talent

After that well, I don't remember what came after that, all I remember having my form handed back, and being told to move on to the next test.

Walking towards the door, my head rapidly cleared, and I read the new information on the form, the handwriting was in cursive with vermilion red ink, the flicks of ink were exaggerated, reading it I saw, -water prodigy –darkness high talented -astral unreadable –fire low talented.

The information was different than what was shown by the chip, well I should have expected that the chip and the academies would hold different objective values. The astral was marked as unreadable, something was amiss, was astral held to some other set of standards, was it somehow different from the other elemental affinities? Well better not to dwell on it.

The next room was blocked off by a pair of draping velvet curtains, moving them aside I entered, this room was a blinding white, too clean to be natural. Sitting on a whitewood and dyed leather chair was an ebony man, his dark skin shone in the pure white light generated by the sputtering white flame above him, the flame looked bleached, depriving it of all colours.

The man smiled inviting me in he spoke in a sonorous, booming voice "this third trial, hm" he coughed, clearing his thought "this test, is made to measure your talent, talent is a gift not many possess, it's the most envied curse. Those graced by talent are the first to be targeted, the first to die, they're showered in love, then killed in cold blood, talent threatens the strong.

If your talent is low or high, do not be discouraged, it is but an indicator of your current capability, not your future, talent is ethereal, and known to change. It is a light you can use to travel the dark path toward your goal. It is a light, the purest of light cleaner and clearer, however, it not only uncovers the good, so be wary, supposed youth." his voice was soothing.

The test of talent was simple, the man took out a clear crystal ball, encased within a small black, translucent rock. I was told that that rock will react to your arcane foundation, emitting an amount of light proportional to it, the clear crystal distorts the light admitted so only a certain proportion of light leaves, the further it leaves the stronger the foundation and thus the easier it is to absorb archaic force. There are many different levels created by the academies to quantify the arcane foundation, according to the schools, the arcane foundation is only the talent for arcane force, however, arcane force is the base of everything.

Arcane force is the base of your strength, when you reach certain bottlenecks you will be unable to grow your stores of arcane power, without breaking through your limits, talent makes that easier.

the arcane foundation is put simply, a value of arcane force separates from the main branch of power, so if I had an arcane force of ten and a foundation of one it would total to eleven, but because arcane force is multiplicative, it will eventually make the worlds distance. That's what makes it talent.

When I rested my hands on the spherical crystal, the man guided me step by step. "The first thing to do is to channel all your concentration on your hands, force yourself into clarity, empty your mind, be peaceful." I did as he said my eyes closed, and after a while of pure concentration, I cautiously opened my eyes to see a black light emanating from the orb, the man's eyes widened imperceptibly, he took the paper, briskly taking out a pen from his pocket, penning something down. He warmly patted my shoulder handing me the paper.

The following room was the bloodline room, the bloodline testing was uniquely vague, a team of surgeon-looking people, just asked me some questions, which I answered they took out some test tubes, sterilizing everything before collecting samples of skin, blood, hair, etc. They filled the form out quickly shoving it back into my hands, they then exalted me to leave their laboratory, with hurried mumbled words "leave" "over there" and "there. There" so I left. When I left, I was welcomed by the same sight from earlier, noble children crowding around me, in their clouds, I looked down at the sheet to read through it.

Name: alexander campion ---Age:12 ---Birth Year:139 Month:1 day:27

Elemental affinities- -water prodigy –darkness high genius -astral unreadable –fire low talented. talent (arcane foundation)- 5000 blessed. bloodline- high human aquatic and caliginous. Demonic imp level.

Emerging I circumvented all these talent-prejudiced youths, reading over the results and comparing them to the statistics given by the chip, as I predicted they were different.

Other than that, I tried looking at the results of the others, they were mixed some had only weak affinities, and some had foundations as low as two-hundered, according to what I saw on one and seven hundred and fifty is the average, as for bloodlines they were even more convoluted, some were weak, not present or animalistic, I even saw someone with a weak canine bloodline, one strangely had a trace elemental bloodline, that specific person had multiple high rankings for their affinities.

After looking around for a while a familiar stiletto left the exit of the test, it was tabiyas, he grasped a thick sheet of paper a rainbow of ink lighting its surface, from my distance I was unable to read the contents, so I waved him over-enthusiastically, with all honesty I'm tittering on the precipitous of boredom. Upon noticing me he walked over smiling "my future is looking bright, it turns out this great, almighty, famous, kingly, mythical young lord has quite the hidden potential." he lampooned whilst jovially wrapping his arm around my shoulder, he lent in as if about to tell an important secret, "Look here, dear alexander, well since we're already acquainted, mind if I call you Alex" I nodded "look here, dear Alex" he showed me his results, using our bodies to hide it from prying eyes. The results were surprising:

Name: Tobias James Archer ---age:13 ---birth year:138 Month: omitted day: omitted

Elemental affinities- -darkness- high genius –water high talented –fire trace talent (arcane foundation)- 3100 high geniuses bloodline- human Tenebrae, aqua, trace inferno (potential to grow)

It turned out that this new friend of mine was relatively talented, compared to the others he was in the top five percent, he snickered after noticing I had finished reading, "My potential is unlimited, see," he pointed at the infernal bloodline "if I can ingest some infernal elixirs, I can gain the dualities of aqua and ignis, then I'll be unbeatable" his maniacal ravings, rung in my ears, these results really changed him.

The last I saw him, he was a reasonable, well-read noble, now he's talking about spiting fire and ice, forgetting to even inquire into my results, he joked about using his limitless potential to carry 'this new friend of mine' to the ends of the earth.