^^ Finn

I appear in a seat behind a wooden desk. The room has high ceilings and there are about thirty desks in rows. At the front of the classroom is a wall made of chalkboard, a podium, and a large desk off to side. The right wall is made up of many windows with oak wood window frames, allowing people to see the gardens outside.

I look around the room to see if I know anyone. Nyx is sitting on my left and Finn is on my right. Behind me is the crown prince and next to him is the second prince. In fact, I'm starting to notice a lot of high profile nobles here. A few seats to my left is Princess Odette Crassus, the daughter of the Duke Crassus, a powerful family that's one of the biggest supporters of the second prince.

A couple seats in front of me is Marquis Hugo Solston who lost his parents at a young age and thus is already a Marquis. Moreover, he's the nephew and sole heir of Duke Pierre Thrice who never fathered children of his own, meaning that soon Hugo will become a Duke. He's the main supporter of the first prince, and was the prince's best friend in the otome game.

None of the Dukedoms hold as much influence or power as the Callisto Dukedom which rivals only the imperial family, but they are certainly not to be underestimated.

I feel a little better when I spot Lady Annalise Bombar, daughter of Countess Olive Bombar, and Lord Andre Montvil, the son of Duke Ernest Montvil. Both nobles are children of cabinet members of the Callisto Dukedom, which means I have political allies here.

Several other high ranking nobles have been placed in this room. Most of them are either part of the crown prince's faction or the second prince's. Multiple are also allied with the Callisto Dukedom. I'm choosing to view that as a positive, but of course I can't help but notice that most of the corrupt, shady, or sadistic nobles are sided with the Callisto family. However, there are still some that stay neutral or are princes and princesses from foreign countries. I'm just happy that crazy purple haired bastard and my oh-so-dreamy "fiance" aren't here.

Nevertheless, clearly the school's commitment to equity is a lie since right from the start they've separated us by status. At least they put Finn and Nyx with me. I guess that's the silver lining to all the rumors speculating about our close relationship.

A man suddenly pops out from underneath the wooden desk at the front of the classroom. He's wearing what looks to be a nightgown complete with a night cap. His hair is about shoulder length and looks like it's never seen a comb in it's life. He looks late thirties but it's hard to tell since he has large dark circles under his bulging eyes. There are bandages going up his arms as well, but they're all coming undone.

"All right everyone settle down!" he shouts, then takes a long drink from a flask he pulled out of seemingly nowhere. "OH YEAH THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF!"

He then throws the flask down onto the floor.

"Are you a teacher here?" asks Marquis Hugo Solston skeptically.

"Hell yeah I am. I'm the best teacher here. You're in good hands," says the man.

"I really don't think you should be inebriated in class," says Hugo.

"And I really don't think you should be such a little b*tch, but I guess we don't always get what we want. And chill, I'm totally not," he lets out a large burp, "inebreeiated"

"Somehow I'm not convinced," replies Hugo.

"Okayyyy, so unless anyone else wants to whine about how I do my job, LET'S GET THIS TEST STARTED!!!" says the man.

He starts rummaging in his desk mumbling a lot of concerning things like "f*ck did I forget it?" and "maybe I shouldn't have just drank that slip slop juice".

Finally, after about five minutes he whips out a basketball sized, spiky, lilac crystal. There's a light that seems to be pulsing inside of it.

"Found you~" he says, "Anyway this magic device is made from maganite crystals, which love to absorb mana. That property allows them to be useful in all kinds of magic devices from magic cancellers to testing mana, which is what this device has been designed to do. I'm going to call you up one by one for testing and all you have to do is place your hands on it for it to test your mana."

"How about we start with the whiny kid from earlier," he announces.

Hugo gets up from his desk and walks toward the man, still looking at the man warily. He places his hands on the maganite crystal, and nothing happens for about fifteen seconds. Hugo is about to voice his concern when the crystal shines a bright blue.

Above the crystal a projection of two numbers appear. The first number is 125,000 and the second one is 5,236.

"You're probably all wondering what these numbers mean," says the teacher, "The one on top is the amount of stored mana you've got. This is a reserve you are born with and can't be regenerated. The one on the bottom is the amount of mana you can use per day without having to tap into your mana reserves."

"Okay next let's do Lord Finn! I hear you were brought here because you're some kinda prodigy or something at magic. Let's see about that," remarks the teacher putting air quotes around the word prodigy.

Finn comes up and places his hand on the crystal. The crystal glows a pinkish-purple color and the top number is 5,339,898 and the bottom number is 1,458,969. There are shocked gasps and chattering among the students.

"My oh my, what potential. That's even more mana than I possess in my body. I can see you'll be a great student to teach," says the teacher.

Next Nyx approaches the mana crystal. When he places his hand on it the crystal starts glowing a red color, then large cracks begin forming around it, and bright light pours out of the cracks. Finally, it displays the number 9,999,999+ on top and 9,999,999+ on the bottom of it. Then the crystal glows even more red before exploding everywhere.

Students duck and try to avoid the crystal shard. Afterwards, there is dead silence.

"My god! I've never seen such natural talent! Such skill!" the teacher takes a large swig of the slip slop juice that has somehow reappeared in his hands, "Are you even human?"

"Thankfully not, I'm a demon," replies Nyx. There are several gasps in the room and chatter. Some students quickly try scrambling away from him.

"The rumors are true!" shouts someone in the room.

"You mean the Princess of Darkness really- no, it can't be true!" says another student.

"It's blasphemy! Absolutely disgraceful!" proclaims a student.

The teacher laughs, "Well this is going to be an interesting year! Alright, next we've got Eve Callisto!" he states.

Everyone's eyes fall on me.

Great now I have to follow that act. Whatever, I just need to get a mediocre magic reading. I don't want to be in the elite class anyway, that's where all my death flags are.

The teacher pulls out a new crystal since the old one was destroyed. I place my hand on it and the core of it turns a black color, and it lets out a weird buzz like a provoked hornet. Then the top number 50 appears on it and the bottom number 10 appears below it.

"Oh wow that's real bad kid," says the teacher patting my shoulder, "I've never seen it that low."

.... WTF!!!

How is it this bad??? Ok, I get that Eve gets most of her power from her magical beast side which is separate from mana but I'm sure the Eve in the otome game had more mana than this!!!!

What could've caused this???

Oh no, it's because of the sword necklace I made right? A few years ago I made a necklace with a sword pendant on it that can grow into a real sword at will so I can easily carry a weapon everywhere. Damn me for wasting my mana before knowing my limits! Is that why it's so low now??? I knew the original Eve already had very low mana but this is so bad.

Forget avoiding the elite class! At this rate I won't get into the school at all!

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