The judge who had injected his lightning elemental energy into Keith couldn’t believe his eyes as he exclaimed: “Exceptional lightning affinity! Average fire affinity! PASSED – Deity gra –!”

But Julian had already raised his hand with a wry smile, interrupting the lightning judge. “Don’t be so quick with your judgement just yet. We might as well test him for the slim chance that he also has an affinity for the last element.” The lightning judge frowned, but finally said nothing and walked back to his position behind the structure.

When Julian started talking about the last element, the remaining judge also walked up. Keith was still smiling, even when the lightning had already started to fade away from around his body. He kept looking at flashes of energy, amazed by their beauty. Because of the situation he was in, the color of the lightning –a mix between blue and white, had never seemed so beautiful before. When he suddenly heard another pair of footsteps in front of him, he started paying attention to his surroundings again. The judge who had stepped in front of him was actually one of the youngest teachers present. He had a beard that covered most of his face, but a small smile could still be seen.

“Alright lad,” the judge said, raising his hand. While the hand was approaching him, dark, black energy was starting to surround it. “You might feel a little nauseous after this, so please try to hold on without vomiting on Julian. He doesn’t really like it when students do that.” The judge said, seemingly trying to break the tension.

Julian raised his eyebrows and stepped back a little. At that moment, the judge’s hand reached Keith, injecting the darkness element into him. Instead of being directly absorbed, just like what happened with the lightning energy, the dark, black energy slowly spread across his whole body, almost obscuring Keith. He slowly took a moment to observe himself and figure out how he felt. Instead of the powerful, grandiose feeling the lightning gave him, he felt something much more subtle. Somehow, he started to feel at ease, like he had some connection with the energy on and around his body.

When he looked at the judge, he could see the small smile increasing. “Not bad, average to high affinity!” The judged started to walk away when he saw the amount of dark energy around Keith was starting to fade.

“Exceptional lightning affinity! Average to high darkness affinity! Average fire affinity! PASSED – deity-grade!” Julian then motioned that Keith could return to the other students again. Keith’s smile still didn’t fade as he balled his fist and started to walk back.

When he was halfway back to Vaeryl and Niyla, an angry voice could be heard. “This is unfair!” A parent yelled from the back. He was holding a depressed daughter that was judged as someone who had average affinity towards two elements. She was still crying and was clinging to the man who had just spoken up. “How come he can be tested for the extra three elements while the others can’t?! My daughter probably has a high affinity towards one of them, maybe even exceptional affinity! You can’t simply test the people you want to test and skip the people you want to skip. Don’t you care about Aethruni’s face at a–?!”

“Quiet!” Julian interrupted him. He had started to frown and when the parent was about to continue ranting he interrupted him. “You want to talk about face to me?! Hmph,” he snorted. “Your daughter wouldn’t have been allowed anyway! Especially if she inherited your stupidity!” After making an ad hominem, he menacingly glared around him. “Do you all think that testing the other three elements is easy? The other judges have to inject pure magical essence into them, does that sound easy or fun to you all?! It’s simply impossible to test everyone for every element. Why do you think we used the structure anyway?! We could’ve simply called over a mage of each element type and have them conduct the testing by your logic! Also!” He yelled before continuing: “We only allow people with average to high affinity, or something better than that. If someone really has an average to high affinity towards one of the three other elements, it would immediately show within the structure because other elements would already be repelled. This is the first time today that all of the elements were repelled within the structure, that’s why we resorted to test the other elements! But if a student doesn’t have any affinity towards them, they may be severely injured!” He then looked at all the students who had already been tested and were standing at the side lines. “Is there any one of you who wants to try? Don’t blame me if you fail again!”

Most of the students awkwardly hid behind each other or stepped back because of Julian’s intense gaze. When he heard the parent speak up, Keith stopped walking, but after Julian’s fierce retort, he hurriedly walked towards Vaeryl and Niyla. “So you were actually genius,” Vaeryl said with a slight smile on his face. “Even though your knowledge is on a different level compared to me, your talent isn’t any worse! Even your swordsmanship rivals mine!” He then clapped Keith’s shoulder happily saying; “Truly worthy of being my friend!”

Keith just smiled in response, laying his eyes upon the structure again. Even though he pretended to look calm, preparing to observe the upcoming participants, his head was full of wild thoughts.

Keith’s mental state had started to calm down after the emotional roller coaster he had been through the past weeks, but with the sudden announcement of the entrance test when he arrived at the academy, he had become a little anxious again. Now, finally being able to show to everyone here that he wasn’t someone worthless after all, his confidence was boosted by enormous leaps. Even though he knew almost no one here, and he had nothing to prove to them at all, he didn’t care one bit.

While he looked around, he found Dillim’s gaze by change. For the first time since Keith could remember, he saw Dillim smile a heartfelt smile. It truly seemed like Dillim wished Keith the very best. Looking at Dillim smiling like this, Keith’s excited heart couldn’t help but to be filled with extra warm feelings. His determination grew as he balled both his fists, ‘I’ll do well in the next examination too, starting out on my path to becoming a powerful mage!’

In the span of a few hours, all of the new students had entered the structure and left with either good or bad news. Only around a fourth of the students received a passing grade, showing how tough the examinations were. Almost all of the new students were nobles or children with special backgrounds. It showed just how mighty Aethruni –and the force behind it was. If a common academy tried to reject all sorts of important people, that academy wouldn’t last very long.

There were a few special cases where other students would receive a deity-grade. The most shocking event of the first entrance test was how a young, rather plump boy had exceptional affinity for both ice and water. When the judges saw he had exceptional affinity for water in the structure, they didn’t think about testing him for the other elements, but the boy kept insisting he wanted to be tested for ice too. Eventually Julian made the call to test him, seeing how it wouldn’t hurt to do the deity-graded boy a favor. Turned out that the boy actually possessed exceptional affinity for two elements, making everyone present stare with their mouths open.

“Alright,” Julian said as he finished grading the last new student. “Everyone who failed this exam, don’t even think about participating in the upcoming one! You’re all out!” He then nodded to someone who stood among the adults in the back. “Maoll, it’s your turn, please come up.”

The person Julian called over was an old man who had a beard reaching his knees. He looked to be around 80 years old and had a hunched back. Julian looked around him and then pointed at Maoll, “He will be the head judge for the next test! I have done enough for today, new students who have passed, I’ll see you around!” He boomed, before storming away.

The old man that was left standing in the middle of the room, slowly rubbed the back of his head, an amiable smile on his face. “Ehehe,” he chuckled before continuing, “Sorry for that, the second part will now officially start. My name is Maoll Linkar. I’m a light element grand spell caster.” Just when he was about to continue talking he was interrupted by different conversations coming from all sides.

“Another grand spell caster, another!”

“Damn, just how grand is Aethruni to be able to use grand spell casters as judges!”

“I had never seen a grand spell caster before, but today I have seen two!”

“Quiet down all of you,” Maoll chuckled. “If your children perform well enough, it won’t be too late for them to reach my level,” he said towards the adults whispering to each other.

At this moment, Keith nudged Vaeryl to calmly ask what all the commotion was about. Vaeryl strangely looked at Keith for a second, before thinking of something. It then looked like he repeated something he had often been told himself: “Well, the average amount of grand spell casters or grand sword master in a strong country lies around 15 and that’s when we’re talking about a population of around thirty million! For two of them to appear here already feels special for most of them!”

Keith didn’t really understand how big those numbers were, but he grasped the essence of what Vaeryl was saying. He nodded, focusing on Maoll again.

“This test will test a very important aspect all mages should have; mental control. Some of you might wonder why we have two tests, instead of only the elemental affinity test. The first reason is because this way students with a mortal-grade might be promoted to deity-grade!” Maoll said, letting his words sink in for a few moments. “Furthermore, it’s good to understand on what level most of the children that will enter the academy are.” He then waved his hand, making a dense gold energy appear on his hand. “This is a special spell that light mages can cast. It’s a very weak manifested form of light elemental energy that can be given over to others. A part from the elemental healing spells is exactly what I’m holding in my hand! Healing spells from the light magic branch, consist out of the healing part and the support part. The support part causes the body of a patient to involuntarily absorb it, while the healing part will repair the damage that was done to him.” Maoll waved his hand around some more, showing everyone the dense bundle of light he was holding. “This is a modified spell that will prevent people from absorbing the energy, but it’s still very good natured and can be manipulated by everyone when they hold it. This way even students without a grown mana core can manipulate spells!”

A few of the adults and students whispered among themselves when Maoll explained what the second test would include.

“The exact test will be for students to showcase their mental powers by manipulating the spell I give them. The more mental power someone has, the easier it’ll be for them to manipulate it. Every student has two tries! Second entrance exam, begin!”

The students were a little bit hesitant to come forward. This was no surprise because no one had a clear idea of how they would perform when they stepped up. A majority of the students had never held a spell before, especially because none of them could even cast or conjure a spell yet. This was probably also the reason that two attempts were allowed, otherwise, the new students with high mental power might fail too, simply because they didn’t understand how to use their mental power to control the spell.

After a few dozen seconds, someone finally walked up. When Keith looked at him, he remembered that this plump boy was the one with exceptional affinities for both ice and water. The boy walked forward with an arrogant smile on his face, seemingly already confident in getting a good result this test.

Maoll still had his initial spell in his hands and beckoned for the plump kid to raise his hands. He then dropped the spell he was holding into the hands of the kid. He simply stepped back afterwards.

The plump kid’s face grew serious the moment the spell hit his hands, but he still looked fairly confident. He then slowly started to move his hands in opposite directions, creating a bridge of golden light that connected his hands. Seeing this, the judge’s face lit up with pleasant surprise. The plump boy kept going and going, until sweat started to appear on his forehead. When he had his hands so far apart that the golden energy had started to become as thick as a finger and as long as an arm, the spell dissolved. The plump boy looked disappointed for a moment, but recovered himself and regained his arrogant look.

“Not bad,” Maoll said, before repeating himself once more; “Not bad at all! High level of mental control!”

After the plump kid walked back to his previous spot, Vaeryl started to grin evilly, pushing Keith in the direction of the judge. Keith was still focused on what had transpired before, thinking about how he would try to reform the light essence.

When Maoll saw Keith stumbling towards him, he raised an eyebrow, saying: “Oh, so you’re next?”