Spirit and Affinity

Most of the students stood from their seats and one by one took the forms that they had submitted before. Surprisingly, the number was almost half the students, while few were still thinking about their choices.

"My god, how many of them are forced?" Shin muttered under his breath.

Elior smiled, shaking his head. In a way, he was forced too. He was told to choose some auxiliary courses that do not have to fight on the battlefield.

"And now for the ones who are still clueless about their choices," Aleister spoke, gesturing towards the orb. "This device will help you know your potential and affinity. It is especially made to measure the spirit of the apprentice and their affinity towards the elements of the universe."

The students' eyes widened, and some even cursed themselves for choosing without having any clue.

"There are two things that determine the path for a Guardian. Spirit and Attribute. Spirit tells about the guardian's potential while attribute tells which of the elements he could manipulate." Aleister's voice reverberated in the classroom. "Other than Spirit, the universe is formed of five fundamental elements: Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Space. But apart from these five, there are other elements as well, such as Shadow, Plant, but all of them were connected to one or more of the five fundamental elements.

"The orb here will measure that. It will tell you which element you have the highest affinity with. There are nine grades in the device, one being the lowest, nine being the highest."

"An example would explain better," Aleister said, and eyed Elior again. "Elior, come in. Give it a try."

Elior did not need to take the test to know his affinity, he already knew it was space and Fire and in other attributes it was so low that training them would only be wasting time. But he followed the teacher's order, stood up and went before the device nonchalantly.

"Put a palm on it and infuse mana into it," the teacher said. "The device will measure the potential of your spirit and your affinity."

Elior nodded and infused mana into it at a considerable level. The orb lit up instantly with formless light and it was as bright as the orb gets.

"It seemed you have quite the talent to be arrogant," Aleister said nonchalantly, but his lips were curved up. "Highest level in Spirit. Let's see what attribute you have."

Lights of different colours appeared inside the orb. Each representing one element. Blue for Water, Green for Plant, Gold for Air, Red for Fire, Yellow for Earth and so on.

The orb was filled with different lights, but none of them stood apart from each other. Grade-2 in water, Grade-4 in earth, Grade-1 in Air and similar. At last, the red light turned brighter, reaching over half the orb consuming the other lights. Elior furrowed his brows, seeing something he was not expecting.

Aleister frowned. He seemed to be disappointed. "Six grade in Fire element and all the others too low to mention," he said unconsciously, as if he could not believe it. "How is this possible? With the highest grade of Spirit potential, you should have at least one element with high affinity.'

The teacher came closer to the orb and scrutinised it further. It was a given that the growth of a Guardian heavily depends on the spirit and spirit affects the elements as well. There was no way someone with highest level of Spirit potential has such a low affinity.

After scrutinising for a while, Aliester finally noticed an anomaly in the orb. In some parts, the red light representing Fire was flickering and vibrating. With his experience, Aliester finally could tell what's happening here.

"Space," he whispered, and looked at Elior again. With the space inside of the orb vibrating, he could not measure which grade it was, but he could tell it was quite high. "You have the affinity to one of the hardest elements to master. Go back to your seat."

Elior nodded and went back to his seat, still frowning. The reason he was confused was not because of the space attribute, but the fire. In the previous time, his affinity towards fire was grade-8, not grade-6.

'Is it because I awakened the [Abstraction of Void] earlier than before?' he question in his mind but found no answer. Fortunately, there were ways to raise the affinity of an element to some degree.

"Students, come one by one according to your seatings."

Ileana went after giving a thumb up to Elior. Even though the girl was calm on the outside, she was quite excited inside to know her potential.

Like Elior, she followed the procedure, put her palm on the orb and infused her mana. The formless light flickered almost as bright as when Elior first tried, but it did not reach the highest level of the orb.

"Eighth grade in Spirit, another promising seed," Aleister said and recorded the result in his Hollowbook.

Ileana continued on the test. Lights appeared one after another, each reaching just over the midpoint of the orb. Ileana frowned. She did not know she would be happy or sad to have an affinity with all the five universal elements. In the end, she looked at the words of the teacher.

Aleister felt her gaze and said. "Another anomaly. You have grade-6 affinity towards all the five elements."

Ileana did not find the answer she was looking for from the teacher, but she did not ask if it was good or bad. When she went back to her seat, Elior was smiling and congratulated her. Clearly, he did not expect such a result from her.

The next person to take the test was Shin. He followed the procedure, and like Elior, he got the highest potential in Spirit.

The teacher gave him a look with the corner of his eyes. "Now it's three."

After Shin's test ended, he got affinity towards two elements. Grade-8 on Air and Grade-7 in Water.

One by one, the test continued. Some students gritted their teeth, clasped their fists, seeing low results while some were content with their result, but they could not but felt envious of Elior's group. The highest potential in Spirit after the three of them was Grade-7 and that two only two people have it.

They did not seem to understand how much potential a Grade-7 spirit has, but Elior knew it. If nothing goes wrong, any person having above grade-6 sport would be able to be a Guardian and anything after that would depend on their hard work.

Elior memorised their faces and made a mental note to help them in some way.

As the test continued, some students even were not able to use their mana. In such cases, the teacher helped such students. Mostly they were the ones that failed in their trial, and it was not unfounded that they were not used to mana.

After the test ended, Aleister stood again before the students and opened his lips. "Even though the growth of a guardian depends on spirit and attributes, it is an undying fact that, without hard work, you will go nowhere. Even someone with the highest affinity might turn astray without perseverance and passion."

When the teacher said that, he looked at Elior and his eyes lingered further on Shin.

"I would advise anyone with the low cognitive abilities refrain from choosing the path of Spells, Mana engineering or Alchemy," Aleister said. "A mage needs high perception, intelligence, and precision. And it is true for the Mana Engineer and Alchemists too. It needs more discipline compared to any other path. The best thing you could do is take a couple of demo classes to know if you're meant for that path."

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