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2.03% Evo-lution / Chapter 7: 7: Orientation III

Bab 7: 7: Orientation III

"Iris calm down!" Jane said patting Iris on the shoulder.

"Lady Jane how in the name of Set can you expect me to calm down?" Iris asked throwing her hands in the air. "We are in a competition to learn from a Paragon; one of the strongest splicers in our generation; and our teammate is a peasant from the most backwards country in the world that doesn't know anything about splicing?!"

"Will everyone stop calling me a peasant!" I snapped.

"How did you even get into this collage let alone get a perfect score on any part of the entrance exam?!" Iris demanded.

"Yes I would like to know that as well." Our guide said with a very amused smile on his face.

"I mean it was a written exam. Literally all the questions were evo related. And while all books on splicing as burned way back when, books on evos weren't and easily excess able. I mean evos are America's biggest export thanks to Techno-Splicing."

"Hmm, if I may ask what were the subjects you got a perfect score on in your test when you go your results?" Our guide asked.

"full genetic sequencing, contemporary gene mapping, nervous system restructuring, controlled mutation, dual genus sequencing, triple genus sequencing, quadruple genus sequencing, redundancy purging, and theoretical gene manipulation." I replied.

I looked back at the Jane and Iris; Jane just stared at me in disbelief, Iris was rubbing her temples shaking her head.

"That can't be right! You're telling me that you got a perfect score on nine subject out of the forty they tested us on and all the ones you got a perfect score are advanced research subjects?!" Iris snapped. It was my turn to look at them in disbelief.

"Advanced research subject?" I snorted. "All those things are the basis of Techno-Splicing. My mom and dad had tons of books on the stuff lying around the house."

"I understand now…" Our guide said. "You grew up learning about the technical side of Splicing through Techno-Splicing of all things, but you never had anyone to show you the practical skills."

"We're fucked…so very fucked…" Iris groaned.

"Not necessarily. Don't forget you are a team. Whether you win or lose will determine how well you three can work together." Our guide said. Jane nodded looking a little more hopeful but Iris just hung her head in defeat.

"I really want this. I'll do my best and try not to hold you two back." I said softly.

The lead steed let put a braying noise and I turned to see what the noise was about. The steeds were heading down a road to a large silver spire.

"looks like we've arrived." Our guide said.

"I'm Nigel Earton, by the way."

"Chase Kingston." I replied.

"I'm Jane Yearwood and this is my companion Iris Stone." Jane said.

"Well nice to meet…most of you." Nigel said giving Iris a sideways look. "Hope you three make into Baset's class. It'll definitely make things interesting."

The steeds ran full speed and came to a stop under a overhang in front of the spires entrance. After everyone got out of the carriage I released my hold on the steeds. They all let out a loud braying noise then looked to me for a brief moment before they ran off heading back the way they came.

"So what's here?" I asked Nigel as I looked up at the spire.

"A test of control. I can't tell you anything more than that." He replied then headed inside.

I shared a look with Jane and Iris before following after him. Whatever the test was if we were going to pass I'd need to lean heavily on them.

The spire turned out to be a giant library, though the scale of it made the term library seem inadequate. Grand archive seemed better. Shelves filled with books, scrolls, and tomes as far as the eye can see. Many stretching several stories high. There were a few dozen people inside already, most of them wearing staff uniforms and scuttling around doing their various duties to keep the archive orderly.

A few meters from the door stood a desk, already stacked taller than me with books and tomes. A frazzled woman rushed around the desk frantically trying to put things in order. You could easily tell it was a losing battle.

Nigel walked up to the desk and rang the bell the sat on the edge under a small stack of pizza boxes.

"I'll be right with you." She said absent-mindedly

"I'd say take your time but I don't think these three will appreciate that." Nigel replied.

The librarian stuck her head out from behind the stack of books to see who he was talking about. When she saw the three of us her eyes nearly bugged out.

"You mean a group figured out the trick already?" She gasped. Nigel chuckled and then glanced at me.

"I'll tell you later Jovia. They're ready for the next test." Nigel said. Jovia reached under her desk and pulled out a box. She then walked around to the front of the desk and held it out to us.

"Okay for the next test you're each going to reach into this box and pull out a sigil card. You'll get further instructions after you draw." She said.

"Me first." Iris said. She walked up to Jovia and stuck her hand in the box. She pulled out a metal card similar to the one I had in my pocket, only hers was blue instead of Grey. Jane went next, she pulled out a yellow card. It was my turn next.

As I approached the box I couldn't see inside it, the top was totally pitch black. I reached into the top and felt thousands of cards. Rooting my arm around the box my hand brushed against a card that felt different from the others. While they all felt cold to the touch and smooth this was rough like sand paper and hot. For some reason I felt like I needed to grab that card. Pulling it put out of the box I saw it had two colors black and gold.

"Well that's kinda cool." I said examining the card. Jovia grimaced when she saw that card.

"Okay on those cards are inscribed a spell sigil. Your test is for each of you to learn the spell inscribed and cast it. You can use any open table to study the sigil but please only use the casting rooms at the back of the library to vast your spells." Jovia looked over to me and pats me on the shoulder. "Good luck, you'll need it."

With that she scurried back behind her desk and went back to sorting. I turned to open say something to Iris but she had her finger pressed to her lips to be quiet. Jane motioned to the tables at the back of the library. I was puzzled by the sudden secrecy until I looked over Jane's shoulder and saw a group from the theatre walking inside.

'Shit someone caught up already.' I thought as we made our way to the study tables. We took the one furthest away from any other table, our backs were to the wall and we had full view of the rest of the library. We could talk without fear of someone sneaking up on us unexpectedly. Nigel stayed by Jovia's desk.

"Okay on a scale of one to ten how fucked are we?" I asked. Iris and Jane both shared a concerned look then turned back to me.

"Ten."


PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
Hutexa_The_Djinn Hutexa_The_Djinn

Splicer Fact: The libraries in Andromeda Collage, while impressive, are not true splicing archives. In most countries Archives are the size of cities with tens of thousands of archivist working at one time. The largest archive is in Germany who's archive resides on a artificial island off the coast.

[HUTEXA_THE_DJINN here! Thank you to all my readers for enjoying my novel. Leave a comment if you love it or better yet add it ot your library!]

Bab 8: 8: Orientation IV

"Okay, what are we supposed to do?" I asked now very worried about our chances.

"In a nutshell cast a spell." Iris examined. "These cards have spell sigils recorded on them, all we have to do is memorize it, copy it and try to cast it."

"That doesn't sound too hard." I said.

"For us maybe. You don't even know what a spell sigil is do you?" Iris asked.

"Yeah, still a little fuzzy on that." I replied. Iris groaned and laid her head on the table.

"Fucked!" She whispered. Jane shook her head then looked at me.

"Spell sigils are written commands for our mana. They tell it how to act and what properties to take on." Jane pointed to the tattoo on her arm. "The two glowing runes that came together and make this were both spell sigils."

"I see. So what exactly makes this difficult for me?" I asked.

"You need to use mana to create spell sigils. You've only used mana to control evos up to this point. And as amazing as it is that you can control so many at once you need a lot of control over your mana in order to give it shape."

"Lady Jane and I have been practicing this since we could walk and depending on what spell is on our cards this could be difficult for us." Iris chimed in. I held my card and frowned.

"When I drew this card the librarian looked sorry for me." I said.

"And she had every right to be. Spell have types: offensive, defensive, enhancement, utility, and axiom. This yellow card shows I pulled a enhancement spell, Iris pulled a defensive spell. You pulled a axiom spell." Jane explained.

"What the hell is an axiom spell?" I asked.

"Axiom spells are spells with affects that don't fall into one of the other four categories or fall into multiple categories at once. Axiom cards are always dual colored, black to let you know it's axiom and another color to tell you the difficulty."

"And before you asked gold means it's the most difficult type." Iris grumbled.

'Of course! Why did the hell did I grab that card?!' I cursed myself.

"Well there's nothing we can do about it now. The longer we sit here feeling sorry about our luck Iris the more people will start to arrive. The group that came in after us had already sat down and started studying." Jane said.

"I know!" Iris slapped the table before she sat up and looked at her card. "In order to read these close your eyes and pour mana into it. It's no different from using mana to control a evo."

Iris closed her eyes and the crystal on her cheek started to glow the card did also. I looked to Jane and she'd already closed her eyes as well, a faint glow emanated from the back of her neck. They sat perfectly still, their breathing slowing till I could barely tell they were alive.

I did as they did and closed my eyes, card in hand. I tried to gather the mana inside me and feed it into the card like I would a evo but nothing happened. I couldn't get my mana to flow like it did when I was around a evo. I tried over and over again, getting more and more frustrated with each failed attempt until finally I snapped.

"Oh come on!" I yelled throwing my card down on the table.

"shhhhhhh!" multiple people hissed at me from around the study area.

"Sorry." I whispered sheepishly. Taking a glance around the table both Jane and Iris hadn't moved, they were still as statues. I looked around the rest of the area, I saw nine other groups of three sitting at various tables in the study area. All of them had the same meditative stillness that Jane and Iris had.

"Problems?"

The sound of Nigel's voice spooked me. I quickly found him sitting in a chair one table over watching the three of us. It should have been creepy that he'd been sitting there for who knows how long watching us but it didn't for some reason.

"I can't get my Mana to do anything!" I hissed. "I've been sitting here trying to get it to flow into the card but I can't even feel it."

"That's all you've been doing for the last two hours?" Nigel asked.

"Two hours?!" I gasped.

'It only felt like a few minutes…' I thought.

"Yep, two hours. I'm kinda surprised though, given all the mana that was flowing out your hand I thought you were doing something." Nigel said pointing to my right hand.

"It was what?" I didn't feel anything.

"Yeah, your crystal was glowing so much I could almost make out its shape through that leather glove of yours."

My left hand immediately moved to cover my gloved right. The action surprised Nigel, he had confused look about him for a second that quickly softened into understanding.

"You know you're not in America anymore. You don't have to hide the fact you're a splicer here." He said softly. "Taking it off may help you, it's a common trick for a splicer to hold a sigil card to their crystals if they had a hard time directing mana to it."

I sat quiet for a several moments staring at my gloved hand, and the crystal underneath it. It should have been easy to take off the glove, Nigel was right I wasn't back home anymore. I wasn't surrounded by people who hated me for simply being born a splicer. And yet the thought of removing it in front of someone was terrifying. It made all the memories come flooding back, the beatings and the humiliation.

"I need to take a piss." I said standing up and heading toward the bathroom. I snagged the sigil card as I walked away, sliding it into my pocket. Inside the bathroom I walked to the last stall and locked myself inside. At first I only paced in a circle, glancing down at my hand.

"Fuck it!" I said finally and sat down on the toilet seat then yanked my glove off. I shoved it in my pocket before I could change my mind.

My crystal was star shaped, it's five points stretched to the edge of the back of my hand. When I was young and naïve I thought my crystal was special because of it's shape. I mean what was more American than a star.

I let out a loud sigh then held the my sigil card in my right hand. Before I even closed my eyes my crystal started to glow and so did the card but something felt off. I wasn't directing my mana into the card, in fact it felt like it was being sucked put of me like soda through a straw. I tried to let go of the card only to find my hand frozen stiff.

"Hey no! Bad card!" I exclaimed and tried to pry my fingers open but they didn't budge.

I unlocked my stall and tried to run out of the bathroom to get help but my legs felt like lead, my whole body feeling heavier the more mana is taken. I only made it two steps before I fell to my knees. I opened my mouth to scream for help but no words came out as I fell face first onto the floor.

As I felt myself blacking out the mana drain slowed to a halt and the card let out a pinging chime. Then the world went black as a feeling of warmth washed over me.


PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
Hutexa_The_Djinn Hutexa_The_Djinn

Splicer Fact: Sigil cards are made with a special metal that can only be made by splicers. During the forging process mana is poured into the metal while it is being heated. This allows magic sigils to be recorded on them once the metal cools. The technique to create this metal is thousands of years old and originated in Greece.

[HUTEXA_THE_DJINN here! Hope you aren't getting tired of the orientation saga cause there are still more to come. Leave a comment or add to library!]

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