Capítulo 19: The Selection Exam [6]

Elizabeth winced at her wounds as she applied pressure to reduce the bleeding, one of the monster's claws had scratched her abdomen, and sadly, it was deep enough to worry her. However, she was prepared for such situations so at least she was able to keep her calm the entire time while she tried to lessen her blood loss.

Not so long ago, she appeared on this mysterious floor with five other students that were joining the mage sector. But on their arrival, they found themselves face to face with a Class S tarantulus with the ability to control weaker beasts. They managed to fight as much as they could and through their teamwork they managed to find a place to hide as they thought of a plan to get them out of here without getting disqualified.

She played the role of the hero—and along the way, a monster finally caught up to her and injured her terribly before thrusting her katana through it. She had to burn herself to kill the poison, but it didn't stop the bleeding.

Currently, they were inside an underground cave that was big enough for them to escape through, and small enough to keep the beasts from entering.

They were only six students in the entire—Elizabeth being the dark knight. Though her wounds said otherwise. She was sweating a lot and her skin had turned pale.

While quiet, the entire cave suddenly trembled after a monster collided with it. This had been going on for hours, the beasts were desperate to get them out.

"How long do you think the beast is going to stay out there?" asked one of the mages she was trapped with. He was a young light skinned boy with hazel eyes and grayish-white hair. He was almost as badly injured as she was, with cuts on his hands and scratches over his uniform.

"I don't know Adrian. It could be weeks depending on how badly it wants us as food."

"But by then exam would be over!"

"You think I don't know that?" she grunted. "They'll probably assume we're dead."

"All we can do now is tend to the injured and look for water to keep us alive," she continued, then glanced at the other students. They were terribly injured compared to them. Adrian had managed to protect his party.

But as premature magic users, they could only keep them alive. They had too many limitations as children. And it's because of those limitations that two of Adrian's party members were barely hanging onto their lives. Luckily, he had a student that specified as a healer.

"I can't believe we landed into a flesh-eating tarantulus's nest, " she groaned, coldly gazing at the entrance they used to get here.

The thought of death terrified her, yet she kept her cool the entire time.

After a few moments of pondering about what to do next, she came up with a decision. "The injured are slowing us down, they need to turn in their robes and get better treatment from the surface."

"Then I'll be losing two members of my party!" argued Adrian, surprised by what she had just said.

"I know, that thing out there has thousands of spider-type beasts under its control. You've seen it yourself, this monster needs more than magic to defeat…and we can't accomplish that with dead weight."

"She's right," one of the boys being healed exclaimed after regaining consciousness. "I can't go on like this…I…I can't feel the rest of my body."

"You've probably used a lot of your mana," said Adrian, he could only imagine the pain his comrade was going through. They needed to get healed properly, or else they would die here.

"It's not your fault that we've failed. The four of us aren't as strong as you. Taylor here can only heal. He stinks at combat...I don't even know why he's in the—"

Taylor punched him in a wound, forcing him to stop his mumbling with a painful cry. "Mind your words Fin, I am your healer after all," he growled.

With his broken body, the pale boy lifted his body and faced Adrian. The smile on his face was weak, but the look in his eyes said it all, "Listen you bastard, being a half-elf doesn't mean you are cursed. It means you're gifted enough to fight alongside a hottie like her!"

"Mind your words, dumbass!" Elizabeth chimed in.

He sneered and cleared his throat.

"Anyway, what I am trying to say is that you're better than us for now, and we can't slow you down on your journey to becoming the Archmage of this kingdom. I promise you that we'll meet once again—" Fin stopped and coughed out some blood.

Adrian sighed at his words and shook his head, accepting the situation his friends were in. He was sure he could earn enough points to pass the exam, even without a party.

"That's a promise Fin," he smirked.

Fin then stood up with Taylor's help as they carried the other two-one was unconscious, and the other was exhausted.

Taylor could not help but sulk after they decided to leave behind their party leader, "Make us proud, you schizophrenic maniac."

Those were his last words before they were all transported back to the academy. Forfeiting automatically got a student disqualified, and hence, all his friends failed the exam.

Sigh.

"Are you healed?" Elizabeth asked him.

"Yes, I am."

"Good, then we're going to need all the strength we've got left. Give me your wand…." She ordered with a serious note.

"Why?"

"Just give it to me…" she reached out her palm and waited for him to place it into her hand.

By the looks of it, she looked like she had a solid plan to defeat the beast. But at this point, he was broken after failing his entire party.

"Hey!"

"Yes?"

"Your wand?" she repeated herself.

He chose to trust her since he didn't have a plan. Then put out his right hand, and a black wand with golden stripes appeared in it.

"What's your attribute?" she asked after he placed it in her hand. It was weirdly heavy.

"Gravity," he answered.

"Impressive, and your skill?"

"Wrath of Tantalus, it lets me control gravity to a god level…but wait, I can't use my skill, or else I am disqualified."

Elizabeth scoffed with a mischievous smile on her face while studying his wand, "That's incredible. Can you control flames with it?"

"Fairly, my magic is destructive, so I don't use it much."

Her eyes widened after an insane idea crossed her mind. "We're going to create the strongest explosion ever. Have you ever heard of explosion magic?"

Adrian nodded. "Yes, I have. But doesn't it require two fire-based magic users to cast?"

"Yes. That's why I'll use your skill the moment the spell is complete, you'll multiply the force of my explosion magic by tenfold—making it ten times more effective."

Adrian was fascinated by this girl's thinking—on top of her ravishing beauty, she was a genius. "I see, so your skill is control. I didn't know we had someone in the school who has that skill after what happened in Machette when—"

"That was twelve years ago," she stopped him from finishing his sentence aggressively, "Right now, we have more important things to do than talk. I need you to grab as many midnight roses as you can—they are natural sources of mana, so we can consume them to revive the mana we lost earlier."

Adrian nodded agreeably and rushed further into the cave to collect some roses.

Elizabeth was left alone, studying the wand in her hand to see how possible her plan was.

In this world, magic could be summoned by spells and wands that usually helped with channeling magic. They were powerful tools that bonded with their user, granting them great power the stronger they got. However, wands had a limit that wasn't meant to be surpassed. If it was, the user would lose his control and the spell becomes harder to control.

Dark Knights never needed wands to do magic, they could cast spells and use their bodies to channel magic into what they wanted. And although their spells were limited, they were capable of enhancing their physical abilities with mana. That type of magic user was known as the 'warrior type'

All dark knights were warrior-type magic users, and mages were known as mage-type.

She pointed the wand at a wall and chanted out a few magic words. At first, nothing happened. But after adding more of her mana into the instrument—the ground beneath her feet vibrated.

"What have you just done?" Adrian had returned from his search.

She said nothing. Then tossed the wand to him and picked up her sheathed katana.

Carefully, she stood up once her wound stopped bleeding.

Adrian stared at her and noticed the firebird on her maroon scabbard. That's when it hit him, he was standing in the presence of one of a high noble. "You're from the Vermilion family, aren't you?" he sounded stunned. That's why she was exceptionally strong.

"Yes…and I need you to stay focused. We need to take down the monster and get out of here alive, do you have the flowers?"

"Yes." he opened his pouch bag and pulled out a bouquet of midnight roses. They were still glowing because of the dense mana coming out of them.

"Consume two and hand over the rest to me."

"All of them?" he was confused, "If you consume all of them…you might die!"

"I know."

'She's so cool.'

He handed over the rest of the flowers to her and threw two in his mouth. Once he swallowed them, the mana from the roses flowed into his body and recovered all of his mana and physical strength.

He felt refreshed.

"Wow, they're—"

He paused when he felt something coming from Elizabeth. A strange and ominous presence that he had never sensed before.

"Midnight roses are gifts from the gods, if a normal human were to consume just one, they would die instantly because of the dense mana in them. But for humans who are cursed by the demon god, the roses turn into a source of a form of dark magic…"

The roses in her hand had turned red. The mana coming from them had evolved into something terrifying.

The air itself tensed, and Adrian was frozen by what he saw; the roses withered as she absorbed every bit of life energy in them, recovering her body instantly.

He shuddered, "You're a curse user, so the rumors are true...the Vermilion family really did make a deal with a high demon."

"For the sake of humanity, we did. Everyone despises us for what we did and forgets that it was us that pushed back the demon army two centuries ago," she argued.

Adrian slapped both his cheeks and heaved out a sigh. "Well, we've already come this far. Let's show that beast what the students of Ace academy are made of."

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