The true identities of Meka and Strach were revealed… they were… Ms. Dennis and Dr. Shengit. After a long interrogation in Yadurige’s prison, we discovered that they were offered many powers and riches to capture me. After we exited the chamber, I asked Ms. Kului, “What type of magic were you and Strach using back in the base of the Uminoli?”

“Oh… it was rune magic. We were using runes to create magic. He made an explosion with runes, while I created mental torture for Strach.” She explained.

“Ohhhhh! Can I learn rune magic?” I begged.

“Yes… but you have to pass the Rune Magic Qualification Test, which proves that you have the ability to learn it and that you won’t use it for evil.” Ms. Kului informed me.

“Ooooooh! I want to do that! Where do I take the Rune Magic Qualification Test?” I exclaimed.

“Uhhh… you also need teacher recommendation if you are still a student…” She trailed off. I slumped in dismay. Then, Ms. Kului brightened up again, “But I’ll recommend you!”

“Yay!” I cheered.

“Now, don’t be too excited about it, I have to submit the teacher recommendation form, and you will have to wait a couple of months for the results to come out.”

“Awwwwww…” I groaned in a disappointed voice. She didn’t respond.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash of blue light appeared and Ms. Kului was gone. Then, she immediately flashed back, smiling, “Mensal, it appears that luck is on your side. They will let you take the quiz tomorrow!”

“Yahoo!!!!” I cheered. It was getting dark, so I sprinted to my room, where I greeted the Zwolennicy Magii and went to sleep. The next morning, I jumped out of bed and rushed towards Ms. Kului’s classroom. She was waiting there, beckoning for me to come over. “Come on, this portal will lead you to the Rune Magic Qualification Test area!” She waved at me.

I jumped right into the portal, where some people started attacking me. I cast Forcefield and sent a Lightning Discharge at them.

“Idiot, you’re supposed to dodge!” one of them yelled.

“I don’t care, when someone attacks you, you either defend yourself, attack them back, or die,” I responded.

“Ummmm….. prepare to die then!” Another person shrugged. They sent magic bolts from all around. I sent a giant dragon-shaped fire; consuming all of the magic bolts coming at me, even the water one. All of them stumbled in surprise as the fire engulfed them, not burning them, but leaving them scared for their lives and blinding them. They ran away from the firestorm, and after a while, disappeared.

I scanned the place around me and saw an extremely faint white light in the distance.

It took an hour to get there, but once I arrived, I saw that there was a pack of snearinows guarding a white portal. They turned around and stared at me with scarlet eyes that seemed to stare into my soul. One of them leaped at me. I quickly batted it away with Kosmar, sending it straight through the portal. It flew right back out and landed on the ground. The beast shook its head and flew right back at me with claws outstretched.

I leaped out of the way just in time and the snearinow landed where I had just been 1 second ago. I took out Astrapi and pulled back the string. An arrow appeared. I counted the number of snearinows and groaned, “This is hopeless! There are at least 30 of them in the front row and they might get reinforcements!”

I shot one fire arrow. Suddenly, 29 more fire arrows appeared and destroyed the front 2 rows and damaged the third.

“Wait what?” I exclaimed in surprise and then mused, “Maybe if I say 800, it will shoot 800 arrows! That would practically destroy the pack of snearinows and an inch of the ground below them!” Sadly, the snearinows had regrouped while I had been thinking and one pounced on me. I whacked its head with my staff and it moved away.

Suddenly, an entire wave of snearirows came jumping over the front lines of the snearirows. I created a wall of fire in front of me, burning the ones who kept going. The more smart ones stopped midair, landing on the ground unharmed. Then, the ones with the stronger-looking wings started carrying the other snearirows over the wall of flames, dropping them in like paratroopers.

“DANG!!! This is HARD!!!” I exclaimed in shock at the intelligence of the snearinows. I blasted 7 of them out of the air with a jet of fire. Next, I sniped another 2 pairs out of the sky with arrows. I then created a wave of flames that headed towards the snearinows on the ground. The flames engulfed them and I heard shrieks of pain. I winced, thinking about how much it would have hurt for flames to hit me.

Then I shook my head and aimed another arrow and shouted “80!” 79 arrows appeared next to the one that I had shot and impaled the beasts. A few ran away, either to lick their wounds or out of fear.

“Not many retreated, but at least some did,” I spoke to myself optimistically. Suddenly, an enormous snearinow leaped at me. I tried to take out my staffs, but I was too late and it landed on me. I desperately blocked its claws and tail with Astrapi, but many blows still landed on me.

I knew that a normal arrow wouldn’t penetrate the skin of a beast this huge, and elemental arrows could possibly kill me. I finally decided to use an elemental arrow, as if I didn’t, I would for sure die, but if I did, there was a possibility of living. I shot an electricity arrow at the beast’s heart. A lightning bolt flew down from the sky and blasted the large snearinow to ashes.

The other snearinows suddenly turned and retreated. I chased them while hitting them with arrows. One got hit by a normal arrow and went down. Another was hit by a water arrow and froze. A few more were hit by earth arrows and got encased in a shell of dirt and rock, disabling their movement.

I chased them until I could no longer run and walked back to the portal. I decided to rest a bit first and then walked through. On the other side of the white, gleaming portal was a whole new world. A man with a bushy mustache walked over. “Congratulations, student! You have passed the test, and now you may learn the ways of rune magic!” He congratulated me in a British accent, “My name is Calhoun Griffiths, and I am one of the head teachers of rune magic in this sub-realm Anwansi. Oh, right, you probably don’t know what a sub-realm is. It’s a miniature realm inside of a realm!”

“That’s cool! When can I start learning rune magic?” I eagerly asked.

“Oh, that’s nice, a student with a thirst for knowledge. May I ask, what is your magic potential? Ms. Kului said that you, the student, are very strong on her recommendation form, and you were able to cast some very impressive-looking things. May I ask where you trained your skill as well? And what elements do you hold?” Calhoun queried.

“Uhh… my magic potential is 253, I trained with Tyronius Exypnos, my ancestor, and I hold fire, ice, water, earth, healing, spirit, electric, death, light, metal, summoning, and pure. My special abilities are beast tamer, invincibility, meditation boost, and aura seer.

“The heck?! You aren’t pulling my leg, are you?!” Calhoun seemed astounded and doubtful at the same time.

“Uhh… no sir, but I guess I don’t have to call anyone sir,” I remarked.

“I guess so. However, I know of a place where you may hone your skills with people of equal strength and slightly higher strength than you, although they are not as strong as Tyronius.” Calhoun informed me, “However, you will only be allowed in there after a series of tests, including mental and physical ones, and you likely need rune magic to succeed. For your information, rune magic costs 4 times as much energy as magic. To activate it, you need to draw certain runes. That narrows the possibilities down, and then the word you yell with the combination of the runes you draw creates a specific attack. You can experiment, but that is ill-advised, as you might end up killing yourself.”

I soaked up the information, spoke up, “Alright, can I start with the rune magic now?”

“OK, you love to see it, an eager student with excellent abilities!” Calhoun led me to an arena, where he introduced me to Rugin Keilhord and Sona Fujin, the two other head teachers.

“Hello student,” they both bowed, and then continued, “You will be given 3 tests to complete. You will be given a dual set of combat staffs which you will use as your weapons and you are not allowed to use magic. You will need to complete each of the 3 in the given amount of time. If you fail to finish one of the tests in the given time, you will not be allowed to join the class, and if you are unlucky, you will die as well.