Webnovel's Extra: Reincarnated With a Copy Ability-Chapter 158: When Pressure Cracks

The first real mistake of the day happened during the third rotation block.

By that point the training hall had settled into a steady rhythm. Projection grids lit the floor in overlapping circles, hazard arcs rising and dissolving as teams ran through their assigned patterns. Students moved with more confidence than they had the day before. That confidence was earned, but it also carried a familiar danger.

People were beginning to believe they had figured things out.

Lucas noticed the shift long before the failure happened.

He stood near the barrier rail with Dreyden, watching two A-tier formations run back-to-back drills in the central grid. Both teams had been performing well all morning. Their movements were sharp and fast, each cycle finishing just a little cleaner than the one before.

But something about their pacing bothered him.

"Too fast," Lucas muttered.

Dreyden didn’t look away from the floor.

"Yes."

Lucas folded his arms.

"They’re trying to beat each other."

"That is obvious."

Lucas let out a breath through his nose.

"Which means someone’s about to do something stupid."

The projection system reset for the next wave.

One of the formations tightened their spacing earlier than usual. It was subtle, the kind of adjustment that might have worked if the timing lined up perfectly. The second team saw it and responded by widening their formation in response.

For a few seconds the grid held.

Then the hazard arcs shifted.

The timing collapsed.

The first team had compressed too early. When the projections bent toward them, the anchors tried to widen again to compensate, but the formation was already too tight.

Lucas saw it coming half a second before impact.

"Move!" he shouted across the hall.

Too late.

The projection wave struck the formation’s center point and snapped outward. The grid flashed bright white as feedback rippled through the system. One of the anchors lost their footing and slammed into the barrier rail.

The sound echoed sharply across the hall.

Everything stopped.

The projection grids dimmed.

Students froze mid-movement, eyes turning toward the center circle where the failed formation stood in stunned silence.

Lucas pushed off the railing and crossed the floor quickly.

"You okay?" he asked the fallen anchor.

The student groaned but nodded.

"Yeah. Just... wind knocked out."

Another student helped them sit upright while the suppressor checked the projection system for lingering feedback.

Dreyden arrived beside Lucas a moment later.

He glanced briefly at the injured student, then at the formation pattern still glowing faintly on the floor.

Lucas noticed where his attention landed.

"You saw it too?"

"Yes."

Lucas rubbed the back of his neck.

"They rushed the compression." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Yes."

The student who had led the formation stood a few steps away, staring down at the grid with a tight expression.

"I thought the wave would pivot earlier," they said quietly.

Lucas didn’t respond right away.

He’d made similar mistakes before. Anyone who trained long enough had.

Still, the tension in the room made the moment heavier than it should have been.

An instructor finally stepped forward from the edge of the hall.

"Medical check," they called calmly.

Two assistants approached and began scanning the injured anchor with handheld sensors.

Lucas stepped back to give them space.

Across the hall students whispered among themselves. Not loudly, but enough to carry.

"That was too early."

"They forced the timing."

"I told you compression wouldn’t hold there."

Lucas heard every comment.

He also noticed something else.

No one laughed.

No one mocked the mistake.

The room felt serious instead.

Dreyden leaned slightly closer.

"Interesting."

Lucas glanced at him.

"What?"

"Listen to them."

Lucas did.

The whispers weren’t cruel.

They were analytical.

People were already breaking down the failure, replaying the moment in their heads to understand where the timing had slipped.

Lucas exhaled slowly.

"Yeah."

Dreyden watched the formation leader approach the injured anchor.

The student crouched down beside them.

"That was my call," they said quietly. "I misread the shift."

The anchor shrugged weakly.

"Next time we adjust."

Lucas blinked.

That wasn’t the response he expected.

Dreyden seemed to notice his surprise.

"You expected anger."

Lucas shrugged.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Lucas gestured vaguely toward the room.

"Because someone got slammed into a barrier."

Dreyden considered that.

"True."

Lucas glanced around again.

Students had already returned to their grids.

The projection systems flickered back to life.

Training resumed.

Lucas rubbed his jaw.

"That could’ve turned ugly."

"Yes."

"But it didn’t."

"No."

Lucas watched the injured student stand up slowly and walk with the assistants toward the exit.

The formation leader remained behind for a moment, staring down at the grid.

Then they straightened and rejoined their team.

Lucas shook his head.

"Alright. That was weirdly mature."

Dreyden’s expression barely changed.

"Failure clarifies priorities."

Lucas smirked.

"You sound like an instructor."

"Observation."

Lucas stretched his shoulders.

"Well, if the day’s first crash is already out of the way, maybe we’ll survive the rest."

Dreyden didn’t respond.

Lucas noticed.

"Okay, what?"

Dreyden nodded toward another formation across the hall.

"They’re pushing harder now."

Lucas followed his gaze.

Sure enough, the teams running drills nearby had tightened their movements slightly. The earlier failure hadn’t discouraged them. If anything, it had made them more focused.

Lucas stepped back into his grid.

"Guess we should keep up."

Dreyden activated the projection system.

The hazard arcs rose again, curling through the air toward Lucas’s formation.

Lucas widened his stance and redirected the first wave smoothly.

The anchors held position.

The suppressor collapsed the formation slightly for the second arc.

Clean.

Lucas stepped out of the grid once the sequence finished.

"That one felt better."

Dreyden nodded.

"Yes."

Lucas looked around the hall.

The energy had changed again.

The earlier tension had faded, replaced by something steadier.

People weren’t just experimenting or competing anymore.

They were learning how to recover from mistakes.

Lucas leaned against the barrier rail and watched another team run their drill.

"You know what today actually proved?"

Dreyden waited.

Lucas nodded toward the center grid where the earlier failure happened.

"That we can mess up without everything falling apart."

Dreyden studied the room.

"Yes."

Lucas smiled faintly.

"That might be the most important lesson the academy’s taught all week."

Dreyden didn’t disagree.

Across the training hall the projection systems continued their steady cycle. Hazard arcs rose and shattered as students tested new adjustments and corrected old mistakes.

Some formations succeeded immediately.

Others needed several attempts before the timing lined up.

But no one stopped trying.

And behind the dark observation windows above the hall, the academy quietly recorded every attempt.

Not because success mattered most.

But because how people responded to failure revealed far more about who would still be standing when the real pressure arrived.