"Elemental Spells?"
Amari looked over at his status bar, confused. Did he even have any real elemental spells?
The only spells that could count as Elemental in his arsenal, would at most be the Shadow Spells. And even then, he only had four to showcase, and while they were very impressive, he wasn't sure what scale he needed to compete on in order to gain Cluez' attention.
That was right his attention.
Amari had pretty much given up on trying to figure out SilverOak and Cluez, especially after the latter's showcase of his Words of Power, which Amari had been careful to avoid using up till now.
What was the point in trying to investigate individuals that could kill him with a single snap of their fingers or a single word?
He wasn't so dumb as to look down on Words of Power. He'd used that to kill Lamart Palenia despite the human's higher stats and even used it to shut Fuller up when he hadn't known that the demon was a whole rank higher than him.
Cluez laughed and slammed his sceptre against the ground, causing a small garden of fiery flowers to appear around him.
"That's right. As you can see, elemental in nature. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Lightning. Display your spells to the best of your ability. I have decided to award you all one point out of the five needed to pass this course. If you are able to sufficiently impress me, then I will directly pass you without need for any other class,"
A series of murmurs emerged from the rest of the students in that instant. Only the seven managed to keep their cool.
"Now, how should we start this?" Cluez laughed slyly, causing everyone to go silent again.
The brief impasse between the seven came to an end when three people volunteered to start at almost the same time, but Cluez picked out the first person, causing the others to back down.
Amari couldn't help but scoff inwardly.
Did they think that going first would give them an advantage over the others? If anything it would make their performance look stale after everyone was done.
But he said nor did anything, merely looking at the confident idiot climbing the stage.
In any case, perhaps this was a good time to observe how normal people circulated their mana and controlled it.
So, he stared more keenly than before.
"HA!"
The demon teen that went up punched out and a decently sized ball of fire flew from his fist.
As soon as he was done, he got down from the stage proudly with a few drops of sweat running down his face.
'What the fuck was that?' Amari couldn't help but ask himself, even going as far as to rub his eyes multiple times afterwards.
The other two that initially volunteered let out similar attacks, walking down with pride in their eyes. He heard the 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the crowd, leading him to the conclusion that the first years were probably too weak to understand how pitiful those attacks were.
How did these three even pass in the first place? Maybe they had stronger constitutions than others, but nothing about them screamed that.
'Whatever…'
He was one hundred per cent certain that the clown professor wouldn't care about that.
But contrary to his opinion, Cluez let out a seemingly excited laugh and began clapping uproariously. The three students flushed and bowed.
"Wonderful wonderful. You guys pass!"
Amari had no words. He merely continued his observation of the flow of mana in their body.
The next student was a boy called Lind. He was a little taller than Amari himself and was probably the strongest of the naturally admitted first years.
"I'll go next!" The boy said excitedly, hopping towards the stage before Cluez could even say anything about it.
Everyone paid special attention to the boy, for obvious reasons, and watched him get into a strange stance.
Lind's right hand balled to form a large fist, while his other hand formed a chopping gesture.
As he did that, the mana around his body became clear to Amari, taking a non-linear path from his head down to his feet.
'Is that how they control their mana?'
Amari had always just circulated it through his veins in whatever motion was most convenient to him, and the System activated the skill he thought of. This specific motion that Lind made was new to him.
'I'll try it out afterwards…' he thought, paying attention to Lind's next movements.
"Ha!"
The boy shot forward, his body covered in arcing lights of blue lightning.
BOOOM!
And as his fist connected to the air, a deafening explosion yelled out.
'This is…!'
Amari's pupils constricted slowly at perhaps the only real attack he'd seen today. He would probably get injured if he was to face such an attack head-on.
"Haha, how was that, Professor Cluez?!"
The boy's voice sounded out after the sound of the attack had cleared, he wore a wide grin on his face, and his head shook nervously, making the mop of blue hair bob violently.
Cluez looked stern for a second and pointed at Lind with his finger.
"Don't call me that ever in your life again!"
Everyone looked at the man with strange looks. Wasn't that… what he was?
"Sorry?" Lind said, with a confused expression, still waiting for the judgement of his spell.
"My name is Mr Cluez. Not Cluez. Not Professor Cluez. MR Cluez!" the man emphasized much too seriously for anyone to look at him as a sane person.
"And as for your spell. Don't worry. You pass. Not only that… you are also awarded an extra five points. Meaning your score will be better than just a simple pass,"
Lind jumped excitedly, before going back to take his place standing.
This was unprecedented. Was Cluez just going to end up passing everyone regardless of what they cast? This tempted Amari to perform Basic Shadow Manipulation and pass it off as a spell, but his pride stopped him.
Without waiting for anyone else to step forward, he moved to the stage, looking at everyone through the corner of his eyes. Especially Cluez.
He activated his mana and ran it through his whole body instantly, uncaring of what specific path he was supposed to take. That mana took the form of multiple dark shadows bursting into existence at his feet.
SKREEEEE~!
Multiple tentacles made out of shadows burst into existence. They were thicker, and some even had blade-like extensions at the tip.
Amari made a show of swiping these shadows around the air and attacking the air as though it was a real person.
When he was done, he deactivated the skill and got down from the stage.
In front of him, Cluez smirked with an unreadable expression, leaving Amari just looking at him.
Until finally…
"You know, from the words of that long-eared bastard, I really thought you would be something. But now I can see…" The man shook his head and sealed the final nail in the coffin.
"Fail!"