"Good morning everyone. I assume everyone knows what we're doing today?"
Miss Amy stood right before everyone in the classroom, looking down at the class, which looked extremely excited.
"Yes, ma'am!"
"That's the energy I want to see. Then let's all get in line and get ready to go to the arena!"
A few minutes later...
As they lined up in front of the dark room once again, Alex took a deep breath and thought back to the last time he had tried to beat the test.
It was a disaster, just like everyone else who was caught off guard by how fast the golem could run.
With the light disappearing as he was transported to a plain field again, he immediately began running to the first obstacle course.
It was a dummy who wrote 'Light Me,' which Alex easily accomplished as he already had it prepared.
The light ball directed by Alex hits the dummy, giving him a score of 85.
Next, he ran straight to the next dummy, shooting a ball filled with dark magic.
With another 85, he ran straight to the last dummy, which was just a dummy that had the word stone written in the middle.
After casting a stone at it and getting an 80, he came to a stop and began meditating.
Feeling his mana fully recharged, he got back up and began approaching the golem ahead.
As soon as he could see the golem still a hundred steps away, it already started running towards him.
A ball of stone appeared above Alex's head as it slowly expanded bigger and bigger.
It reached all the way to the size of his head before catching on fire as Alex began to cast another spell on top of it.
But with the golem now less than fifty steps away, he was only halfway done with the spell.
Unable to complete the real fireball as he had hoped, he was forced to direct the premature spell at the golem.
Even though the golem raised its arm at the last second, the semi-fireball was enough to make the golem lose a large chunk of it.
"Nice! Just one more."
As Alex began to retreat further back, the golem was now enraged.
It started running even faster than earlier at him, matching his speed despite him running his heart out.
Still, it was all according to Alex's plan as he quickly cast a water spell right behind himself.
The golem ignored it but soon realized he was somehow running slower and slower.
Alex was now almost back to the original distance where they started, with the golem's feet stuck in the mud as it tried to catch up.
"Dumbass."
Not wasting any time, Alex began casting the same spell as earlier, able much slower as his mana regeneration couldn't keep up.
Still, by the time the golem was out of the mud and began running closer and closer, the fireball was complete.
As it began flying towards the golem, it raised its arm to block it again.
But with its arm already half broken, the fireball blew straight past it and hit it right in the head.
With a loud explosion, a score appeared in the air as Alex managed to get 75 this time.
"Whew, didn't waste too much spell on this," Alex murmured as he checked the leaderboard again.
Once again, he was nowhere near the top 10,000. But to his surprise, Chloe somehow made it past the top 100 with a perfect score.
As the light appeared before his eyes, he was back to the dark room's entrance.
"What did you get?"
Sophia and Mary were both out already this time, waiting for him outside along with her friends.
"85, 85, 80, and 75."
"That's amazing. I'm pretty sure that's above half of the class now." Evelyn chimed in.
"Thanks..."
After everyone was out of the challenge, Miss Amy led the class back to the classroom.
As all the student sat down in their seats, she began doing the usual example picks.
"Chloe, Sophia, and Mary, can you three come up, please?"
With all three girls heading up to the front, everyone waited for what was about to come up.
"I want everyone to give a round of applause for Chloe. She's the first in the class to achieve a perfect score and reached the top 78."
Everyone in the class started clapping, and they looked a little shocked that their peers had already achieved something so amazing.
After the claps died down, Miss Amy pulled out a keycard and snapped her finger as a screen displayed on the board.
Chloe was walking to the first dummy when casting a bunch of small Light spells in the shape of a marble ball.
It flew to the dummy so fast that Miss Amy even had to slow it down to show how it again.
"Remember, you don't always have to make your spell as big as possible. Condensing the element into a smaller area can often do more damage.
And just because something looked basic doesn't mean it doesn't do any damage. Every small spell can determine a fight."
As the video continued, Chloe repeated the same strategy for the next two dummies, getting 100 in all three.
Everyone held in their breath as she walked closer and closer to the golem fight.
With the two of them making eye contact, Chloe immediately started casting her spell.
Almost hundreds of wind blades in the sharp of a knife appeared as the golem got within fifty steps.
As she directed it to the golem, Miss Amy suddenly paused the video before it hit.
"I want everyone to notice something a little different here. So you all can see that she cast a bunch of small spells, right?"
Everyone in the class nodded in agreement.
"But look, as the wind blades flew closer and closer, they merged rather than breaking to reach each other's momentum.
This actually isn't just a windblade. It's a small technique that creates a resemblance of the Tempest blade."
Half of the class looked a little shocked, including Alex, who knew from the textbook that it was a tier two spell.
As the video resumed, the merged wind blade pierced straight past its arm and into its head.
"That's the creativity combined with a strong mana pool that everyone should be replicating."
With everyone clapping for Chloe again, she shyly stepped back down before sitting down next to Alex.
"That was amazing." Alex complimented.
"Thanks..."
"Now for our next person to applaud: Sophia and Mary are the only people in the class who managed to get 90 in the golem fight."
Everyone still clapped again as the score was still very impressive, albeit just not as crazy as Chloe's.
"Ahem, besides their impressive score, I want to tell everyone that this will be the last time I'm going to bring you all to the arena."
Everyone looked a little shocked as Miss Amy sent the two of them to sit back down.
"I know you might be a little disappointed, but now you can go on your own time and challenge yourself."
"How do we do that?" One of the students asked the question in everyone's mind.
"Just use your ID, which was given when you entered the school. Go to the front desk and tell them what level you want to enter."
Seeing everyone seem to understand the instructions, Miss Amy went back to the explaining lectures.
---
As the class ended, everyone in the class was already grouping up with each other to check out the arena on their own time.
"Alex, you want to come with us? We are about to check the arena out right now."
Chloe asked as she came back from talking with the girls in the back.
"Sure."
As the seven of them left the building, they went straight to the arena with their backpacks.
Hundreds and thousands of people were already at the front, with all the front desks full of people lining up.
Most of them were wearing different color robes, with various levels of mages standing in the lobby chatting with each other.
Almost all of them were also much older, ranging from fully grown adults to even someone in their sixties.
Their towering height made it a little intimidating, but the seven of them weren't scared away by it.
"What do we do now?" Mary asked, looking around the arena filled with curiosity.
"Let's go explore the building. I heard there's a shopping and even a tournament arena on the back."
Evelyn took the lead, with Camille and Luna following right behind.
They were filled with curiosity as they walked past the different dark room entrances that people entered inside.
Meanwhile, Sophia's focus was holding Mary's hand tightly, preventing her from wandering somewhere else.
Alex and Chloe both followed at the end, looking a little bored as they followed the two in front of them.