"Just Kalden?" Akari said as she marched into the gym. The room was massive, taking up more than half the Darklight's basement. Navy blue mats covered the wooden floor, and the walls had twice as many mirrors as the rooms upstairs.

Elend turned around to face her. “Beg pardon?"

"You said Kalden would get into the Artegium this year. What about me?"

"We talked about this." He walked over to the weight rack and grabbed a pair of dumbbells. The discs were barely bigger than his head, but the label said "750 lbs." Must be a pocket dimension.

Elend turned the weights forward and began doing bicep curls. "The Artegium only takes Apprentices. You, my dear, are still quite Golden."

"I thought that wasn't a real rule." Akari stepped forward, practically glaring at him. She was already pissed about Kalden and the Mystics. Now they were telling her she couldn't study with her friends? Everything else was out of her control, but not this.

"It's more of a tradition," he said. "A pesky side effect of thousand-year-old institutions. And the admissions board is the molten core of that tradition."

"Aren't you on the admissions board?"

Elend exhaled and lowered the weights. Akari examined the rack, hoping to find a pair more her size. The lightest was 35 lbs, which she could probably manage with her pre-Cloak technique.

"You act like you're being left out in the cold," he finally said. "You can still attend Koreldon University with the others. You can even practice your Mana Arts there. There's a whole pre-Artegium program to help you reach Apprentice."

"It's not the same." Akari cycled mana into her arms as she curled her own weights. She was already behind Kalden and Relia, and it would take more than some junior classes to close that gap. Besides, the Artegium students had access to better classes, teachers, and resources. Not to mention the interschool battlegrounds where they'd face off against other universities from around the world.

This was far worse than being left in the cold. It felt more like being a Bronze all over again.

"Straighten your back," Elend told her. "And keep your mana balanced. You can still injure your other muscles if they're not reinforced.”

Akari complied, cycling even more mana as the weights went down.

Elend must've been struggling too, because his arms shone with blue mana on his next repetition. "Let's say I put in a good word for you at the grown-ups’ table. My peers will ask the obvious question—why let you in now? Why not wait until later?"

Akari set down her weights on the fourth repetition and checked the maximum number on her mana watch. 555. Just 245 points to go.

"I'll hit Apprentice after the school year starts."

"So will plenty of others," Elend set down his own weights and took a drink from his water bottle.

"I'm gonna be the world's first Spacetime Artist. That counts for something, right?"

"Potentially," Elend corrected. "I'm also a potential Mystic. That doesn't mean I'll be treated like one."

Damnit. He wasn't wrong there.

"And no," Elend said. "Before you ask, you can't impress the board by telling them how you killed Dragonlord Antano's nephew. Remember, we Espirians like to pretend we're civilized."

Akari grinned at that, but it faded as she wrestled with the question. Despite surviving impossible odds to get here, she had little to show for it. Sure, Irina had given her a transcript with perfect grades and a long list of extracurriculars, but everyone else would have the same.

Elend lay on the bench and did some tricep extensions. Akari didn't feel like switching positions with weights this heavy, so she started another set of bicep curls as she mulled things over.

Even with a perfect training routine, she'd never reach Apprentice in time for the admission exams. Soulshine was out of the question, too. You could justify that for a life and death fight, but not for early entry into a school program. Relia would strangle her if she even suggested it.

Akari lowered her weights again. Sweat covered her entire body now, and she was gasping for breath. Elend offered her his water bottle, and she took a long drink.

"Okay." she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "What if I get perfect scores on the admissions?

"There are no perfect scores, lass. You go until failure."

"Then what if I beat everyone else?"

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“The Artegium’s Combat Program has less than a two percent acceptance rate,” Elend said The first-year class will have roughly two hundred students. You really think you can beat the other ten thousand who didn't get in?"

Akari closed her mouth and thought it over during her next set of reps. Most of those would be Apprentices, which put the odds against her. She'd beaten her share of Grevandi in Creta, but they'd lacked basic Mana Arts education thanks to their country's dictator.

At Kalden's prime, he'd been one of the best Foundation duelists in the world, and she'd beaten him in their duel before the sect vanished. Unfortunately, she'd spent the past two years falling behind, and she had no one to blame but herself.

"Fine," Akari lowered her dumbbells and returned them to the rack. "Point taken."

"Not so fast." Elend held up a hand. "I'm glad you've learned when to retreat, but retreating isn't the same as giving up."

Akari spun back to meet his eyes.

"Letting a Gold into the Artegium would be unfair. There's no way to sugarcoat that. You’d have to work twice as hard as everyone else, and your fellow students might not be happy about it. With that said, do you still want this?"

"Yes," Akari said at once. Others had their reasons for learning Combat Arts, but she was trying to save more than a quarter million people trapped in the Archipelago. She couldn't afford to slow down.

Elend went back to his bicep curls, and Akari retrieved her weights to mirror his movements.

"Last year," he said, "the Alchemy Program let in a student named Kai Borolan. He had average grades and admissions scores. On paper, he was barely good enough for the university, much less the Artegium. However, the lad invented several new elixirs in high school, and he sold the patents to Alchemix before graduation. Can you guess why they accepted him?"

She furrowed her brow in thought. Potential was the obvious answer—anyone who invented two elixirs would probably invent more. But Elend had just shot that idea down.

Reputation, maybe? No … Koreldon University was already the top Mana Arts school in the world. If anything, they'd only piss off their current students by letting him in.

But reputations didn't last forever, especially if you got complacent. Akari had once been Last Haven's top Foundation duelist, and Kalden had seized that title overnight. Zakiel Antano might have been the best Artisan in Creta, but he'd underestimated Akari in their final duel.

She gave a slow nod as the answer struck her. "Another school would have taken him if you hadn't."

Elend's smile widened. "The lad applied to thirteen other schools, and the board knew that. In your case, the interschool battlegrounds start in the spring semester. We need to convince the board that you'll be there—with them or against them—inventing metaphorical potions."

Akari grinned. "So we go with the admissions exam route? Convince them it's too risky to wait?"

He nodded. "Split your attention between the written and shaping exams—aim to get the best scores you can. I could also call in a few favors and get some guaranteed votes from the other board members."

"What's the catch?" Akari asked after a short pause. No way he'd pulled such a perfect plan out of thin air.

"Aside from the practice and studying ahead?" Elend crossed his muscular arms. "You haven't convinced me you're as good as you think, lass."

Ouch. Strangers were one thing, but Elend knew her whole story. He knew she'd broken into a Martial prison to free him. He knew she'd fought several Martials to save Kalden, and that she'd killed two Artisans in Creta. They'd faced countless struggles these past few months, and she'd won more fights than she'd lost. What else did he want from her?

"You've been through a lot," he said. "Ever since you escaped your tracking anklet, it's been one deadly fight after another. Fear is a great short-term motivator, but a terrible long-term one. You can't keep that pace for much longer."

"You lost me," Akari said. "I'm training too hard?"

"Mana Artists climb higher when they focus on their potential rather than running from failure. And fear leads to burnout. I've had to teach Relia the same lesson with her condition. “

"I'm not scared," she said.

Elend gave her a look. "You think you can bullshit a Dream Artist, lass? You and Kalden are scared of the same thing—you worry that your glory days are behind you, and that you'll fall behind in the Artegium."

Okay, she couldn't deny that one.

"You're also afraid that Kalden and Relia will leave you behind, and that you'll never make new friends if they do. Shall I go on?"

She glared at him for a second, but didn’t argue further. “What do you want me to do?”

“Write down a plan for studying and training," he said. "Convince me you could do it every day for the rest of your life. And don't say, 'I'll work harder than everyone else.' That’s underdog talk. I want you to stop acting like an underdog and start acting like a top performer. That’s the only way you’ll make it through the Artegium.”

That made sense. She might be a Gold with no aspect, but she didn’t have to act like one.

“First of all,” Elend said. “I want to see ten hours of sleep every night, and—"

"Who sleeps ten hours?" Akari blurted out.

"Sixteen-year-olds who haven't reached Apprentice yet," he replied without missing a beat. "That leaves you fourteen hours a day for the rest of the summer. I'd recommend you spend at least four of those hours not working."

"Not working?"

"No training. No studying."

"So you want me to waste time?"

"I want you to rest and recover."

“Then what else do I do?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Swim in the pool, read a book, go on a date. I don't care."

Well, this explained why Relia lounged by the pool in her bikini. This wasn't so bad, though. Akari could still cycle her mana while walking—she'd done that every day in Arkala while she walked to school.

"Any idiot can grind for a few months,” Elend continued. “But the top Mana Artists can work just as hard and still have time to enjoy life."

Elend stepped across the room and gestured to a wooden table she hadn't noticed before. "This has four legs. Four pillars, if you will. One pillar is your Mana Arts, one is your physical health, one is your mental health, and one is your social connections." Dream mana shot out from his palm as he spoke, highlighting each leg in a different color.

"Now, let's say I want one pillar to be larger …" Clouds of sawdust swirled off from three legs, flying toward another one and making it thicker. "What will happen?"

"The table will collapse," Akari said.

The table did just that before the illusion faded entirely. “True Mana Artists lead balanced lives. That's not because they're lazy, but because they have their shit together."

He pointed a finger at her. "You, my dear, do not. And I won't lie to my peers. I won't tell them you can sustain this pace if I don't believe it myself."

Akari just nodded as she processed everything.

"I've trained hundreds of students," Elend said. "I've given them all this advice in some form or another. Want to guess how many listened to me?

"None?"

Elend shook his head and held up a single finger. "Your father. The only student who ever surpassed me."