Chapter 9

He placed his hand on the glass and a dotted wave aura started radiating on the glass from the boundary of his palm.

A moment later, a vermilion color spread through the glass like how a color tablet disperses when thrown into the water.

『Your ID has been made, press this ticket on the screen outside the door and you will be granted entry.』

Akio was quite amazed. He had never seen this type of mana detector. He was curious as to what would happen if he changed his mana type to water. But he knew that he couldn't do it. At least not right now.

At that instant, there was a whirring sound. As instantly as it had come, it even went away in that instant. He looked to see that a small piece of paper with tint chips on both ends was balancing on the boundary of the hole in the wall.

Akio scratched his head once wondering what just happened. He then took the ticket and marched towards the entrance of the center he had seen on his entry from the gate.

The entrance had a square-shaped screen on the frosted glass door. He pressed his ticket against the small section indicated on the UI of the screen.

There was again a whirring sound from the door. However, this time, when it ended, there was a 'click' sound and the doors slid open on either side. From inside, a blast of cold air hit Akio's face.

He hadn't felt so refreshed before. After that intense heat, it was finally time to cool down.

He stepped inside and looked around. The ceiling was quite high in spite of it being the lowest floor. The walls extended parallelly on both of his sides with a few strange slanted wall outgrowths further ahead. The floor had porcelain tiles laid down with a distinct two-edged line pattern across the whole floor.

What caught his attention the most were the walls. He even touched them to make sure it wasn't glass. This was because the walls had these moving wallpapers which were fascinating to watch.

He glanced to his left and found a card protruding out of a small slit with a metal margin near the edge of the wall. Near the slit, the wall said in a tiny writing, 『Your ID』. He pulled the card out of the slit and stared at it for some time.

The card was actually an ID with all his details and even a photo of him printed on it.

Instead of getting all surprised as had done since he came outside, he just sighed and noted that his class was 3c.

He took a look around one last time and started walking down the corridor. On either side, he could see students through the glass panes, waiting for the teacher to arrive.

『That's 2a...2d...3b...Ah! There it is. My class, 3c.』

He immediately wanted to enter the class but he did not. He realized that he had sweated too much during his time outside. He did not want to go inside only for the class to get a bad first impression of him.

He saw no around. So, he used a negligible amount of mana to push out the odor from his body and with it block the sweat temporarily.

Once it was done, he was ready. He shook his hands and looked around one last time.

『Okay, let's do this.』

While holding his breath, he opened the door. He was very happy to realize that nobody had even batted an eye when he came. He breathed out in relief. He scanned the classroom and found an empty seat. That bench was completely empty.

He walked up to the bench and sat down. The spot where he sat was the furthest away from the pedestal where the teacher stood. He speculated the reason why this bench was empty was that this was their last chance to get into the magic academy. But Akio didn't care either way. He could sit at a bench even further and wouldn't even mind. He was confident that he would pass anyway. And this confidence was not baseless. All those years in the rift weren't only for training after all.

Akio spread his hands across the table and sighed deeply.

『I am here. After all those years of isolation, I am finally here. I will make it to the academy no matter what the cost and show them they were wrong. 』