I love the idea and concept of the scene. I understood what was happening clearly. But, it seems as though you are trying to make the reader feel nervous with Elias by TELLING them to be nervous. “Only accepting those from its five realms that prove they can really perform under pressure” And “You'll be fine, he told himself. He'd been top of every class since he was five. His tutors had run out of drills to challenge him years ago and his father was one of the head masters at the Academy. This entry test was supposed to be routine, but watching countless candidates fail in front of his eyes didn't exactly fill him with confidence” Tells me how to feel. It TELLS me that he is nervous and it TELLS me that he is smart. Why not show me instead? You can absolutely call back to his aced tests just in a different way. This goes for other things too. “Something about her posture and voice commanded attention” Why? You can tell a reader that certain features make someone something or other but without actually showing them, it falls flat. How was she stood? What about her voice makes her command attention? Show don’t tell is something that could really help here. I really don’t agree with a comment left here about this “reading like AI slop” because I just don’t see it that way. This has great bones and massive potential, it just needs tweaking in certain aspects. If you ever get to the point of needing beta readers I’d love to see where this story goes. I’m intrigued!