Examination

An hour passed and it was time to start the examination. The gates were opened and the troop at the front began trooping in. There were mages lined all the way up from the gate to the examination ground. They were there to watch the entrance and to keep things in order. If there was going to be anyone or any group of people whoses intentions where to seek trouble they must have swallowed every idea they had after seeing those full fledged Mages.

In all the Plains there were a certain kinds of people you didn't want to mess with. One was the Mages of course. Even the Kingdom Monarch and nobles would comport themselves if they were before the mages. Two were the Kingdom that had signed pacts with the Magic Guild. Messing with them was equivalent to messing with the Magic Guild. Only a stupid person would do such a thing. Three was anyone bearing the seal of a White flying boar. Till now no one understood what that seal meant only that anyone who messes with such a person may never live to see the next day, depending on how atrocious your crimes were.

Gwen was escorted out of her room to the examination ground. She had managed to skimp through the books she wanted to, still she was nervous. The Examination ground was an open field. There was a high podium and studium like seat on one side of the field for the spectators as well as previously admitted students to seat and watch the whole examination take place.

Gwendolyn's seat was at the front of the podium, together with the Dean and a bunch of Mage Elders. When the participants were gathered, the Dean stood and gave a welcome speech, her words were strict, Assuring and encouraging at the same time. One could see the fire of passion burning in the eyes of the multitudes seated below the podium.

The Examination was in two stages; The written and then the Practical stage.

The drums rolled and the first stages began. The Examination papers were distributed amongst the dozens of people and the began putting down their answers as quick as they could. There was a time limit for the stage. Whosoever hasn't answered an expected number of questions by the time the joss sticks burned out would be directly disqualified from taking the second stage.

To pass the first stage, one must turn in your answer sheet before the time runs out and not just turn in the answer sheet but must also get pass the cut off mark. Turning in an answer sheet filled with wrong answers would not counted as passing the test.

Gwendolyn had a copy of the test in her hand and she must say, gosh it surely wasn't easy one bit!.

Even after spending that long reading tons of book she still found it hard to give the correct answer to half the questions on the paper. Thank goodness she was given the answers to the question or she will just have ended up marking the participants answers wrongly. The questions were tricky. Someone who didn't have in-depth knowledge on Magic would fail no doubt.

The Time went up and the first stage ended. Those who didn't meet the time limit already knew they had failed so they stood up and began leaving the ground. After they left there was only about half of the initial crowd left, still the test papers had not been marked so a couple more were bound to go.

True enough, by the time Gwendolyn and the other spectators were done marking only a quarter was left. It was tragic to see but that only meant that those left had all the knowledge it took to be a good mage. Still having the knowledge wasn't enough, they needed to have the skill too.

Next was the Practical stage. They were going to grade the examinee for their use of Mana. Mana is essential to use Magic. It exist in the atmosphere and is divided into particles of each element. It was one thing to be able to sense Mana and another to be able to Channel it. Channelling Mana could only be possible when one developes a Mana core.

A Mana core is classified into six colours: Black, Red, Orange, Yellow, Silver and white. Every mages core starts from the colour black due to the body's blood and other impurities mixed with the Mana particles as they form together into a Mana core. Each stage is split into three shades; Dark, Solid and light, except for Silver which is split into Initial, Mid and High, and White Core which doesn't have stages. After the White stage the next stage is known as Integration, this stage was practically a myth as no one had seen someone who had advanced to the Integration Core stage, Moreso the Aether Core. It was a legend. People believed Mages who had reached this stage could ascend to heaven. Rumors were they had formed the Light stage.

For this stage, the participants were divided into groups based on the Element they possessed. There were four types of element for mages to use: Fire, Water, Earth and wind. They are the general element known to all Mages but still each of these elements had a higher version of itself. Mages who could use these advanced elemental version are known as Deviants. They were even fewer than normal mages. In a count of 100 mages, probably only 10 would have the ability of elemental deviation.

There are seven known types of elemental deviantations; Water-Ice, Earth-Gravity, Earth-Metal, Magma(Earth+Fire), Wind-Sound, Fire-Lightning, Plant(Water+Earth).

Aside from these, there were other unknown forms of Elemental Deviantations, forms that remained as possiblity theories with no real documentation of it's existence. Forms like Water+Fire, Water+wind, Earth+Wind, Earth+water. No one knows what the corresponding deviant elements would be as no one had seen it.

Apart from the Elemental Deviantations, there are also special forms of Deviants. That is where the Emitters or Healer Mages and also Diviner mages came in. They were even more fewer than the Elemental Deviants. The special the power the more fewer the mages would be.

In this Practical test, not only would they be checking their core but also the use of Mana. Everyone would have a task based on their own elements and for those who had attained Elemental Deviation there was also a test set out for them.

If you had somehow cheated in the written test then you were bound to fail now cause there would be no opportunity to cheat in this test. It is rather you had the capability or you didn't.

As big transparent crystal kind of ball was wheeled into the Room. The ball was aa magical devices used to test a mage core. It acted like a projector that could let other see what colour a mage's core was.

One of the Academy master came forward and gave the instructions of how to participate in the first Practical test. After that numbers were passed out amongst the examinees. In accordance to their numbers they made their way to the ball, one by one, following the instructions given to them.