Chapter 6

Two months later..

Cloudy Peach Academy was bustling today. It was their much anticipated grade one students admission examination.

In the whole of city, Cloudy Peach academy shared the same status as the City mansion seat. Infact, many top political leaders and warriors were once students of Cloudy Peach academy.

The current City Lord wasn't an exception. Although it was regarded as a second rate power, no other second rate power dared to slight Cloudy Peach Academy.

Currently in a huge field, the size of a stadium, many seats hovered above the air. Atop these floating seats were the hyped up spectators.

Gathered around the huge field was a dense amount of quasi grade one students. Currently, their eyes shone with a certain glint of eagerness.

At that that moment, a short chubby looking man descended from the sky, wind attribute energy swirling around his body.

"It's the vice principal. Vic principal Bekor!"

"Whoa! are all wind mages so amazing? they can fly!"

"Idiot. That's a super rank magic skill"

The entire spectators and participants below exploded into a fury of discussion with the arrival of Vice Principal Bekor.

In Cloudy Peach academy, the Principal was the number one expert. However, he was extremely reclusive as a ghost. Infact, most Instructors didn't even know the gender of their Principal.

Below the Principal were the three Vice Principals. Vice Principal Bekor ranked second in strength.

"I want to thank everyone for making out time to attend this event. On behalf of the Academy, i want to extend my gratitude"

Vice Principal Bekor spoke in a loud voice that vibrated around the massive arena

"We at Cloudy Peach Academy have a single goal.. to rear and cultivate future talents"

"We live in a world where we must overcome tribulations of every sort to survive. Alien races, natural disasters and even ourselves" Vice Principal Bekor had an air of righteousness around him.

"We have the experts holding up the skies for us, but can they live forever? the answer is no! every generation must pass away and a new one must take over"

"These young ones below me are the future of the next generation" he pointed towards the participants.

"They are the future experts of tomorrow. So, enjoy your time as you witness their time of greatness.. begin the first phase!"

The spectators exploded into cheers and applauses. Vice Principal Bekor's speech struck right deep into their hearts, Throwing them into the depths of anticipations.

Heroes were born from the ashes. They anticipated watching their future experts as they rose to greatness.

After Vice Principal Bekor spoke, twelve Instructors approached the participants gathered together in the massive field.

They released multiple wooden desks from their storage watches, numbering exactly a thousand.

Without being told what to do, every participants found their way to their private desks.

"The first phase of the exam is the Test for knowledge" a male instructor with fiery red hair spoke loudly so the spectators above could hear him.

The other remaining instructors started moving around, distributing paper sheets and pens.

"In battle, having good battle strength is required to triumph over your opponent. But being a brawl with no brains is a fatal that could lead you to destruction. A mage mustn't just charge recklessly into battle. Formulating a quick plain is necessary to win a battle" the red haired male instructor continued.

"This exam would test your intellectual capability and scheming powress. On your first sheet, there are a hundred questions. Answering a question correctly gives you a single point. Answering fifty correctly grants you an assurance of passing this phase. Rank placement would depend on the number of points you have"

"You only have fifteen minutes.. good luck"

The participants hurriedly grabbed their pen and began to write. Time was of essence.

Theo grabbed his question sheet, his gaze falling on the first question.

"If a water mage faces off against a fire mage. What is the best course of action the water mage should take?"

Theo bit on his pen as he mused over this question. It was common knowledge that water restrained fire. However, fire mages excelled at explosive long ranged attacks.

"What can the water mage do?" Theo thought hard.

"Water magic is good at defense.. since it's like that, the water mage can just stand there, creating a protective dome around themself and wait for the enemy to waste their mana, while also sending some minor attacks over" Theo recalled those tactics many anime mages usually took.

Without wasting time, he wrote the answer, moving on to the next question.

. . . .

Time ticked so fast that before the participants knew it, fifteen minutes passed. The instructors began to gather the answer sheets and although many participants were unwilling, they had to hand their answers over.

When it got to Theo's turn, he handed his own while smiling bitterly. He only managed to answer sixty two out of the hundred questions.

After all the answers were gathered, the instructors began to sort through them while the participants and spectators watched them with suspense.

Ten minutes later, the instructors finished their appraisal.

"Now, i will start calling out names as well as scores. If by any chance you score below fifty, then just know that you are automatically disqualified" the red haired instructor picked up an answer sheet.

"Mario Lin scores fifty two"

"Boris Xina scores sixty"

"Baba Bula scores seventy four"

"Sedi Sylo scores thirty two"

The red haired continuously called out names of participants and their scores in the written exams. Some screamed in happiness when they heard they passed. As for those who failed, they could only sigh helplessly as they left the stage.

"Theo scores fifty" the red haired instructor read Theo's score.

"Wheew. What a close call" Theo breathed out in relief when he heard he passed.

Actually, he didn't harbour much hope in passing. Thankfully, those animes he would usually watch when bored surprisingly came in quite handy.

"You ever said animes were useless is an idiot" he snickered to himself.

Minutes later, the red haired instructor finished calling out the scores. Of the thousand or so participants, four hundred got eliminated.

"Alright, we will quickly move on to the next phase of the exam. Battle" the red haired instructor clapped his hands.

He and the other instructors began to weave various multiple handseals.

"Unleash!" they roared in chorus, sending out a palm strike towards the sky.

A runic symbol shot out from each of their palms, merging to form into a massive runic symbol which shot into the sky, disappearing from view.

BOOM!

A wave of a strange powerful energy swept towards the six hundred remaining participants. It was visible and golden in color.

Right before the audiences, all the participants swept over by the burst of energy disappeared from view.

"What just happened?"

"Why did they suddenly disappear?"

"Is it teleportation? how come i don't see any portal nearby?"

The audience began to whisper among themselves. However, they did it quietly because of the presence of Vice Principal Bekor.

"Do not fret. The participants got transported into the location for their next exam phase" the red haired instructor laughed.

"However, unlike portal teleportation, they got transported via a teleportation formation which i and my colleagues triggered when we did those hand seals" he explained slowly.

"If they got teleported to a new location, how do we view their progress?" one of the spectators, a man wearing straw hat asked.

Just then, a huge mirror began to descend from the sky. It was as huge as the field and had many boxes like a chessboard.

Each of these boxes portrayed images of the various participants..

. . . .

Theo stared around. He was in a mountain range. Strangely, his new environment lacked sun although it was brightly lit.

Just as he was wondering his next course of action, he heard the voice of the red haired instructor boom.

"The next phase of the exam. You must battle and kill dire beasts and gain a beast mark. The minimum number of beast marks you have to accumulate to pass is fifty. You have a nine hours deadline. Do your best, for the audience"

As if it was planned, an hyena dire beast suddenly pounced towards Theo.

"Shit!" out of reflexes, a threw a punch towards it's way.

BANG!

The head of the dire beast got blasted off. Strangely, the corpse transformed into a stream of golden energy that shot into his wrist.

A strange runic mark suddenly appeared on his wrist.