With the door of the modular unit opened, Araka stepped back into the daylight. Her long dark-blue hair was damp with sweat, strands sticking against her cheeks and neck. 

Yon, Hakasa, and Jinhui were waiting outside.

Araka caught her breath. “…Instructor Yon, did … did I pass?”

Yon smiled and didn’t answer immediately 

Araka’s smile gradually disappeared.

“…Instructor Yon?”

He touched his earbud.

“Huashin.”

A moment later, footsteps hurried from the rear wing. Huashin appeared carrying a scroll carefully with both hands. As soon as she stopped, she extended the scroll with both hands and displayed it to Araka. 

Araka recognized Yon’s signature immediately, and then right beside it laid Huashin’s newly practised name — the one with a tiny star. 

Hakasa looked at the document, half amused by the star. 

Araka stared.

“Instructor Huashin … did you sign the document with your star again?”

Huashin immediately moved her thumb over it with face slightly shying away.

“That … that’s not important.”

Yon tried not to laugh, and then he took the document from her. He held it toward Araka with both hands.

Araka scanned through the scroll. At the further right edge, her own name appeared across the certification.

Peni Sara.

For several seconds, she didn’t say anything.

Yon finally spoke. “Congratulations.”

Araka looked up.

“You passed.”

Her eyes widened.

All the exhaustion from the maze seemed to disappear at once.

Yon smiled.

“From this moment onward, your spell of improved visibility is formally recognized by the Shrine Network.”

Huashin stepped beside him, smiling proudly.

Araka looked back down at the document. For all the training she took, all the field awakening she went through, even all the fights she went through — she finally had her own shrine-approved spell. 

She was no longer simply a high school girl who happened to possess a strange Matake field that no one understood.

Araka held the certification tightly.

She replayed all memories inside her — about how she connected herself with the matriarch of all Matake powers, Hekon; about how she overcame trauma and made her field stronger than ever; like how she was able to save someone possessed by an uncontrolled Matake field through careful rewiring.

All of these led to here. 

“Guess I’m not failing your expectations, Hekon,” Araka whispered to herself.