"Mason White, pass" said the examiner.
'That should have been impressive enough.' Mason thought as he knew killing a level 17 beast wasn't easy, his skills were just too overpowered!
Mason was done so he decided to start watch some other students. He got dissapointed quite quickly though, as most of them were struggling against level 4 beasts.
'I killed one of those before I even awakened, how are they struggling?' He inwardly asked.
After walking around some more he finally found something exciting to watch. Remi Nightfall was about to start in her beast fight. It seems she chose a level 15 beast.
Mason chose a beast above his level, since he was confident in his own skill. The standard in the world was different though, usually people would only fight beasts lower than their own level. Since beasts of the same level were usually stronger than human Mages.
"Remi Nightfall, fighting level 15 beast. Start!" The examiner yelled
After the beast came rushing towards Remi, she sent two streaks of purple lightning into it. The weird coloured lightning was an affinity all talented people from the royal family had. There had been multiple occasions where a high-level Mage would try to figure out how it was possible that the lightning was extra powerful. But nobody succeeded in finding anything.
The beast, after having tanked the two streaks of lightning confidently, was suddenly paralyzed on the spot. It tried moving to the best of it's abilities, but he was stuck in place.
'I guess it works the same as my Freeze ability, it's just more powerful.' Mason thought.
Now the beast was paralyzed, Remi ran towards it as she pulled out two daggers coated with the purple lightning. She slashed the tough skin of the beast as it slowly started to break out of it's temporary state of immobility. It was already half-dead now though, so Remi decided it was best to just use her lightning from afar.
After what was in total 1 minute, the beast finally succumbed to the lightning and died.
"Remi Nightfall, pass!" the examiner said loudly.
"Damn, did she just kill a level 15 beast in only a minute. She's only at level 18!" The large crowd watching the mysterious princess was impressed to say the least.
Mason also clapped with the crowd, he knew it was truly impressive to do that, and she did it without a System!
'System, you know I've always loved you right?'
[You have cursed at me repeatedly.]
'Yeah, yeah, that was a joke right?'
[If you say so, Host.]
Remi looked through the crowd as if looking for someone and her gaze stopped when she locked eyes with Mason. Mason, the gentleman that he is, winked immediately and held his hand up in a fist, with only his thumb and pinkey sticking out, signaling he wanted to call.
Mason thought of this as a harmless joke, but he got scared shitless when Remi started walking towards him. He thought about running, but he would come across her in the academy eventually. So he decided to own up to his mistakes now.
"You want to exchange phone numbers?" Remi asked him.
Mason was surprised, he thought he was about to get smacked in the face like no-one ever before. But is seemed his joke actually brought him one step closer to getting his much desired girlfriend!
"Yeah, that would be cool. I'm quite interested in you." Mason said, trying to tease her a bit.
"I'm interested in you too." Remi answered in a tone that scared Mason a bit.
'That doesn't sound like the type of interested I want it to be!' Mason got another hit to his ego from the same girl.
They exchanged phone numbers and both went their own ways. After a while, they once again heard the loud headmaster.
"That's the end of the second round. The ones who failed will be leaving, the rest of you get a 1 hour break to restore mana and rest up."
After that, Mason decided to look for a place with shadow. It was hotter in the capital than on the border, it seemed.
'System, how much mana do I have left?'
[Mana: 8550/10000]
Mason nodded, he used Freeze, Ice Golem and Ice Lance
Freeze cost him only 50 mana, Ice Golem cost a whopping 800 mana and lastly Ice Lance cost 600. The reason Ice Golem was so expensive, was that it was good for both offense and defense. At least, Mason guessed that was the reason.
After waiting for an hour talking to the System and lazing around, Mason finally heard the headmaster once again.
"Alright, now everybody is all rested up. Lets begin with the last round!" the headmaster yelled
Most of the people cheered, since it had been a truly stressful day for them. They were happy it would be over soon, or so they thought. The tests up until now were short, this last long would be pretty long-lasting.
"The third round will be both the simplest and the hardest. This round will be one to test your comprehension ability. A teacher will give you a mid-level spell, and you have to try to learn it as best as possible in an hour. The further your progress, the better your chances to get accepted into the academy."
'Shit, the one thing I haven't been able to compare myself in to others is comprehension ability. I'll have to try my best, even if I turn out to be a one in a billion genius.' Mason got anxious.
Once the teacher approached him, he told him his element, and he got a spell. The spell had a title and an explanation, the explanation told him the best way to start learning the spell.
After receiving the spell, Mason had a look of disbelief on his face. He read the title: Ice Armour.
'What kind of mind-blowing luck is this. They probably didn't expect any student to already know a mid-level spell. Wait, how do I even do this. Should I tell a teacher?' Mason contemplated.
'Nah, why would I. Lately, I've been watching some acting classes on TV. Acting as if I'm learning a spell should be a piece of cake. There's a lot of students here, they will probably only care about the results.'
And so, the last round of the try-outs had started.
What Mason didn't know... Was that there was a certain man following his every move.