"Sora, Sora! Today is 16 March 2079, 7:00 am . The sun has been up for 44 minutes, and the weather forecast indicates that it will shine all day long. Average temperatures will be 23°C in the morning and 30°C in the early afternoon. A light wind with gusts to 40 km/h is expected. The important events of the day are : the first quarterly exam."
"Gnnaaahh!!!"
Sora woke up timidly. As she yawned, small tears due to tiredness moistened her eyes. The sight a little blurred, she got up.
Unfortunately, once she got up, she caught her feet in her shirt taken off during the night, and fell. Despite trying, she couldn't catch up in time.
"Ouch!"
"Raah... Seriously!"
She sat down on her lap and felt her head with her right hand. A large lump had appeared.
"Why does this always happen to me..."
This time, a few tears really streamed down her cheeks. Sora was not really used to physical pain.
She took a few seconds to breathe and then got up. Even though the pain persisted, she couldn't just stay put. After all it wasn't the day to be late.
She quickly ate a breakfast that was not very different from her usual breakfast, which was rice bread and cherry jam this time. Sora had a great preference for jams made from red fruits, she found them sweeter than others, without altering the original taste of the fruit.
She had a great preference for redcurrant jelly and blueberry jelly, unfortunately deliveries were scarce.
To eat them more often, she would have had to go to the region's capital, Stella, where supplies of rare foodstuffs are more common.
Unfortunately, prices were high and it took several hours by train to get there.
Once she had breakfast, she combed her hair and dressed in dark colours. Finally, she left for Xenia.
As announced by the alarm clock, the sun was shining brightly in the sky. The temperature was as predicted, but felt even warmer.
Furthermore, Sora was very often dressed in a dark outfit. Dark colours absorbed more light and therefore had a nasty tendency to warm up their wearer.
She often wondered why she inflicted such suffering on herself and that it was time for her to invest in lighter-coloured clothes. This dilemma was unfortunately complicated for Sora, who had a strong preference for darker clothes.
As usual, the journey were about half an hour long. When she arrived in front of Xenia's gate, she was once again surprised by her size. What surprised her the most was that it was still able to surprise her, even though for the last three months she had been seeing it almost daily.
No sooner had she arrived than someone approached her.
"Oh, hello, Sora."
"Hello, Lorena."
The person who approached her was her main teacher, Lorena Melany. Despite her reputation on the battlefield, her manner was much less severe and strict, perhaps even a little confusing at times. On the other hand, one thing exasperated her more than anything else :
"Raah... Please, could you stop calling me Lorena, or even Melany? I don't know, call me teacher, teacher Melany or whatever. But not Lorena! I have a certain position to keep!"
"I'm sorry Lorena, but I really like your name."
Lorena began to blush, but Sora couldn't say whether it was shame or anger.
" Anyway, are you ready for your exam? If I'm not mistaken, you had great difficulty in developing a valid technique?"
Sora stared at her, then replied with a slight sigh:
"It's true, I've had a lot of trouble thinking about how to use my singularity in battle. But in the end, I think the result is going to surprise you a lot. To tell the truth, I was surprised a lot too."
Lorena started to giggle slightly.
"Good, that's good. I would be disappointed if such a singularity was actually just a burden. Especially since the real arcane training starts in the second half of the year. That's when you'll understand what an Arcanist really is, more than just a mere user of elements."
Sora was a little lost by Lorena's words :
"What do you mean?"
Lorena started laughing again very slightly.
"Haha, sorry, you'll see then. I have to go now, I have to prepare for the class exam. Don't forget, in a quarter of an hour at the training ground."
Disappointed and still a bit confused, Sora nodded and assured her to be on time. Alone, she finally decided to move slowly towards the training ground.
Twenty metres away from the training ground, she was called out by a female voice.
"Yaho! Sora! How are you doing?!"
Thirty metres behind her, a young teenage girl with blond hair was running towards her.
"Hello, Lily."
When Sora turned around, Lily stopped dead in her tracks. After a short reaction time, she laughed out loud as few people are capable of doing. It almost brought her down. But above all, it annoyed Sora.
"Hey, what's the matter with you."
"Hahaha, you should actually look at your face !"
"What do you mean my face? "
Sora felt her head with her hand and realised that the lump was still there. Even worse, it seemed to have grown bigger. This made her blush, but it also made her slightly upset.
"Raah, that's true okay ! Yes, I bumped myself when I got out of bed, so what!"
A few seconds later, while Lily was still choking on her laughter, two other people approached.
"Haha, so our princess can barely stand up when she gets out of bed. "said a male voice.
"You should be more careful, Sora. Especially on an exam day. Bumping your head when you get out of bed is only a temporary shame, but to fail your exam because of it is a shame you carry for the rest of your life."
The two newcomers were of course Lei and Loki.
"Yes, yes, we got it... It's not like I fell off the roof either."
Loki smiled strangely, and continued.
"Well, I hope everyone is ready?"
"Of course, why do you think we practiced? "replied Lily.
Loki turned to Sora.
"What about you?"
She smiled at him, and expressed herself confidently:
"You'll see, I think you too will be surprised!"
Thus, all the students gathered in the training building, which was occupied by several other classes, somewhat scattered throughout the gigantic building.
Lorena explained the examination procedure again, before the first student took the exam. This was the A+ Arcanist apprentice, with the singularity 'Shock', allowing him to handle electricity.
"Well, use this device, it will calculate the density of particles that you are able to produce and manipulate."
She handed him a small device that looked like a computer tablet, but smaller. He concentrated on it, and within a short time the results were revealed.
Unfortunately for him, when she saw the results, Lorena was a little annoyed.
"You ! You're a tourist, right ? Your ability to channel the Enkainias has barely developed in three months! Even the worst of the arcanists do better without even making a big effort... Show me what you can do in invocation."
In his turn annoyed, but above all a little ashamed, he decided to do his best during the summoning. Unfortunately, only a small burst of electricity escaped from his hand.
Exasperated, Lorena directly asked the next one to come forward and take the exam. If it were up to her, the previous young teenager, Hyacenthe Vanma, would already be expelled... She hates lazy people.
Unfortunately, as the terms of the exam were already fixed and not very restrictive, she could not dismiss him arbitrarily, as he had validated his exam in spite of everything.
The second person to pass was Lily Sillya. She approached and stopped in front of Lorena. Lorena smiled slightly at her. Lily was one of the people she expected the most.
Lily, in turn, concentrated the Enkainias in the device. The displayed value surprised Lorena strongly. Indeed, although Lily was already very close to the next rank, it was rare for an Arcanist to pass a rank after only three months of training.
"Well Lily, you are now officially rank B, like Hyacenthe before, show me what you are capable of. »
Lily did not lose time. She closed her eyes, concentrated and put her two hands together in front of her. Water materialized, or rather the water in the atmosphere condensed and a shield appeared in front of her. Yes, a shield. This did not fail to surprise Lorena.
In fact, most of the arcanists apprentices sought to have an offensive invocation as their first invocation, even those who had already handled other weapons before. Few had other motivations.
"Tell me, Lily. Why did you choose a shield? »
Lily think lightly before answering :
"Well, we have some pretty strong personalities in the team. So I thought it was better to focus on defence rather than offence."
Although Loki laughed about it, Lei couldn't let it go.
"Well, go ahead and say we're hotheads who always rush into the heap!"
Lily turned around and stared at her.
"Well, what? Am I wrong? "
She laughed very slightly.
Lei, on the other hand, didn't know who to answer. Of the four, she was certainly the most hotheaded.
Lorena was still surprised that such a young person was able to show so much team spirit.
'She will go far, and so will her team...'.
This did not prevent her from continuing her examinations. As time went by, everyone passed. Some shocked Lorena with their creativity, like Loki and his technique of moving through the shadows, others even more, like a young girl who had developed a hindrance technique with an earth singularity, that actually could also help her to move faster. Others, on the other hand, were rather classical candidates.
The person who made Lorena feel the least emotion was Lei, since Lorena didn't know much about this singularity, she couldn't judge whether what she was doing was right or wrong.
Sora was the sixteenth to take the exam. No sooner was her name called than she asked if it was possible to go out, knowing that her singularity was difficult to use in buildings.
Lorena agreed, having previously testified to the difficulty of using this singularity in enclosed spaces.
Sora's first test went rather well. Her progress was significant, but not enough to move up to the next level. On this side she was in the first third of her class in terms of density of Enkainias, the same was true for the rate of progression.
When the time came to invoke her magic, she approached a tree and held out her hand.
The earth began to vibrate slightly. After about three seconds, gigantic roots emerged from the ground.
The whole class was surprised and so was Lorena.
When the roots came out, Sora made them hit the ground frantically. After five seconds, she asked them to stop.
"I can hit with it, but I can also use it as a shield or... as a perch. I mean, they can carry me! "
Lorena didn't know what to say, the power developed by these roots was far greater than what she could see among the other students.
She could only applaud her. Sora, seeing that everyone was speechless in front of her show, smiled and turned towards the sun. It was shining high in the sky. This made her smile even more.
"Today's sun is really beautiful..." she whispered.
When everyone had calmed down, Lorena asked the last ones to come over, but none were as impressive as Sora.
___
In the distance, a hooded man was sitting on a roof. He had spent the whole day watching the first year's exam take place. He hadn't say a word at all, except at the end of the day. He mumbled only one word:
"Impressive. "