Chương 92: Chapter 91 - Part 1

This line is ridiculous, why are so many people wasting three embers on this exam? Maybe this academy is actually a big deal… The great white gates beckoned them onwards. Three lines split the crowd as they filtered through the entrance, one by one. Towering walls, easily eight stories high, made up the outer wall of the academy, dwarfing any buildings near it.

"This year will be my year! I got five more class levels, with this I can finally clear it!"

"This time, I will destroy this exam with my level seventy threshold skill. I got a powerful water subskill!"

"I'm going to get a job with the Vonarch's after I graduate from this academy! All of the provinces will fight for me!"

"Dun, if you graduate from this, you can get a job anywhere! Come on Dun!"

"Can they please just let me in the artisanal classes, I spent a hundred hours a week on smithing this year, if I don't get in I'm going to be stuck with that bastard for the rest of my life." The tension was contagious, the mood of the crowd, gloomy. Gah, all these wannabees have nothing on me, I'm not like this riffraff. Nythera kept her head held high and walked with purpose. One prospective student was passed out, slumped against the outer walls.

A trickle of failed students came out from the building, many almost as soon as they entered the halls. Several were vomiting onto the cobbles.

"No, that's not fair! You can't take my money and immediately fail me!" one ran up to the entrance, drool flying from his mouth. Lightning flux arced out of the pale blue stone at the top, lancing over to him. He fell to the ground a moment later. Ah, that explains the scattering of unconscious people near the entrance, I just thought they were homeless or something. A fourth gate existed but only lavish carriages and extremely-well dressed nobles bothered entering through it.

Armored guards watched the gate like a hawk, as if daring any of the lesser people to approach it. I can almost taste it, the fluxcutter schematics landing in my hands while I pick apart every weakness in their design. Yes, just a little further. OW Rowen pinched her side.

"Remember your etiquette, if you forget in a place like this we could both get in serious trouble" he hissed. An incredibly bored attendant sat at the entrance with dark circles under his eyes. He didn't bother to so much as glance at her.

"That'll be three embers." Daylight robbery! Nythera slapped it down before him, it was gone in a blink.

"Your name?"

"Nythera Vel Aurendor""Foreign nobility? Ok then, not sure how to spell this. Whatever. You'll need to learn Tessetian Dialect before properly enrolling, artifacts to translate text are not permitted. They'll probably just fail you at the first test but whatever. Which course?" Wow he looks really really tired.

"Battle magics" He let out a deep sigh.

"Another one for battle magics then. Very popular course, almost no one actually gets into it." he pinched the spot between his eyes, breathed in, as if the act of talking required too much energy.

"Enter, go down straight down the hall to the exit, your foreign buddy can join you thirty seconds later. Go" The hallway quickly turned to the left, before proceeding straight. Flux brimmed within, as if itching to escape. Nythera walked with haste, eager to get to the exam site. Doors lined the side, every ten paces. Murmurs tickled the edge of her mind but she brushed them off. She kept going straight and found herself reaching the exit within a minute. That was weird, well whatever, I'm through.

She pushed the door open and waited near the exit. Rowen popped out a minute later.

"Took you long enough, that hallway was kinda weird." Nythera said. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"It was the first test." he replied. She cocked an eyebrow in doubt.

"I saw people failing, they sort you immediately after you pay. There is some kind of runic enchantment on the structure, pulling you into side doors. Open any or stop for too long and I suspect you fail." That sounds fantastic! I should open my own academy at Myrraval, five embers charge at the door and then instantly fail half the students! Free money!

"Well I didn't feel a thing, guess I'm too powerful" Nythera huffed.

"Decorum or I will pinch you again when you least expect it." Rowen warned. As they passed the central courtyard, they found themselves staring down at a much larger, gigantic courtyard, with four sunken pits that could fit small towns and one central coliseum. The whole complex was lined with vast academy complexes, at least five stories tall. And above them all, a giant circular tower looming in the background beyond the coliseum.

What a waste of material, you know how many sea walls I could build with this much stone? Just down the steps from where they were, a small courtyard between sunken-arenas was chock full of students, many packing expensive artifacts. How do I get the rich people to give me money? I wonder if I can start a business on school property…

"Batch four! Please follow me everyone, we will begin testing now!" A voice thrummed with energy. The prospective students followed in a disorganized line, elevators of stone taking them from the top of the sunken arena all the way to the bottom in a moment.

"Who's the cripple?" one boy snickered.

"Who are you-oh, as if peasants weren't bad enough, we get armless ones now too?" the noble brat hissed back. Nythera could feel eyes on her arm, her gloves and tunic left enough of a gap to see the mechanism. I really ought to get this thing covered. Though if it makes them underestimate me, it might be best to leave it in sight. Fortunately most of the attention was pulled away by one man.

"It's actually Gladius! Gladius Tesset! In our group!"

"I can't believe we already got to see one of the princes!" Nythera could not see whoever they were talking about. Whatever. The arena floor was somehow still far wider than she had expected, but covered in nothing but dirt. A raised stone platform sat on one of the ends, on which an older man in ornate robes paced on, his annoyance apparent.

"Alright, come on everyone! Get over here so we can get this test over with! No more wasting my time. Hop to it!" His mumbles reverberated throughout the arena, echoing off the walls with far more force than they should have had. The examinees had already split into two groups, nobility seemed to congregate to one side, while everyone else was left on the other. The old man stopped pacing. The murmurs of the examinees petered out.

"Let's get this going, we shall now begin the test. Quick and orderly please. First test will be the written test, I don't know why we even bother with this." With a wave of his hand stone flux flew out like a river. Cubicle after cubicle of stone was erected behind the students in orderly rows.

"Sit, now" was followed by what was intended to be a silent complaint, but due to the flux amplifying his voice, everyone could hear.

"I am going to make Baben pay for all of this afterwards, "good luck to be a test administrator" my ass. That liar." The sound of paper fluttering punctuated the silence, each landing and unraveling before the students, with a pen within.

"One last thing, regardless of this test, it will only be reviewed if you actually clear the other tests. I will warn everyone here right now, that if you have beneath 1000 flux, you might as well leave right now. Come on, get up and go already" his eyes scanned the crowd. One went up to the base of the raised platform "What about artisanal programs though?"

"Do we look like we have time to entertain riffraff? Get out of here. 1000 flux at strata one is barely anything, if you don't even have that, then your class does not have enough stats to be worth instruction and you will undoubtedly fail test two. GO" he pointed straight at the lift. The student walked towards it, clearly ashamed. He was soon joined by several others, heads hung in shame, eyes staring at the ground.

Chuckles came from the nobility, who stood in their boxes of stone, watching the peasantry self-select out with amusement in their eyes.

"1000? Try 1500, come on how bad of a class can you even get?" one girl said.

"Sit down! Stop babbling and take the test already" the grumpy man ordered. How hard can this be? Yeah I don't have much of an education, but Father and Will did what they could, I shoul- Fuck. I can't read a single word. Not one! She flipped through it rapidly, looking for anything she could understand. Unfortunately there was nothing but written answers waiting to be filled. Nythera began to draw. Welp, I'm doomed. Maybe if I sketch some pictures they'll give me points back?

Halfway through an especially grand doodle "Ok test done, no more writing." the papers were picked up with a current of wind flux, her pen dissolved into the desk a second later. And then the cubicles sunk back down into the arena floor, blending with the stone ground. Did I seriously just waste a bunch of embers on this? The groans of dissatisfied students resounded throughout the arena.

"Remember, only if you pass the other tests, somehow, will this even be graded. So don't worry about the paper test, because most of you will probably fail anyways." With gusto, he waved his hands at the rear of the class. Three stone huts had been erected behind them, spaced equally.

"Get yourselves into three lines, next we test flux capacity, affinities, and stat totals. If you lied on flux capacity and are beneath 1000, I'm going to be very upset. These results will, of course, be kept secret. None are written down anywhere beyond pass or fail. Now go!" the old man sighed as he finished his speech. Rowen and Nythera got into the same line, but by the time they managed, the nobles had already claimed the first half of each line, pushing their lessers out of the way.

The back of the lines were full of nervous, uncertain people. Gladius, a taller man with blonde hair, had become apparent as the nobles clustered around him even in the line. How bad could this be? Maybe with high stats and flux, they'll excuse the written test? Right? Right?