[Five months before, the day of the entrance test]

 

I looked around and all I could see were people, young teen aged people, everywhere.

It was an entrance test, so I expected to see a crowd. But not on this scale! It's more like a festival out here! I did hear that this academy was the most sought after school for pursuing magic and it is directly affiliated to the Royal Family and on top of that there was a rumor that the students who pass out from this academy are given a job at the Royal Palace, which was a dream come true for me.

 

I made my way to the crowded notice board that had information on the seating arrangements. I glanced at the admit card, in my hand, searching for my symbol number. But let me tell you, trying to find your symbol on a piece of paper on the board that too on this crowd is no less than a challenge.

 

CP735V135

 

I surveyed the board trying to find my number. There was a hustle in the crowd. I was pulled and pushed a lot so much so that I didn't even notice whose hands were pulling or pushing me. The heat coming from the people and the smell of sweat was making things more troublesome. Suddenly I felt a forceful pull by someone; their hand was grabbing the flap of my coat.

'Ouch!'

I heard a feminine voice say; it was a sweet high-pitched voice. I glanced down at the girl who had pulled me. She was short with pink hair and big brown eyes.

'Sorry, it's too crowded' she said, her voice trembling which suggested that she was scared. Well, I can't blame her, it's a terrifying crowd. She tried to lower her head as a sign of an apology, but in this crowd, it only looked like a subtle nod.

'Don't worry about it,'

I said and returned my concentration on finding the symbol. After about five minutes or so which felt like an eternity, At last I found it. Written in fancy cursive handwriting, on a white paper was my name, in bold big writing was my symbol number, room number and desk number.

 

CP735V135 room no. 303, desk no. 21

 

After getting what I wanted, the struggle was to come out from this thick crowd. By the time I came out drops of sweat were slowly dripping down my forehead. The smell was putrid and intoxicating inside that crowd making me almost throw up. So, naturally I exhaled in relief dabbing the sweat off my forehead with a handkerchief.

 

Room no. 303, desk no. 21

 

I repeated in my head. There was a sign at the side of the paved path that read, 'New Students with Seating Information go this way,' with a red arrow pointing towards the building at the end of the path. I kept repeating my room number and desk number to remember as I made a run for the building. The building was simple in design, four-story tall, walls with red brick texture, and with an automated sliding glass entrance door.

 

The building did not look like it could hold more than 300 rooms. Or that was what I thought before I entered inside. The answer that came surprised me. The whole building was one big hall without any stairs or floors, there was a long queue of students in front of what looked like a gigantic portal-like gate in the center of the hall. The gate was a shape of an arc that seemed to be made with grey stones. It had green misty smoke swirling and twirling inside of it. In front of the gate stood a tall, muscular, bald man, probably in his late thirties with a scary expression. He wore black sleeveless jacket as an outer that highlighted his muscular biceps.

 

Boy, don't I wanna piss him off?

 

I made a mental note.

The bald guy was thoroughly checking each students' admit card. I looked at mine to make sure everything was okay. I don't specifically know why but he scared the souls out of me and I did not have a wish to be scolded or worse humiliated for any reason. To my surprise, my admit card now showed my name, symbol number, and amazingly my room number and desk number which was not there before. I felt silly considering how a few minutes ago I was trying to remember it by repeating in my head. It might have been some kind of lock and key spell that altered the card. I pondered. When I found my room number and desk number, perhaps the magic acknowledged that I had the information stored in my memory and so it carved it in the card, making the card, a lock and my memory a key.

Magic truly is fascinating. I thought, gleaming.

 

'Next'

I heard the bald man say, even his voice was deep and terrifying. It did not take him long to verify and one by one the students stepped forward inside the gate. 

 

Very soon, it was my turn, till now no one had been taken out for violation of rules by the bald man. But his appearance and demeanor itself was enough to scare any students who dared to go out of line.

'Card?'

In his deep baritone voice, he asked for my card which I immediately gave. I didn't want to stand in front of the man for a long time. I wanted to scurry off as fast as I could from him. He gave off an aura of fear.

 

He took my card, glanced at it, and waved his hand in front of the misty green gate. Soon the mist began to swirl, twist, and turn, and after some seconds became stagnant again.

 

He gave me my card back and gestured to me to go ahead. I was dreading this moment. I had never set foot across a magical gate before and this was my first. My heart pounded hard against my chest but I gathered up my thoughts and put my right foot forward. I was about to lift up my left foot when suddenly an imaginary force swiftly pulled me inside. I was enveloped around by the green mist. It twirled and swirled as it did before and when I exhaled bubbles came out of my mouth. It was as if I was underwater but the only difference being that I could breathe with ease.

I again felt a pull by the same force and before I knew it I was out of the gate and in a big shady room. It was as if the gate had spat me out like a gum. 

 

I struggled to control my balance and nearly fell down, my body felt heavy like I had just come out of water, I was not wet but my limbs felt heavy. The gate vanished as soon as it had appeared. I let out a sigh and glanced around to see where I was.

 

In front of me was a long table and behind the table, five dark figures were seated. They were all wearing black robes, perhaps it was the lighting but I saw grim expressions on their faces. The room was badly lit and the only light that came inside was from a small circular window that was high above the wall.

 

'Ricardo Dinnar'

An old man in the middle spoke. He was wearing a pointed black hat and had white bushy eyebrows

'Yes, sir' I replied trying to sound as much polite as I could. That old man had wrinkles all over his face, which suggested that he was at least seventy years old or more. His voice on the contrary was deep and husky and he sat in an authoritative posture, which only meant that his status was higher than the rest.

'Are you ready for the test?'

He asked piercing me with deep grey eyes. In this badly lit room, it was very hard not to be intimidated by his look.

'Yes, sir'

And with that began the rapid-fire round of questions. The five black-robed people did not go easy, it was brutal; they were absolutely serious and thorough in their evaluation. If it was some feeble-minded guy, the poor guy would not have a chance against the wisdom giants that stood in front of me. The first few questions were easy ones, like a bone given to a dog to lure him to a trap.

'How many sections and archives are there?'

'There are 7 sections and 5 archives,'

'What are their names?'

'The sections are named after the colors of the rainbow, which are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet in descending order. The archives are named after the five absolute beings Shane, Chaos, Malici, Grimm, and Ceil,'

But then things escalated, as expected it turned into trains of ruthless difficult questions that required satisfactory explanation.

'Explain to us how the activation for Shane archive and Chaos archive is different?'

This question was asked by the old man. My presumption about this old man being a wisdom giant was indeed right on the money. He might easily have been someone who has devoted all his life for the sole purpose of researching magic.

But this was a tricky question. Why? Because it had different answers. Even among the experts in the field of magic, the activation of archives is a hot topic for debate. Thus, there was a series of hypotheses in this regard. The key to success lies in giving the hypothesis that the old man believes in.

I took a deep breath and made up my mind.

'Almost all activation requires intense visualization of the effect of spells to be performed but each archive has different spells meant for different purposes. In this case, Shane archive requires the caster to visualize the law rather than the object but for Chaos archive, the caster is required to visualize the effect. So, it can be said that the difference is in visualizing cause and effect,'

After I finished giving my explanation, I could see the old man's eyes lit up a little which meant that I hit the nail. If I am not wrong, then the purpose of this question was not to test the knowledge on the archives but rather to test the candidate on his observational skills. Closely observing the opponent and finding out his weakness is among the most valuable skill a magician needs to possess. Information and execution is the key to victory and to gain reliable information shrewd observation and analysis is crucial.

Thus, by closely observing the old man and his "little" behaviors till now, I could make up my mind on which hypothesis to answer.

'Alright, that concludes the oral round, now we'll begin the combat round,'

The old man announced.

'Yes, sir'

I had expected this situation too. You see, in this world, no matter how many spells you learn, there is a limit to holding magical spells. The spells that we learn are carved into our soul in a special place called Soul Slot and the limit of Soul Slot to store the spell is only 6.

We can learn spells as much as we want and those spells are carved into our memory, but to execute those spells we need to store it into the six Soul Slots. And the process of storing the spells into the Soul Slot is called Editing. Editing the spells in our Soul Slot requires a lot of time and concentration, so if you want to be prepared for a battle you need to think about which spells to equip and which spells to discard.

The combat ability is an important factor to test future reliable magicians. The key to success depends on the preparedness of the candidate as well as his magic potential.

Fortunately, I had predicted that this situation would come up so, I was prepared for it.

'Okay then, Kalinga,'

The old man directed his glance towards a man who was seating silently all this time on the right end.

'Yes sir,' he replied in monotone and grabbed his staff.

The staff was made of wood, in fact, it looked like a broken tree branch, with finger-like projections on the top holding a silvery circular orb.

[Summon: Hikki]

The man with the staff cast a summoning spell. A huge purplish magic circle formed on the floor with me in the middle. The circle glowed illuminating the darkroom in purplish light. The light was so intense that I had to cover my eyes.

'Kufufu'

I heard a high pitched chortle. I sensed that someone with huge power and without a doubt dangerous had appeared.

'Who is this young man?'

The busty female who was summoned spoke in her high pitched voice. She was beautiful and mature and was wearing quite revealing purple dress.

'Hello, my name is Ricardo Dinnar; nice to meet you miss,'

I introduced myself, trying to sound calm and confident but in reality, I was confused out of my wits. I had absolutely not expected such development.

'Ooh, he is brave to be able to speak so calmly in front of me,'

'Hikki, we summoned you here to test this boy's combat ability,'

The old man explained.

So her name is Hikki. Wait, what!

'Kufufu, is that so?'

She looked at me with sadistic eyes.

'Hold on, you mean I have to fight her?'

'Yes boy, in fact, you need to defeat her,'

The old man answered as if it was the natural thing.

I am dead! I am so gonna die!

Denying was futile and refusing would cost me my admission. I was trapped. I sighed.

I looked around the room again; it was big, so big that it could have been called a hall or an auditorium. I had not noticed it before but the long table where the five black-robed men sat had a number 21 carved on its front. The table looked like a block of rectangular wood.

'So, are you ready, a young boy?'

The woman named Hikki licked her lips. Clearly, she was enjoying this turn of events much more than me.

I calmed myself down and gathered my thoughts.

It's now or never! Carpe Diem!

I took out my wand from the inside of my coat's pocket. I had fashioned this wand myself spending about two months on perfecting it and about two years on searching for the materials to make it. It was the finest thing I had ever made and I was very very proud of it.

'Ooh, is that your cargon, a stick?'

Cargon is the name given to the magical device that helps the caster cast spells. I was also confused when I first heard my father say it when I showed him this wand.

'Umm, yeah, I made it myself,'

I gave a big smile.

She stared at me for a while, her eyes rolled from my face to the wand.

'Ahahahaha, I have never seen a boy, this proud of himself just because he managed to make a fancy little stick,'

Hikki mocked me.

Okay, now she's really starting to get on my nerves. Man! I wish I had some fighting experience. And to think my first fight is with that!

'Oye, oye, I get a feeling that you just thought something rude about me?'

Hikki narrowed her eyes.

Wait, she can read thoughts! No, that must not be it. If she could read thoughts, she would have killed me when I first saw her.

'Get ready, boy, your nightmare starts now!'

Yep, she can read thoughts and I am gonna die! I better prepare myself!