It won't need to be a genius to understand what's going on. The situation is right in front of them.
At first, though all the students came and everything is ready, the test didn't start, second two unknown students came out of nowhere and entered the test. As if they were waiting for them to join an elder announced the test details, third and the most important thing is that the city lord announced the increase of two slots.
Every point suggests that those two were here to enter the academy. Even if they fail they might just get handpicked by the academy elders. Which means the number of slots wasn't increased but two slots were already got fixed.
The mage academy has been impartial to everyone and didn't pay any head even to the city lords, but now it is allowing two random teenagers to join it's courses, that too by creating a fake test for them. These were the thoughts of people.
While few people want to strike a good connection, few people want to grab the chance and get the two extra slots for themselves. It is understandable that people want to get those two slots. Two extra slots may just be the reason for their clan to get even stronger and become the powerhouse of the city, by rising through the ranks
An elder from the academy led the students to the starting point, while the students followed the elder and stood in the line as they wished. The test to run around the entire city is the test of endurance and physical capacity. Hence, the place didn't matter. It isn't really tough if one's foundation is strong. One can easily complete a lap in two hours.
The elder started to explain the rules of the test, "students are not allowed to fight with each other and everyone should run outside the city. All kinds of cheating were prohibited and one should only rely on oneself, if caught cheating by any means, then the participant would be disqualified". After saying the rules elder raise his hand and the spiritual energy started to gather in his hand and was compressed into a ball of energy. Then he added his fire element and shot it up. Knowing that it is the signal every one halted their moment and gathered their attention towards the fireball. Each and every student is waiting for the ball to touch the ground. After reaching a certain height it started to fall down. Seeing this everyone stood in position. After falling to a certain height it suddenly vanished into thin air. Seeing this few students stood up in confusion but few remained in the running position. John and shiv also stood in position.
If one can extend their spiritual senses they can sense the disturbances in the energy. The fireball didn't vanish but it just got compressed to an unimaginable level that one can't see it with the naked eye. Though the fireball got compressed the amount of energy it harnessed remains the same. Since it got compressed it will take a little more time to reach the ground.
As it takes more time one can't guess the time either, and if one can't sense the fireball they won't know when to start. Just when everyone was shocked about the disappearance of the fireball a thick mist covered the area rendering them unable to see each other. Few students got scared and run away and few students just stood there as they tried to figure out what was going on and few other students were still standing the running position.
Seeing how far they went to conduct the exam, elder Dao nods in satisfaction. Becoming a mage isn't an easy thing. One would never know when their life is going to be in danger. Hence they should be prepared for every situation at every time. At first, they said it's going to be a simple running race but they tested one's nature to observe the situation and adapt accordingly, one's ability to sense the disturbance in spiritual energy and the mist is created to reduce their vision so that one cannot copy others. All are simple tricks but they were put together in such a way that it strikes fear in the heart of the participants rendering them to unable to understand what's going on.
Few students started to run and all of a sudden while few stood there without knowing that race had already begun. While few were sprinting ahead few were maintaining a study pace. John and Shiv also started to run as they run the mist slowly reduced. Within no time they were out of the mist when they came out of the mist they saw few students were sprinting ahead of them and few were maintaining a study pace. As they remembered elder Dao words and observed the cultivation realm of the others, most of them were at chi refinement level seven and few were six and only a hand full of them are at chi refinement level eight.
Surprisingly john was the only one who is out of the mist with chi refinement level five. As he looked at him, John also looked at shiv and both of them shocked at each other's cultivation. John managed to make a breakthrough and reached chi refinement level six while shiv managed to reach chi refinement level seven. Seeing the growth in each others cultivation, John and Shiv laughed and started to run while maintaining the study pace. While they were running the one who shocked more was elder Dao and the city lord. As others don't pay much head to their cultivation, elder Dao and the city lord were paying close attention to both of them. And they clearly know that they were in the chi refinement level five and six a moment ago when in the world did they managed to grow to the chi refinement level six and seven.
While everyone is concentrating on the energy ball Shiv and John thought that the spiritual energy in the mist is more than the natural environment. So they started to cultivate and made a minor breakthrough. As they moved ahead they heard a loud boom from the starting line, following that, an announcement came, "participants who were still standing in the starting area were eliminated".