Ezra walked to the ball, he looked at it for a moment, his mind began calculating.
'What do I do now? Can shadow energy do the same as magic? If I infuse shadow energy, would it work? Well, there is no point thinking about it, I should just get to it.'
Ezra placed both his palms, he took a deep breath and willed his shadow energy to flow, no skill or ability, just the shadow energy.
For some seconds, nothing happened, Ezra was becoming scared that he would fail, but suddenly. At the center of the ball, a small black squiggly-looking energy formed.
Silas raised a brow when he saw this, was it darkness magic? He thought to himself.
Ezra didn't back down at this point, the shadow energy began growing in size rapidly, it reached half the ball in a few seconds, but that was when the real thing began.
Ezra noticed that as soon as he reached the halfway point, the crystal ball began suppressing his shadow energy, not wanting it to progress.
'I see, so that's how it is, well I won't be brought down.'
Ezra released all holdbacks, allowing his shadow energy to flow uncontrolled into the ball at a crazy rate.
The shadow energy broke past the halfway point and began rising like crazy. It became more violent and raged like a storm, soon it filled the ball, but it wasn't done.
Ezra poured more and more, he wanted to see his limit, and if this ball could define his limit. But against his wants, the crystal ball began cracking.
Silas panicked when he saw this, he had yet to experience something of this sort, he dashed towards Ezra, but it was too late.
The crystal ball exploded, releasing a powerful wave of shadow energy that blasted Ezra and Silas who were close away.
Robert ran as fast as he could and caught Ezra, while Silas cast a simple wind spell that stopped his fast descent.
The explosion cleared up, and only the shards of the crystal remained as a memory of what happened.
Ezra got up from his father, he looked at the crystal ball, he had an uncontrollable urge to smile, but he recognized that he had broken what may have been a very expensive ball, so he put a lid on himself.
He turned to Sila and apologized, "I am very sorry sir, I didn't mean for this to happen." He said sincerely.
"Well, I can't say I will blame you. I am just surprised, it has never been recorded that someone shattered the crystal in their entrance examination.
I for one am quite happy that I got to see this, young Ezra, I hope to see more of your exploits soon. I will process all you need for your next examination and when you will be taking it.
I'll also inform the management about what happened, you don't have to pay for the crystal ball, it will be handled." Silas explained to them.
Ezra heaved a sigh of relief when he heard that, he looked at his father who had a very bright smile on his face, a smile of pride.
"When your sister came here, she also made the examiner gawk in admiration, she performed so well, filling the entire ball. Now you went ahead to smash the ball.
Your mum and I aren't all that good in magic, but seems we have been blessed with you two, I am proud of you son." Robert's voice tinged with pride.
"I said I wanted to get into the academy and you made the chance for me, it would be wrong if I didn't give it my best, so I did."
They headed out of the office, Silas recorded Ezra down as one of the people who passed. As they were about to leave, Silas called out to Ezra.
"Hey kid, since you impressed me so much, let me do you a favor. This is a small hint to prepare you for the exams, train hard, cause there will be fights."
Ezra and his dad left the academy and went back to their inn. From the time they left, till Ezra got to his room, his mind had been rotating around what Silas said.
He said they would be fights, did that mean duels or something?
"Well no point worrying about it, when I get back, I'll train with Lisa to get her skills better, I can't let her fail."
Now that he was alone, Ezra thought it would be the best time to check out his new collection of shadow abilities. He locked the door of his room and stood in the middle.
"Okay, now shadow clone." Ezra willed the ability to come to be, the shadow that was cast from the lights through the window flickered, and then a humanoid figure rose from it.
The shadow clone then began having colors, and then in a few seconds, it was the exact replica of Ezra.
"Whoa, this is crazy," Ezra walked to the shadow, he stretched out his hands to touch the shadow clone.
His hands passed right through like it wasn't there.
"So it can't be physical?" Ezra asked, and as soon as he said that, the shadow began condensing around his arm.
He felt his shadow energy draining into the shadow clone and it was getting physical.
"So it uses my energy to gain mass," Ezra muttered.
"Okay stop before you crush my arm." He told the shadow and it stopped. He pulled his arm out.
He looked at the shadow clone and thought about what else he could do with it, he realized that was a new stream of images flowing into his head, he could sense and see all that the one was seeing.
The image, the smell, everything. He could tell what the clone was experiencing.
"This is really awesome, I can be at two places at once, this is beyond great." Ezra was ecstatic.
He deactivated the shadow clone and was now ready to attempt the shadow summon.