A few minutes later, the examination was on its way as everyone was seated in an arrangement was spaced one meter from each other in all directions. Then the room fell silent, which was broken with the sound of people writing down their answers on the provided paper.
Among them, there was one person that was not writing and instead was perusing through the papers. Theodore was slowly checking through each and every single question to not miss a single one and to make sure he did not misunderstand anything. Finally, he closed the papers and set them down on the desk while letting out a sigh.
“This is easy,” he thought to himself in a wry voice. “This is too easy for me in fact. I’m honestly surprised. Was the exam meant to be this easy? I wonder how the others are doing, especially Edna?”
Edna was seated next to his and that made him wish that he could check on her. However, the rest of their group members, Floreta and Stella, were not seated around them. During the seating arrangement, the examiners separated all of the team members to take seats far away from their group members except for the very few that ended up seated next to each other.
“Still, there’s this thing to worry about,” he thought and tilted his head to look at candle stick.
As soon as he took his seat, the candle floated down and landed gently on the left top corner of the desk. There it stayed, burning with a strong life while showing no symptoms of melting.
“I Still find it hard to believe there’s an anti0cheat mechanism placed by the academy. Did the Human Race advance that far without my knowledge? For that matter, how exactly does it detect that we’re cheating?”
Theodore was curious to figure out the workings of the anti-cheat candle stick, but he knew that was not the right time. As the examiners said it, the candle burns brightly and will not melt once bit, but it will cut itself into smaller bits each time it feels we have cheated until it explodes, possibly knocking us unconscious.
“But the crux of the matter is that the entire group fails if even one of us fail. That is most annoying,” he thought to himself in annoyance. Then he chuckled and thought, “At least, it won’t have any bearings on us considering how easy the exam is for me that I think it should be for the others.”
Just as he thought that, he heard Edna mutter from beside him, “Damn. Why is this question so hard?”
“Huh?” He reacted with surprise and wanted to glance to look at her.
As he was about to do so as he momentarily forgot about the anti-cheat candle stick, someone suddenly yelped, “What the heck?! How did this happen?!”
Everyone was startled by the shout and one of the examiners got off their chairs and went to speak to the student that raised their voice. Observing quietly, Theodore soon learned that the student’s candle stick had lost two of its sticks without him noticing.
“I didn’t cheat! I swear!” The student insisted.
The examiner clearly did not believe his words and coolly asked, “Were you glancing around?”
“Um…” the student began hesitantly, to which the examiner could only chuckle.
“You see, the candle sticks are to stop you from doing silly things like that. Even if you were innocently glancing around, it’s still not advisable to do it in such an important exam.”
“S-Still,” began the student in protest.
“Also, the rules for the anti-cheat were set by none other than the Magic Titan,” the examiner explained, which shocked everyone there. “She dedicated quite a bit of time to perfect the anti-cheat candle sticks, so you can rest assured that there was no error in the candle’s judgement of you choosing to cheat or merely glancing around out of curiosity.”
“B-But… I wasn’t cheating…” the man said weakly in a defeated voice.
The examiner smiled and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder before returning to his seat. Theodore watched the poor student slump sadly in his chair before turning to look at his candle.
“So, even glancing around innocently is also considered to be cheating?” He thought before smiling. “I guess that makes sense considering one could accidentally see the answers on a sheet by sheer coincidence.”
Then he turned to the depressed student and gave him a silent prayer while thinking, “Thank you for your sacrifice. I almost glanced at Edna and nearly took one out of my candle. So, thank you, and I wish you to do well in the exam.”
With nothing else to do, Theodore opened the question paper and began to answer all of them. They were fairly easy, but he figured out that exam was indeed hard for many others judging by the remark Edna made earlier. So, he decided to fulfil the mission requirement of him to keep a low profile and just get a decent score in the exam.
During the exam, he picked up the glass filled with water on his desk a few times and gulped it down quickly before setting it down. Within a matter of seconds of him setting the empty glass down when it magically began refilling itself up until it was full once more. Theodore merely smiled at this simple magic on the glass before resuming to do his exam.
An hour later, he was all completed and thought, “All done… but… what do I do now?”
Theodore was tempted to look around at how the others were doing as he felt boredom.
“On second thought, not being able to even look around sucks,” he thought to himself dully. “It’s so boring just to look blankly at my completed paper. Amaranda, you made it too sensitive. Seriously.”
Once again, he felt silent and looked in boredom at his paper before thinking, “Damn. I can’t just sit here and play with my fingers till the exam ends now, can I?”
While mulling over what he might do to kill time, he got a sudden thought and smiled cheekily. He did not feel like sleeping and instead wished to explore around without having to leave his seat. This got him to think of the perfect spell that he would let him do that, but the obstacle for it was the anti-cheat candle stick.
“I’m sure this thing was made in a way so that it cannot be overpowered and cannot be deceived by a simple spell. It’ll also probably explode on you if you use a powerful spell,” he thought to himself as he quietly observed the candle with a thoughtful look. “Which means that any and all ordinary means of using magic is useless.”
He sighed wearily and muttered, “Everything has a loophole. It just has to exist.”
Theodore sat there thinking deeply about how to fool the candle stick without getting caught. He trying thinking of the various magic methods that he was aware of. Suddenly, he thought of one method that he felt sure that the Magic Titan overlooked when creating the anti-cheat magic.
So, he reopened the test papers and turned to the last page where it was completely blank. Then he poked his forefinger sharply with the pen, causing a small wound to open in his finger. Unfazed by the injury, he began to write with his own blood on the blank piece of paper.
“Spirits of Light and Darkness, heed my humble request and release my astral self. Outer Spirit.”
Once he finished writing, he began to chew on the small injury and tapped the written text in blood with his other finger and muttered, “Elemental Spirits, please help me.”
For his plan to work, he needed the assistance from the Elemental Spirits. Since this was the Astral Academy, many different kinds of Elemental Spirits take residence and was able to sense many of them circling the room and observing them as they did the exam. So, he was hoping for them to notice his request for help and would provide it.
Theodore remained in the position while pointing at the magic words written in blood when it happened.
“Woah!” He exclaimed as his Astral Form exited his body and floated into the air. Seeing his body moved into a sleeping position on the desk, he grinned and said, “Yes! It worked! It actually worked!”
“Pe. Pe. Pe.”
Hearing the sounds, he turned and saw several red, blue and green spirits floating. They were very small and could easily fit into his hand. They were moving excitedly around him.
“Thank you so much, Elemental Spirits!” He thanked them for their help.
“Pe. Pe. Pe.”
Those were the sounds the Elemental Spirits made as they circled around him with happiness. Their language was hard to understand, but it was an easy thing to do for those who knew the Spirit Language.
“Ah. You helped because you sensed my sincerity to not cheat and I was just?” He asked in amazement. As the spirits danced around him as if nodding to him while making the same “Pe” sounds, he grinned and said, “Nothing escapes the foresight of the Elemental Spirits. Still, I am grateful for you to do this for me. I really do.”
Now that his physical body was sleeping on his desk, Theodore began to fly around the room and he was followed by the other spirits as they were curious to see what he wanted to do. They observed him glancing at how the others were doing, remarking that many of the students were struggling in doing the exam while praising some, such as Floreta and Stella for making good progress on theirs.
When he saw Edna sighing and looking tired, he hovered over her and placed a hand on her shoulder while saying encouragingly, “You can do it. I know you can.”
While in his Astral Form, he cannot be seen, heard, or be touched. However, there were some odd instances of him being sensed whenever he touched them. Edna happened to be one of those individuals that somehow feel his touch and just like always, she winced and appeared to be startled.
“Oops,” he said with a cheeky smile, “but that should relax her mind. Hopefully.”
He watched her shake his head resume writing the writing with renewed energy. Smiling, he turned and was amazed to see that there was another student who had their head on the desk as if they were sleeping.
“Lustre?” He asked, flying over to him and landing in front of his desk.
Theodore looked down at the desk and noticed that everything was in the same place as when the examiner had placed them. In fact, it looked like the Magic Titan’s pupil had moved their aside so that he could lay his head on the desk and sleep.
Walked around to see his face, the young man saw Lustre sleeping silently with a warm smile on his face.
“Having a good dream, are we?” Theodore asked him, but no response came as expected. This caused the young man to sigh and say, “Lustre, come on. Why aren’t you answering any of the questions and sleeping so peacefully?”
Once again, there was no response as the other person could not hear him. Theodore momentarily forgot this as he was concerned that his group might fail while the others were doing their best to get great marks in the exam.
So, he knelt down to look him in the face and said, “Everyone in the group is doing their best. You should do the same. Just think what everyone would think of you. No. Scratch that. Just imagine how badly the Magic Titan’s reputation would get hit because of your bad marks?”
As if in response to his words, Lustre opened his eyes and startled Theodore.
“Woah!” The young man exclaimed and leaned back, only to end up tripping and passing through the desk next to the Magic Titan’s pupil.
For a moment, it looked like Lustre was looking straight into Theodore’s eyes before he raised his head off the desk and drew the papers closed to him. Then he opened them, picked up the pen and began to answer them.
Theodore watched him doing his exam in amazement before asking, “Um…? Did he… look at me?”
He directed his question to the Elemental Spirits next to him, who shook their heads and made the same “Pe” sounds as before.
“Really? You sure he couldn’t see or hear me? Because, it seemed like he looked straight at me and even heard what I said,” replied Theodore as he looked back uncertainly at Lustre, who was in the middle of answering a question.
Theodore remained hovering there and watched in amazement at the quick pace Lustre was answering each question. All of a sudden, the Elemental Spirits began making frantic “Pe!” sounds. This alerted Theodore as he too sensed an ominous aura coming from outside and wondered aloud, “What the heck is that?”
Theodore senses an ominous aura coming from somewhere nearby. What could this be? Find out next time as the new legend seeks to find out!
