Chapter 8: Chapter 6
-"Welcome to the 195th Staridge mage academy entrance exams. I am one of the Elder 15 of this country's mage academy. My name is Sachi Kimoto and I will be your host tonight!" People began to whisper to each other. The whispers died down as she continued
-"Tonight, you will face two simple trails. To my right, there is a gate and there stands an A rank shape shifting dummy. Try to get past it and you are in. Any form of magic which does not break the international magic laws is allowed. I'll be seeing you inside. Oh, you may only face it one on one and you have until sunrise. Break any rules and you are disqualified! The academy will not take responsibility for any death or injuries that occur outside school grounds. Good luck." And with that she vanished like mist.
People everywhere started running towards the gate so they could take the test first. I decided to wait and observe first and find out what happens. Then out of nowhere the grinning boy came over to me and asked:
-"What's your family name?"
-"Why would you ask a question like that?"
-"The car you came in and the quality of clothes you are wearing is not just for commoners you know. Are you not going to take the test?"
-"I am but I need to know what I am up against before I jump in."
-"That's a shape shifting dummy. It morphs into ones worst fear. I guess if you defeat your worst nightmare, you are in. The trick to this is to calm down and fight it with a rational mind. Do not let yourself get overcome by fear because the more the fear you drown in, the stronger the dummy gets."
Right after I heard that, I heard screams and people running. It was a quite a brutal way to test people but it made sense. To become a mage that takes on the madness that exists, one should overcome their own fear.
-"The name is Aito Azuma, feel free to call me by my first name." he said with a smirk on his face.
I guess there is no harm in making a friend.
-"My name is Reiji Hashimoto. People just call me Reiji." At the time is did not know that this new found friendship would be a blessing and a curse at the same time.
Aito then simply walked straight towards the dummy and it morphed into an enormous snake with six eyes. Mist spread everywhere as the dummy morphed. People began to scatter as they panicked. It opened its mouth and it spat out acid that burnt everything including the tar on the ground. Aito leapt in to the air and his hand burst into flames. He then shouted: "Fire style: scorching flames "and came down on the snake and hit to with a punch so powerful that the flames from his hand burst out and engulfed the 10 meter tall snake. It burnt up and the snake morphed back into a dummy. Aito landed graceful and walked in the gate whistling as if he did this routine every morning. People began cheering as they saw the mind blowing combat that took place. He was strong and that calmed everyone was overtaken by fear. He was the first person to make it through so far so I decided to follow suite. I walk towards the shape shifting dummy and it did nothing. I thought it was broken so I kept on walking. Everyone in the crowd behind me gasped and began whispering but I continued walking and following the path. Behind me I heard screams but I made sure not to look back. I knew why that dummy didn't move. Heavenly hollows are S rank monsters and that's why the dummy did nothing. People may have assumed that I was fearless so I guess rolling with it wouldn't hurt.
A few moments later I was inside an arena and there were a lot of people in the audience seats. If I could guess, it would be close to 4000 people. They were all cheering and there were cheerleaders inside the arena. Confetti flying around and drones too but this time the speaker drones were not the only ones, there were drones with holographic color screens. After about 30 minutes about 100 of us entry students had gathered inside the arena. And that girl who was on the platform outside appeared hovering on a circular hover board. She wore black stockings a red miniskirt and a white t-shirt with red graffiti on it that said "Elder #15". She wore a striped pink, light blue, white and black scotch short sleeve shirt on top of her t-shirt. She had long golden brown hair which slightly curled at the end. She wore a top hat like hat which was brown and had a black lining on the edges. Her eyes were black like the night sky and she had black mascara on which complimented her eye color. She wore red high heels and a sparkling white smile.
-"Congratulations for making it in to the Staridge mage academy. Making it past the gate is no small feat and if you are standing here, you deserve to be here but you test is not finished yet. We really need to see what you can do. Depending on how you do here, it will impact your status in the school and in the entire world. Nobles are made in these very ground. Prove that you are worthy to become a mage and that you are worthy to stay. If you fail to reach the minimum requirements you will still be disqualified and sent home. Remember, you can still try again next year but you can only retry twice before you are banned from taking the mage trails again! Now moving forward, you will each be randomly matched in a one on one fight with second years of any rank from rank F to maximum of rank C being the highest rank you will encounter."
According to Old man Fujikawa, the academy has a ranking system that differs to the world's normal ranking system. Each year from first year to third year had ranks from rank F to rank S. For example in the first year you have rank F the lowest rank in the entire academy. If you are dubbed rank S in any of the first 3 years, you can choose to either stay in that year and complete that year and the following year you can jump instantly to rank C of the respective following year or immediately skip the rest of the year you are currently in and move into the respective grade's rank C. If you finish the year at only rank A you will be placed as second year rank E and if you finish the year in rank B then you will be placed in following year rank F. If you finish the year in rank C then you will be placed in the following year as unranked. Rank D and bellow in every year besides the fourth year, repeat a year. You are not allowed to repeat the same year more than 2 times, if you fail the second time and it will result in expulsion from the mage academy.
Fourth year rules differ because in whatever rank you finish your year, will be your real life rank. Fourth year ranks range from rank F to rank SSS. The strongest in the school are dubbed elders. Depending on how strong you are from 1 to 15 making the Council of Elders. The council of elders run the day to day basis of their entire school and have more authority than the teachers themselves because of their direct link to the monarchs of the particular country and how strong they are individually. Council of elders are given high priority missions from the king himself. Once you reach fourth year, you stay there until you decide to retire. Being in the Academy has many benefits such as discounts on purchases, access to exclusive areas, easier acquisition of a mage license regulated by the country and the chance to become nobility. These are just a few of the perks as mages are held in high regard as acquiring a mage license and being associated with the mage academy is no small feat.
-"Now if you look on the spot on top of your heart, you will find a tag with a number in which you came in through the gate. That is the number assigned to you and numbers will be randomly drawn. If your number shows up, you will be requested to come into the arena for your fight with your respective opponent. Let the final phase to the entrance trails begin!" I was taken aback because moments ago, I had no tag on me.
A huge cheer rose and we were sent into the waiting room. The waiting room was one huge room with television screens in front. It was basically a cinema with reclining seats. Below the screen was a huge see through glass where you had a horizontal view of the battle field in real time. It was probably some kind of magic because the view outside was not the one we saw inside. A few moments later, everyone was seated and looking at the screen in with anticipation and anxiety. A few second later a number appeared: "002". It was my unlucky day as I was the one to go first. I tried not to show the any emotion because if I did, I would be totally thrown off my game and I was already drawing too much attention since the shape shifting dummy did nothing when it was my turn. My opponent was Jin Igarashi rank 2C. He was basically a rank 1S. Today just wasn't my lucky day. Drawing the strongest opponent you could get. I made my way down to the arena with nothing but a shinken that I used during training with the old man in place of the new sword I got yesterday. The sword was new in my hands and I needed more practice with it before I took it into actual combat.
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