Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 6

Before I can think much about my results, I find myself looking around as several voices enter my ears that weren’t there before entering the gate. What I end up finding is a large, metallic, and fortress-like structure inside of an enormous bubble. The outer edge of the bubble is made up of some sort of golden liquid with a bluish hue to it, and it completely blocks out the sun. Yet, despite that, there’s still plenty of light inside of the bubble; just as much as there was before entering through the gate.

Meanwhile, the fortress-like structure – which I am assuming is the academy grounds itself – is even bigger than a damned castle, with four large towers on each of the four edges of the thing, along with one even larger tower at its center. Each of the four outer towers have walls connecting them, along with an entrance leading inside of the fortress on the inner corner of the tower.

“Name, Richard Argent. Affinity, Fire magic. Talent, level 2.”

I turn around towards the noise to find the portal connected to the gate behind me, inside of the fortress itself, before I turn around again to look at the large courtyard that I now find myself in. At the center of the courtyard is a large fountain, with a brick path surrounding it splitting off into three different paths. The leftmost path leads to a relatively large building with the numbers 1-2 above the large double doors. The next path – the rightmost path this time – leads to another large building, but this time it is quite a bit bigger than the first, with a noticeably better appearance, and a 3-4 above its entrance.

Lastly, the central path leads to an enormous structure with its own gate and inner courtyard behind the central tower. This one has three different fountains inside of the inner courtyard, along with a golden – and quite flashy looking – number 5 engraved above the gate.

Meanwhile, in front of each of the buildings are several people, with the central building having the most people in front of it – likely due to the seeded individuals who were raised by powerful families.

“Please head towards the dorm building for your talent level!” I hear echo across the courtyard.

At that, I focus my attention on the rightmost building before heading towards it. As I’m walking, I hear a name called from the direction of the talent level 5 building that immediately makes me frown.

Deciding to ignore the name, I turn towards the 3-4 building before beginning to approach it.

The group gathered in front of the 3-4 building notices me approaching and stops talking for a second before continuing again not even a few seconds later. Meanwhile, one or two of them looks back at the portal as another name is called, albeit less clearly, considering how far we are from it.

“Name, Cyria Argent. Affinity, Water magic. Talent, level 4.”

Huh, another level 4 already? And wasn’t that family name just called?

Are they twins? Or do they just happen to have the same family name?

Either way, I turn my attention to one of the instructors within the group as he looks directly at me and says, “Wait with the group until the evaluation stage is complete.”

I simply nod my head before going up to the building itself and leaning against the wall whilst closing my eyes, slightly away from the group.

Maybe I can get a short nap before the rest of the new cadets get evaluated. I never really was much of a people person after all.

A few minutes pass by as names continue to get called out before I hear someone clear their throat and ask, “Um, excuse me?”

I open my eyes just in case whoever is speaking is talking to me, only to find a girl with long black hair and blue eyes standing right in front of me. The girl has on the same uniform as every other girl here, with a black, knee-length skirt, and a red and black blazer, along with a slightly cold look on her face. One that says just about as much as I need to know about how she feels being at the academy right now.

“What?” I ask her with a frown.

Why is someone bothering me?

The girl just stares at me for a few seconds before asking, “Would it be alright if I joined you?”

I barely hold myself back from raising a brow at the question before I close my eyes again and answer, “Sure.”

Several minutes pass in relative peace as the group next to the dorm’s entrance continues to grow from the new people, albeit nowhere near as quickly as the 1-2 dorm is likely growing.

I open my eyes to look before finding an enormous crowd, over twice the size of the one at our dorm, standing in front of the entrance to the 1-2 dorm. Which is quite strange, considering the size difference between the dorms.

Although all three dorms are a little too big for the number of students that will actually be attending the academy.

After all, it’s not like mages grow on trees. So even level 1 talents are treated relatively well in the academy in regard to accommodations.

It’s mostly the other mages that treat low talent level individuals rather poorly.

I turn my head to find the black-haired girl leaning up against the wall of the building a few feet away from me with her eyes closed. Then, right as I am about to turn away to look at the portal linked to the gate again, the girl speaks up, “What’s your name?”

This time I do raise an eyebrow.

“Nathan Fox.” Deciding to go along with it out of boredom, I answer her question before asking one of my own. “And you?”

The girl opens her eyes and looks at me with a surprisingly less cold face than the one she looked at me with earlier as she answers, “Cyria Argent.”

Oh? That’s the girl that I was wondering if she was siblings with that other Argent person.

“So why exactly did you come over here to talk to me?” I ask her with my eyebrow still raised in question. “Because you don’t exactly strike me as the social type.”

Cyria just stares at me for a few seconds before closing her eyes and leaning her head back up against the wall as she answers, “Because there're team assignments at this academy, and I wanted to find someone suitable to team up with before I ended up being randomly paired with people. And you appeared to be the most suitable of the people here to me.”

Well, someone’s certainly preparing for the future…

“You do realize that I’m only a level 3 talent, right?” I ask her, thinking it will likely make her go away.

It’s not necessarily that I don’t like her, it’s more that she will probably attract attention to me due to being a level 4 talent.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cyria answers, surprising me before continuing, “I picked you because I thought you would work best with me out of the people here. Talent level is only a way to judge the affinity someone has for magic. Meaning the speed at which they will grow, and not how powerful they will be when they grow.”

I stare at her for a few seconds before shaking my head slightly, closing my eyes again, and leaning back up against the building wall.

That wasn’t what I had expected.

This girl might be more than I’d thought she was. But I still would rather not have her attracting attention towards me.

Although, if what she mentioned before about team assignments is true – and I imagine it probably is – then she could be of use. Even if I’m immortal and all of the damage I take immediately gets rewound in both time and space, it would be good to have a water magic user in whatever group I end up in to act as a healer.

For the rest of the group of course. But also, if I end up without a single scratch, or even any blood on my clothes, while everyone else in my group is injured pretty badly, then someone might begin asking questions. Or I might just be accused of not putting in any work.

Either way isn’t exactly a pleasant outcome for me.

As for my group finding something off with me? The doctor already told me how to explain that. But it might not work for Class C or higher magicians, so it’s best to keep the lie to a smaller number of people.

Not to mention that I just hate lies, so the fewer the better.

My thoughts are interrupted as a loud bell echoes throughout the fortress, followed by the sound of a portal closing. After that, a loud voice echoes through the courtyard.

“All of this year’s cadets have now been evaluated! From this point on, follow the instructor assigned to your course, and they will guide you through the rest of the process!”

I open my eyes again before glancing at the other buildings.

Where is Aidan?