Evaluation III

"It's 30. Your mana level is 30." The evaluator said in a disappointed tone.

"Is that bad?" Kaalsuo said, wondering why the evaluator had a sudden change of tone. He assumed that his mana level might be bad which would've explained why the evaluator was disappointed.

"Nah, it's really good. It's way above average. Usually, kids around your age just have a mere mana level of 5 or 6."

The evaluator said whilst maintaining his disappointed tone. He even stopped drinking a cup of tea in spite of what he had just seen.

"So, why the long face?" Kaalsuo was even more confused. He had no clue why an above average mana level would be disappointing.

"I hate to break it to you but it's the fact you actually can't use magic at all. Even with a high mana level."

The expression on the evaluator's face was depressing. It seemed that the evaluator didn't want to tell the news, fearing that he would break the kid's dream.

"How unfortunate. This kid's mana level is higher than even some of the students in the academy."

The evaluator thought, drinking his cup of tea again to wash away his depression. He thought that if it weren't for the fact the kid couldn't use magic, he would've grown up to become a legend.

"Well, I knew that a long time ago. There's no need for you to be 'depressed' by my wasted potential." Kaalsuo didn't feel sad. In contrary to what the evaluator thought, Kaalsuo was actually relieved about the news.

Kaalsuo didn't know whether he could use magic or not thus he had occasionally tried ridiculous stuff to solve the question. Obviously, all of his attempt was a total failure. Now that he finally knew the answer, he could now stop being an idiot and attempt to do useless things.

Besides, he could simply use his C96. Why use magic when you have the next best thing right at your possession?

"So you're not sad?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I feel bad for you regardless of earlier. I'm just gonna give you this failed magic item. Don't worry, you still use it even without using magic." The evaluator said, giving a small golden bracelet with a pentagon shaped gem on it.

"You can input your mana into the bracelet. It's supposed to duplicate multiple items at once but since it's failure, it can only duplicate one object at a time."

"So.. How do I input my mana into it?" Kaalsuo didn't know how to use magic. Even during the time where he was babysit by a wacky magician, his method of magic was too complex for his little body to even comprehend.

"Basically, you have to gaslight yourself to create a tendril of mana. You'd then use that tendril to activate the device-..

Oh, you did it already."

The evaluator was about to explain the further details of the procedure. However, it would've useless since Kaalsuo had already done it.

"What's that you got there?" The evaluator said, looking at the object Kaalsuo had duplicated.

"Holy shit." Kaalsuo thought. He had just hit the jackpot. He figured that he could give it a try by testing it on his gun. He assumed that it would only duplicate the gun itself and not the already loaded ammo. However, he didn't expect it to duplicate all of it.

"You sure this is a failure?" Kaalsuo said, feeling guilty about taking an actual functional device. He thought that the evaluator surely didn't examine it enough.

Though, a part of Kaalsuo wanted to simply take the device and pretend that it was indeed a failure. It would be stealing but who cares? The evaluator already gave him the green light so it was safe for him to take. Still, his guilt overweighted his mischievous side thus he didn't take that route. For now.

"Yeah. I already tried it and it didn't work as intended. What about it?" The evaluator told Kaalsuo. He had already tried the device multiple times in which all the attempts were completely failures. He figured that it wasn't the device malfunctioning, it was that the device just didn't work.

"Instead of just explaining, I'll just show you." Kaalsuo spotted and grabbed an empty tiny box. He then went h

ahead and put a pebble inside the box.

"You said that it can only duplicate one object, right? Well, I think you got it wrong." Kaalsuo them added several more pebbles into the box and quickly duplicated the box. As he had expected, the box including the pebbles were a duplicated.

"Oh, I guess I was wrong. But I'll test it myself first since I still doubt that this isn't a failure." Upon seeing the device actually working for Kaalsuo, he was slightly bewildered. He clearly remembered that the device didn't even work properly for him. Then something clicked inside his mind.

"Wait. Hey, try using this bracelet for me." The evaluator said, tossing the device to one of the other evaluators simply sitting down and reading a book.

"Um, okay?" The evaluator unleashed his tendril of mana from the tip of his index finger. The tendrils of mana was black and looked ferocious and violent. In a split second, the tendrils immediately stabbed the bracelet. However, the bracelet only duplicated the box despite the evaluator using his powerful mana tendrils.

"I see. I honestly don't know how you're able to use the item at all. It probably has to do with the fact you likely have an affinity with magic items."

"I see." Kaalsuo said. He honestly didn't expect that he had an affinity with items. Besides, he just wanted to ensure that the device wasn't a failure in the first place.

"Well, you've finished the evaluation. You can go home now if you want." The evaluator said.

"Wait, that's it?" Kaalsuo was confused. He thought that there had to be more parts to be evaluated.

"Yes, that's it."

"Well, can you at least explain why I can't use magic?" Kaalsuo asked the evaluator. Although he now knew that he couldn't use magic, he still didn't know why he couldn't use it in the first place.

"Usually, the orb will change colours to indicate what your elemental affinity is. That's the explanation."

The evaluator explained. He really didn't need to further elaborate what he was saying since he knew that Kaalsuo would quickly figure it out himself.

"Oh, so that's how it is." Kaalsuo immediately figured it out. He himself saw that the orb didn't change color as he touched it.

The reason why he couldn't use magic in the first place is because he simply couldn't. It wasn't the matter of being talentless in magic. He, unfortunately, had no affinities with elemental magic at all.

"It's because I don't have any magic affinities, right?" Kaalsuo said, asking the evaluator for his answer.

"You're absolutely correct. Well, you better get going since I think a bunch of kids is about to come inside." The evaluator's expression immediately worsened as he heard the horde of children running towards the building.

"Alright then." Kaalsuo was teleported to the inside boundaries of the academy but not before he tried to ask one final question.

"Can I at least have that bracelet?"

"Sorry but I'm afraid it has to be a no!"

"I should've just took it after all.."

***

Kaalsuo wasn't really outside the academy just yet. He was still inside the academy grounds. He was waiting for a considerably long time for the flock of children to once again reappear for him to walk alongside.

Kaalsuo could simply go back home alone but there was no saying that it could get dangerous. He didn't want to get kidnapped alone at a road on the way home.

He preferred to choose the choice of walking with the flock of children and use the children as protection and meat shields from any possible kidnappings. Even so, he knew that the kids that were acting as shields were more susceptible to kidnaps. However, he simply didn't give a fuck.

"Oh hey, Kaalsuo!" Etrus said, intensely waving at him like usual. He seemed really happy and pleased about his evaluation.

"There you are." Kaalsuo wasn't really surprised about Etrus's arrival although he didn't expect him to appear. Instead, he was rather curious about the results of his evaluation.

Kaalsuo had heard the other kids, that had arrived earlier, that they were given short lessons on how to use their magic after discovering their affinity. He was curious what magic Etrus had gotten.

Even so, Kaalsuo didn't feel like asking him about his affinity at the moment. He expected Etrus to show it off like it's something that had not been seen in millenniums.

"I've been blessed by a thousand gods. Behold." Etrus said, purposefully delaying his affinity reveal to create some suspense.

"Just show it." Kaalsuo quickly said to prevent the delaying from extending even further.

"Look!" Etrus shouted, showing off the most spectacular piece of magic he had ever seen and created. A powerful offensive attack that could slay the gods and dragons of the world. Slicing the ocean in a half and quite possibly, slicing Atlantis in half. Magic that will revolutionise the world all in a flick of a finger. Let your eyes feast on this spectacle, a tiny fire that was barely comparable to a plastic lighter.

"Brilliant." Kaalsuo was quite speechless. He expected for the flame to be slightly more larger than what Etrus had demonstrated. Regardless, he didn't know how to react to this information. Thus he simply have Etrus a thumbs up.

"Anyways, when is the other kids coming?" Kaalsuo said, asking Kaalsuo about the disposable meat shield of kids. He was sitting there for hours just to wait for the meat shields to come. At some point, he was even tempted to just improvise and walk home.

"Oh, they'll be coming very soon. Hey, I think I can hear them coming!" Etrus said. The noises that come before and after teleportation is a strange buzzing noise like electricity.

"Yeah, you're right." Kaalsuo said, hearing the same teleportation noises. It sounded quite irritating since it wasn't just only one person teleporting. It was several thousands.

Suddenly, an extremely bright light appeared as hordes of children immediately ran as fast as they could. Wreaking havoc upon the poor stone pathway. They weren't running because of danger. They did simply for fun and competition against the other random kids.

"What the hell?" Kaalsuo thought. He had no idea why the kids were unintentionally causing a earthquake. Nonetheless, he couldn't question it as it would clearly be useless to do.

"Oh, hey guys!" Syra said, running towards Kaalsuo and Etrus upon seeing them.

"Now that we're all here, let's go lookl around the town!" Etrus suddenly proposed to the group. He figured that touring the town would be a fairly fun thing to do. Unbeknownst to what an usual medieval town has to offer in it's shady narrow alleys.

"Sure." Kaalsuo simply agreed to the proposal. He knew that it would get dangerous if they went deeper into the town. Hence, he was quite determined to keep the group from straying further from the safer parts of the town.

He figured that as long as those two were behaved enough, everything would go just fine. He could even relax and have fun while they're at it if the conditions are right.

"Why not?" Syra instantly agreed with the proposal without hesitation. Her expression seemed to indicate that she quite loved adventure.

"Then let's go!" Etrus said with his usual enthusiasm and immediately dashed ahead. Shortly afterwards, Syra followed.

"Oh hey, lil' bro." Someone suddenly spoke to Kaalsuo from behind. Kaalsuo instantly knew who the person was, even without looking.

"Hey." Kaalsuo smiled as he turned around to see that his prediction was indeed correct. It was Churnol.

Now that Kaalsuo was up close with Churnol, he could tell that he had vastly changed.

Churnol was now 15 years old thus he looked almost nothing compared to his looks almost 4 years ago.

His face used to seem slightly chubby and irritating at times. However, those past facial features were now non existent. His body was fairly buff and the pupils of his eyes were now coloured in a shade of bright purple, just like his hair. His hairstyle was messy as hell. Even so, the messy hairstyle seemed natural on him. It somewhat made Kaalsuo impressed.

"How are you doing lately? I was impressed by that weapon you got there. Not a lot of kids around your age can 'injure' the dummy, let alone amputate it." Churnol said, expressing his impression of Kaalsuo's strange weapon.

"So far, so good. To be honest, I didn't expect for the dummy to immediately get amputated."

Kaalsuo only intended to cause some serious bullet wounds into the dummy. He did not expect for the dummy to be that weak. Especially when that kid, Ivor, which had such powerful punches, didn't even at least seriously harm it.

"Hey Kaalsuo! You coming?" Etrus said from afar, before shortly running ahead to travel around the town.

"Are those your friends? You should go ahead and go with them. I also gotta finish some businesses of my own." Churnol said, using his head to gesture one of the students calling out his name. The students was absolutely covered with ash from some kind of experiment.

"Alright then. I'll get going now." Kaalsuo waved goodbye to Churnol. He had no reason to stay there with Churnol any longer. Besides, he still had to ensure that Etrus and Syra wouldn't become drug addicts by the time he found them.