeback. Then he checked the clock: five minutes remaining.

That was when a faint, shimmering radiance far above the obstacles caught his eye.

Landen's eyes widened. "The rainbow wisp."

Ten points. It was the hardest target in the entire arena, and with barely any time left, trying to decode its mechanics from scratch was a massive gamble. Logically, it wasn't worth the risk.

"Impressive..." a deep voice called out from ahead.

Landen turned to see number 56 standing a few meters away—the white-haired boy from earlier. His icy blue eyes briefly shifted toward Landen's basket before turning upward toward the rainbow wisp.

He smiled. "Let's see who gets it first."

In a flash, 56 darted forward, scaling the nearest structure as if gravity were optional. He launched himself across the final gap, reaching out to claim his prize—only for the rainbow wisp to detonate into seven streaks of prismatic light.

It materialized near the ground a second later, already moving at full speed. Without missing a beat, 56 dropped from the scaffolding and gave chase.

Landen didn't follow. Instead, he scrambled up to the mid-level platforms, using the elevation to observe. From above, the wisp’s path looked different—less like a panicking animal, and more like a scout searching for something. On top of that, every few seconds, its colors shifted in a pulse so subtle he almost missed it.

Down below, 56 cornered the wisp between two stone pillars, sealing off its escape angles. But as he lunged, the wisp simply vanished, reappearing behind him a split second later and shooting away.

Landen’s mind raced as the pieces began to click, but still things he needed to confirm. He grabbed a loose object and threw it at the wisp. The moment the stone touched it, a red dust cloud erupted. 56, sprinting in from the front, took the full blast to the face and went down.

“I knew it,” Landen said, still tracking the wisp. “But there's still one piece missing...”

As the rainbow wisp resumed its circuit, he noticed something bizarre: every other wisp in the arena was going out of its way to avoid it. Blue wisps turned invisible to clear its path, while red wisps blew their smokescreens to propel themselves.

Before he could fully digest the realization, a hand yanked the back of his basket, and a boot slammed onto his shoulder. 56 launched himself off Landen’s back into the air.

Glancing over his shoulder mid-flight, 56 flashed a cocky grin. "Your sacrifice won't be in vain!"

Landen watched him, but barely noticed what he was doing. His words, however, caught his attention. Landen’s eyes widened.

“I get it now.”

He checked the timer.

"Two minutes," he whispered, staring down at his basket before springing into motion. "I can actually do this."

— — —

High above, 56 was losing—badly. Every lunge, every sharp cut, every desperate reach was useless; the rainbow wisp slipped away as if it were barely trying.

Landing heavily on a platform, 56 made a quick, cold calculation. If he couldn't catch it, he’d make sure Landen couldn't either. He began herding the wisp toward the far side of the arena, doing whatever he could to drag it away.

He glanced back to check Landen's position—and froze.

Landen stood still in the middle of the arena floor, holding a red wisp in his hand.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the rainbow wisp stopped mid-flight. It locked onto Landen with a sharp, predatory focus and shot across the arena in a flash until it collided straight into the red wisp in Landen’s hand.

A blinding flash of white light detonated, illuminating every corner of the room.

As the light faded, Landen stood in the center of the floor, his arm raised, the rainbow wisp pulsing gently around in his hand.

The buzzer rang out across the arena.

The agility assessment was over.

"I am surprisingly impressed," the system said. "How did you know the rainbow wisp would react to the red wisp like that?"

Landen looked down at the wisp as he explained.

"The prismatic explosion at the start was just a modified version of the red wisp's smokescreen," Landen explained. "The invisibility it used to slip past 56 came from the blue ones. Every trick it pulled was borrowed. But every time it used an ability, its light shifted. The hue faded because that specific skill was spent. It couldn't repeat a trick until it recharged."

He gestured to the surrounding room.

"It wasn't just running away from us—it was hunting. It was chasing down specific wisps to reabsorb the abilities it had burned through.”

He smiled slightly. "And I happened to have exactly what it needed."

"Elegant," the system replied.

A notification chimed.

|| Quest: Explore the MOBA Training System — (Completed) ||

|| Receive: 10 EXP ||

|| QUEST: Outscore your opponent — (Failed) ||

|| No EXP received ||

|| Experience points: 10/100 ||

Landen stared at the second notification for a moment.

“All that work, and I still lost to him.”

He'd caught the rainbow wisp—he just hadn't gotten it into the basket before the buzzer sounded. The points never registered.

He opened his grip, letting the rainbow wisp drift upward to rejoin the others.

"You sacrificed your own points to catch it."

Landen turned to see 56 standing beside him. The white-haired boy was watching him with a new intensity—less hostile now, and far more curious.

"Nobody would even think of that. Deliberately losing points. But you didn't hesitate.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then 56 let out a short huff—not quite a laugh, but close enough. "I admit defeat." His deep voice was still cold, but it carried something else. Respect. "Enjoy it. It's the last time."

Kael's voice cut through the arena. "That concludes the first assessment. Please proceed towards the exit for the next assessment."

— — —

As the students filtered out, quiet settled over the arena.

Maris stood over her tablet, scrolling through the diagnostic data. Suddenly, her finger froze.

"Look at this." She tilted the screen toward Kael. "Number 28 logged the lowest top speed and the lowest average speed in the entire cohort." She paused, her voice dropping slightly. "He placed fifth overall."

Kael’s brow furrowed. "What?"

He snatched the tablet, scanning the numbers twice. Across every assessment he’d ever run, raw speed and total score correlated directly. It wasn't just a trend; it was a rule. The faster candidates caught more wisps. That was how the system worked. That was how it had always worked.

Then his eyes caught the name attached to the candidate ID: Landen Knight.

And then it hit him. The boy from the classroom. The one who had sat perfectly still in the middle of the chaos. The one with Civilian-level essence—the lowest recorded classification they had ever admitted.

That boy had placed fifth.

Kael slowly handed the tablet back, his eyes drifting toward the empty doorway where the students had vanished.

The silence between them stretched.

"...I'm going to have to keep a close eye on you, Landen."