Lyle could not see his friends nor an empty seat in the sea of applicants in the testing hall 2. Lyle arrived in time, the eighth bell just ringing a few seconds before he arrived. It was not because he had been lost again.

He stepped inside and kept vigilance for that free seat. He finally found a seat at the end of the hall. Before he sat he saw that a teacher had appeared to the front of the room. Lyle quickly placed his bag to the side and sat down patiently. The teacher looked at her wrist then looked around the test takers. A few more students arrived before the red-haired woman walked towards the only entrance and shut the door and locked it.

The noise made the already barely audible noise disappear completely.

“Cultivation is a sink in resources and time.” The teacher pointed her hand at the door. “Those who do not recognize this will fail at the path of cultivation. I have marked the people coming in late. Your scores will have a deduction on this test. As for those who didn’t arrive when I closed the door, they are not part of this enrollment process anymore.

“This test will be a written one, in front of you is an inkpot, a quill, and a thin brush. Use whatever you like. My assistants will pass on two sets of papers. The first one will be filled with questions and the second one will be filled with circles. Do not write on the paper with the questions. Accident or no will result in disqualification from this and any more enrollments. You have until the eleventh bell to finish the test. If you finish early you can give your papers to me.”

The door burst open to reveal ten teenagers in the uniform of the academy and began distributing the papers that they were carrying. after they have finished and Lyle got his papers the robe-wearing lady looked at the device in her wrist one more time. ”You can begin now.”

Lyle paced in his room, biting his nails as he waited for the results of the exam to be released. A knock on the door startled him and made him jump out of his thoughts. He moved to the door while disregarding the strewn clothes and knick-knacks scattered around the floor. Lyle calmed his heart by breathing deeply, closing his eyes in the process before opening the door.

His father’s stern face met his calm one. Brown eyes met his blue ones. “Boy, for the last time clean your room. It looks like a pigsty.”

Lyle couldn’t stop the smile coming out of his face. “Dad, a servant will do it. Besides, today is the day, I don’t have the time for that! The results will be coming out at the noon bell.”

His father nodded. “And by what you told me, you don’t have anything to worry about. You passed the first second and third test with good scores. And I hired tutors for you to learn about our laws.”

“But what if I fail? I mean I don’t care much about it, my cousins can still be cultivators and I can try again next year but what if I fail?”

His father’s face changed from a stern face to a happy one, his mouth curving upwards and his eyes gaining a glint in them. “You try again. Maybe in the two other schools or next year. Your life will not be over with one failure.”

Lyle opened his mouth and froze. A crier was shouting in the streets, it was still indistinct but was getting clearer by the second. Lyle bolted to his window, nearly tripping on a rogue pair of pants before reaching his destination.

“The results are out! The Abeseth Academy for the Gifted has posted the results for this year’s enrollment in the school’s board!”

The crier repeated the same words while running down the streets. Lyle quickly pulled out a copper coin before tossing it to a crier with a ‘here, thanks’ before he bolted out the room still in his nightwear.

The sprint to the school was a long one, but Lyle felt none of it. He passed by various kids that soon joined him in his mad run towards the school. Lyle reached the campus in less than twenty minutes panting. Beside the gate, the entrance was a board with a piece of paper bigger than anything he had ever seen filled with people, kids, and adults pushing each other to read what was written.

After regaining his breath, Lyle joined the crowd, pushing his way into the mass of bodies to answer the burning question in his mind at that moment. At the front of the group, Lyle could see two things from people who read the post. One was people who searched for their names and left running, maybe cheering and laughing, and people who searched their names and left walking. Lyle desperately wished that he would leave running.

Lyle kept getting pushed back as he tried to go to the front but he was determined to go there, not just to read the damn paper but as a matter of principle.

The pushing, clawing and sometimes punching ceased as Lyle finally reached the front. He looked down and saw shaking hands, filled with energy from a hard-won battle. That quickly faded replaced by a steady pulse coursing in his entire body.

Lyle couldn’t look up, too scared to look at the paper to find that he didn’t pass. Too scared to know if he was worthy of being a student. Scared to know if he was enough.

He was paralyzed, by fear, expectations, and hope. For a solid minute, the sound of the clamoring crowd was drowned by his beating heart and the sight blocked by a piece of paper that was barely visible with his head down low.

Lyle looked up. He searched from the bottom. It was numbered 342. In the city of Abeseth numbering in the hundred thousand, 342 could be considered small. An elite and fewer still would become real cultivators. From the bottom, he continued up. And up and up.

If he was to be placed in this exam, Lyle was confident he would be at the top. Maybe in the hundreds but it never hurt to be sure. In the 250s he was still confident, in the 150s he was growing worried. In the 100s a sinking feeling came into his gut.

He clenched his fist. The list wasn’t finished, and he still held hope. He was good, and in the pit of his stomach, another feeling rose. What if he was at the top? A little voice said, but it was drowned out by the possibility of him not passing at all.

At number 50 he was confident that he would not pass. He looked up still. In the number 20, he lost all hope. Like his world was the paper and him alone. Nothing mattered. He looked up still, now disbelieving. He now read the name carefully. Nineteen: Irnel. Eighteen: Kurtis, Seventeen: Helen.

There he saw it. He blinked. Blinked again. He rubbed his eyes, hard and looked once more. It was true.

Lyle walked away, not noticing the pitying looks that he got from the people around him.

Lyle didn’t know how he got home, just that he did. The second afternoon bell made him come back to the present and realized that his parents were there staring at him. They had understanding expressions, but Lyle could also see a calm acceptance to their faces as well.

As he continued his dead-eyed stare, Lyle’s mother crouched until she was face to face to her. She placed her hands on his face, her blue eyes meeting his. Even in his muddled state, he could still see the warmth in her mother's eyes.

“Listen to me, my beautiful child.” Her mother began. “Your worth as a person is not defined bypassing one test. You can become a merchant like us or if you still want to become a cultivator you could-”

“I ...” Lyle said quietly

Lyle’s mother suddenly stopped and looked at her husband, concern written on her face. Her husband shared the same expression and crouched together with his wife. He held his son’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, son.”

“I passed,” Lyle said finally. “I was in sixteenth place. I passed with flying colors.”

Concerned faces turned into shock, then confusion, joy, elation, pride then back to joy. Lyle felt something squeeze him, suddenly his entire body felt weightless, he was in the air, a pair of hands holding him high. And his emotions finally caught up to him.

He started laughing, the same laugh he had when Lyle first discovered that he had a brother when he was five years old. He couldn’t stop then his mom and dad joined and they all hugged each other. Then his little brother joined in too, laughing with his family and for his brother’s success.

The rest of the day was busy with the preparation for a feast for the night. All of his father’s friends were invited and so were Lyle friends, who didn’t come due to them throwing their celebrations. Lyle was glad to know that all of his close friends passed with him but sad that they didn’t see each other one last time before leaving for the academy in the morning. The celebration lasted until the early morning but Lyle had slept earlier with his father saying that he needed the rest and pack up his belongings.

Lyle picked up the pack that contained everything important to him. He hugged his mother, father, and brother one last time before setting off. No words were spoken, all was said the night before. His father stood tall and his mother stood proud.

He looked back to his home once more. It's three floors towering over the other houses beside them and its stone off white color of the base of the first flood made it look regal with the wood of the second and third. He could see through the windows the workers and servants walking along the corridors, busy with their daily routine. The horses were being fed by stable boys, Lyle was tempted to take Spot, his three-year-old horse, but his horse was still too young and not used to being ridden.

With a wave to his family, Lyle set off to the school, which was a 40-minute walk from his home. As he traveled to the city he looked around to remember the sights. The academy only lets its students out once a week on Sundays and does not permit unsupervised expeditions.

Lyle traveled from the residential district into the market district. Lyle remembered the times he and his friends would play after the fifth bell every day in these streets. They would play with rocks or pretend, Lyle always liked to play the hero but so did all of them. So it would become a free for all of the heroes saving one another. The smell of the food cooking in the streets mixed in with the hawking of wares from various shops and stalls. He passed fancy shops that displayed their wares on their windows and less well to do stalls that only had a few trinkets to sell.

The crowded marketplace gave way into the cultivator district. Lyle could immediately see the difference between his house and those of the cultivators. Mansions, buildings at least three stories tall and lawns that spread for at least two meters everywhere. Lyle could make out houses built entirely out of expensive materials, bricks were the cheapest and spiritual wood the most expensive he could discern. Lyle made way for a street cleaner sweeping the streets. Now that he looked, he could see at least three more cleaners in the area compared to the one cleaner that was usually present in his neighborhood.

At the center of the cultivator, districts laid the Academy.

Lyle met more and more students, either new ones or old ones depending on their uniforms or lack thereof, as he neared the gate. He arrived in front and found himself facing a pair of guards.

One of the guards nodded. “G’ day young master, do you have a proof of identity?”

“Huh, what do I need?”

The other guard stepped forward and thrust a thumb towards his pair. “Your true full name. Don’t mind him. Terry just wants to sound smart”

Terry looked at the other guard “A person can get a proof of identity with other ways, Rus.”

Rus rolled his eyes. “Yeah? What else?”

Terry was silent for a moment. “A staff could vouch for him.”

Rus raised his hands “They’re inside! How the hell can he get one to verify him to be who he says he is if he couldn’t go in?”

Terry was losing his steam now “Well, he could get a person who can vouch for him?”

Rus just paused, Lyle imagined him raising his eyebrow. “What if the person is lying?”

“Fine. Your true name please.”

Lyle watched the exchange in amusement and answered quickly. “Lyle Welfer of Abeseth born and raised, son of Lloyd Welfer of Abeseth and Greta Hersh of Falconsea.”

Terry checked the list and when he found the name he nodded.

“Looks like everything is fine. I’ll confirm your identity later. Get your badge and identification card at the student union building first before heading into your dormitory. Just follow the signs.”