Roboute Guilliman carefully raised his right hand, doing his utmost to maintain the stability of the array in his palm. Sweat already covered his brow. A Primarch's physiology should not have made him sweat like this, but he couldn't help it.
He had no choice.
As for the reason?
He Shenyan was sitting across from him, hands folded together, watching him expressionlessly.
"Continue," the Mage said calmly. "You have three chances left, Roboute. As long as you can release this spell, I'll let you pass the test."
Guilliman gritted his teeth and nodded. His right hand clenched sharply, while his mind tugged at another array he had prepared long ago. Magic Power converged wildly in that instant, and in the next second, a blinding flash and a violent explosion were born at once.
"."
Amid the scattering smoke and dust, Roboute Guilliman opened his mouth, unsure what he should say.
He had already failed three times. Counting this time, it was the fourth. The first three had been all right; no explosions had occurred. But this time...
If he failed again...
"Not bad. Truly not bad, my apprentice."
The Mage's voice drifted lightly from the other side of the smoke. "You successfully changed the nature of a warding spell and turned it into a low-level Evocation spell. What outstanding talent."
"Teacher, I—"
"Enough. No need to say more, Roboute."
"But, Teacher—" Guilliman's face flushed red.
At this moment, the person sitting here was not Primarch Roboute Guilliman, nor the Lord of Ultramar. The person sitting here was a student.
And this student was trying to explain to his teacher why his learning progress had been so slow.
The politician's unruffled calm had vanished, leaving only a student's sincerity toward knowledge, and his guilty conscience over the slowness of his own