The students gathered around the stage on the other side of the overfilled assembly hall.

Lucian hugged his sister from behind, to protect her from the crowd. His body had already experienced the first elbow thrust by the rowdy crowd.

“Everything alright?” Lucian asked his sister.

“Mhm, thanks Lu” Aileen answered her brother with appreciative tone in her voice, as she felt his warm body from behind.

“Look, there is someone coming!” Some students shouted.

An old man with a big fluffy beard appeared on stage. Behind him were 2 women following behind him, while each of them was pulling a table with a big crystal on top of it.

As the old man arrived at the center of the stage, he looked patiently at his pocket watch.

TICK TACK TICK TACK

The crowd fell silent, as the ticking of the small pocket watch in his hands traveled like thunder through every corner of the assembly hall.

After 3 minutes, which felt like years, passed, the old man put away his pocket watch and looked up into the crowd.

“Let’s start. You might not know it, but I’m Alfonso DeMaltos, the headmaster of the Cloud Academy” Headmaster DeMaltos announced to the crowd.

The crowd around the stage freaked out. Some students even cried out “T-The Alfonso DeMaltos?!”

“Silence!” Headmaster DeMaltos admonished them. He let a bit of his mana leak out, everyone in the crowd fell silent, because they couldn’t breath for a second, when they felt the tyrannical mana.

“That’s better. Behind me are two crystals. The left one will tell me your amount of Rings. The right crystal will tell me your talent through colors green, blue, yellow, red and purple, where purple is the highest talent!”

The students looked at the two crystals on which their future depended.

“I will now call your names and one after another you will come on stage, get your rang and talents measured and then you will get your student badge. The student badge is your identification, so under no circumstances should you lose it! Understand?”

“Yes, headmaster” The crowd answered him in one voice.

One of the women, who brought the crystals on stage, went to the headmaster and gave him a thick notebook. He opened the notebook and started to call the first names.

“Phiclus McGraffen” The headmaster called the first student to the stage.

A murmur sounded through the crowd, until a handsome youth found his way to the stage. The boy bowed to the headmaster and went to the first crystal on the left. Since he didn’t know how to start the procedure, the boy turned his head to the headmaster and waited for instructions.

“Just put both of your hands on the crystal and wait” The headmaster explained it to the first student.

The student nodded and put his hands on the first crystal. It took only 2 seconds after the hands got into contact with the crystal to show the result, 6 lights appeared on the crystal.

“Hm, you have 6 rings, not bad. Continue with the next crystal” Headmaster DeMaltos spoke to the student.

The boy went up to the seconds crystal, the one which could measure one’s talent. With a loud gulp, his trembling hands moved to the crystal surface. When they touched the crystal, a yellow light appeared after a short time. Seeing the yellow light, made the drenched in sweat student sigh out of relief.

“Yellow talent, pretty good. Go now to the nice lady over there, get your student badge, and wait until everyone has finished.” The headmaster instructed the young boy.

As the boy left the stage, headmaster DeMaltos continued with the next students, however this time it was a quicker and smoother process, as the student’s knew what to do and wouldn’t dare be slow.

It turned out, that the average student had between 5 and 7 rings and either blue or yellow talent. But that also meant that there were students with blue talents, who would cry miserably, when they found out.

“Next, Laura Silverdeer” the headmaster called the next student.

Lucian froze after he heard the name of the next student and unconsciously put a little more strength into his arms as he hugged his sister, like someone in the water trying to hold something to not get swept away by the current. Aileen was like his anchor on the stormy sea.

“Brother..” She murmured.