The technique evaluation was put on a short pause while the association worked to fix the pocket dimension. The audience was completely fine with it, since it gave them more time to go crazy over Lina ranking first.

Amy squeezed her sister tight.

“Owhh. I’m so proud of you! I think you have more legendaries than I do!”

Lina welcomed the embrace. The rush of emotions within her may have caused her to be just a little bit more brazen than usual.

“Thank you! You’re all... too kind.”

Sin ruffled Lina’s hair.

“That’s what friends are for! Now...” She formed a devious grin, “Tell me more about this golem of yours.”

Maya and Tullian nodded enthusiastically as they wanted to hear more about it as well.

Rai hated golems. His aunt tried to teach him about golemancy when he was younger, but he refused so much that she eventually just gave up trying. But if Lina’s golem was this strong... then maybe golemancy would be worth at least trying to learn about.

Lina looked back at her sister for a second.

“Amy... you know that spell that mum and dad taught us together?”

“Yeah... what about it?”

“... I turned it into a golem.”

Amy stared at her sister blankly for a moment.

“... I’m sorry, WHAT?!”

Lina giggled at Amy’s incredulous reaction.

“Yep. I managed to do it!”

Amy took multiple deep breaths. She stomped over to her sister and grabbed her face with both hands.

“You’re incredible.”

Lina stared back into her sister’s mismatched eyes. She blushed a touch as she hugged her sister.

There was one thing that Rai didn’t quite understand though.  

“How does that work? You said you turned a spell into a golem, but I don’t get how that makes sense.” Rai asked.

Feris yelled over to Rai from his seat, which he’d instantly returned to after the celebration.

“It’s golemancy 101 dipshit. Go read a book and you’ll figure it out.”

Lina stifled a giggle.

“He’s right... it’s a... simple thing. But stronger spells are harder to turn into golems. It’s probably easier to figure it out yourself later. I’m not good at explaining...”

“Don’t worry about it for now. Leave learning for later and focus on celebrating.” Sin whispered to Rai.

Rai nodded. Sin and Lina were right. He could always ask again another time after learning the basics for himself.

A voice, similar to the one from earlier, boomed throughout the auditorium.

“The pocket dimension has been fixed. Can the next student, Amy Reen, please make their way to the testing ground! I repeat, can Amy Reen make their way to the testing ground!”

Lina hugged Amy.

“You’ll do great! I’m rooting for you!”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best!”

She turned and pointed at Tullian after Lina let her go.

He tilted his head at her quizzically.

Amy stood, triumphant.

“If you have more legendaries than me, then I’ll... I’ll... Uh...” She started blushing, “... I’ll figure something out!”

Tullian realised what she was saying. He smirked as he accepted the bet, even though he didn’t quite know what the reward for winning was.

“You’re on! The same goes for you. If you have more legendaries than me, then I’ll give you a single favour! For free! It can be anything, as long as I can actually do it!”

“... Anything?” Amy’s heart fluttered at the possibilities.

“Of course! I’m a man of my word!”

“Then... Then I’ll do the same for you if you win. One favour, free of charge! Same conditions!”

“Can’t wait to call in my favour!” Tullian acted as if he’d already won.

“We’ll see... Just be ready to do what I tell you to! Better leave room in that lap of-”

Sin walked over and grabbed Amy’s shoulders, which interrupted her final line, and caused her to make a surprised ‘eep!’ sound. Sin then turned Amy around and manually walked her to the stairs.

Once they were near the stairs and away from their friends, Sin let go of her.

“You’re gonna miss your time slot if you keep trying to flirt with that brick wall. Emphasis on trying, by the way.”

“Fine fine fine. But I promise that one day he’ll be mine!” Fortunately they were by now out of earshot form their friends. Otherwise Amy wouldn’t have spoken such words.

“Just keep at it. He’s a bit dense, but you two will be great together if he actually realises what’s right in front of him. Phew. Anyway, focus on your evaluation now. Go on, we’ll be cheering for you!”

Amy smiled as she gave Sin a quick hug.

“Thank you Sindyl!”

She made her way down the stairs.

The examiner walked over to Amy with her clipboard in hand.

“Amy of the Reen family?”

“That’s me! I’m Amy, not to be confused with my twin Lina who had her evaluation just before mine.”

“You two do very much look alike. You have an incredibly talented sister; I hope you know that.”

Amy was always prideful of Lina. The two of them were practically inseparable.

“Yep! She’s so awesome!”

“So, let’s talk about your evaluation now. Would you like to do it in the pocket dimension or out here?”

Lina pointed at the portal.

“In there please! You see, me and my friends are hosting a tournament, and we can’t show each other our techniques, so we’re all going to go into the portal and do our evaluations away from the prying eyes of the rest of the students since you know it’s really bad if everyone sees our techniques, especially the ones that we’re going to be going against in the tournament, you know how it is.”

Amy held the examiner’s shoulder with a wide grin.

The examiner could swear that this was a fever dream. How did two girls, who were literally twins, have personalities that were the polar opposite of one another. It was somewhat incredible.

Regardless, she wasn’t there to study psychology. She was there to evaluate these students’ techniques.

“Right... Let’s get going then.”

The examiner wrote it down on her clipboard and gestured for Amy to follow her. She signalled for the analysts to go through the portal.

Amy followed her in.

She looked around at the room. Amy was nothing short of amazed.

“Woah! It’s like this big box with lots of white panels and that big orb in the middle like the one outside and the training dummy like the one outside! There’s even analysts here like the ones outside!”

The examiner sighed. She knew that this was going to be a long evaluation.

“... Just give me a moment and then we’ll get started.”

“Okay!”

Amy started bouncing hyperactively.

After sorting out the defence mechanisms and making sure that they were as robust as necessary following the previous evaluation, the examiner returned to Amy.

“We’ll start off by having you pour your mana into that orb. It’ll be just like in your entrance exam. The mana will go into the orb, then get analysed, then it’ll return entirely to you.”

Amy let out a satisfied grunt and shot the examiner a thumbs up. This was a gesture that she’d seen Tullian do multiple times, and now she’d started doing it.

The examiner was incredibly confused, but she wasn’t getting paid enough to figure it out, so she let the girl be.

Amy walked over to the orb and placed her palm against the cool glass. She let her mana flow into it.

Soon after her mana was analysed, it returned to her.

Amy went back to the examiner and waited patiently.

The examiner was shocked. The girl in front of her was staying quiet? She couldn’t believe it.

“Do I have something on my face? Why are you staring?” She started slapping her face to get rid of the object that was definitely on her face.

“No no no! Your face is fine. I’m sorry, I got caught up in my own thoughts. Ahem. Let’s move on.” She took a deep breath, “Do you want to test just a few of your techniques or all of them?”

“Just a few pleeeease!”

“Do you have any enhancement type spells?”

“NOPE! But I do have my divine form, which I’m gonna cast the spells with. There’s no point not doing it since I’m always gonna use my divine form in combat anyway right, so I might as well.”

“Okay... Do your spells have names? It’s fine if they don’t.”

“No they do not. Why would I bother naming my techniques when I can just... actually it makes sense to name them since it helps with thinking about them clearly, so I’ll name them at some point!”

“Uh-huh. In that case, you can begin right away by casting your techniques on the training dummy over there.” She pointed at the training dummy.

“Really?! Alrighty, I’ll get started then.”

She entered her divine form.

A Siren. It was just like her sister’s, except her hair and eyes shone bright with the glory of Zenith’s twin suns. They commanded the colourless room with a vibrant gold aura. Her hair disobeyed logic as it floated behind her unnaturally in the same way that Lina’s did.

Amy smiled softly to herself for a moment. She’s the moon, and I’m the suns. Thank you, mum and dad.

She shook her head lightly so she could focus. Amy walked over to the training dummy and prepared to cast her techniques.

The examiner and analysts were amazed at the beauty of these twins’ divine forms. They were both incredible. Each of them carried their own unique presence and they were both marvels to behold.

That, however, didn’t change that the examiner found Amy to be exhausting.

Amy had practically zoned everything else out. She decided to begin with her buff spell. Her voice came out as a short, soothing, melody.

Haste!

The examiner looked at the data collected by the dummy on the screen in front of her. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The numbers on the screen were absurd. The potency of Amy’s haste buff was... easily enough to smash through legendary tier.

Amy looked over at the examiner from where she stood beside the dummy. “Should I use the next one?”

“Yeah! Whenever you’re ready!”

Amy prepared her next spell.

It was the healing spell that she used on Rai when he managed to somehow hurt himself. Except this time, she would leave out the ‘miserable’ part of the incantation. That only fit last time because Rai truly looked miserable.

Amy pointed her hand at the dummy and spread her fingers out towards it. Her voice was beautiful and serene as it wisped through the air.

O maris vires. Sana hanc animam.

The dummy became encased in a soft gold hue. Shortly after, the data went through.

The analysts just wouldn’t stop discussing these numbers. The examiner was just as blown away. She knew that Aether Academy would have a few geniuses every year that would come in with multiple legendaries in their first evaluations... it wasn’t exactly new to her. But this was absurd. She’d never seen this many incredible utility focused spells breach through legendary in the Academy students’ first evaluations. However, it was also true that none of the ones in the past were this focused on healing and defensive techniques. Most of them were only interested in getting more powerful to do damage... not to save others.

The examiner was glad that the twins were the kind of students at the top this time. It bode well for Zenith’s future.

Amy looked back over for confirmation again.

The examiner gave it to her with a nod.

Amy let out a sigh of relief. She was ready to cast her next spell.

Amy aimed her hand at the dummy again. This time, she closed her eyes and began whispering a long incantation.

The analysts paid attention. Long incantations normally meant the spell was complicated, which often suited legendary spells well.

Amy opened her eyes. She’d finished the incantation. A wave of fiery energy passed through the room as she finished casting. It was strange though... the spell had nothing to do with fire at all.

A ball of golden flowing water encased the dummy. Runes lined the surface of the water as it flowed around and around its spherical shape.

What made this spell interesting to the analysts was that it wasn’t simply cast on the dummy, but it was duplicated on Amy. That, coupled with the fire attribute attached to a water attribute spell, made for impressed analysts.

The examiner was amazed at how coherent these spells were. They all had some kind of incredible healing, shielding, or supportive power in general.

Amy withdrew the barrier once the examiner gave the go-ahead. She trotted over to the examiner and analysts.

“That’s all for now. What were their tiers?”

They smiled at her. The examiner pointed at the portal. “I think you’re the type to appreciate a bit of surprise.”

“You got that right!”

Amy withdrew her Siren form and followed them through.

The examiner pointed at the ranking board.

“You’ll show up there any second now.”

Amy waited patiently as she watched the board.

After half a minute, her name appeared.

Amy allowed herself just a moment of silent joy. Which, of course, wasn’t all that silent as the audience was going crazy over another top 5 placement.

She came second.

Amy’s name was written out in bright gold letters, and there was the number ‘3’ beside her star.

Amy let out a happy squeal and did a twirl on the spot. She then looked over at her friends.

They were all cheering for her. Lina especially was jumping on the spot and cheering wildly for her sister.

She quickly turned and bowed to the examiner and analysts.

“Thank you.”

They gave her a nod as she turned and ran up the stairs to be with her friends.

Amy ran over to them and screamed. The gesture was returned by most of them. Feris simply let out an uninspired monotone “woooo” as he limply pumped his loose fist into the air.

Just like for Lina, they got together into a group hug and jumped around for joy.

Amy was so very happy.

But her joy would be short lived.

The next time slot was here.

Tullian smiled at his friends.

“It’s time. Wish me luck you guys!”

“Good luck!” Rai shouted.

Sin shot him a thumbs up. “You’ll do great!”

Maya smacked his back, which was surprisingly able to move him.

“Knock ‘em dead tiger!” She said.

Lina gave him two thumbs up and a very determined expression.

Amy blushed a touch. She hugged Tullian tight. Amy whispered as she looked up at him from his chest.

“I want that favour... but I want you to do your best, okay?”

Tullian looked at her. He hadn’t really thought about it before, but Amy was incredibly pretty. Especially in that moment, Tullian thought she was beautiful. He started to blush. In a gesture that wasn’t entirely like Tullian, he brushed his hair back.

“I’ll do my best. For you.”

Amy’s eyes widened. Huh?! Since when could he talk like that?

“Hahaha. I meant to say ‘for the favour I’ll steal from you’! Haha.”

Amy’s eyes narrowed. That’s more like him...

She let him go.

Amy turned back to sit in her seat, when she saw Sindyl staring at her.

Sin held two thumbs up at Amy enthusiastically. She huffed and puffed air out of her nostrils like a bull.

Amy giggled at the funny image.

She sat back in her seat and prepared herself.

The outcome of Tullian’s evaluation would be crucial for her plans.

Tullian took a moment to mentally prepare himself. It was now his turn to take his evaluation. All that was on Tullian’s mind right now was winning a favour off of Amy!

He would do everything in his power to achieve that, and be the best out of them all!