Recommendations

Arthur was happy… ecstatic, actually, to find that he'd been placed in the same squad as his best friend, Darius. Not to mention the same squad as Leo, Momo and Tara almost like it was meant to be.

The three of them had helped him dearly during the Sorting. If it hadn't been for them, Arthur couldn't tell what could have happened to him and chose not to dwell on it either.

He soon came to terms with the fact that without them, he would have wound up dead.

Then again, he'd been trying to save Leo… and probably show the impressive Vanguard just how formidable of a warrior.

This had gone spectacularly wrong when he'd got himself raked and nearly gutted out of the simulation.

"Oh yeah! Arthur, I wanted to ask. Were you guys able to beat that thing?" Leo brought the prince out of his thoughts while chewing on a large chunk of bread.

"Once again, Leo, don't talk with your mouth full," Momo scowled.

The brown-haired boy reached for a goblet of blood-red punch and swallowed hard, his eyes turning red from the strain before he hoarsely voiced his apologies, "Sorry, Momo."

"Are you okay, Leo? That looked like it went down the wrong way," Darius narrowed his eyes.

"I'm fine!" Leo turned away from the Warlock and eagerly bit another large chunk out of his bun.

"Don't get yourself too full. We have orientation after this. If you stuff yourself too much, you won't even be able to walk," Darius came again.

"What are you, my mother? You haven't even eaten a thing yourself. You'll collapse from starvation. At least I'll be able to get up. You'll need help," Leo countered.

Darius gave the food a withering look and pushed the plate away from himself, "The Sorting… has me out of 'sorts'."

"I completely understand," Leo replied with a mock bow and fake respect, nodding his head with a sombre expression.

"How did that even make sense?" Tara joined in.

"This is something a select few would understand," Leo replied gravely, "Just let the man 'sort' himself out."

The sombre vanguard winked at Tara who only got more confused.

"Ah, I see what's happening here. Darius's stomach is off 'course' and Leo is trying to eat a 'behemoth' of food as compensation for what the Sorting put him through," Momo pitched in excitedly.

Leo's face lit up with joy, "Yeah! 'Sort' of. The fun was almost too much for me to 'bear'."

The upperclassmen seated around them cracked up in laughter. You four are the best. I almost forgot the whole speech we were supposed to give after you joined."

"Speech?" Arthur asked.

"Well, now may not be the best time considering the Ceremony is not quite complete yet," the boy speaking said to them, "We'll handle your Orientation as soon as this is done. The Ceremony should be winding up soon, so I guess you'll have to wait till then."

................

The professors got seated once more except for Draul, who still had to conduct the rest of the Ceremony. The Deputy Headmaster was surprisingly still standing effortlessly, showing no signs of exhaustion whatsoever.

"Now that we've got those 'interesting' evaluations in order, I'd like to invite the students that were admitted based on recommendation."

With a flick of his wand, a large rune Circle appeared on the floor right next to the glowing tower of the Sorting's magic.

The students, especially the first years, gaped at the professor, amazed at the display of skill with which he used his wand.

The ease with which he let his spells sail one after the other with no sign of exhaustion never ceased to amaze the students.

Arthur soon came to learn that few Warlocks alive were capable of what Professor Draul was doing and even fewer capable of going that long before running out of mana.

…unless aided in some way to achieve faster mana regeneration.

The Teleportation circle glowed and at its centre, a relatively small group of students appeared, all dressed in grey robes.

This group was nothing like the First Years that had gone through the different simulations and Sorting tests. They numbered fifteen and all wore the air of nobility like a second skin.

"Dar, what does he mean by recommendation?" Arthur whispered.

"There are students that are trained from the moment they can walk. Trained in the art they are meant to perfect when they get older. If their skills grow strong enough and prove worthy of the course their parents chose for them, then they get in on recommendation.

At that point, the Sorting Spell doesn't even change the course they came in for. It only gets to choose the squad they go to. Everyone in Barthlorn gets to go through the Sorting even though the Spell puts them in the expected squad… which it usually does," one of the Squad Six upperclassmen intervened.

"A life like that sounds… lonely!" Arthur sighed. The older student gave him an odd look but the prince wasn't focused on his expression as he continued with another question, "Well, what if the parents have a squad in mind?"

"Sharp—"

'and naive…'

"—No one except the Sorting Spell gets to decide that. Have you noticed the differences between the squads yet?" the boy, who Arthur took note to be wearing big round glasses asked.

Arthur took another look around the Great Hall, trying to discern the differences they were talking about. So far, he could tell that Squad Six had the least number of members by a lot. However, there was also a strange feeling he got from the other squads.

It was almost as if he knew he would feel out of place the moment he tried fitting in with them.

At first glance, he couldn't tell the difference. After all, when he looked at his friends in Squad Six, he found no similarities among them. They were an odd bunch that bore next to no common traits.

"Take your time to observe."

Arthur chose to shelf the information and let it come to him naturally. His eyes sparkled when he noticed the first person to walk into the Sorting Spell's mesmerising rings.

A silver-haired girl took her seat in the Sorting Ring.

"Name: Lucy Hawks

Course: Hunter

Category: Warrior

Role: Archer

Squad: Squad Two"

There was an uproar of high-pitched cheers, squeals and claps that resounded through the hall. Plenty of them came from the second row from the right. These ladies were all dressed in bright aqua robes matching their cheerful attitudes.

"Are there only girls in that squad?" Arthur wondered.

This time, the one Arthur came to know as Edgar pitched in, "Ah! Squad Two has the highest ratio of girls to boys. Lucky bastards! They get to hoard all the ladies while the rest of us scrape by."

"Watch your tongue, Edgar," Beatrice gave the boy a murderous glare.

Edgar shuddered and shuffled further away from the girl.

The spectacled boy continued, "It's not a rule that they should be girls in that Squad but for some reason, the Sorting always places most of them there. It searches for raw potential in archery… They are usually good… and I mean insanely good.

It's no wonder Ms Hawks got to join their squad this year."

It didn't take a smart person to notice how one-sided the selection had been. None of the other squads had even given it a second thought as to where Lucy would be placed during the Sorting and hadn't even applauded the selection.

Instead, dissatisfied grumbles went through them as they watched the silver-haired girl stand from her seat to approach her squad.

"Okay… So Archers go to Squad Two. Momo is here though and she's highly talented," Arthur turned to the girl.