"Oh, so you are the last one?" Jack opened his eyes to find himself on a small hall in front of a beautiful young woman. Her emerald eyes seemed to be evaluating him as she played with some strings of her long brown hair.
"Did I fail?" Jack was feeling bitter. In the end he couldn't maintain his consciousness against the thunder. But he was more than content having defeated his inner demons.
"What are you talking about? You passed. You were the last remaining candidate. I don't know what you faced. But I can imagine how difficult it must have been for you since it took you so long to finish the test." The young woman seemed to have an idea of what Jack faced during the entrance exam, but at the same time didn't.
"You can't even imagine." Jack smiled as he answered with wry smile.
"It's ok, you don't need to tell me. Go through the door to my left and wait inside. You won't have to wait too much since you are the last person. Have a nice day." The woman answered with a professional smile.
Jack bowed respectfully towards the young woman before passing through the door.
Once he entered, he saw roughly 50 people gathered in the same room. Almost everyone turned at the same time to look at him. It looked like it had been some time since the last person entered, so it was no surprise that everyone wanted to take a look at the person who took so long to pass the entrance exam.
Jack didn't like being stared by so many people. He felt like a monkey in a zoo.
Luckily, it seemed that the staring only lasted for a few second as everyone went back to mind their own business. After all, if someone took such a long time to pass the entrance exam, it only meant that the person was, if not the weakest, one of the weakest of the bunch. Or at least, that's what they thought.
Jack was going to sit on a corner to wait as he was told when he heard a familiar voice.
"My dear brother! I really feared you had failed the test after not seeing you in such a long time. I had complete faith on you, but I didn't expect you to take so long to pass the test." His "good friend" Klaus spotted him and quickly arrived in front of him.
"Well, I didn't expect the entrance exam to be so difficult to be honest. I really thought I was gonna die." Jack answered honestly.
"Oh really? What did you face?" Klaus asked curiously.
"Didn't we all face the same?" Jack was feeling confused with Klaus's question. From what the girl on the reception and Klaus's question Jack concluded that the test wasn't the same for everyone.
"Not at all. The test is different to everyone. The entrance exam is an illusion." Klaus explained calmly what he knew.
"An illusion? It felt very real to me. I suffered lots of injuries." Jack didn't quite believe what Klaus said.
"You say that, but here you are alive and well. It is obviously a powerful illusion, that's why it felt so real. The entrance exam makes all candidates face their worse fears and defeat them. It is their way to know if you can pass your limits and fear nothing." Klaus continued his explanation.
"Then, it doesn't matter how strong you are?" Jack had a weird expression hearing his explanation.
"The illusion is set to the limit. The stronger you are the stronger the illusion will be too. It is set that way so you have to extend your limits and show your potential. A wolf is stronger than a chicken, but a chicken can become a phoenix. The academy doesn't need wolves, they want chickens with the potential to become a phoenix." Klaus seemed lost in thought while saying the last sentence.
"Well, I don't know if I can become a phoenix like you said. But I still think facing a storm that made it seem like the world's end, and getting hit by thunder was a bit overkill even for my taste." Jack thought that the illusion he faced was too much. How was the academy expecting for a young man to face the force of nature and succeed?
"You faced heavenly tribulation on your entrance exam? That means your worst fear is complete obliteration and the force of nature. That's deep." Klaus was surprised with Jack's worst fear.
"Well, humans can control anything with enough power and influence. But the only thing we can not control is nature and the universal laws. That's why I fear those. Because I can't control it and bend it to my will. In the end, no matter how strong I am, I'm just an ant in front of the universal laws and mother nature." Jack got lost in thought while a hazy memory came to his mind. But fog seemed to cloud his mind before the hazy memory vanished.
"What did you face?" Jack turned and asked Klaus.
"Snakes. Lots of snakes." Klaus muttered while he shuddered.
"What?" Before Jack could ask anything else the doors at the front of the room opened and a young man instructed everyone.
"Everyone please follow me. You are going to attend your introductory class so please just follow my lead." The young man said before turning around and start walking.
Everyone followed him with Jack being no exception. He turned to Klaus and asked. "You seem to know many things about the academy. Are we starting classes already?"
"Not yet. Classes don't start until next week. But new students enter one week early to get used to the academy grounds." Klaus explained like this was common knowledge.
"I see. Then what is this introductory class for?" Jack wanted to have as much information as possible.
"You will see when we get there. If I explained everything to you I would be spoiling all the fun of discovering the academy's secrets." Klaus gave Jack a playful smile who chose to ignore him.
After 10 minutes of going through some long corridors and many stairs, they came to the front of an old wooden door.
The young man leading all the pack of new students knocked on the door as he spoke respectfully. "Professor, I brought all the new students."
"You did good James, thanks for bringing them. You can take your leave now. I will take on from here." An old raspy voice came from behind the door as the young man bowed and left. Leaving the students not knowing what to do.
"Are you gonna stand there all day? Open the door and enter the room." The voice sounded a bit annoyed, so the student at the front opened the door and entered the room. Not even a second after the first student entered, everyone followed.
A simple room with a few candles illuminating it, a few long tables with some chairs and a cupboard was what greeted everyone's sight.
Seeing this, Jack was a bit disappointed. He expected the classroom of an academy famous like this one to be a bit more flashy, to say the least. But this seemed like a primary classroom from a third-grade school from his previous world, or even worse.
"Please take a seat." It was after hearing the voice once again that Jack paid attention to its owner, and what he saw surprised him.
"She's strong." An old woman stood in front of the cupboard with her back arched and her hands behind her. She had her white hair in a bun style. Old black clothes was all she wore. And they seemed to be too large for her to wear but weirdly enough it seemed to match perfectly with her.
Jack didn't see anything especial about her, but he felt a strong aura coming from her, and he was sure that the old woman could kill him a thousand times if she desired.
After everyone sat down the old woman noticed the weird looks many students were giving in the room so she decided to say something. "Looks can deceive. Try to not use your eyes and use your inner being to see beyond." The woman didn't say anything else and almost everyone had weird looks on their faces.
"Illusion!" Jack's eyes brightened up, and he tried to catch something around the room, but to no avail.
The old woman noticed a few students looking around the room once again after she said those words and a very small smile appeared on her face. "It seems like we have some promising students this year."
The old woman cleared her throat and everyone in the room focused their attention on her.
"Welcome everyone to the Glowing Star Academy."