The Final Obstacle to Reach Success

Waking up stiff and taut, Saiph rolled out of the comfortable bed with a groan. His head hurt a bit, probably from dehydration, so he went downstairs to the lounge and got a cup of it.

The phantom pain in his right arm felt tingly and palpable, so he took another one of the pills given to him by Jack with his water to keep the phantom pain at bay, if possible.

It seemed to have worked pretty great yesterday -- Saiph hadn't noticed the phantom pain whatsoever -- so hopefully similar results are shown through today.

After getting some instructions from a nice receptionist, Saiph went to the location for his final exam: the general exam.

He didn't know too much about this supposed general exam. Jack didn't mention anything and no one else in any of the locations he had been to yesterday had made any comments regarding the matter. Saiph took this as a sign that it wasn't too big of a deal.

The building that he found himself at was pretty much identical to the one for the runic exam, which made sense. He stepped inside the front door alongside a few other kids his age.

This was the last exam and it had already been two weeks since the opening of the exams, so the only thing that was left for a vast majority of people was this. Hence, it was overflowing in the reception room.

Saiph struggled to find his place in the crowd, squirming through people like a snake in attempts to make it to the front. After all, the earlier he finished, the better.

After receiving an elbow or two in the gut -- be that accidental or intentional, Saiph didn't know -- Saiph finally managed to reach the receptionist counter in the back and give one of them his ID plate.

"Room 242!" he shouted to Saiph over the crowd.

"Okay!" Saiph yelled back.

Wiggling through the crowd over to the stairs was far easier than the opposite direction, luckily for Saiph. After only a few seconds, he had arrived at his destination, no tremors of anxiety to be found in his heart.

He opened the door and entered. Someone else followed close behind him. To some surprise, the kids in this room weren't furiously scribbling down answers, unlike the runic exam.

After talking to the instructor, Saiph found out that this was because the general exam was structured so that rooms start and end the test together, allowing the instructor to grade them all at the same time since this test would take longer to grade than the runic one.

Saiph took his papers and sat down at an empty table, still slightly distraught at his lack of communication with any of his fellow peers.

Maybe someone would sit down next to him and take the initiative in conversation. Yes, that would be best.

A few minutes later and, indeed, someone had taken a seat next to Saiph. It was only the second-to-last in the room, too, not dead last.

She was a cute girl wearing plain clothes, similar to the ones Saiph was wearing. She had blonde hair and crisp blue eyes, clearly not from Orion.

Trying his best not to be too conspicuous about taking episodic glances at the girl, Saiph wandered off in thought about his future circles at the Academy.

"You may now flip your papers over and begin. You will have three hours to complete the test." The instructor's voice snapped Saiph out of his fantasies.

He flipped the test over and started reading the prelude, which stated that the test was split into five parts: history and geography, Alchemy, Blacksmithing and Mineralogy, Magic Theory, and beast knowledge.

Saiph flipped the page over and went on to the first section: history and geography.

He wasn't too confident in his knowledge about the Tower and the history of the Academy and the human race but didn't struggle too hard.

He knew the name of the 48th, 49th, 50th, 1st, and 100th worlds, at least, alongside some other general information like the primary export of Orion. He didn't know of the founding headmaster's name or the other founding fathers, the scripture that the Academy's policies and curriculum rely heavily on, or the name of the 51st through 55th words and the 46th and 47th ones.

He hadn't heard of the "Just Insurrection" before, either, so he passed the question pertaining to it by and moved on.

...

After about half an hour, Saiph moved on to the second section, Alchemy, with a majority of the questions in the first still empty.

With a confident smirk, Saiph looked at the first question of the section.

"What is the chief property of a Jraelin Minor Knot?" it read.

'Yes! Yes! Yes!' It was time to shine.

…

An hour later, Saiph finished up the Alchemy section and ended it off with about a third of the questions left empty.

Most of the questions pertaining to Spagyric were relatively simple, whereas the ones regarding Incantata design and formation had him stumped, alongside the hypermortal concepts of Spagyric and materials not native to Orion.

Still, he didn't feel too bad about it. It was clear that he could show some excess prowess in the field compared to his peers and competitors.

...

The Blacksmithing and Mineralogy portion of the test went over like a fever dream. Saiph had no clue what any of the techniques or materials the test talked or asked about were.

He ended off the section with a trifling tenth of it filled, those questions just being the baseline ones such as, "Does iron rust?"

Saiph finished the section in a record 10 minutes and didn't think too much about it. He had no intentions on becoming a Blacksmith anyway, so it didn't matter how well he did here.

'Live and Let Live,' he thought to himself.

...

Magic Theory, the thing all Mages had to learn. This was the section that Saiph was most anxious about, if any, since he hadn't learned anything about becoming a Mage, yet this portion of the test would still reflect into his future at the Academy.

The contents of the section were simple enough; there were only four questions. However, each question spoke volumes.

1: How many Ranks of Mages are there and what are each Rank's name and title?

2: What is a Magic Circle, how do they work, and what do they do?

3: Define Mana and list as many usages of it as you can.

4: What is a Mage?

Saiph thought back to the earlier comment made the doctor or nurse- he couldn't remember which it was. They mentioned something about 'Soul Creation', was it? when they talked about healing his arm.

Thus, Saiph wrote down 'Soul Creation' into the answer box for the 1st question and moved on. There wasn't anything else he could think of, after all.

The 2nd question was a bit easier for Saiph. He recalled Jack mentioning something about Magic Circles when he was talking about Runecraft, so they probably had something to do with one another.

He also thought back to half a year ago when he saw the two Mages pull out tens of thousands of pounds of corn from the silo… The one that pulled out the corn had a circle made of Magic in front of him, right?

Nodding to himself, agreeing with that line of reasoning, Saiph jotted down his answer about how Magic Circles were Spells composed of Runes.

The 3rd question was also relatively simple for Saiph. He recalled Mana being quite related to Runes and Circleless Spells, from Jack and the Runic test.

He wrote down that Mana fuels Spells and activates Runes. Listing any more drivel would possibly be counterproductive so he refrained from doing as such.

What else did Mana do? Saiph really didn't know. Maybe that was how Mages became stronger, but that was really a shot in the dark.

As for the 4th and final question, Saiph was slightly perplexed. There were clearly many ways to go about it.

Were Mages someone that used Magic? Someone that could change their fate and aspire for Heaven? Someone that could manipulate Mana?

Saiph pondered over the matter for a few minutes; he still had time to spare in abundance.

Eventually, he reached his decision.

"A Mage is someone who can change their fate and attempt to reach Heaven."

After writing his answer down, he closed the pages confidently, not looking back. He turned to the final section of the exam: beast knowledge.

This section was similarly a nightmare for Saiph as the Blacksmithing one was. He didn't know the six categories for beasts or any of the listed ones or their purposes. He barely answered a single question in this portion of the exam before the instructor called for the final 30 seconds.

Saiph didn't even bother, simply compiling all of the pages together and heading over to the instructor. She received his papers alongside with his ID, putting them aside.

Sitting back down in his chair, the 30 seconds ran out and a large portion of the test takers got up at once to hand in their test.

After receiving all of them, the instructor informed them that grading would be done in anywhere from an hour to two and that they were all free to do whatever they wanted as long as they returned within two hours.

Saiph stayed in his seat and put his head down, eagerly awaiting the results.