After easily and effortlessly taking out the rest of the competition, the remaining six then saw arrows flying about.
They turned and saw a boy about their age wielding a bow in his hands. To three of them, he was known. To two out of the lot, he was the insect that sent them flying through the walls, and to the only female standing, she couldn't even see his face.
"Hm?" Kiyan raised a brow.
"Lecter?" Jarett said.
The six of them had one thought in mind, 'He is horrible at archery.'
"Axzevah.. Distortion!" Lecter suddenly shouted and they were engulfed in what felt like they were being burnt from the inside. Their visions and the world around them distorted, their magic faltering and a great force had hit them. Or at least that was supposed to happen.
"No! I, I overdid it. Are they okay?" Lecter wondered while he looked away from the blinding light. He was genuinely worried.
When everything died down, he looked into the centre of the maze. Most of it was destroyed, turned into nothing but piles of rubble.
What he worried about was his friends, the unknown girl and the participants whose bodies hadn't completely sank yet. The other two, not his problem.
He stared in horror at the scene. He was trembling and sweating.
The six of them stood there completely fine. Their clothes were the only things that looked to have suffered an attack as parts of it tore.
Three out of the six always used their mana as a shield whether they realized it or not. The other two had learnt their lesson and weren't going to have a repeat of last time. And the girl, she barely knew anything about magic or mana but her body swarming with it fought back for her.
"It's over now right?" The girl asked as he held the crystal in her hands. She moved her head around but she couldn't tell anything.
'How? How are they fine? Even with mana block, a little damage should have been done.' Lecter l stood in shock. "Still, I'm glad." He breathed a sigh of relief realizing that this was a better outcome.
"Hey cockroach. This trick you just pulled, you're the one who did it before, aren't you?" Black hair made his way towards Lecter placing his spear over a single shoulder.
"I don't like it when someone interrupts a good fight." Brown hair said as flames coated his fists.
Jarett stood in front of Lecter and stared down at the other two.
"Come on now, surely you understand it was only for the exams," he said.
Kiyan and Raten watched Brown hair carefully and thought he looked really familiar.
"Tch." Brown hair turned and his gaze met theirs. His expression went from annoyed to elated.
He opened his mouth to saw something when the maze began sinking into the ground and returned to the wide arena in the wizard's dome.
They all looked ahead following the sounds of slow claps.
"Well-done." One out of the five wizards said. They could barely see either of their faces clearly as they still wore their cloaks over their heads.
The wizard snapped his fingers and some others standing there when the maze had gone, disappeared, and a few others appeared.
"You lot have passed."
"Wait, he said we passed?" One of them asked, unsure of what she had just heard.
"This is it? Really?" Raten asked.
"You have all been given admission into the prestigious Darkmoon Academy." Another wizard said.
Hearing his words, some of them began squealing with joy.
"I passed? I really passed? How?" Lecter wondered, still he was more than excited to hear that he was amongst the selected few that were accepted.
The number of teenagers that had stepped foot into the wizards dome easily numbered to a hundred, but now barely thirty remained. For such a task, the wizards in charge of assessing the test were not impressed with most.
The accepted participants were taken into a hall where they picked up their bags that were dropped off before taking the test. After which they were led outside where transport awaited to take them to the empire's prestigious, and the first ever built academy for wizards - Darkmoon Academy.
The children were taken out to an open field at the back of the dome and were kept in wait.
"Uhm, is something supposed to happen?" They wondered, staring at the empty land.
Just then, the earth began to rumble and crack open. From beneath it, a fifteen metre long, five metre tall and nine metre wide caterpillar, oddly with the wings of a butterfly, came out. It didn't look like a normal beast would. Instead it looked like it was crafted with fine wood. But still looked so much like a living caterpillar. If caterpillars were made of wood.
It had doors and windows on its body lined up horizontally. Each door opened up at once. The kids hesitated a bit before rushing in. As soon as they all got in and seated, the doors closed.
Three of the wizards present got on a pegasus each and stayed behind the caterpillar.
"So finally the academy opens up again. With how simple this first test was, I am disappointed with the failures but I am more than impressed with quite a few." One of the remaining two wizards standing, said.
"Indeed. I hope they make it through the first year. That's when the real exams are taken."
The wings of the caterpillar began flapping slowly, gaining momentum. The wooden caterpillar's body slowly lifted off the ground and hovered in the air.
The wings began flapping faster as the caterpillar rose higher in the air.
"Let's go." The wizards on the pegasus said and then flew off with great speed.
The caterpillar started moving slowly but then flew off fast catching up with the wizards.
"There goes the next generation of warrior wizards." The two wizards said with a smile watching the children fly off into the sun, into a new beginning in their lives.
What the wizards didn't realize was they were looking at the generation that would reshape this world.
Carnage or redemption?
Salvation or ruination?
Kiyan, Raten, Simon, Hades, Jarett, Alba, Wallace,....
The first step was taken.
___________
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