Kaelen's voice beca slightly more serious. "The form you used against those three Advanced Horrors was risky."
Charlotte's smile dimd only a little.
"Very risky," Kaelen emphasized. "The balance required to maintain that state is not sothing most students would understand. One wrong step, one mont of misalignnt, and you could have slipped too deeply into the were-jaguar state. Had that happened, regaining yourself may have beco extrely difficult, if not nearly impossible under Nalim's conditions. On the other hand, if your human side had asserted itself too strongly at the wrong mont, you would have beco vulnerable while surrounded by enemies capable of killing you in seconds."
The screen showed Charlotte narrowly avoiding a tearing strike from one of the Advanced Horrors, her claws catching against bark as she launched herself sideways, then dropped low and ripped into the exposed underside of another demon's neck. Her movents were not clean in the way an academy demonstration would be clean. They were desperate, vicious, and demanding.
Yet they worked.
"Even if you maintained that form for barely two minutes," Kaelen said, "you used it well. It allowed you to survive a situation that could have ended very differently. That does not an you should rely on it carelessly, but it does show what you are capable of when pushed."
The highlights shifted again, and this ti, the screen displayed sothing that imdiately drew a stronger reaction from the crowd.
Charlotte was shown carrying Liam through the forest.
He was unconscious, his body limp and battered, one arm hanging loosely while Charlotte supported his weight across her back and shoulder.
The footage showed her moving through the forest slowly but steadily, adjusting her grip whenever his body shifted too heavily, stopping at intervals to check the surroundings, and dealing with smaller demons that wandered too close.
At one point, a Feral-class demon lunged from the brush, and Charlotte, still carrying Liam, drew a sword with one hand and cut it down with a single clean motion before continuing.
The hall stirred.
This ti, the chatter beca harder to contain.
Several students looked from the screen to Liam, then to Charlotte, then back to the screen again. So whispered in confusion, clearly wondering why Charlotte had been carrying Liam in the first place.
Others stared at Liam with more curiosity than before, noticing that the screen was not showing what had happened in the eastern forest before that mont. It only showed the aftermath. Liam unconscious. Charlotte retrieving him. The long journey back.
Dylan turned his head slowly toward Liam and Charlotte, his eyes widening a little despite his exhaustion. "Wait," he muttered. "So that part was true?"
Charlotte's smile returned instantly. "I told you I saved him."
Liam said nothing.
The screen continued showing Charlotte's return journey, but carefully avoided displaying the deeper eastern battle that had led to Liam's condition. Still, the implication alone was enough to make students curious.
Liam Hunter, the student many saw as almost untouchable, had been unconscious and carried back by Charlotte Raven.
Kaelen allowed the murmurs to continue only briefly before speaking again.
"What solidified your ascent to fourth place was not rely what you did for yourself," he said. "It was what you accomplished between the fourth and fifth days. You sustained yourself while also ensuring the survival of a wounded student. You moved through hostile terrain under burden, dealt with threats along the way, and returned to shelter without triggering Forced Extraction for either yourself or him. That required endurance, judgnt, and commitnt."
Charlotte's expression shifted slightly.
Not enough for most to notice.
But Liam did.
For all her shalessness, she did not seem entirely unmoved by that particular praise.
Kaelen continued, "That said, you still have a major flaw."
Charlotte's face imdiately returned to its usual amused look, as if she had decided she was done taking things seriously.
"You do not apply enough effort," Kaelen said bluntly. "You are capable of far more than you often allow others to see. At tis, your desire to preserve yourself is intelligent. At other tis, it becos an excuse to do less than you are capable of. There is a difference between surviving wisely and refusing to grow because comfort appeals to you more than effort."
Charlotte did not look bothered in the slightest.
If anything, she seed to have stopped listening to the criticism halfway through. Kaelen's praise had already reached her, and that was the part she cared about. His comnts about her lack of effort were not wrong, but they were also not enough to affect her.
Charlotte had little interest in what others wished to see from her. She owed no one her full potential simply because they wanted to witness it. The academy could evaluate her, praise her, criticize her, or push her all they wanted. In Charlotte's mind, they would only ever see what she allowed herself to show.
And apparently, what she had shown was enough to put her above Chris.
That alone pleased her plenty.
Kaelen finished with a final look in her direction. "You have done well, Raven. But if you ever decide to truly apply yourself, you may find that fourth place is not your limit."
Charlotte smiled beautifully, as though accepting only the portion of that statent that suited her.
The screen lingered on her final highlight, showing her reaching the rocky outcrop with Liam still unconscious, disappearing through the hidden crevice into the shelter that had carried them through the end of the assessnt. Then the image faded.
The hall slowly quieted again.
Lucia remained at the pulpit, her fingers resting against the enchanted clipboard. For a mont, the air felt different.
The top five had begun, and now only three ranks remained to be addressed. Everyone knew the nas likely involved at this point, but the order was still uncertain, and that uncertainty made the exhausted students attentive again.
Lucia tapped the clipboard.
The magical screen above the stage rippled.
Then an image appeared.
It showed the sky.
Not the forest floor.
Not a swamp.
Not a cave.
The sky.
A student appeared high above dense canopies, dropping straight through the air toward a vast, suffocating forest below. Wind tore at his clothes. His bag was clutched tightly in one hand. Beneath him, the trees stretched thick and dark, their canopies blocking almost all sunlight, while the swamp hidden below waited like an open mouth.
Several students stared in confusion.
That was not how they had entered Nalim.
Most had appeared on solid ground, in forests, near ruins, along rivers, or in difficult terrain. A few had appeared in water or awkward positions, but none had begun their assessnt by falling from the sky toward a hostile zone.
Yet the screen clearly showed one student doing exactly that.
Lucia's voice carried across the hall.
"Rank three, Liam Hunter."
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