They all stared at her in confusion. Andromeda wasn’t aware of something else being planned, and by the look of the rest, no one else was either.

“May I ask what it is we are doing?” Alice asked.

“It is a new part that the headmaster insisted that we include a practical. Though he wasn’t with us today, his word is law in this institution.” Evelin said.

“By practical, how do you mean?” Rigur asked.

“We would like to see a practical display of your mystical abilities and techniques. There is no penalty to not doing so, but it is something we ask you to at least try.” She said.

Andromeda was silently panicking. She already said that she was a novice, nothing she could do could possibly stand up to what they could accomplish. Mending was the most basic kind of magic.

“Seeing as how this is a less than traditional affair, I don’t think there is any reason we need to go in any particular order. Does anybody wish to go first?” Evelin asked.

They looked between each other and no one seemed keen on it. But after some umming and urring, Rigur offered to go first. His reasoning being that he was the first to go during the introductions, as well as being the oldest among the group.

He asked for several plants to be brought to him. The best the staff could do on short notice was a series of potted plants and a large planted fern. He didn’t seem content with this, but continued anyway. With a temporary table set in front of him, and several plants arrayed in front of him, he lifted his hand.

The air in the room was instantly filled with the smell of pollen and rain. The flowers grew to enormous size, easily larger than any single person in the room, the one rose that had yet to bud bloomed into a massive and multicolored spiral pattern.

The staff started to get concerned about the size of it, because after only a minute it had grown nearly to the ceiling. Then with a simple wave of his hand the plants all poofed into a cloud of dust, which evaporated as it reached the ground, leaving the scent of spring in the air. Sitting on the tables were the same flowers just as they were before they were altered. Everyone was amazed besides Evelin, who likely knew of this technique owing to her vice principal position.

“This is the “Phantasmal Growth'' technique. It will promote several years of growth in a moment via illusionary magic. Its purpose is to examine what a plant will do before it grows fully, so that the caretaker may know what to fix and account for in its care.” He said.

He bowed and returned to the crowd.

Illusionary magic? That was pretty self-explanatory as for what it was. Illusions created from magic. That might be something she could look into in the future… You never know when you need to see something that isn’t there.

Next was Alice.

She wanted to demonstrate Divination for her peers as soon as she could, but wasn’t sure what was expected before Rigur did it. Now that she had an idea, she was excited to start.

She didn’t need any materials for her, she simply stood at the far end of the room, playfully covered her eyes, and turned her back to them.

“I’ll be using Clairvoyance to answer several questions. Somebody raised their hand, but only one.” She said.

They looked between each other. They all motioned for Grant to raise his hand, so he did.

“Grant raised his right hand, his pointer finger outstretched.” She said.

He put his hand down, and the moment he did.

“Grant put his hand down and put his arms behind his back.” She said.

They all looked to see that he had done exactly that. There was a round of applause.

“Next, I’ll be using Prescience.” Alice said. She called over two staff members, and they rushed to her side. She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket in her dress and handed it to one of the staff, then she leaned over and whispered something into the ear of the other.

The first staff member briskly jogged to the group and handed the handkerchief to Andromeda.

“I asked the first man to give the handkerchief to whoever he wanted, and I have already informed the other to my right who I believe got it. If he would be so kind as to say what my guess was.” She said.

“It was Lady Noelle that Lady Magrisal suggested would receive it.” He said.

She was two for two on her perception. Andromeda wasn’t sure exactly how impressive this was to the others, but it was amazing to her that Alice could basically predict the future.

“My last will be dowsing.” She said

She pulled a single playing card from her pocket and turned around.

“I will need a volunteer for this. Andromeda, could you assist me?” She asked.

“Sure.” Andromeda said. She walked over to where Alice was and waited for instructions.

“Wait here.” She said. Then she walked to the other side of the room, nearly to the massive double doors.

“Hold your hand outstretched, palm facing up.” She said. Andromeda did and Alice readied the card in her hand. She flicked it with her wrist and the card when flying through the air. It flew through every corner of the hall in a wide circle, then it started circling over Andromeda’s head in a shrinking spiral until it did a dainty half spin that removed all momentum it still had. Then it slowly floated down to her hand like a leaf falling from a tree.

Andromeda and everyone else were taken aback at the display. For every moment the card flew through the air, it felt chaotic and controlled at the same time. If you hadn’t known better, you would believe she was controlling its path through the air willingly.

Both returned to their place in the group and deliberations started again. Albert and Grant were both apprehensive about going next. Albert wasn’t sure if either of his specialties were viable in a closed room, and Grant’s techniques required preparation beyond what could be brought to him on short notice. It was decided that it would be best to have them both perform at a later time after they made some preparations.

That left Andromeda as the last to demonstrate.

Everyone already had an idea of her ability from her reputation as the Mending Mage, so it was likely they wouldn’t be all that impressed by her abilities. She really wanted to wow them, so this had to be something they weren’t going to expect.

She couldn’t show them the healing, they were already exceedingly understanding about her situation, that would be pushing it far too hard right now.

So she had to do something with mending, but she only knew how to mend normally. She had only just heard about Refutei Mending, But she hadn’t reached the practical part of the textbook.

There was no harm in trying, If it failed, she could just mend something normally. As a matter of fact, there was no reason not to do both.

“You already know that I can mend, and that I’m only just okay with it. So I wanted to try something for the first time. Here and now. I read about Refutei before I came in here, so I wanted to try it and see if I can do it.” She said.

“You read about it?” Albert asked.

“Yeah, I have no idea what the proper method for it is. I’ll just take a wild swing and see if I can get it.” She said.

What she didn’t know was that the other students were silently baffled by her statement. They were aware of the reflexes, but to a novice it would be unspeakably difficult to inflect them, if at all possible.

They didn’t say anything on the off chance that they somehow misunderstood her statement, As unlikely as that seemed right now.

“Does anyone have something on hand they don’t mind me breaking. If it's already broken, that’s alright too.” Andromeda asked.

One of the staff mentioned that there was a teacup that was broken while they were moving the tables. Andromeda accepted it and had it brought to her.

“First, I’ll just mend it normally. Just to warm up.” She said.

She picked up the cup, which at this point was only just chipped, and threw it to the ground. Everyone around her gasped at the sudden destruction, especially the staff who were bothered by the sudden cleaning they needed to do.

Then she leaned over and picked up a small splinter that was resting near her feet.

They all waited for the normal procedure for mending, a careful consideration of its flow and the like. But instead, the cup just nearly instantly reformed in her hand. Before anyone could internalize this, she threw it to the ground again. Instead of leaning over to pick it up, she just lifted her hand vaguely in the diction of the mess, then it formed perfectly yet again sitting on the ground.

Once again, she didn’t even wait a moment before reaching down to pick up the cup again. This time she didn’t simply just drop it, she threw it at the farthest wall away from her and the rest of the staff and lifted her hand in its vague direction again. This time, instead of forming on the ground where it crashed, it formed again in her hand.

She did all of this in quick succession, not even a minute had passed

“Alright, sorry about that, I had to get it out of my system, my chest has been killing me since I woke up this morning.” She said. Completely oblivious to the state she just left her fellow students, Evelin, and all the surrounding staff who were watching.

“I’ll try it now.” She said.

Refutei was like freezing water. That was the idea, right?

If reflexes worked anything like regular mana flow logic, then she just needed to imagine it.

She picked up the teacup and focused on it. She did her normal steps of visualizing the flow and all that, but diverged from the water idea. She got right up to the idea of the hypothetical river being turned into a stream, but instead of water, she imagined frozen ice filling the creek bed.

She felt her hands get cold, not physically, but internally. They felt cold and sluggish.

In her hand, the tea cup seemed to be the same, but as she held it, there was a cold aura that permeated it.

As an experiment, she dropped it once more. When it hit the ground, it shattered like expected, but the moment of contact caused it to start glowing with an ethereal blue light. On the ground, the pieces of the cup started drawing toward each other. Over the course of a minute they crawled together and the broken seems knitted themselves back together.

She picked it back up and dropped it again, this time before it even hit the ground it started glowing. When it did hit the ground it didn’t even shatter, it bounced across the floor several times before coming to a stop.

Andromeda walked over and picked it up. For the first time since she started, she finally looked back to the rest of the group and saw them in various states of shock.

“That’s all I got.” She said. Unaware of what she had done.

-----

It was a few hours later, they were all dismissed to their rooms to set them in order. When her room was assigned to her, she was given several options on how it should be furnished while she was gone. Her choice was practical and simple, just some shelves, tables, and other supplies, if she needed anything else then she would ask for it later. Her only request was that she didn’t want any hired help, which caused a bit of a stir among the general staff. It seemed that they took on extra bodies specifically for her, only to not be needed.

Andromeda sat on her new bed. The pain in her chest was mostly gone, she had done a few more rounds of mending once she got settled in, and it took the edge off. She was starting to realize that her using magic wasn’t just something that she could do, it was something that she needed to do. It was concerning how she seemed emotionally invested in the use of magic, but she was assured that it wasn’t addictive by nature.

Her mind was drawn to earlier. It was only after she finished her mending demonstration that she got a proper perspective on what she had done.

Her ability to mend was extraordinary according to the others, even Evelin. She performed several apparently advanced techniques at speeds that no one thought possible, all the while it seemed like she never once felt the effects of depleted mana. All of this was news to her, up to this point she thought that what she was doing was normal and average.

As she thought about it, it made more sense why she was taken notice of by Ferdinand. There was the whole “healing” thing as well, and that was the primary reason, but the fact that she could mend at that level of ability with no issues meant that she was far and away more impressive then she originally thought. She didn’t even know that mending had different techniques.

Not only that, but she used Refutei Mending on her first try, with barely an understanding of it at all. That was beyond “advanced”, that was inexplicable.

She didn’t get a clear view on how they felt about what they saw besides utter shock. Rigur, Albert and Grant seemed just plain surprised to see it, but Alice seemed to be even more shocked than they were. Evelin also seemed surprised, but something was upsetting her as well. She had the same look of concern when she saw Andromeda the first time.

That was bothering her the most. Everyone else was giving her a wide berth at worst, but Evelin was specifically afraid of her. She would have to look into this once she was rested and ready.

She had some serious studying to do, and she needed to do it quickly.