Chapter 747: You Think Too Highly Of Yourself (2)

"You displayed that talent clearly during your time in Nalim," Regulus said. "Your feats were incredible. You achieved the highest number of Horror-class demon kills among the second years. You also achieved the second-highest number of Advanced Horror kills, and your Feral-class kill count was impressive as well. In direct combat, few students in your year can match your efficiency once you commit to destroying the enemy."

Chris’s shoulders eased only slightly, but the anger in his eyes did not fade.

Then Regulus paused.

"Even so," he continued, and the hall seemed to brace itself, "feats alone were not the only thing evaluated during this assessment."

The magical screen shifted again.

This time, the images shown were less flattering.

Chris could be seen unleashing a large burst of lightning against a group of Feral-class demons when a smaller, controlled strike would have been enough. Another clip showed him pursuing a fleeing Horror-class demon far beyond his previous shelter, abandoning a stable position for a kill that offered little survival value.

Then came a scene where he discovered a water source, but instead of securing the area properly first, he moved too quickly and triggered an ambush that forced him to burn through far more Myst than necessary.

Regulus’s eyes remained on him. "For all your power, you were either too arrogant or too foolish to respect the main purpose of this assessment. Survival."

Chris’s jaw tightened further.

Regulus went on without filter. "You spent your Myst reserves too quickly. You made poor survival decisions. Your resource management was terrible. Several times, you placed yourself in dire positions not because Nalim forced you there, but because you refused to slow down and think. You wasted supplies, lost supplies, and nearly exhausted yourself multiple times because you treated the realm as a battlefield designed for your victory rather than an environment designed to break your judgment."

The screen showed Chris sitting beneath a rocky overhang at night, visibly drained, one hand pressed against his side while his breathing came heavily. Another clip showed him staring at an extraction point in the distance only to ignore it and turn toward the sound of demons instead, not out of calculated confidence, but wounded pride.

"Half of your stay in Nalim became more difficult than it needed to be because of your own decisions," Regulus said. "You did not lack power. You lacked discipline. You did not lack talent. You lacked restraint. You did not lack opportunity. You wasted it."

A few instructors shifted faintly on the stage.

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in disagreement exactly, but in clear awareness that Regulus was speaking with an unusually sharp edge. Lucia’s expression remained composed, but even she seemed to register the severity of the evaluation.

Regulus did not look at any of them.

He remained focused entirely on Chris.

"Your greatest failure during this assessment was not a lack of strength," he said. "It was your inability to think properly for yourself when pride was involved. Or perhaps it was arrogance convincing you that the laws of survival did not apply to you."

Chris’s hands clenched slowly at his sides.

Regulus’s tone remained cold. "The reason you dropped only from fourth to fifth, instead of lower, is because your combat feats were too significant to ignore, and because there were moments, minor as they were, where you showed the qualities required for this assessment. You adapted in certain situations. You preserved yourself when you finally had no choice. You survived the full seven days without Forced Extraction. Those things kept you within the top five."

He paused briefly.

"Not your title."

That line struck harder than anything before it.

Chris looked as though he wanted to speak, but he did not. Perhaps because he knew the hall was watching. Perhaps because speaking would only make him look worse. Perhaps because even in his anger, he understood that challenging Regulus in front of everyone would not end well.

Regulus offered one final piece of advice, though it sounded more like a verdict. "If you want to climb again, then stop believing that being gifted means you are complete. Stop confusing aggression with dominance. Stop assuming your power will repair the consequences of poor judgment. Until you learn that survival begins before combat, you will continue to fall behind those who understand it better than you."

The screen above the stage lingered briefly on Chris’s final highlight, showing him standing alone at the end of the assessment, surrounded by the corpses of demons he had killed, powerful and exhausted, victorious in battle but clearly worn down by everything else.

Then Regulus stepped back.

The hall remained silent.

Chris stood still among the students, anger, shock, humiliation, and disbelief all warring beneath the surface of his face. He had just been stripped apart in front of everyone. Not by a rival. Not by a student. Not by someone who could be dismissed as jealous or ignorant.

But by Sir Regulus, an instructor whose mastery of Lightning Magic gave his words weight Chris could not easily reject.

And worse, he could do nothing about it.

Not even as the prince of Tempest.

His lips barely moved as he muttered under his breath, low enough that only a few nearby might have heard it.

"This changes nothing."

But the bitterness in his voice suggested he knew it did.

At the pulpit, Lucia remained still for a moment, her hand resting lightly against her clipboard. She had expected Chris’s evaluation to be difficult, but Regulus’s bluntness had gone further than she anticipated.

Her gaze shifted briefly toward him, wondering whether his harsh words came from frustration at watching such immense talent being wasted, or whether something else had sharpened his tone. Perhaps both.

Chris was gifted enough to become exceptional, but he repeatedly allowed pride to reduce the value of that gift. For someone like Regulus, who valued discipline, restraint, and the proper use of talent, that might have been infuriating to watch.

Lucia found no clear conclusion in those few seconds.

So she moved on.

She tapped her clipboard again, and the magical screen rippled, Chris’s image fading away as another figure appeared above the stage.

The next student on the screen moved through the forest with terrifying grace, dark hair wild around her face, golden eyes glowing faintly through shadow as her body shifted between human and beast-like motion.

Lucia looked toward the students and announced the next rank.

"Rank four, Charlotte Raven."