The overseer was one of the most powerful individuals in the academy, second only to the Headmaster. He had so much power because he knew the affinity of over 80% of the city. He was the person who decided in which class you go.
Sure he forgot the most people the second he saw them. Everything below high-level affinity was not worth his attention. He met so many people a year that only the most outstanding among the outstanding received his attention.
For the Overseer a magicless was air while someone with a low-level or minor affinity was dust. a mid-level affinity might get the attention a stone would get. A high level affinity was comparable with resources that he bought at the market, some useful, some useless. Only people with special or absolute affinities gained his attention to the level you would treat another human being. Yet only Dual affinities were worth his comment.
Jasmine was going first. She stepped up to the crystal and put her hand on top of it. She took deep breaths to calm her racing heart down.
It took only a few breaths before the crystal began to shine, the colors where the same I saw her body glow in. Red, blue, green and yellow. The eyes of the overseer opened wide.
"Am I dreaming?" The murmur of the overseer wasn't loud, but I heard it nonetheless. "We had a few promising youngsters today, but that is ridiculous."
Jasmine was staring into the crystal mesmerized by the beauty.
"What's your name, young lady?" The overseer asked, loud and clear.
"My name Is Jasmine Silverton, first born daughter of Duke Silverton of Gemin," Jasmine replied to the overseer politely.
A voice was heard that reminded me of the voice of an AI. "high-level Fire affinity, high-level Water affinity, high-level Earth affinity, high-level Wind affinity and absolute Spirit affinity."
"Congratulations, young lady Silverton. You scored a S-Rank evaluation, you will attend the Magus Class," the overseer said politely to the young girl.
Jasmine wasn't paying attention, she had common sense and the education of a noble household she knew exactly that she had just scored the jackpot. If you do not know what a spirit mage is, which would be pretty sad, I will explain it to you.
A spirit mage also called summoner is able to summon and then fuse with a Spirit. They temporarily gain all their power and resources from these spirits. The fusion is optional. A summoned spirit can lay waste to a battlefield without having to fuse with the summoner.
Spirits are natural phenomenons, we don't know and can not explain why they exist but the weakest Spirit has the power of a B-Class Mage. That isn't all. If the Spirit mage is wise she will pay attention to the spells they invoke while fused with the spirit and improve themself through that.
An example for that would be, that they fuse with a fire spirit and only invoke fire as an elemental manifestation. If they would pay attention and comprehend how the spirit manifests the fire they would become 'invincible'. Nothing can be truly invincible but I am sure you understand what I mean.
My advice is: Always befriend a spirit mage, Those that make them their enemies are doomed. NO EXCUSES! The Spirit mage will prevail, while they will fall. Period.
The only chance to prevail against a spirit mage is to kill them before they realize that they are a Spirit mage.
Now you could say that everyone has to die and no one is truly invincible and unkillable. And you are right no one is invincible.
The ultimate card every Spirit Mage can play is to offer their body to a higher spirit. There is no known human that can take down a higher spirit. If the mage is strong enough they might even survive the takeover from the higher spirit.
To summarize everything, Don't fuck with a spirit mage or you will get fucked.
Hilda was next, she handed me over to Jasmine, while she put her place in front of the crystal. Jasmine stepped back and gave Hilda some space.
Hilda put her hand on the crystal. It began to shine like the sun. If the Room had a window it would have attracted a lot of attention.
The Room was illuminated by an intense green glow. Inside were red, blue, white, purple, black, yellow, and gold fluctuations. While the green glow was steady the other colors raced around as if trying to find their right place.
"Please god have mercy on my soul," the overseer muttered before he took out a communication amulet and called the Headmaster via an emergency line.
"Walter? What is the Situation?" the Headmaster answered immediately.
"We have a spirit mage and an all elemental Nature affinity."
"Don't move, I am on my way." The headmaster said, the same instant a tear in space opened and another old man stepped into the room. He still had the communication device in his hand that was connected to the device in the overseer's hand. The tear closed the next second.
The headmaster was a tall man. His glow was purple, gold, black and gray. It took me years to figure out which affinity it had been. This particular shade of gray was space. Every time I have to fight someone who glows gray I am at a disadvantage. There are like 300 affinities that manifest as a gray light. Some have gray in it like Time which is a gray that has a blue shimmering in it…
The crystal was still displaying the colors happily, the green glow with the multicolored lights racing through it.
"God almighty." The headmaster sank to his knees as if he was about to worship Hilda. His eyes were opened wide. The room was filled with silence. The people that knew what was happening were silent out of shock and the people that were clueless were silent out of awe.
The AI voice appeared again: "Absolute All elemental Nature affinity."
All of you should know what an all elemental Nature affinity is. But for those that do not know. Let me use the words of the great Avakus, Angus Airborne. He was both a Nature Mage and a Spirit Mage: "Nature is the genesis of magic, without Nature there would be no life. Nature is life and life is Nature. Nature Magic is the magic of magic. How can you ever hope to stand against the origin of magic if you had willingly submitted to its rules?"
I hope you got that because I have no intention of explaining it to you. That would take too long and would fill several books.
I will be magnanimous and tell you this. A Nature Mage is the natural predator of a Spirit mage.
Affinities are ranked from normal, to special over higher until you reach the peak affinities. I am not going to list all known affinities here. If you want to know them all I recommend Hald Mertorans "Infinite affinities", it is a book that should be found in every decent academy library and is regarded as common knowledge.
I had at this point no clue how extraordinary this affinity was but from the reactions of the people around me I could guess that it was awesome. Hilda also had no clue what was happening so she just walked back to Jasmine and pulled me back into her arms. I guess it helped her calm down a bit.
She just hugged me. I did not know what it meant, but I knew that Hilda had just scored the jackpot. The way everyone acted around her made it obvious that a Nature affinity was something special. After all, the overseer had kept his cool as he saw Jasmine's results but after Hilda took her place he had lost it.
"Would you like to become my personal disciple?" the headmaster asked, after he gathered his mind in one place again. Despite my lengthy explanations, everything took less than a minute to conclude.
"No!" Hilda's answer was so fast that it wouldn't have been a surprise if she would have berated the headmaster for such a ridiculous question. Which she didn't.
Some of you might claim that this decision was stupid how could she be so dumb…
I have only two words for those: FUCK YOU!
I already told you what Rafal did to her. It is horrible enough in the version I wrote down but you need to understand that it is just the tip of the Iceberg. I glossed over all the details. I stayed silent about the part that is so horrible that it should never be written down. If I had written it down the rest of my effort would have been pointless. Because everyone but the sickest would have thrown the book away.
Do you think I would make the effort just for the first person to read it to burn it down? Do you understand how horrible it is for a young girl with a pure heart like Hilda to serve Rafal in his perversion?
Can you even understand what would happen if Hilda were to seek shelter in the Academy? Can you imagine what would happen to the orphanage? The young boys would become slaves or worse, food. What fate will fall on the young girls? Lina is a positive example. What would happen to those that had the talent or beauty to attract a noble's attention.
No one would intercept them on their way to the orphanage and no one would be there to protect those that weren't targets of noble blood. You would need to be part of them to not feel that it would be the wrong choice.
But it was far from the only reason. Would you blindly trust some random old man if your only other comparison to powerful old men would be Aktun Rafal. Would you jump into a cave that was inhabited by an unknown lion if you had the chance to just stay in the pit with the lion you knew. It wasn't comfortable and not pleasant but this lion protected your home.
What if the new lion was worse? What if you had to do things that were even more uncomfortable while the old lion took his anger out on your home and the new lion refused to protect it as well?
What if the old lion would come into the new pit and kill the new lion only to drag you back and then let you watch as you had to do everything he wanted while he stopped protecting your home.