“Wait,” I say, “what rankings?”

“Every year, after the Pre-protector exams, those who managed to pass will have to participate in a competition. The Rankings. That’s where Drew and the rest of the Five got their reputation as the most promising of our generation,” Lathia answers, then noticing my slightly shocked expression, she adds. “Drew was supposed to tell you about this a week ago. I’m guessing he didn’t?”

I shake my head, shooting an accusing glance at Drew, who now looks a bit guilty. “He didn’t.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I forgot.”

“Dude,” I say, “news like that isn’t meant to be forgotten. I only prepared for the exams, not the Rankings!”

“Relax. With the amount of training you’ve done so far, you’ll be fine. The Rankings are basically just a competition to see how strong each of the Apprentice is. Besides, even if you did know, how much more could you do? You’ve already trained for months in the Lands, I doubt any of your classmates went that far. So chill, from what I’ve noticed you’ll definitely rank in the top three.”

“Is there anything special about getting into the top three?”

Drew smiles. “Of course. First, there’s a monetary prize but isn’t really important. The second prize is what people really want. An Artifact. As long as you rank in the top three you’ll be getting an artifact. Whosoever gets first place will get a custom-made Artifact, and one other random one, while second and third place just gets one Artifact each. That’s where PM got his pyli from. If you can get first place, you could get a really powerful Artifact custom made for you.”

And just like that, the pressure I had been feeling from having to do the exams doubled. But, along with the increase in pressure comes a bit of excitement. The thing is since the Laen is a magical group, conventional weapons don’t work for them. For instance, a normal sword can be broken easily by even a weakling like me and it’ll be done without even harming me much, bullets aren’t too much of a problem when you can move faster than the fingers squeezing the trigger, and even things like bombs can be neutralized in many different ways. Because of that, Laen, and even Erhaz, have to use Artifacts: magical objects which won’t break the moment you decide to use them, and which will actually harm other magic users. PM has his pyli, Drew his glaive, Emma her needle, and on and on. None of them use normal weapons. Now I have the chance to get a custom-made one. If I can get first place.

“Ian,” Hugo’s voice sounds out, “you know that time is going right? If you don’t want to miss your exams I’d advise you to begin moving.”

Hearing that, we all spring into action and go into the In-between. There, the red robes worn by Wranths appear on all members of Drew’s team. I am a bit envious of that, but I say nothing as I put on my black Apprentice robes.

David, Daniel, and Emma move ahead while Drew, Lathia, and I fall behind. As I stare at Emma, I can’t help but ask. “Is Emma fine? She still looks pale.”

During our fight with the Majin, the Majin had focused a strange ability on Emma towards the end, sucking up most of her blood and almost making her lose her life. She had become pale then from blood loss and had to be taken to the hospital after. But even now, weeks later, her normal complexion hasn’t returned.

“She’s fine,” Drew answers. “We think maybe the thing the Majin did had some effect on her. But Hugo says nothing is wrong so don’t worry.”

I nod as we enter the Metorium.

* * * * * *

Emily

I hear the door close as Ian and Drew leave the house. I give it a few minutes before I leave my room and walk around the house. Ian is long gone, and my mom is fast asleep in her room, recovering from her hectic week. She’d probably wake up in a few hours or so. This means, there’s currently no one who can poke their nose into my business right now.

Feeling a bit giddy, I rush back to my room and gently pull open a drawer. In there, sleeping on a small cushion I had left for her is Ary. She opens her tiny eyes and blinks at me before closing them once again, muttering something unintelligible.

I had found Ary a few weeks ago, on my way back from school. Back then she had been nothing more than a small ball of light, and when I had first seen her, I had doubted my vision. In the end, however, my curiosity won over common sense and I put her in my school bag before bringing her back.

When I came back home, I let her out. After floating for some minutes, she entered my body for the first time. I panicked immediately, but there had been nothing I could do to force her out. I spent the next half hour worried that something terrible would happen to me when she suddenly floated out of me. But something was different this time, her glow was brighter. She then retreated back into my bag.

Over the next two weeks, she repeated this. Randomly flying into my body for hours at a time and coming out stronger. At first, I was worried that she was feeding off me to become stronger, but when I noticed nothing bad was happening to me, I let her continue. Especially when I noticed that a small petite body was becoming visible within the small blob of light.

Last week, she finally fully recovered. That was the moment I had the strangest conversation of my life. I learned a lot of things that day, like her name, the fact that magic was real, and that she wasn’t the only one of her kind. Ever since then, we’d become friends of sorts. Of course, she still liked jumping into me once in a while.

The reason I am so excited, however, is that a few days ago, Ary had promised to begin teaching me magic over the weekend. And today is the first day of the weekend.

“Ary,” I say in a playful voice. She ignores me. “Ary. Ary, stop ignoring me, or I’m going to poke you.”

She still didn’t answer, acting as though she hadn’t heard me. I gently raise one hand and bring it down toward her. Instead of touching something solid, my hand passes through her and touches the cushion she is lying on. I am not surprised. It hadn’t taken long for me to figure out that Ary has the ability to make herself tangible or intangible depending on her mood. Right now, the only reason she is intangible is probably that she doesn’t want me to poke her into submission.

“Ary, you promised.”

Ary finally opens her eyes, and with a resigned look, she flies out of the drawer before settling on my shoulder. “Fine,” she says in her high, tinkling voice, “let’s go to the park. I’ll fix your core there and then we’ll start.”

“Fix my core?”

“That’s what you’ll use to do magic. It’s a bit… deformed right now, but it’s better than most humans. I can’t fix it completely, but I can make it start working well again. Let's… go.” She yawns toward the end of her sentence.