As expected of the largest academy on the continent, even the admissions office was as large as a mansion. Father and I walked in with the butler Mr. Kelvin, right hand of my father, carrying my belongings. Unlike father, Mr. Kelvin was not a magic user, but an aura cultivator.
From what I know, the biggest difference between the two paths is that magic users are weaker at the earlier stages. It is also said that improvement after reaching middle stages become really different for aura users compared to the magic users of the same realm.
Though, there are a lot more aura users than magic users in the empire. In fact, only one of the four noble Archduke families are known for focusing on magic, and that happens to be my family. The number of magic users to aura users can roughly be considered one to fifty, meaning for every fifty aura users, there is only one mage.
Considering the population of the empire reaching billions alone, it can be said that there are plenty of magic users in the empire. Of course, not all of them are high level ones as not every magic user is talented.
Talents in this world depen on the potential quality of a person's core. This core can be a mana core or an aura core depending on their familial lineage. Magic users are more likely to give birth to magic users, and vice versa. Of course, there are people born without cores as well, though they don't even count for a percent of the empire's population.
Then the cores are divided to eleven levels, with nine of them following the rule of low-low to high-high, the last two are super quality and ultra quality cores. It is said that one must have ultra quality cores to even stand a chance at becoming a Transcendent, but it's a shame that mine is only high-high. This cheeky father of mine, on the other hand, seems to have a Thunder Affinity super core.
I do not yet know what my affinity is, as father said academy has the best awakening method for awakening the affinities of people. This seems to only work for children under the age of nine, hence is the reason for the admission rules. I seem to hear that there are transfer students as well, but surely they must have their reasons.
While thinking of that, my father finally finishes catching up with the school staff. Apparently he is friends with the staff member responsible for the admissions. Is this the so called power of connections? The staff member father referred to as "Liam" reaches his hand to give me a handshake.
"Welcome to the academy Darcy, I hope you weren't scared of by its size. A lot of children get overwhelmed when they come here, especially since they are about to separate from their parents."
"I see, thank you Mr. Liam for your concern. The academy is indeed as large as I have heard, arriving here from the entrance alome took us plenty of time even while riding on a horse-drawn carriage."
"Huh, you really are as stiff as your father said. You need to ease up here tk make friends you know, other children will get scared seeing you act all polite. Even your brother and sister acted all cute and nervous when they arrived here, yet you sound bored already."
"Please don't make fun of Mr. Liam."
He gave me a wry smile and started walking towards an another door, asking me to follow him. Father and Mr. Kelvin grabbed my belongings and followed me as well. It is rather lucky that I was able to fit everything I needed within two luggage, meaning they wouldn't have to carry heavy and large stuff around.
We all entered into the to room together, and Mr. Liam closed the door after all four of us got in. The room wasn't big, only about 10m² and there was a white crystal ball standing on a desk, with protective covers around it.
"This is the newest Affinity potential detecting crystal sphere our magic tool department has crafted. It will not be able to detect your affinity, but will find out how strong your strongest affinity is. Affinities are the most mysterious thing in this world, and this is about one of the only ways we have to detect it."
My father also made a thinking face and started to talk about the old model of this crystal sphere.
"I remember the old ones detected the potential of a random affinity, and not the strongest one. There were a lot of class changes when people started to awaken their affinities one by one."
"Yes, we hope that this version will give more accurate information to help talented students enter higher quality classes. Well, the paperwork we had to do was a motivating factor as well. Anyways, the crystal sphere is now ready to function. Go ahead and place both of your hands on it Darcy."
"Okay, thank you Mr. Liam."
I reached my hands to the crystal sphere, and put my hands directly on it, grabbing it with both palms. It was rather cold, but gave a refreshing feeling at touch.
Three second after I touched it, the ball started to shine a golden color. It wasn't very bright, but it wasn't very dim either.
"S-grade affinity huh? You noble Archduke families of the empire are all so talented, even the student with the lowest grade on record is an A-grade affinity... Judging by its brightness, I'd say his control of it is around forty percent, not bad for a beginner. Looks like he will be able attend Class S of the Freshman grade. Man... it's like routine check up with your family, every one who comes goes to the Class S. Congratulations for scoring a three in a row"
Father also was in a happy mood and joked alongside Mr. Liam, who was pretending to be bored and disappointed that my siblings and I got into the same class.
"Hahaha, it's obviously due to the genetics he received from me! Don't you know, I am already at the Sage Realm."
"Yes, yes but didn't the crown prince reach the Celestial realm at a younger age than you did?"
"..."