“Good morning, sleepyhead. You’re running late.” said Lily while stroking his hair.

Raven’s eyes abruptly opened “Oh, that’s right.”

“The carriage is ready, eat something before you go.” she said as Raven started wearing his robe.

“By the way, I’ve been wondering, how do you contact your servants?” he asked, confused.

“There’s a one-way telepathic ability for nobles.” she said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Oh, I suppose that could work.” he said as he walked towards the table. There was a salad this time, so he excused himself to the bread. He munched it down with tea and quickly finished. “I’m heading out.” said Raven as he opened the door.

“Here.” she threw something “My servants wouldn’t believe that you were sent by me if you don’t have that.” she said. It was a coin shaped like the head of a lion, befitting the name of a Lionheard.

“Thanks.” said Raven as he walked through the door and descended the stairs.

As mentioned, the carriage was standing outside, waiting for someone. And that person happened to be Raven. He showed them the coin, and they wordlessly took him to the examination site. It was a big space with fences covering its boundaries, and the wall was at one side.

There were 10 teenagers standing there, and surely, the Primus prince was there, or is it uncle, next to him stood his bride and the red-scaled boy. As said by Lily, the Secundus branch of red-scaled dragonmen were born to serve the Primus branch, something like the relationship between Neji and Hinata in Naruto (this is just to showcase their relationship, by no means am I using any of them.)

There were the 4 who passed the first test before them. Now that he saw them up close, he could see them much clearer. The wolfman boy had grey fur and hair, but his face wasn’t covered in it, unlike most variants of beastmen. His eyes were gold-colored. It was called “noble breed”, meaning they were closer to humans than beasts.

The two girls had short brown hair, black eyes and pink twin-tails, red eyes correspondingly. The last high-elven boy had the usual blonde-haired boy with blue eyes, this was the feature of most high-elves.

As for the other 3, he recognized 2 as the commoners. One of the girls wasn’t here, and the one who was here had dark red hair and brown eyes. The last boy, he thought, was the one who left before the timeline. He was wearing something resembling gym clothes.

As for his features, he had jet black hair and eyes, with skin paler than the other commoner boy.

Soon enough, the examiner came out, holding a crystal in his hand. ‘What’s the deal with this abnormal number of crystals in this world?’ he thought to himself. The examiner had a scar across his nose. Otherwise, he looked like a cherry boy, and had long blonde hair tied in a ponytail to back it up.

“The practical exam is a fight between examinees. It’s not only the winner that passes this test, if done exceptionally well, even the loser can pass it.” he smirked “But I can’t promise that you’ll get the same treatment.”

“The first fight is, between Nicholas Cangard and Tulga Chino.” said the examiner with a calm voice, but the crystal served as a microphone, so it came out loud.

As expected, the first fight was the prince against the noble beastman boy. They both threw a glare at each other while walking towards the center of the field.

“Match Start!!!” a shout came out as a deafeningly loud one.

Nicholas used his wings to launch at his opponent, while the recipient stood calmly. His golden eyes were glowing, signifying something was going to happen.

The dragonman’s attack hit air, as Tulga dodged with a hair’s width. He then returned it with a fist to the face, sending his opponent flying. But the dragonman stopped his movement using his wings and launched upwards.

[Thunderstrike] he shouted out as lightning mass appeared in his hand, and it fell at Tulga. But he wasn’t standing idly while waiting to be hit. [Spirit Shield] he shouted out as a sphere of transparent white light shielded him from the brutal strike.

The shield didn’t show any signs of cracking, and Nicholas stopped his relentless attack.

“Great move, he drained his opponent’s strength with minimum use of energy.” commentated the examiner.

When his spirit shield let up, the dragonman used [Lightning Movement] to do something similar to what Raven did on Thunder Lion. However, Tulga easily dodged with minimum movement.

[Spirit Claw], he uttered, as he slashed air with his claw. A white aura formed a claw mark and attacked Nicholas. Nicholas easily danced through them, but he got cut all over his body.

“That’s qi!!!” shouted out the examiner, almost stopping Raven’s heart.

Qi wasn’t enough to create such a devastating move, so he had mixed it with magic. Any skilled fighter would dance through the magic claws, but they would eventually be hit by the countless strings of qi connecting them. If it wasn’t for the fragility of qi and a dragonman’s scales, the result would be, simply put, disturbing.

‘He’ll become a terrifying opponent in the future.’ thought Raven.

“That’s enough! You both pass. Any more would be dangerous.” he said as the two threw angry glances at each other and left the field.

“Now for the next match. Diana Lavastor against Mary Ravines.”

The self-proclaimed bully’s name was Diana and Mary was the girl with dark red hair. Diana was surprisingly calm, but Mary was all tensed up.

Mary threw a knife at her opponent; Diana dodged it and threw something at Mary. It exploded mid-ways and formed purple gas, blocking her vision and possibly poisoning her. But her opponent wasn’t helpless, as she moved out of the gas with a ninja mask on her face.

“A ninja!” said the examiner.

The knife she had thrown was a kunai, and she was currently holding one. She rushed, as Diana unsheathed a knife with a purple edge, its sheath hanging from her belt.

The knives clashed, and the two women had a few scratches. But supposedly, Diana’s knife was poisonous, as Mary was holding her scratched left hand with her other, the kunai back in her belt pouch.

“The poison of our Lavastor family, isn’t it potent?” she asked, amused.

“Don’t underestimate our Kyokoku (Ravines in Japanese) clan.” shouted out Mary as she rushed. She then multiplied, as 4 other clones appeared. It was as if she split, so there was no telling the real one. Against her relentless attack, Diana stood still.

Then she jumped over the clones and launched a quick attack against her opponents’ backs, feeling air.

“What? [Illusion] magic?” shouted out the examiner, Raven already used to his occasional shouts.

Suddenly, another Mary appeared behind her and used a headlock on her.

“Battle over! Both contestants pass.” he said “As for the next match, Mark Cangard against Blake Fannigan.”

The red-scaled dragonman walked up against one of the commoners, the one with blonde hair.

Mark used [Fireball] and threw it at his opponent, a book appeared in Blake’s hand as he turned its pages.”

“[Holy] magic huh, interesting.”

[Shield of Light] said Blake as a shield of yellowish white light appeared in front of him. He then grabbed it and bashed it against his opponent. The dragonman used his tail to strike his hand and he lost his shield. Then Mark breathed fire at his opponent’s face.

The examiner’s seat was vacant as he appeared between the two. He had blocked Mark’s mouth with his hand and Blake was shivering in fear, thinking what would be of him if the examiner hadn’t interfered.

The other matches went on and only one of the girls dropped out, which was the one with short brown hair. The pink twin-tailed girl had defeated her. She liked to show off, as he used all her 3 talents when her opponent could only use [Earth] to shield.

Her talents were: [Fire], [Light] and [Air] and was quite rash and arrogant, supposedly a girl from a noble family, one without knowledge of the past.

The purple-haired girl had [Ice] element, and used only that to win.

Finally, it was Raven’s turn to fight and his opponent was none other than the genius. Raven took off his robe, the sunlight revealing his scales’ lustrous nature.

“Now, you guys seem interesting, so I left you 2 last. Jet Cross against Raven Cangard.” Jet’s eyes were as calm as ever, not even caring about his opponents’ dragon nature. “Battle start.” said the examiner with a stupid grin.

The two walked towards each other, until they were 5 meters apart, and then they took out their weapons. It would be wise to mention both had storage rings, as the weapons appeared out of nowhere.

Raven was holding his claymore, on the other hand, Jet was holding a cross shaped sword. He was holding it from the blunt short end, and the long end had sharp edges. There was no point, so he couldn’t thrust his sword, only slashing.

Raven was already used to fighting with shadow weapons, but this was the first real time he had to use a real sword. It was heavy, but well-balanced, so it could deal more damage than his nigh-massless weapons in that regard.

The two blades clashed, lightning ran through both swords, clashing. Raven’s lightning was blue, while Jet’s were yellow. Both backed down after seeing their opponent use the same move and decided to use long-range attacks.

“”[Lightning Bolt]”” both said at the same time, as 2 masses of lightning clashed, creating some kind of electromagnetic field and both canceling each other out.

Realizing lightning wouldn’t work, they resorted to their other talents. Raven used [Shadow Pull], catching Jet off guard, and launched himself forward, doing a superman punch, after storing his claymore. But Jet disappeared, as Raven found him behind. Being the cautious man he was, he landed.

[Quickshadow] uttered Jet, as Raven’s feet started sinking into his own shadow. He then jumped at his prey, which was unable to move, with his blade in hand. But what he didn’t know was that Raven had [Shadow] too. He then disappeared into the shadow.

[Earth Pillar] said Jet as the currently appearing Raven was sent up, with a few of his ribs broken. Knowing about [Shadow] attribute, Jet had used his other skill to hit him from below the ground.

Using it to his advantage, Raven shot up with his wings and prepared to use [Lightning Movement], Jet was preparing his mana to use [Hard Earth Pyramid] to protect himself. In one moment, both skills were released at the same time.

Raven launched himself, as a pyramid of condensed earth appeared from the ground. Within a moments’ time, the examiner appeared. He caught Raven in his lightning form and shattered Jet’s pyramid with his hands.

“That’s enough.” he landed “You both pass.”

“You’re good” said Jet.

“You aren’t that bad yourself.”