★★--Inside the Duke"s castle in s.h.i.+nga City--★★Note: Not from Nara"s point of view
"Lord Goro, we have arranged things at our side but we can"t do anything about the king"s representative," A middle-aged man with brown hair and black beard said to a young man who looked like he was in his late teens.
The young man had blonde hair and a sharp look in his eyes. He looked irritated after hearing the middle-aged man.
"Huh... I am the third son of the duke, I shouldn"t be wasting my time with such silly tests, it is for commoners," The young man who appears to be duke"s son replied.
"Sir, it"s just a show for the king"s representative, you just have to show up there, everything is already set up. If you become a great knight you father will obviously have to make you first in the line of succession," The middle-aged man replied with a wry smile.
"Haa... Whatever... It"s not like any commoner can ever be my equal," said the young man while leaving the room.
★★--Back to the Amigo inn--★★
"Is everyone ready?" Andrew asked.
We had just finished our breakfast and are about to head towards the test venue, the Magic Knight Academy. Today is the test day but since none of us had given the test before we are not sure how it is going to be.
"Umm... Yes but... do you think we will be together during the test."
Marina was the one who asked. Since our numbers were close to one another, it was possible but I am not sure how it works so I replied with "probably".
"I am not very sure since I only have 2 apt.i.tudes and my mana back isn"t that big either but I will try my best," said Nina. She was the type who would worry about not having a natural talent for things but she had remarkable magic control so I think she will be fine.
"If I were you, I wouldn"t worry too much. You have got very good magic control so you will obviously pa.s.s," Ronald said cheering her up.
Ronald was the best one when it came to actual combat among all of them but all of them were not lacking when it comes to talent and skills.
"Can we hurry up now, we will miss the test like this," Sistina said to all of us.
"Okay okay, let"s get going," Arica replied.
"I will take you there, Jabal is going to the horse parking area to see how things are going there but I am free. I am not allowed to get into the academy during the test but I can take you guys up to there," said Andrew.
It was a busy time of the day at the inn so we said our short "bye" to Diane and Ria who replied with "best of luck at the test" and started walking towards the academy.
After a while, we reached the Academy. It was a big castle-like building with a lot of open area behind it. The whole Knight district was filled with various infrastructures to train knights and magicians but Academy had it"s its own set of those infrastructures for its students. It also had a lot of open areas for students to train in combat.
We said our byes to Andrew and went inside the academy gate. Inside it was crowded and had around 500 people who were of similar age as us. We were directed to the hall from the gate. The hall was big and could easily fit all the candidates appearing in the test. There was a speaker-like device that announced the numbers and the ones whose number was called could go into the test room. Three numbers were called at a time. The number had only reached 100s when we got inside the hall so we had to wait for a while.
Everyone was so nervous that we barely talked to one another. There was some noise at the corner so we looked towards it. It was a blonde-haired guy surrounded by some other guys. It looked like they were bullying some demihuman boys but since they looked like n.o.bles, demihuman boys were not reacting to their verbal insults.
After waiting for around 2 hours in the hall it was finally our turn. Arica, Marina and Me were called together first.
When we went inside there were signs where it was written "Knights this way" and "Magicians this way". Arica was giving the test for becoming a knight so she went towards the Knight test section while we went towards the magician test section.
We entered a room where a lady with purple hair was sitting at the table. There was a transparent crystal ball on the table placed over the white cus.h.i.+on. I realized it was the apt.i.tude testing machine that I read so much about.
"Candidates please place your hand on this ball and pa.s.s your mana through it one at a time. The lady there can go first."
Marina did as she said and the colorful glow came out of the ball. The colors were changing between blue, green, and red, which meant she had the apt.i.tude for water, holy, and fire magic.
The lady wrote something on the sheet and asked me to go next. I did as she said and put my hand on the crystal ball and pa.s.sed my mana into it. A rainbow-colored glow appeared from the crystal ball.
I looked at the lady who had a shocked reaction on her face. I said "Madam" to bring her back to reality from the socked state. she didn"t say anything except "oh yeah". The examiners were probably told not to say anything about the results before the end of practical test. She said, "please go through that door" while pointing towards the door at the opposite corner to the one that we came from.
We entered through the door to a room that looked like a target practicing hall. It had a red target drawn on an unusual metal board. The metal was a bit different than normal metal targets, it somewhat looked like a s.h.i.+eld where the target was drawn. There was a lady standing near the white line that was drawn at around 12 meters distance from the target. She had green hair and was wearing a dress that looked like a lab coat.
"Okay, one of you stand in this white line and face towards the target please," she said when she saw us come in.
Marina was going first since her number was before mine. She stood in the white line.
She moved closer to Marina and said, "Please use attack magic on the target in front of you. You can use as much power as you like".
Marina used "fire javelin" which Arica taught her. It was not as good as Arica"s but was not far behind in comparison. After the target was. .h.i.t in the center marina took a long breath of relief. She was probably tensed.
"Next, your turn boy," the examiner lady said looking at me while writing something in the sheet she had, it was probably the scores.
I stood in the white line and used the same amount of mana I used during my fight with the lesser demon in the forest. I couldn"t use more because that may destroy the surroundings and since she said "as much power as I like" I don"t think I need to hold back more than this.
I shot only one "fire javelin", I usually use three of them at the same time but since the target is not big, one will do. It left a small crack at the target but I think they have a lot of spares so it"s probably not a big deal.
"HEEEHHH... the mithril plated s.h.i.+eld," her reaction was odd but she quickly regained her composure and told us to pa.s.s through the door to the other stage writing my score at the sheet of paper.
The next room had a man who was in her thirties. He had well-combed short black hair and was wearing a lab-coat-like dress. Looks like it is the formal dress here at the academy.
When he saw us enter he said, "Now for this test, activate your "mana cloak" and put your hands on this device one at a time."
The device was like a clock but it had only one hand and no numbers in the edge. First when Marina did it the clock hand started rotating like how second"s hand rotated in a.n.a.log clocks in my previous world. Then it was my turn, My mana cloak was always on so I didn"t have to activate it again, I just touched the clock and it started rotating much faster. So fast that it was even hard to see the hand.
After watching the shocked reaction of the instructor here too, we moved to the final stage of the practical test.
For the last test, I needed the first magic that I learned after I came to this world. It was to show the largest amount of mana you can control. Fire magicians mostly preferred fireball to demonstrate that so I did the same.
We had to demonstrate that in the open since it could be dangerous inside and only one candidate could do it at a time. We had to stay inside until we were called to the castle ground. There were different equipments for safety and healing magicians ready in case of an accident. Marina went outside before me and I had to wait until her test was finished. After they called me, I went outside to the demonstration area. Marina had already finished her test before I was called so she probably went outside to the waiting area.
I demonstrated the fireball as big as the one I created in my first try. I could create an even bigger one now but that would be too much.
After I finished demonstrating, they told me to go through the door at the end. It led to the same hall where we were waiting for our number to be called before our test. Arica, Ronald, and Marina were already there so I joined them. And soon Sistina and Nina joined us after finis.h.i.+ng their test. Everyone"s face was bright so they all probably did well too.
The results were going to be announced the same day in the evening since we had the written tomorrow. The ones who pa.s.sed this test could only move to the next stage of the test.
In the evening, the names of the students who can proceed to the next stage were listed without the score on the board. There were only 64 candidates that moved to the next stage from 500 candidates. Luckily we all were on that list.
"Guess our hard work paid off"
"YAY!!!"
we all cheered when we saw the results.
We also got the individual reports with scores from the examiners. The reports shocked everyone who saw them, the scores were:
Nina:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 2, Magic control: 8, Mana bank: 6, Magic skill: 7, Result: Pa.s.s
Arica:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 2, Magic skills: 8, Mana bank: 7, Magic control: 7, Magic Swordsmans.h.i.+p: 6, Result: Pa.s.s
Sistina:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 3, Magic control: 6, Mana bank: 8, Magic skill: 6, Result: Pa.s.s
Marina:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 3, Magic control: 7, Mana bank: 7, Magic skill: 8, Result: Pa.s.s
Ronald:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 2, Magic skills: 8, Mana bank: 7, Magic control: 7, Magic Swordsmans.h.i.+p: 8, Result: Pa.s.s
Nara yan:
Number of Apt.i.tudes: 6, Magic control: 10, Mana bank: 10, Magic skill: 10, Result: Pa.s.s
Next Chapter: Magic Knight Academy Exam - part 2