Shortly after Clifford joined Benson, the assessment test began. The mages results at the assessment would determined which the class of the students. There are three classes of mages at the academy, the golden class, the silver class and the bronze class.
The golden class students are the top talented students of the academy, they received the highest allowances and resources. The silver class were the averagely talented, they are not weak and they are not too strong either. They received moderate amount of allowances and resources. The bronze class were the lowest, they are the weakest and they were lowly talented, they received the lowest allowances and resources.
The students were required to pay for tuition fee except those that were enrolled freely. The students were also required to spend four years in the academy. The fee of the academy was a one time payment and it was expensive, the students only paid when they were enrolled. The rest of their years at the academy doesn't required payment. The allowances and resources that was being allocated to the students came from the city's funds, the total cost of the allowances and the resources allocated to them through out their years in the academy was even greater than the tuition fees so it's a win situation for the students.
This assessment test always took place at the end of every year to gage how well the students were doing, if a student doesn't meet the required score in the assessment, the student would be demoted to a lower class. If it happens to a bronze class student, he or she would be expelled. Likewise if a student passed the assessment with an excellent score, the student would be promoted to a higher class.
When golden class students passed an assessment greatly, they would remained as a golden student but would have a special identity which was known as the Unique golden student. But this type of students are very rare, it was too difficult to pass a golden assessment test with an excellent score.
The assessment test for the newly enrolled students would take place today and would determined their class. The assessment was a test of strength, speed, accuracy, mental strength and mana gaging. Strength, speed and accuracy test were used to gage the students physical abilities while the mental test was to gage how mentally strong they are.
The mana gaging is the main test, it carried half the points of the tests. It was used to test the magical ability and how talented the students were.
Strength, speed and accuracy test only carried twenty percentage of the assessment points, the mental assessment carried thirty percentage while the mana gaging assessment carried fifty percentage.
One by one, the students left for the stage where their assessment would take place. The strength test came first, they were required to lift a boulder that weighed three hundred pounds. Both male and female are required to do this, they were considered equal.
An object weighing three hundred pounds wasn't too much for Clifford to handle, he easily lifted it with his too hands. Benson on the other hand had difficulty lifting it but he still managed to lift it successfully. Dora and Ada didn't even attempt it, they couldn't do it, it was impossible for them.
A young girl with a thin frame shocked everyone, her name was Hazel White. She had her hair dyed purple, had brown eyes and a quite slim body. She lifted the boulder as if it was nothing, even Clifford was dumbfounded. She amazed everyone, she was very strong despite her weak appearance.
The next test was the speed assessment. They were to outrun at a pace of twenty kilometers per hour. Benson could not pass this test, he was only able to run at seventeen kilometers per hour.
Dora was surprisingly fast, she could run at a pace of twenty five kilometers per hour. Hazel White shocked everyone again, she ran at a pace of thirty kilometers per hour.
Ada passed the test slightly too, she ran at a pace of twenty one kilometers per hour.
Clifford was confident of his ability, he knew he could out run Hazel at a greater margin but he suppressed his pace to twenty five kilometers per hour.
The accuracy test began shortly after the speed test ended.
The students are required to hit practice dummies with their magical elements from a long distance. The dummies were placed two hundred metres away from the students, each student would attempt it ten times. It was quite difficult for the students, they have not had enough training yet, so the majority of them scored low points. Dora was good though, she successfully hit six out of ten with her ice spikes.
Surprisingly, Benson was the standout performer, he successfully hit ten of ten with his wind discs. He was simply exceptional, he was the only person that successfully hit all ten targets in ten attempt. The person that came close was Hazel, she scored seven out of ten with her wind discs, she was really good at the physical assessments.
Clifford was not really good at accuracy but he still managed to hit five out of ten attempts with his fire balls. Ada manage four out of ten attempts with her ice lightning element.
The mental assessment was a very cruel one, there was a lot of mental assessment that could be used, but the academy chose the cruel type, images and memories of the first war between the monsters and the humans were projected in to the minds of the students by a psychic mage.
Bloody and filthy memories of humans been torn apart together with their screams of agony was projected in to their minds. The longer a student could bear it, the stronger they are mentally. The duration of this mental assessment for each student was ten minutes.
This was done not only to test them, but to remind them of what would happen to them if they were weak. They had to be strong or else, they get ripped apart by the monsters.
Clifford, Benson and Dora had a very strong mentality, they successfully completed the assessment.
Despite being strong physically, Hazel failed the mental assessment. Ada couldn't even stand a minute of it, she failed it woefully.
The last and main test started after all the students had completed their mental assessment.
The students were demanded to infuse their mana into a magical orb, this magical orb would tell how rich and strong each student's mana was by how bright it would glow.
Benson was quite talented, when he infused his mana in to the orb. It glowed quite brightly, he was satisfied with this.
Hazel was not too talented, the orb glowed but wasn't bright enough which showed she wasn't too talented.
Ada was even quite talented like her brother, the orb glowed brightly when she infused her magic in it.
Dora's talent was quite frightening, the orb glowed so much that those close to it had to look away from it.
There was some students who were highly talented too, but none of their talents had rivaled that of Dora so far.
Then came the person everybody had been waiting for, Clifford stood by the magical orb and infused his mana into it. Everybody was eager to see the results, Clifford had defeated all his opponents at the tournament in a very dominant manner, they were expecting him to be insanely talented. What happened next made everyone to feel stupid, the orb didn't glow at all, even Clifford was confused. He infused it with his mana again but nothing happened.
"What the hell is happening."
"Why is the orb not glowing."
"Could he be cheating all this while? He is finally exposed."
"Hahahaha...!!! What a sucker!"
"Cheater."
"Liar."
Clifford could hear all this disgusting remarks, he was furious. He wished he could hit every one of them and shut their fucking mouth up. His friends felt sorry and dejected for him, at the same time, they were confused as to why the orb didn't glow. Clifford had shown in the tournament that he was talented but the magical orb was saying otherwise.
The magical orb could not possibly be broken, the school had been using it for many years, it had even been examined by professionals to ensure it was going to work perfectly.
Clifford left the stage where the orb was placed amidst the boo of the crowd. Just when he was about to have his seat, the orb suddenly glowed brightly, it's light illuminated the whole arena. The crowd had to cover their eyes to prevent their eyes from going temporarily blind. The illuminating light of the orb was too strong, all this while that it did not glow, it was gaging how talented Clifford was. The crowd were bewildered by this, "how could he be so frightening talented?"
Even Clifford was dumbfounded by this.