A weird and unexplainable sense of lonely, it was the first time he felt that he wouldn't see his parents anytime soon. They had his back, regardless of his attitude and personality, it always felt nice to have a shoulder to lean on.
"I'll miss you guys as well," he muttered as he watched Drake and Luna walk away. His father had a hand around his mother, who found it harder to bit farewell, even if it was for a few years and wasn't permanent. It was a major change, perhaps what bothered them the most wasn't the fact that they wouldn't be seeing Dio much, but the fleeting feeling that time would never stop. He wiped off a drop that was now forming and turned around, the busy streets that were crowded with students of Hexora, Dio continued walking inside after asking for proper directions.
"You're here to apply for the admission examination?" one of the professors seated behind a table asked. That was another interesting characteristic of Hexora, the school or the faculty had not a care for your background, if a student shows up and their information proved that they're a citizen with no illegal history then they are automatically eligible to take part in the examination.
"Yes, yes I am," he nodded and looked into the crowd to his side, there seemed to be a mass of students gathering around a large open field, it was most likely the arena for the examinations.
"Alright then. Just fill in this form and you can head over there, the process and the contents of the examination will be shared by another professor there," the man pushed a paper that had a few basic questions on it.
"Thank you," he replied after filling out the form, Dio had his hands in his pockets as he walked over to the crowd, after pushing through the multiple students, he finally found a seating place for all the applicants.
'Potential pawns that will soon fawn over me,' he nodded to himself as he took a seat on one of the empty chairs. It seemed like he was one of the last applicants there, the majority of the seats there were nearly full, and by the looks of it, the examination was soon to start.
"Listen up everybody," a voice rang out, it belonged to a professor with dark green hair, he couldn't see a lot of her features, but the hair was the prominent factor. Even after the lady had called for the student's attention, it seemed that a good number of them failed to hear her.
"..." she closed her eyes as rage amassed behind them, "Disrespectful brats!!" her voice thundered, it was now multiple times louder, there was no comparison, and Dio knew the answer as soon as he felt the sound waves strike him.
'Sound magic?' his eyes widened as soon as he realized, her voice caused the wind to blow onto everyone's face, blue clouds of mana formed all over her, it was clear that she was mad.
"The examination is soon to start. Your names will be called out, so step onto the stage when you hear it. It's going to be straightforward and simple, every student is going to go through five battles, the judges here will assess the performance, and you'll be notified if you pass,"
As soon as she was done talking, the winds that clashed violently settled down, Dio's hair that was fluttering about finally fell back onto his face.
'A duel huh? Not worried,'
A justifiable assumption or conclusion. He quite literally had an entire arsenal of spells, be it basic or second-tier magic, even if they were attacks that didn't do a lot of damage, the availability was what mattered. The students there might have a maximum of 30 spells memorized, and this was including the basic spells.
'Where is she though…' he thought but before he could look further into this matter, another voice thundered and two names were called out. The judgment criteria still remained unknown, would they simply choose the students that won the most duels? While such a method was effective it still skipped over some variables.
"Hina Jaeger and Trey Lowel. Please step onto the stage, failure to assemble within the next minute results in instant disqualification, rendering the other student the winner by default,"
"Make sure to use spells that aren't fatal, any illegal methods or spells used will be detected so do not be foolish. Even though the nature of this examination calls for it, make sure you do not kill or seriously injure the other person. With that in mind, good luck to each and every one of you,"
A girl with round glasses and brown hair walked onto the stage, she seemed to be the calculative type, although her last name called for concern, especially in a world filled with monsters.
Trey Lowel had black hair and a build that didn't really put him apart from the crowd, if stereotypes were an important factor then there's no doubt he would lose and be pushed aside as a mob character.
"Hmmmm," Dio analyzed the two of them, they stood a good distance apart from each other, both of them had their eyes closed as they waited for the signal that announces the beginning of the match.
"You may begin!"
Multiple blue spheres formed around Trey, they rotated in their place for a second before shooting forward. Hina, on the other, seemed to not care too much, she slipped past the projectiles accurately, although one of them slightly grazed her shoulder, but that wasn't enough to fully stop her. After closing the distance, she slightly bent down and connected his stomach with her palm, and a second later a wave of wind-blasted Trey out off the stage.
"Winner Hina Jaeger!!"
"...."
Dio was thoroughly impressed, it would be more accurate to say that he hadn't expected the first fight to be that interesting, of course, he had no doubt in his mind that he could have easily countered the attacks, but it was still quite a lot to take place in the very first match.