Chapter 4: The Lord's Blessing

Mana stains - that's what mages had found out after years of performing experiments on human embryos. These experiments - sometimes too cruel, were one of the reasons that sparked the war.

An embryo usually starts forming a magic core in the fourth month of pregnancy, and this development can continue well into the 8th month. But in some cases, it happens that magic core starts its development but due to the mismatch of the attributes from its parents, or some other environmental factors, it fails to form completely.

Such a child is born neither a human, nor a mage. The child develops the features of a mage, and the aura of one, but is not able to practice magic. He is also unable to live within the human society, for his unfinished magic core is a constant source of radiation, harmfully affecting the lives of humans around him.

Mages were first and foremost, practical people. Once they detected that such a case could happen, they would prevent the child from being born - after-all, the child would have to live a life full of challenges, and scrutiny. Hence, most mage marriages were arranged after carefully matching the attributes, in order to ensure a healthy offspring.

Sometimes, when the attributes matched too well, a perfect child was born - a mage far surpassing the capabilities of his peers. Worshipers of Lord Shvek would deem the child to be a possessor of the blessing of the Lord.

Raudra was one of the very few such examples. Born to parents with average power, his life would have been average, if not for the blessing he had received. He had a mini-temple in his house, his family was a devout believer in the Lord. Every morning, he woke up at 6:30 and prayed to the Lord. Hymns would play in his house from 6:30 to 8:00 - the time recommended by the priests.

Today was an important day. He woke up to the sound of his father playing the music system. His mind clear of all thoughts, he washed his face and sat down for meditation. After meditating for an hour and a half, he went down for breakfast.

"Good morning, father."

"Morning, son. Here, have some pancakes."

Before eating, Raudra took out a mana sensing device and measured the pancakes.

"Hmm, 418 Cass. I'll have three of these."

He opened his mini-portal and entered the value in his food journal. Raudra liked to document everything - from how much he ate, to how hard he worked out and even the output of his magic core. Since the deployment of his father to the Nico Islands, he was unable to get access to the highest quality of food, but he never complained and made do with what was available.

"I have taken leave for today from the patrol, son. We'll go to the test center together."

"There is really no need, father. It is just the theory test today. The school is also running a special shuttle."

"You don't know how crowded the streets get during this time. Trust me, we're going to need my patrol bike."

After finishing the pancakes, Raudra thanked the Lord for the food and picked up his bag, which he had already packed the night before. It contained some snacks and drinks.

Raudra was well prepared for the exam. There was just this one thing that irked him. It was that guy - the guy who had gotten a perfect score in the theory examination for the past two years. The fact that he took the exam twice meant that he was not good enough in the practicals, and there was a high chance that he would take this year's exam too. But that was not what irritated him.

He had taken a ton of mock tests and worked hard on the subjects. He had also solved all the previous years' tests. No matter how hard he worked, he could never get the perfect score on a single one of them. He would always miss one or two trap questions. But this guy had done it twice.

Raudra liked to know his competition, and also the people he could look up to. He was not that arrogant to think that no one could be better than him, its just that he did not see a path. He couldn't figure out how the guy had gotten all the trap questions. And this had left a lump in his heart, a deeply uncomfortable feeling.

"Are you still thinking about that?"

His father asked as he performed some checks on the bike, which was the standard department issue Avenger 5000.

"I told you, you don't have to be perfect. The result of the theory exam does not even matter that much as long as you pass the minimum required marks. And its not as if you're intending to be a researcher.

Now, remove the distracting thoughts and focus your mind."

Raudra nodded and took a deep breath. Whatever happened, he was going to give his best and leave the rest up to the Lord.

As his father started up the bike, they slowly started to weave through the traffic. Here, Raudra could see a lot of vehicles from the past, ones which nobody would use in the capital city, Dauria. It was unfortunate that his father had to move here five years ago, when he committed a slight mistake in an important case and was demoted as a result.

*

"Can you repeat that, please?"

"Neal, N E A L"

Raudra heard a weird accent from the guy standing before him at the reception of the test center. Then he realized that the guy was probably a refugee of the war.

'Wait a minute, Neal? Was he the same guy?'

Probably realizing Raudra's gaze, Neal turned back and gave him a mean look.

'Wha.. What did I do to him?', he wondered as the person at the counter asked him to remove his portal and put it in the provided box.

The participants were also forbidden from using mana, well not like they could do much even after using it, since nobody at their age would develop their mana wall and be able to use complicated spells. But still, all the precautions were taken to prevent cheating.

Once they became a university student, only then they would obtain the method to create their mana wall and embed spells in it.