Chapter 3: Day of Entrance Test

The past 5 months went by in what seemed like an incense stick of time and everyone at Standan High was able to sense the elements making them all officially reach the Sensing Stage. As for Carter, he was already working towards the Condensing Stage.

During Carter's time at the Sensing Station he was able to condense some of the Lightning Element particles in his body. Although he wasn't able to fully condense the particles throughout his whole body, he had been able to condense them in his bones making them around 10 times more dense. Carter realized something that he isn't sure is possible, maybe it's unique to him, or it's just something that he hasn't learned yet. He found that after fully condensing his bones he could continuously condense particles in his bones making them even sturdier.

It is this discovery, that allowed him to make his bones 10 times more dense when it would normally be 5 times. Even now he didn't feel that 10 times is his limit but the day of the Entrance Test is today. He doesn't have time to test his theory just yet, but once he passes the Entrance Test he will have plenty of time.

All the students of Standan High are gathered in the courtyard of The Awakening Association's Exam Hall, waiting for the representative of the Association to arrive and explain the next step.

After about half an hour, the Association representative walked in the room garnering the attention of all the students when he said,

"Welcome Awakeners, I am Representative Leo and I am here on behalf of the Association. In a few moments the envoys from Magic Schools will arrive and we can begin the test."

Just then they saw around 5 people land in the courtyard in front of the stunned students. There were three middle-aged men and two woman one looking to be in her late twenties with beautiful sapphire hair. While the other was most likely in her early forties with crimson hair and a firece look on her face. The younger of the two was wearing a flowing blue dress that looked like waves churning against the side of the coast. The other had on form fitting red armor with flames painted on that looked like a raging fire and if one looked closely they would say that the flames seemed to be alive.

As for the three men, one had long white hair, a flowing beard and wearing a pristine white robe. The other had dark brown hair and he looked extremely built, like a small mountain and was wearing thick brown Knight's armor. The last one had black hair as dark as night with blue streaks throughout that one could almost swear was moving around erratically. He was wearing what looked to be a black combat uniform with a blue belt with a lightning bolt across it.

These were the representatives of the 5 most powerful Magic Schools in the this region of the Lagrist Continent. The Schools of Water, Fire, Air, Earth, And Lightning. Normally their wouldn't be any major schools for any of the secondary elements, but with the Lightning Element being on par, if not stronger than the Fire Element it was founded and became a major power in the whole continent and exists in many different parts.

The Association representative then allowed the 5 envoys of the Magic Schools to introduce themselves one by one. First it was the old man in the white robe who introduced himself.

"Hello aspiring sorcerers, I am the vice principal of the School Of Air 'Skycrest,' Zephyrine Tuuli. I can't wait to see how you all will perform in this year's Entrance Test."

Some of the students started whispering excitedly when they heard the old man's introduction.

"Skycrest school, I heard that anyone who goes there becomes absolutely undefeatable while in the air!"

"Pfft, what about the Lightning school I heard all the schools would have to band together to defeat them."

"But no one can beat the versatility of the water element school, I heard that experts can even use ice even without needing an affinity with it."

Eventually the murmurs quieted down when the giant man in brown armor stepped forward and spoke in a boisterous voice.

"I am The Executive Director of the School Of Earth 'Terra Federation' Tor Neroli. I hope you all will be able to join my Federation. If you want to be invincible in terms of defense."

Again students started to speak quietly, talking about rumors they heard about the executive.

"Oh my god that's Tor, people say that he's actually half fire giant but he didn't inherit their fire physique. He awakened the Earth element instead which made his already insane strength to be perfectly augmented with his strong Earth Element defense."

"Really, he's half giant I never knew that but I can definitely see how that would make him insanely strong."

The students immediately shut their mouths when the dark haired man stepped forward. He was naturally giving off an oppressive aura.

"I am Master Rai Foudre. From the School Of Lightning 'Storm Blaze'. "

That was all he said before stepping back but no one said anything about it and they decided to not speak again, lest they anger the terrifying master of the Lightning School.

Carter felt like someone was watching him and turned and saw the Lightning Master staring at him in interest. He wasn't like the other students, he didn't get scared and just figured that he was a man of few words like himself. Afterall, aside from Chester, Carter didn't really didn't talk to anyone. If he did it was short and sweet. Although if he got really close to someone he'd talk more.

The students stayed silent as the woman with sapphire hair stepped forward and introduced herself with a giant beeming smile and a wink at the end.

"Hi, I'm Talia Ondine, I hope you all decide to join my School Of Water 'Natant Wave' we'll have lots of fun."

Although the students didn't say anything, still scared of Master Rai. A lot of the boys blushed at such a pretty girl winking at them. Obviously they all thought the wink was directed at them.

The Crimson Haired women was the last to introduce herself while keeping the fierce look on her face.

"I am Aguya Cyra, The Arena Master of the School Of Fire 'Infernal Flame.' If you have the ability, then you can be chosen to join my school."

The Association representative then interjected.

"Very well. Now that you have met your possible future School Leaders, we can begin the Entrance Test. I will be refereeing the test to ensure fairness and no bias."

The representative then pressed a button on his watch to project a screen. The screen contained the rules of the test.

"These are the rules you must adhere to and I will now explain the contents of the test itself and how it will be split up. There are three parts to this test, the first is to figure out your affinity…"

Before he could finish a boy with light red hair spoke up and said, "But sir, we have already tested for affinities. And we already can sense our respective elements."

The man gave him a look before he said slightly annoyed, "if you had let me finish I was going to explain that we are trying to find the extent that your affinity reaches. In other words we want to find out how high your affinity is with your respective elements."

The red-haired boy nodded and the man continued to explain the further part of the tests.

"Next, we will test your talent. We will test to see how fast you can pull the elements toward you…"

Again he was interrupted, but this time by a shy green-haired girl.

"B-but we haven't started condensing our elements yet, how can we pass this part of the test?"

The man was getting upset and was about to say something until Master Rai stepped forward interrupting him once again and said in an annoyed tone, "Let Mr. Leo finish." The students all immediately nodded, remembering the aura he released before.

"Thank you Master Rai, as I was saying we have Rune Stones that will gather much more elemental particles than even the Sensing Station and you will start to see how much you can pull towards you."

Carter had a look of interest when Mr. Leo mentioned the Rune Stones, this was the third time he will physically come in contact with Runes and he was extremely interested in Runes. He was excited to find out more applications of different Runes and how they work.

"The final part of the test will be a Combat Match between all of you to showcase if you have any combat ability. You will be fighting in an arena and you win by either incapacitating your opponent or knocking them out of the arena. In the future when you become an Official Sorcerer you will be able incorporate your elements into your fighting ability."

All the young Apprentice Sorcerers had been trained in one form of fighting in their classes or on their own so they were happy to get the chance to show off a little. They were told to form a line and grab a token from the front desk, this will determine the order for the combat test.

After everyone had grabbed their tokens Carter looked at his and he saw '351' so he will be one of the last ones to take the test. There seemed to around 400 individuals waiting in the crowd. Aside from Standan, there were a couple more non-magic schools here to take the test to get into the top Magic Schools.

The other parts of the test began. Carter's token number, along with the other students' was actually the order in which they'd take the tests. Chester wasn't that far ahead of Carter, he was '285' and when he had his affinity test he saw he had a 'lesser affinity' for Magma but a 'Minor affinity' for Earth. This wasn't too surprising, considering they only realized their affinity itself 5 months ago.

The results of all the students so far hadn't been out of the norm. It was Carter's turn now and when he was tested, it seemed as if the world stopped. In the pin drop silence, one student finally said out loud what everyone else was thinking. "That's not possible, how can he have a 'Big Affinity' for lightning in just 5 months."

While the students and faculty may have been shocked, Master Rai had a knowing smile on his face. Although he didn't voice it out loud, Master Rai knew exactly why his affinity was so high. He sensed it the moment he turned his gaze towards Carter. He could tell that amazingly, Carter was already at the Condensing Stage.

While he didn't know how he did it he also sensed that he was farther along than even himself with strengthening his bones. if he had to guess he would say that his bones are twice as strong as a normal Condensing Stage Sorcerer maybe even stronger. He was very excited to see what he will do in the future.

"Very well, we will start the next test. The order will remain the same as the last test."

All the participants went through the test, even Chester wasn't outstanding in his results. The time came for Carter to take the test and everyone was waiting with bated breaths, hoping that he could bring another miracle. Carter sat in the middle of the courtyard and began to pull the elemental particles towards him. He made sure to not actually pull the particles into his body, he didn't want others to know he had reached the Condensing Stage.

If before there was a pin drop silence, then now it was so quiet you could hear all the students' heartbeats, which were anything but steady. They saw mass amounts of purple particles flowing towards Carter. He was so focused on making sure he didn't condense the particles that he didn't even realize, the amount of particles being so much that it looked like a storm cloud formed above and around the courtyard. Although this storm cloud was centered around Carter.

The normally stoic Master Rai, had his expression falter and his eyes were wide like saucers. Luckily, everyone's attention was on the boy in the middle of the cloud of particles. Master Rai immediately recovered and decided that he would take this boy as his personal protege no matter what it takes.

Master Rai, being the first one to recover from his shock, he cleared his throat to pull everyone out of their trance. Mr Leo then came out if his stupor and looked towards Carter sitting with the cloud of particles over him which was fading quickly.

"Ehem, young man! that is enough, you pass."

As Carter didn't see the phenomenon he had generated he said nonchalantly, "I'm glad I was able to pass, I wasn't sure I would be able to at first."

He had said this more to himself, but as the crowd was so quiet after his test, everyone heard him.

Mr Leo, as well as the rest of the students had incredulous looks on their faces as it dawned on them that he didn't realize what he'd done.

"Young man, you didn't just pass you got the absolute top score for the second part of the exam. Your results from this test alone is able to guarantee you a spot in any school you choose."

"Really? I didn't think I would do so well."

Mr Leo had now completely composed himself and said, "You still have the chance to fail, if you don't pass the combat match. Don't get cocky and do your best."

Carter nodded towards Mr Leo and said,

"Yes Sir, I will try to meet the expectations of you and the other representatives of the Magic Schools."

The final part of the Entrance Test, The Combat Match, will begin. Everyone was fired up by Carter's results in the last two tests so they wanted to make sure they stood out among their peers and catch the attention of one of the Magic School representatives. They all started pushing themselves to their limit.

Unfortunately for most of the participants, they didn't do anything extraordinary and were left in the dust by those who had come from rich backgrounds and were taught by tutors, a variety of weapon skills with different kinds of weapons.

Just when the Magic School representatives thought there would only be substandard fights between these youngsters, a young man walked into the arena. This young man gave off a Knightly aura and one could tell that he was really well trained. He had perfectly combed blonde hair, standing at 6'5' with an athletic build. He had a sheathed long sword on his waist, his opponent was none other than Chester. Chester although not as well built or handsome as the young man he didn't lose out to him too much.

Chester had sandy brown hair, a bulky build and was standing at six feet exactly. His father was one of the Royal Guards of the ruler of The City of Ethereum, and he specialized in using a warhammer. He trained Chester from a young age to be able to protect himself since his father was often not around. As amazing as it is for Chester to have such a background, he still pales in comparison to the young man in front of him. Chester is still considered a commoner, he is just slightly more well off.

The young man was the first born son of one of the most influential Noble families in Ethereum, second only to the royal family. His father was Sir Maxwell Zerxes and he made sure that his son, Maxwell Jr. would be able to beat anyone in the younger generation. He had him trained by one of the most prominent swordsman in the Capital who happened to be a good friend of Sir Zerxes's grandfather.

Although their training was like night and day, their builds were perfectly suited for them to fight against each other. While Maxwell Jr. is not as strong as Chester his athletic build made him a lot more agile and it will make it hard for Chester to get a good hit in. But Chester's build is suited for giving insanely strong attacks on his enemies and if he's allowed to get a solid hit on Maxwell he could turn the fight in his favor.