Chapter 17 - The entrance exam [1]

About 2 hours into the exam, I had already completed about 95 percent of the questions that were present on the question paper, there were no particularly tough questions in it, now all that was left was the questions that would test how much I knew about mana.

I looked at the first question and scoffed internally, 'hah, I still don't get how this crazy school expects young children no older than 12 to actually know answers to questions like this. I guess they just give these questions to stump the students, I mean no other reason makes sense,guess they will be stumped when I answer these questions.'

[what actually is mana?] I read the question and proceeded to write down my answer on the answer sheet.

{while we are not aware of what mana exactly is, the widely accepted belief is that mana, divine power, demonic energy, aura, elemental energy, QI, and all other forms of energy, are different states of a substance called aether. While the truth of this theory is quite uncertain, the evidence shows that this is likely the case, if not then explaining the conversion of mana into aura, divine power, and elemental energy, can not be explained, at least not with our degree of knowledge.}

Stopping my pen after I completed the previous question I looked at the question paper and let out a sigh, and once more started to write.

[why do people store mana in their core, or rather why do we do so, rather than converting it into a specific type of energy and storing it in the converted state?]

{the answer to this question comes down to the stability of storing mana in different states.

While the martial republic to the south has figured out a way to store QI in their bodies rather than mana, the practitioners who tried to actually store the QI inside their bodies could no longer use it, for tow major reasons,

1)the QI was extremely unstable, so if the practitioner lost control of it for even a moment they would have exploded on site, and

2)our bodies are not meant for the use of states of aether other than mana, and as such storing anything aside from mana inside us is completely useless, as even if we were to circumvent the instability of the energy, using it would still be impossible, unless someone were to artificially modify their body to be able to use a different state, even then I believe that they would be a ticking time bomb that could explode at any point of time.}

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About 30 minutes had passed since I started the last section and I had finally finished the paper.

"Huuuuu, that was tiring." I said softly as I leaned back against the chair and let out a breath.

"Huh" a collective sound came out of every single student that was in the room as they stared at me, even the teacher was surprised to have seen me complete my paper.

"I don't have time for this" one of the boys that was staring at me said as he shook his head and started to once more focus on his own paper.

"Are done with your paper?" the teacher said as she approached me.

With a nod I replied to the teacher, "Yes I am, I just have to run through it once to make sure I haven't missed anything"

The teacher nodded and said, "I see, well if that is the case then do you mind if I look through it?"

I shook my head not caring if her reading through my paper would waster a couple of minutes, "No not really, you can look through it if you want."

With a somewhat surprised look she said as she put her right hand forward asking for my paper."Really than I will take you up on that."

I gave her the paper and said, "Here you go."

"Thank you" she said as she slowly started to flip through the pages of my answer sheet one by one, and with each page the look on her face got more and more surprised.

*flip*

*flip*

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*flip*

*flip*

After looking at Julian for a couple of minutes the teacher thought to herself, 'The hell kind of monster is this kid?'

*cough cough*

After coughing twice to grab my attention, she said, "Here you go, ah I believe that you can submit the paper as is, I don't think there is a need to go through it once more."

I shook my head and replied, "No, I'd rather do a check, I wouldn't want to feel bad, if I make a mistake just because I didn't recheck my paper."

With a mix of shock and confusion visible on her face she said, "Is that so, well okay then, just submit it to me when you are done."

Looking at her expression I thought to myself as I took my paper back from her hand, 'Guess I really stumped her huh, I mean I guess anyone would be if they knew that an 11-year-old wrote this.'

Putting my paper back on the table I stretched my arms and let out a deep breath, " Huuuuuu let's go"

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About 10 minutes after I got my paper back from the teacher, I had just completed rechecking my paper, so I walked up to her and said, "Here you go ma'am" as I handed her my answer sheet, along with my question paper.

"Good, now you can sit on your desk and rest there until the 3 hours are up." she said as she collected my papers before looking through them, and putting them on the table.

"Yes ma'am" I respond as I walked back to my desk with more than half the class staring daggers at me.

********

Meanwhile, back at the imperial palace absolute chaos had been ensuing for the past hour.

"How long is it until all the ministers, and nobles will arrive here?" the emperor said as he paced around a hall with a large round table, with several rows stacked one above the other, in the middle, with Julian's father Jacob, and a blue haired, white eyed individual sitting on two of the chairs on said table.

[author note : like how senate thingy looks, I don't know what it is called, but I am sure you get what I mean.]

"It will take another 10 minutes your majesty" a maid who had just entered the room to give her report said.

After an exclamation, the emperor said, "Fuck, okay you may leave."

Looking at Christopher's annoyed expression let out a small breath and started to speak, "Your majesty please calm down, we always knew that this was coming, it is just that we never anticipated that the demons would have already prepared enough to launch a full scale war against the orcs."

"Huuuu you are absolutely right Jacob, I need to calm down, but that fucking demon king is just such an arrogant prick, it is hard for me not to get annoyed as I read his letter." the emperor said as he crushed the piece of paper that was in his hand.

"Just calm down, the nobles will be here shortly, and we also have to think of sending a message to the martial republic, and the holy Akranes empire. We will also have to send a delegation to our elvish and dwarvern neighbors to prepare for war, so you panicking is really not helping us right now." Jacob said as he got up and asked the emperor to return to his seat.

After a deep breath Christopher cooled down and decided to return to his seat, and said, "You are absolutely right my friend, I am 100% positive that the demon fucker just sent this letter here to piss me off, auff this is such a pain."

Nodding at the emperor's statement, Jacob looked at the blue haired man and said, "Arthur before the other nobles arrive I want to know how prepared is our military, in case the demon's invasion into the Utgar kingdom flings the empire into war."

With a shake of his head he started to speak, "I am going to be honest, it is not looking all too great right now. With so many years of peace, our soldiers while trained to fight, have for the most part no experience in the battlefield, which is likely going to be a massive issue for us, as most of our war trained veterans have already retired".

"Ughh I think that made my head ache worse." hearing Arthur's reply Jacob sighed as he massaged his head.

After stroking his chin for a bit the emperor said, "Hmm Arthur try contacting our veterans, and see if they can train our soldiers so that they don't become completely useless in the battlefield."

Arthur immediately replied in the affirmative as he nodded his head, "Yes your highness, I will get to it once this meeting is over."

Satisfied with Arthur's reply Christopher turned his head to Jacob and asked, "Also Jacob, how are our logistics looking, do we have enough food, and cash stored to fund a full scale war, in case it gets to that point?"

With a nod Jacob started to speak, "Fortunately our logistics are looking okay, and I believe we can fund a military double the size of what we currently have if the need comes."

"Great, now let's wait till the nobles come, and then we can start the meeting in full." the emperor said with a nod, as he looked at some of the reports that were still coming in.

*****

Back at the academy the written test had just ended, and all the applicants under andra had gathered to where andra had asked to come once the test was over.

Once everyone of the group that was under andra had returned andra started to speak, "Now since all of you have finished the first test, we will go to the location of the second test."