While Aarav and Lucile talked one of the students on the bottom row was compelled to get up and walk to the scales. The nervousness in her face was palpable and Aarav felt sorry for her being the first guinea pig. It seemed a little fatalistic for them to do this in front of the entire class, what was Aarav going to do when he was up there.
The scale was a complex contraption. The girl, a thin wait like thing looked small in comparison to the device. As she stepped on both pads lit up. There was a whirling sound and the other platform began to rise slowly. As it rose four quadrants lit up on it. It was clear that each quadrant aligned with one of the four cardinal elements. Beyond that it was hard to tell how the device worked.
The whirling accelerated and the girl visibly flinched wanting to get off the platform and stop being the center of attention. Gradually of the four quadrants one started to move gradually upward, floating straight up. The rest stayed on the ground and didn't move or hum in the slightest. The symbol gradually became clearer the higher it rose. Then it stopped a very small distance above the ground, could have been a few millimeters, it was hard to tell accurately at this distance but it was definitely something.
The terrified girl looked over to the side, saw the tile had moved slightly and gasped for joy. "Yes!" She whispered into the silent room. This exclamation loosened the rest of the room's voice, and a few cheered while most started chatting between themselves again.
"Ahem! Well done! That was great, always a little nerve-wracking to be he first but you have done very well. Don't be disheartened if you don't have an affinity as high as her's this is nothing to be concerned about!" The teacher tried to get everyone's attention back.
Aarav sat forward with interest, so that much was supposedly good. Perhaps the general population didn't have much magical affinity, in which case his 0% was nothing to worry about, that was a huge relief but also showed him how skewed his world view had become from spending time with royals. They must be held to a completely different standard.
His relief was short-lived though, as Lucile continued to give him her pitying look. It was making his skin itch!
Very quickly once the first girl was done and seated, the rest of the class rose one at a time and filed on to the tile she had vacated. Each person or creature stepped onto the tile and waited for their evaluation. Soon patterns began to emerge, with Aarav being at the back he would be one of the last.
The smaller creatures tended to have much higher magical affinities while the larger had lower, the checks and balances of nature he supposed. By contrast humans were all over the shop some had very high affinities while others were incredibly low.
In terms of spread all had one element or none. It was surprisingly common for the children not to have any affinity at all which made Aarav feel a whole lot better about his own situation.
Then again when he looked at all the smaller creatures their affinities were upwards of 25% in one element or other. That made Aarav a little nervous, he was going to have to tough it out.
When they finally got to Lucile and she stepped up many of the girls in the class oohed and ahhed at her appearance. Then, as soon as she stepped onto the platform the water affinity tile shot up nearly half a metre into the air. It was the most pronounced movement so far. For such a small creature to wield such power...
When he had been Water, Earth or Air variants of Slime his affinity had been similarly high. If only he could go back to one of those he could train some magic. 'But would I have been able to hold such a disguise if not for Copycat Slime?' The answer was a resounding no. This path had been a necessity. Just like fire slime was also a necessity once he levelled Copycat Boss Slime to its maximum level.
While Aarav dived into his internal musings something incredible happened. Where everyone else had only had only one element if they had any magical affinity, now the earth tile began to rise. It was slower than the water tile which likely held some significance as well but then stopped about a quarter of the way between the water tile and the ground. A lower affinity but no less impressive for it.
If the crowd of students had been surprised by the first revelation of high affinity, now they were dumb founded. Outside the royals and nobles no-one had these levels of affinity let alone more than one element. Aarav now understood why the nobles were kept separate from the common folk.
He knew that Boren had a high affinity for Earth, above 50% at least. He could only imagine what that idiot noble was capable of. After his thrashing in the cafeteria Aarav was extremely wary.
The difference between the haves and have not was huge no matter where you went. In this world or the last. There was no way to avoid it. It was a butter pill to swallow but Aarav was familiar with the sentiment. Here his super power was knowing the royal family. Annoying as it seemed he would use any avenue he had available to achieve that power. He would not simply let it pass by because of stubborn pride.
Only the end result mattered and provided no children got hurt, he would be fine with it. 'Actually, I will make an exception for that noble. I don't care that he is a kid, someone needs to put him in his place!'
"Aarav!" Aarav heard his name and he jumped up. He had gotten distracted again and Lucile was coming back up after her assessment. He made his way down and wondered why people didn't just get asked, like him they would have ways to see what their affinities were right? But then again, maybe 9-year-olds couldn't be trusted to tell the truth in this scenario?
He honestly felt a little like he was walking to his doom, as a small creature everyone would be expecting his affinities to be in the high 30s at least....'oh well might as well get this over with.'
Finally arriving at the bottom of the stairs and stepping onto the platform he sighed in resignation.
"Good, good. It takes a second to adjust but then..." She trailed off as she saw what the platforms were doing.
As Aarav turned to regard them he could see that they would not settle. They would start moving up half a metre and then back down again. Three platforms kept doing it, Water, Earth and Air. Fire remained stoically on the ground as Aarav had expected it would. The others....now that was...unexpected.
"What does it mean?" The teacher who had failed to introduce herself simply shrugged. "So what do I do now?" She was silent for a moment and then spoke for the class to hear.
"Settle down class!" She said raising her voice. "I SAID SETTLE DOWN!!!" She screamed and the class finally quieted. "Ahem, Aarav I think it's best for you to head to the Headmaster's office for now, see if we can't parse apart the problem! Mhmm?"
Dejectedly and wondering why nothing could just go right with him, Aarav left the classroom making his way out and across the melee and archery grounds before arriving in the Lecture Halls, above them on the second floor were the Admin offices and the dreaded Headmasters office.
The Admin section of the building was a little different from the first floor. It made sense Aarav supposed, these spaces were generally for the older students and faculty. Artwork and murals covered the walls and ceilings here showing images of students working hard or studying or feats of incredible magic or incredible alchemical discoveries or other interesting developments.
Honestly if Aarav was the studious type this would really appeal to him. He could understand why students would want to stay on and try to make new discoveries. Aarav wouldn't mind making use of his engineering knowledge to see what he could come up with, anything would be useful to the people here he would imagine.
A few steps from the Headmasters office he took a deep, steeled himself for what was to come and, with a heavy but small hand, knocked on the door.