There was only one person waiting for their arrival, and Hana was already hugging her as his eyes opened. They were probably good friends from the looks of it. Or girlfriends.

However, it took the Emi and Nerina a few seconds too long before they realized the changed scenery. Gasps escaped their lips as they looked around from on top of the small hill.

The view was simply astonishing until they forgot they both had just hugged him like their life depended on it. Not that he really minds it, but he could understand why. Even he couldn’t completely comprehend what he was looking at.

Gigantic white walls dominated the furthest stretch of the city. These walls were almost five times higher than the two-story building nearby, and these buildings looked like tiny little boxes. The sheer scale of it was enough to make minds go blank.

Inside the wall was a wide area of farmland before it met with another wall. There were a series of four tall white walls before anything could reach the very center, and each had a huge space in between them. If he could pick up the central city, he could place it in between each of the outer walls and it could have easily fit in with some room to spare. The city was simply massive.

After the vast farmland, the second layer was dominated by sparsely allocated houses and manors. The third layer had a number of small towns and denser population centers filling up the space. There was a gap of grassland in the final ring between the walls and the central city.

Finally, the innermost layer had hundreds of mansions dominating the area around the grand palace. The place where the King resided was built into the end of a mountain range, high above everything else.

The academy’s spiralling tower was built on the lower elevation compared to the palace and a little off to the side in between the second and third layer. Its area was walled at the bottom of the hills and divided into sections of residential housing.

There was no way those walls were possible or even affordable considering the massive land it had to cover, well, unless magic was involved. Not to mention maintenance would be another money swallowing pit.

What he saw had completely blown the expectation he had in mind and the biggest modern megacities might not be comparable. The scale of the whole place was just mind-boggling.

He could understand why the girls took their time hanging on to him. If his awakened spirit had never seen huge cities before, Adrin might have buckled on his feet.

Because even with such experience, his knees were still felt weak.

“He didn’t crumble from the sight,” said a man from behind him. “His awakened spirit is indeed not common-born, Hana.”

“As you say, Archmagi Ryson,” Hana replied as he turned around. “Thank you for your patronage, sir.”

“No, no, I was just stopping by,” the old man chuckled. “Nevertheless, welcome to the academy, but you must excuse me, children.”

“Please, sir, we don’t want to waste any more of your precious time,” Hana said respectfully.

The old man laughed like the toher old-world white-bearded man as he walked away.

'Is that you, Santa?' he wondered.

Hana and her friend waited until the old man was out of earshot before they turned towards him and the two girls. Their faces seemed like they had seen a ghost or something.

The new face cleared her throat, “Hi, I’m Claire, please follow me to join the rest of the apprentices, I believe the testing will begin shortly. Hana, feel free to go and arrange their accommodation and cards.”

“Okay,” Hana said with a small bounce before she walked towards the spire.

“Girls, this way,” Claire said, towards the other side of the tower.

Adrin pushed the girls’ backs to follow their senior, and he followed right after them.

As Hana had said, women were the leading by a huge majority here. She didn’t need to tell him to get used to it as he rather preferred it that way. He just wanted to hide in their shadows and live an easy life.

Luckily, the boys in this place weren’t as rare as Hana made him believe. He saw quite a few of them among the many girls in robes along the way. He would say around thirty percent over the whole population. Not many but not scarce either.

His assumption was right when they arrived at a large hall populated by apprentices. There was no mistake about it based on the uniforms.

Most of the young men, of course, had those snobs look plastered on their faces. A clear telltale of ‘highborns’ or something. Some of them raised their eyebrows when they saw Nerina, one of the only few green-haired girls around.

The girl, probably surprised by the sudden attention, grabbed his arm before she realized it and jumped ship to the tomboy’s side. Emilia chuckled and patted the girl’s hand as they walked towards the neatly arranged wooden chairs.

Of course, like any other fantasy worlds, there was a collection of odd-colored hairs spread around among the girls and the boys. The majority was still brown and blacks in almost all different shades imaginable.

“Alright, please be seated, and let’s begin,” said the spoken person in front.

Emi waved him goodbye as she pulled the flabbergasted Nerina towards the girls’ side. He made his way to the boys who were significantly less.

Adrin took a seat in the last row which was populated by nerve-wrecked boys no more than eighteen years old. Not many of them were as composed as he was.

“Hey, I’m Brian, you are?”

“Adrin, nice to meet you, Brian,” Adrin offered his hand to the young man beside him.

“Nice to meet you too, Adrin,” Brain shook his hand. “Nice girls you have there.”

“Yeah, they are quite nice,” he answered, eager just to stop there.

The speech of welcoming the apprentice to the academy began, and apparently they were the second last batch for this year. It made sense because they got here a few days earlier than they were supposed to. The lecturer then introduced everybody on the panel and explained what they were going to do today.

“You know their names at least?” Brian asked.

“Emilia and Nerina,” he answered. “Nerina is the green head.”

“Lucky you, mine won’t even look at me,” Brian sighed.

Adrin knew Emilia ever since they were toddlers, but the young man didn’t need to know that. He was more concerned about the numbers showing on the flat screen. The lady in front had started calling names one by one, and each time someone would walk up front and touch the large orb on the pedestal.

Most of the men had less than forty while no one had no less than forty on the girls’ side. It didn’t bode well for his future. It made sense for his affinity to be high because he already reached the next stage for the affinity tree, if it was called that.

“Don’t worry about it, men always start low but we’ll catch up soon enough,” Brian said.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, my instructor says so, and he’s a genius,” Brian stated.

The room gasped when a young girl made it to seventy-three with red color at the bottom. The redhead was more modest than proud with her achievement.

“That’s Felicity Emberwind, she’s a prodigy, don’t compare yourself to her. They’ve probably fed her nothing but top quality stuff, if you know what I mean,” Brian scoffed. “There are a few of them, the top families, this year. Ah, the next one is one of them too.”

The apprentices gasped again when a blue-haired girl scored sixty-eight with blue affinity color. Adrin turned towards his new information source.

“Alicia Yang, she is a nice girl, at least, from what I heard. She isn’t an ice-queen like her big sister even though their affinity is similar, [Water] versus [Ice].”

“You sure know a lot,” Adrin said.

“Well, you know the saying, know your enemy thingy.”

“Why does their hair color seem to match the color on the screen?”

“Some believe because of their raw potential in the element, others just a coincidence, your guess is my guess,” Brian shrugged.

Adrin turned his attention back to the front. Name after names were called and nothing really special came up until a smug young man was called. He scored forty-eight with yellow color right below it. Some of the girls even cheered for the young man.

“Ah, William Duray, [Lightning] element, that butthole is a star,” Brian cursed.

“Brian Emberwind,” called the instructor next.

Adrin looked at the man.

“That’s me,” the young blond chuckled. “Don’t give me that look, I’ve just earned that last name,” he said before walking towards the front.

Brian scored forty-four with the red element. The second highest affinity so far. He sat at the back among the commoners again, right beside him.

“Nice score,” Adrin said.

“Thank you,” Brian replied to him before he smirked at the particular brunette who was staring at him with wide eyes. “Take that, bitch,” he muttered.

The test went on until it was Emilia’s turn. She walked to the front unabashed like she usually was and placed her palm on the orb. She scored sixty-eight with dark-gray color at the bottom.

“Ouch, your girl is a [Shadow], an exotic element, you better haven’t made her angry,” Brian said.

“Hopefully not,” he answered.

Nerina’s turn came soon after a few boys who got just below forty in mostly browns and reds. They were [Stone] and [Fire], respectively.

She gave him a look and he nodded to her, reminding himself about the talk they had. Hopefully, he wasn’t wrong about it. Genetics could be really prickly things.

The result surprised everyone, even the instructors.

She got a whopping eight-three score in green, the [Life] affinity. She was the highest of all. Adrin wondered if his team was cursed to be known by many. Nerina walked back with her chin held up and she hugged Emi happily when she was back at her seat.

“That’s elven blood for you,” Brian said. “She will be really popular. Beauty, youth, and unparalleled talent, who wouldn't fall for her?”

“Good for her, she had suffered a lot,” he replied.

Adrin had a bad feeling when his name was still unannounced even after almost all had already called forward. His nightmare came true when the last name was called.

“And lastly, Adrin, please come forward,” the instructor added. “With him, I’ll explain why we even bothered to do this test.”

Adrin walked forward and accepted his fate. The instructor was using him as an example for some reason, probably for the good of all but him. He placed his hand on the orb. Something cold touched him before the result came out on the floating screen.

Fifty-four with the color purple below.

Adrin walked back immediately and took a seat beside the smiling Brian.

“For those who don't know, the purple color stands for the exotic [Crystal] element. This element excels at defensive spells against almost all offensive elements.”

The crowd gasped and murmurs spread.

“This includes [Fire], [Radiance], [Ice], [Toxic], or even [Lightning]. He can shape stones, gems, and glasses at will and only second to the legendary [Metal] affinity in defense. I tell you this because as a mage, you all need to know not only yours, but ALL the elements and everything about it. Your life will depend on it.”

Adrin groaned. Well, at least he was known only to be the second-best in defense only.

It wasn’t so bad, right?