Fernando

As they gazed at the red robed Fernando who walked over towards the remains of that apprentice, nobody tried to stop him from taking moonstones from the apprentice's token.

Why would they? This was Fernando, one of the headmaster's son. He also had blue ring aptitude. Without even completing the courses of first semester, he passed the examinations with flying colors and became a second semester junior. So Although he enrolled late, he was still able to participate in this test.

After taking the moonstone and throwing the apprentice's token, he leisurely looked at the other apprentices. Seeing some wary, some fearful and some determined, he suddenly laughed.

"Even if all of you attack me at once, nothing will change." Seemingly enjoying this battle, he said to those apprentices who hearing his words, took a step back.

"I don't believe it. This guy is only one and there are six of us. Surely he can't block our attacks if we all throw a spell at him together at the same time." an apprentice in yellow cape suggested, giving courage to others.

As if influenced by his words, the apprentices came to a tacit agreement and started casting their spells.

"It is true that I cannot fend off all of your spells if you attacked together but I can still prevent you from doing that." Turning the pages of his spellbook, Fernando also started casting as he said so.

With his spiritual power that exceeded theirs individually due his blue ring aptitude for magic, he seemed to have finished casting his spell before they could even fully construct a spell model in their mind.

"Magma ground!"

As he cast the spell, cracks appeared on the the ground which the apprentices were standing on and suddenly, lava started spewing out from them. In about five seconds, the soil had already turned into hot and red chunks of magma.

Three of the somewhat wise apprentices had decisively stopped casting and escaped from the area of effect of the spell. As for the other three, they were unfortunate enough to not make a decision quickly.

They had kept casting their spell and only realized what threat ''magma ground'' possessed later. But when they became aware, it was already too late. Vicious lava had already burned the defensive shield cast on their clothes and their body; starting with their legs, had started to sink on the molten ground.

As they were casting an offensive spell just a moment ago, they had no time to switch into a defensive spell.

Two of them, sacrificing their legs, ran out from the molten earth surface but just as they had reached normal ground, two rings of fire enveloped them, burning them to their death.

The other apprentices could only look at this scene in horror, as they, who had just cancelled casting a spell, had to endure the spiritual backlash and couldn't cast any spell to interrupt Fernando from killing those poor souls.

"Ahh! My...my body... my hands it's... No!! It's burning!"

At this moment, the shrill cries of another apprentice broke the three of them from their traumatized state. Yet, as they looked at the apprentice still in the magma ground, another chill ran down their spines.

Too cruel! This headmaster's son was too cruel!

Looking at the apprentice's state, even Aren silently agreed with them. He might kill others but he would never put someone in this state.

The one who cried was the same apprentice that wore a yellow cape who was now being burned and was sinking deeper into the magma. He could see that more than half of the body of that apprentice had already sunken in the lava. His hands, in particular had their flesh roasted, with small lumps of them even separating from the bones and falling at the vicious lava few centimetres below.

His cape was no more and his spellbook had already fallen to the ground. On his face, there was no mention of the courage he had before. With the continued burning of his lower body to upper body, smell of cooked meat mixed with sulphurous smell of magma was permeating throughout the surroundings.

As the apprentice continued sinking for sometime more, his heart was burned by the molten magma after which he shortly died.

"Rya...Ryan died just like that. No! no! we can't win against him. He... he is a demon! Run!" an apprentice seemed terrified at the thought of getting killed like that as he hysterically screamed and ran away, throwing his token.

The other apprentices were not in a better condition either. Hearing what one of them said, they also threw their token and ran as if Fernando was truly a dreaded demon.

Fernando didn't chase after those running apprentices but collected the moonstones from their token. He had already taken pleasure in killing four of them. He couldn't waste anymore of his time here.

Still hiding far away, Aren could sense that Fernando now had 11 moonstones on his token. That was enough for him to pass the test.

It was only the first day and Fernando had already had more than 10 moonstones!

"As expected of that man's son... I guess its time then" Aren mumbled under his breath.

Without moving, he waited for the fire elemental apprentice to go on his way. Then he would also walk for sometime and find a place to spend the night.

However, he suddenly realised one thing. If he could even sense the moonstones Fernando had from there then didn't that mean...

"How long are you gonna hide? Come out!" Fernando's voice rang out. He seemed to have already known that Aren was hiding there as without even looking at his direction, he said that.

Aren, knowing that he had been found out, came out from the bushes and presented himself before the green eyes of the fire elemental apprentice.

Looking at Aren who was in an old black hooded robe, fully covering his body from head to toe, Fernando, stretching his hands towards him, said in an intimidating manner. "Look I'm not in the mood to kill again. So quickly hand over your token and scram."

However, Aren was not paying any attention to what he was saying but was rather sizing him up.

A long face having green eyes and a roman nose. Light red hairs on his head, wearing a pointed mage hat in red robes. The boy looked to be about 15-16 years old judging by his height which was yet to grow and his muscles which were yet to develop. At a glance, he did resemble that man.

Infuriated by Aren's behaviour of not giving an answer, Fernando again opened his closed spellbook as he said, "Fine then, it seems you want to die instead."

However, before he could even finish his spell, Aren's calm voice sounded.

"Bestow Misfortune!"

Immediately after, without him knowing, his spellbook seemed to have caught fire at one point.

When Fernando was battling with those apprentices, Aren didn't just sit there and gaze at what was happening. He had also taken some misfortune of those boys. Now to bestow it was a also within his plan. Aren although Aren made a mistake by not taking the sensing functions of the token into account, he was prepared on the case that Fernando found him.

"Wha-"

Without giving him any time to put out the fire, Aren rushed forward with phantasmal speed, casting ''haste'' on himself.

Though he was suprised, Fernando recovered almost as quickly. He knew he couldn't cast any spells using spell books for a while. So making a quick construction of ''hold person'' spell model in his mind and casting it at Aren, he activated his magical robe.

"Fire barrier!"

Immediately as he said that, a magical fire made up of dense fire elements was formed between Aren and him, separating the two boys in the midst of battle.