"I'm very surprised that we haven't seen anyone use magic yet. Sure, Adam, you said that not many people in this area use theirs, but it's still strange."
"I agree. It's sort of weird. But then again, we haven't used ours yet, have we?"
They both found it weird that they hadn't seen any yet. But, according to what Adam said some time ago, the place they were driving to (the area where Rose Academy was located), was going to have a more constant use of magic.
It was currently 12:00 pm, so they had been driving for almost 3 hours. Adam did say that their destination was less than 10 minutes away at this point, but they were both still extremely excited, even though they were practically hiding it.
For the last 3 hours, like usual, they hadn't done much except talk about random things that came to mind, which mostly involved questions about the Magic Side, and about how the system of the Magic Academies worked. Adam told them not to worry about it since they'd be told about it once they started school.
"Just so you know, we will be arriving in 5 minutes to our destination," Adam told them.
"Can't you believe it, Kaede?" Shu said. "We're slowly getting closer to our future school!"
"Yeah, I know. But I do have one question though," Kaede started.
"Sure, ask away." Adan responded.
"Why is it that when we mentioned Crimson Magic, you let out a gasp?"
Adam heard this and froze up again. He didn't know how to respond honestly to it. "I noticed that because well, you made it incredibly obvious that you sounded worried. What's up with that?"
Adam finally thought about what he was going to say, but he didn't due to being distracted by something outside.
"It looks like we're finally here," he said out loud.
Shu and Kaede looked to their right, and finally saw it for the first time. To their right, they saw a wall, and ahead, an open gate connecting both it and the other half of the wall that was even farther ahead of it. To their left was a city. A very beautiful one at that, but what was very important was what they saw to their right. Inside the walls were a great number of red buildings, but the most notable being a red tower in the middle of the area, with a crest in the middle of all four sides of the top of it. They'd finally reached it. They place where they would study in now.
"Is that…?" Shu asked.
"It's so pretty," Kaede added to Shu's question afterwards.
"Yes. It is indeed," Adam started. "Welcome to your future school. Welcome…to Crimson Rose Magic Academy."
Shu and Kaede kept looking at their future school as Adam kept driving, but then Adam stopped at the side of the huge road.
"Huh, what are you doing, Mr. Leblanc?" Kaede asked him.
"This is where you guys enter the school. To take the Admission Test, you need to head to the school's auditorium."
"But how do we get there?" Shu asked him.
"Oh right. Here."
Adam handed the siblings a piece of paper.
"It's a map. I know it's strange to give you a map for a school, but this school's sort of complicated to navigate the first few times. It's extremely big."
"How big do you mean?" Kaede asked because she wanted to know.
"I mean, there're around 45,000 students in this school," Adam answered her questioned.
"45,000?! Our last school had like 1,000."
"Well, anyway, I need to go somewhere, but don't worry. I wrote my contact info on a corner of the map, so let me know if you need anything. You're still going to have to call me when you need your luggage."
"Alright then," Shu said as he opened the door of the car. "Hey, Adam."
Adam had looked to the front of the car but looked at Shu when he called for his name. "Hmm? Yes?"
"Thanks a lot for helping us. You've been a great help," Shu answered as he smiled at him.
Adam smiled back. "Anytime."
They both got out of Adam's car, and after they said goodbye to him (for now), he extended his right arm, which caused Shu and Kaede to feel something different in the atmosphere around them.
"Oh my god. He's…!" Shu exclaimed once he realized what Kaede realized at the same time.
There was a deep purple light that surprised the car. They both looked outside and saw that there was a purple magic circle on the ground that went around the entire car.
Adam looked as if he was heavily concentrating, and then he opened his eyes at the same time and exclaimed the following words:
"Metal Teleportation!"
Once he said those words, the car, alongside everything inside it, disappeared.
"Teleportation magic…? Impressive," Shu said.
"I know…so cool!" his sister responded to him. "Well, lets go, brother!"
"Yeah. Let's do it!"
They both started walking to the gate. They weren't the only ones, though. Several other people we're walking at the same time as Shu and Kaede. They finally reached the gate itself and started walking through the very long pathway. It was very similar to Bluebell Academy's pathway, except it was a lot longer. It also had many trees on the sides of it, and it also had a type of tree they'd never seen before. It was a tree with pink "leaves." At least, that's what it looked like.
"Woah…" Shu said as he looked at the trees of this type. "What is this…?"
"I think this type of tree is called a "Sakura Tree", or a "Cherry Blossom." I've read about them before, but I never thought that I'd see one in person," Shu heard her sister tell her.
"It's so…pretty," he acknowledged.
They both kept walking because they wanted to find the auditorium. There were 2 other pathways that went to their left and right before the main entrance, but they just followed everyone else and decided to enter the main building. They finally reached and entered it, and it was also similar to Bluebell's, but it was way more spacious and majestic.
"Woah…," they both said at the same time. They weren't the only ones; many of the others walking alongside him thought the same way when they entered.
It was an extremely tall building, with very long hallways to the left and right of it. In front of them, not too far away but not too close by either, was an open gate that led to a small garden with a small fountain outside. They could see a pathway that led to other buildings beyond the garden, but they didn't want to get lost yet; they wanted to make sure that they knew where they were going.
"It's so beautiful!" a boy close to their age said near them.
"Will this be our future school?!" another girl, who looked a year older or so, said.
"Only if you pass the Admission Test!" a girl near her, who looked younger than her, responded to her question.
Shu and Kaede quickly opened the map and looked at it.
"Okay so were here…the auditorium is over there…" Kaede analyzed their location.
"We have to go beyond the garden, then," Shu confirmed.
"Then let's go!"
They started walking down the pathway that went through the garden. Once they admired its beauty and passed it, there were many different buildings and areas; they understood why it was so easy to get lost in it.
"This is so cool…" Shu thought out loud.
"Yeah, I know!" Kaede did the same after him.
They saw that most people were going towards a specific building, which was the one that they'd confirmed was the auditorium.
"There it is!" Shu exclaimed.
They both proceeded to enter it, and weirdly enough, there were no chairs. It was just an empty floor. Well, it wasn't really empty because there were a lot of people there. A LOT of people there. Kaede counted that there were at least 500 of them.
They joined the crowd, who they assumed were simply waiting for something to happen.
There was a lot of loud chattering and gossip if you heard close enough. The siblings were simply too infatuated looking at the beauty of the auditorium.
Close to 10 minutes passed, and nothing had happened so far. They were still just standing there.
"Is anything going to happen or- "
Suddenly, a voice came from speakers around the auditorium:
"Welcome, everyone!"
"Never mind," Kaede finished her statement.
Out of nowhere, on the main stage, some smoke appeared, and a figure came out from it. It was a middle-aged man with short grey hair and a mustache, holding a glass of wine. He sipped some of it and then started talking afterwards.
"Hello, everyone, once again. I hope you're doing well today. My name is Akio Adachi, and I will be your main overseer for today's Admission Test."
He sipped some more of the wine from his glass and kept talking.
"Alright, so as you all remember, you had to choose a number between 1 and 2 in the Mana Test, is that correct?"
Everyone nodded their heads in order to confirm this fact.
"Okay then. So, here's what we're going to do. Everyone who chose "1", go to this side of the room," he said while pointing to his left (everyone else's right), "and everyone who chose "2" go to that side."
Everyone went to their respective side, but what happened wasn't what anyone was expecting. Everyone was surprised that no one was in the side of people who chose "1".
"Oh my! This is interesting. No one in this group chose "1"? I checked the database and it said that at least 5 people chose it. Oh well, I guess they aren't here today!"
Out of nowhere, he extended his right arm, and orange energy came out of it.
"More magic…," Shu whispered to himself.
Then, very suddenly, every was surrounded by an bright light of the same color.
It was finally the beginning. The beginning to decide who will make it…and who will fail.