Push

Ares awoke early. Years of hard work had conditioned him to be an early riser and the time was only 05:50 am. There was a soft snoring coming from the other bunks. Looking around Ares found it was fairly bright in the room it seemed the huge crystals emitted light all the time. Not wanting to waste any time he withdrew his spell book from his bag and began to read. The more he read the spells the closer he felt to an epiphany; despite this the feeling of any realisation was always just out of his reach.

After half an hour the other boys woke up. Victor looked somewhat grumpy and ignored Ares completely.

At 06:40hours Ares left his dormitory leaving just before Victor and his goons and making his way towards the courtyard. Upon arriving there he could see Tracy had already arrived. The boys and girls were separated and had separate dormitories so he had not seen her since the day before.

"Hey Ares over here." She shouted loudly. Several others nearby looked at her with narrowed eyes, it was far too early to be so spritely. Ares spoke to her quietly as they awaited the rest of their group to arrive. Soon Sisaro and Den joined them. Only Joe was missing from their group.

"Where's Joe?" Ares asked. He hadn't seen him after he entered his dormitory yesterday but there was only five minutes until 7am when lessons began.

"There he is" Den said indicating to a hunched figure walking towards them.

Joe looked awful, he had a huge black eye and was walking with a pronounced limp. It seemed that Ares may have been lucky when Victor was given a warning by Nova, certainly Joe hadn't profited from the same treatment. There were a group of three others behind Joe who were laughing to themselves as they too walked into the courtyard.

Ares was seething but smiled gently towards Joe as he joined their group.

"What happened to your face?" Tracy asked, it was clear she hadn't guessed the obvious reason and seemed genuinely confused.

Joe coughed before shrugging in a non-committal way.

"Fell down some stairs." He mumbled.

At this point there was no chance to respond. What looked like a rip in the air appeared at the middle of the circular courtyard.

Nova stepped out from the rip in an elegant manner. Today she was wearing what looked to be a typical training soldiers' getup without the bulky armour. She wore a pale beige padded suit and had a wooden sword at her side. Her hair was tied back in an elegant pony tail.

"Today is the first of many assessment days." A hush had already spread in the courtyard and her words were clear and crisp.

"We will look at your perception, fighting ability and of course intelligence." She smiled with a devious smile on her face. Many of the youths present felt an involuntary shudder as they looked at her smile.

Nova then spread her left arm drawing an impromptu window in the air. The air in the window rippled before turning into a sheen of black.

"Follow me." She said, stepping into the window and disappearing. This was a portal, how she made it so freely mystified Ares.

There was no hesitation as the first few youths followed disappearing after her. Ares too joined the group and stepped into the window.

He found himself instantly in a small room. There were about twenty seats in a row and a huge door in front of them. The door was humungous easily two stories high and made of a reddish metal. Nova was stood between the students and the door facing them. After all the others arrived through the portal she spoke.

"Sit." She commanded sounding like she was talking more to dogs then students.

After taking a seat Ares glanced up and down the line, everyone seemed to be nervous and unsure as to what would happen.

"We will begin, you have two hours, do not leave your seats." Nova said. There was a look of confusion on the faces of everyone present, she hadn't told them to do anything yet the test had already begun? What were they supposed to do without leaving their seats?

Ares too was puzzled, he took his time to look around the room and observe everything. After ten minutes he hadn't seen anything. The others in the room also looked confused. One person had asked Nova what they were expected to do; following their question they had been ruthlessly slapped and told to stay silent. This kept the rest of the youths quiet. Ares did notice however that Sisaro was looking in the direction of Nova in a concentrated fashion.

Ares once again looked at the Nova but couldn't find anything on her blank expression. He glanced above her. Barely visible above the huge door there was a silver outline on the wall. It would have been hard to see if he hadn't known he was looking for it. The silver ring stuck a cord with Ares, he recognised what it was. It was a spell. Knowing this he then immersed himself in looking at the outline.

A familiar trance like feeling set over him. Ares ran the shape through his mind again and again. This circle wasn't fragmented like the first one he had tried to learn so it didn't take long before he understood what it was trying to teach him. After understanding what the spell was the spells name appeared in the centre of the circle.

"Push." It had no description but Ares could guess its use from its name. Despite being far quicker then his first spell learning it had taken Ares almost all the time required in the test. He looked back at the line next to him. Most of the people were staring at the wall a look of concentration on their faces, a few however clearly hadn't grasped the test they were still looking around the Spellcaster, panic visible in their eyes.

"Times up." Nova said glancing at the line. The silver ring behind her faded from view before disappearing completely.

Most of the group had a look of disappointment on their faces, a few looked downright depressed.

"Stand if you believe you can cast the spell." Spellcaster Nova said loudly.

Ares stood and looked down the line, Sisaro had stood up as had three others including Victor.

"line up in front of the door." Nova ordered.

Ares took his place, unfortunately was last in the line and the others were in front of him.

"Cast the spell on the door and enter if you can." Nova grinned. It was clear from her expression she didn't have high hopes for the group.