Piercil first made a wind start pushing the ball to the side. Kel quickly lifted the ball using what was probably earth magic and held it in place. Piercil then sent a few snakes of electricity around the ball towards Kel. She blew them away with a few rocks. This went on for about a minute while Piercil added more attacks until he slid the ring itself out from under the ball.

“Ah! Hey! You moved the ring!” Kel pointed and glared at Piercil.

“You get two tries and are welcome to watch everyone else, I will always use the same moves.” Piercil replied. Next up, Grey took his stance in the box. Similarly, he held the ball and resisted what Piercil threw at him with his golden tinged magic. When it got to the point that Piercil slid the ring, Grey moved the ball along with it. He lasted another ten seconds or so but failed when Piercil lauched fire, ice, and electricity over the ball while sliding the ring back the other way. “Now make sure you watch everyone else so you’re prepared your second time around.” Piercil waved Grey off. “Now, everyone. I wanted to show you this test after the power one so you will know why it is important to know control. And so I can show off.” With that Piercil waved me forward. I took my stance and waited. Piercil began the same as others with his wind blowing sideways, I made a stone windshield next to the ball and waited for his next move. He fired his snakes but I simply grabbed them and turned them into a butterfly. This went on much like the other two until he tossed a fireball in an arc towards me then immediately slid the ring to the right. I ignored the fireball and raised the ring into a cylinder so that it would push the ball as it moved, then flicked the fireball a bit to the right so it would miss. Piercil slid the stone cylinder around a bit with the ball inside before suddenly throwing two arrows made of fire, two made of ice, and a much faster lightning bolt while dropping and sliding the ring. I immediately tried lifting the ring, but, finding that Piercil was holding it down, dropped the circle of stone the ball was resting on to make a small hole and caught the lightning bolt. I then flicked the two ice arrows into the fire arrows and threw the lightning back at him. He caught it as well then grinned, “Ready yourself Jin my boy, I want to see how much you’ve improved. He then released the lightning he was holding onto which then grew and split into two large birds. One, with burning wings and an icy tail, and the other with wings made of light and a tail made of darkness. He then pulled the ring again to the left and pointed at me with his other hand. Oi hold up, he’s about to use a status ailment isn’t he? Isn’t that a bit too much of a step up from three elements?? Immediately I coated myself in every status effect I could handle, no sooner had I done so than a dark liquid seemed to splash against my armor before disappearing. “Oh ho! You made it look cool! Very nice~” I ignored Piercil’s praise and grabbed the center of the metal ball, driving a metal spike from it into the ground. Then I looked at the two birds and simply folded them. The opposing elements canceled out leaving me with another simple lightning bolt. I looked up to see Piercil tugging the ring against the anchored spike with a grin and chucked the lightning back to him. Then I gave him a grin of my own and lifted my hand and curled my fingers in a ‘bring it on’ gesture. “Alright boy! See if you can take this!” Piercil lifted both of his hands grandly in the air. From the air a massive hawk made of dark lines lifted itself from the wall. It’s eyes both ignited with a cold flame and its feathers began to glimmer with tinges of light, ice, fire, poison, lightning, air and even several clear ones signifying status effects. It was a total of eight or maybe even nine elements in one attack. Fuck. Even while admiring it I was fighting Piercil over the ball as he tried to raise and lower the floor, change the shape of the ball, and shift both it and the ring. I had absolutely no way of countering that so I did exactly what Prof. Piercil taught me.

“If you’re going to lose to some incredibly flashy technique, then see if you can make it take them out too. Or just them, preferably.” So I summoned a thin shaft of light that I concentrated as much as I could and aimed at Piercil’s eyes.

“Wha-?”

AHAHAHA! SQUINT, BITCH

And right when he loosened his grip on the ball I lifted the ring and separated it from the floor, quickly shrinking it until it was tight around the ball.

“You!”

I then threw the ball directly through the bird, turned around and covered my head. Immediately there was a loud explosion that died down in the next instant. Sneaking a peek, I saw Piercil condense the explosion into a small, colorful parrot then pull the ring off the ball and toss it to the side. “Not bad Jin. But it looks like you still can’t handle more than six.”

“Excuse you, that bird was at least ten.” I huffed back at him.

“True, but if you had shifted the right feathers together it would have cancelled itself down to only four plus the darkness it was made of. Add the ring and that’s six.” Piercil grinned before waving me off. “You’ll get another chance.”

“Actually Professor, I think we should just do the regular test.” The principal smiled a little and stroked his incredible beard, his robes quietly brushing the floor as he turned to Piercil. Piercil looked betrayed then sighed.

“Oh alright. We’ll do the normal one.” Piercil sighed again before turning back to the students. “Alright kids the actual test is a bit simpler.” Piercil lifted a hand and shrunk the metal ball to about the size of a golf ball. He then made about ten more little balls and began moving them in their own individual circles.

“The test is to see how many of these you can keep going at once. Everyone line up and let’s get this done.” The test went terribly quickly and we got our results. With the range again from me to Kel, but this time Kel had held up three and I held up seven. I asked Piercil afterwards and he said that they permitted the two of us to show off so that Grey and Kel would practice more on their control, since they would be particularly formidable if they could improve it.

“What about me?” I looked towards the professor who was walking next to me.