"You sure like to make an entrance", the woman rolled her eyes.
"I need to impress them by showing how powerful they will become after they join us", the man puffed out his chest.
"I am pretty sure it's supposed to be the other way round", the woman said.
"Whatever, any interesting future students this time?" the man waved off the matter before asking.
"Well there are three". the woman answered. "To my right there is a girl hiding in a tree for some reason. She has a body weaker than her stage but her Flux storage is quite impressive for the sixth stage. Mostly uses the wind element and she is below 150 years old". she said.
The man looked to the treeline with narrowed eyes. "I guess she is shy", he shrugged.
"Then there is that boy in pink", the woman gestured with her head to a young man who was lying on the ground staring at the sky.
"Just like you, his body is stronger than normal, but his potential is greater than yours. His Flux core is cracked though, making his external magic very weak but his body more than makes up for it. Mostly uses earth and is above 150 but below 190 years". she said.
"Mmm interesting, if he has a good mindset, i might get myself a personal student", the man hummed. "Who is the last one?"
"See that boy with the long black hair Cultivating over there?" the woman gestured at Khaos and the man nodded.
"When i arrived, he was in the middle of a fight with a seventh stage Cultivator. He obviously lost but not as quickly as you would imagine, he has good instincts. He also has above average control over his Flux and....there is something about him, something off which i can't quite put my finger on".
The man furrowed his brows. "He can block your Rank 3 Law of Supreme Analysis?".
"No, my Law works just fine but it's like it just can't analyse something that is not there. Like my Law is telling me that there is something about him, but when i try to figure out what it is, my Law says there is nothing there", she said, staring intently at Khaos as if trying to see through him.
One more day passed as more people continued arriving into the clearing. Then on the morning of the sixth day after Khaos arrived, a loud bang resounded in the clearing, startling most of the contestants, including Khaos.
Opening his eyes towards the source of the sound, he saw the male Black Academy representative standing on top of his seat with his hands pressed together. 'That explosion was a clap?' Khaos thought in surprise.
"Prospective Black Academy students!", he shouted. "Move closer, the selection is about to begin!", he spread his arms out wide while the woman covered her ears.
Khaos and the other participants moved closer and that's when Khaos for the first time actually looked at the others. There was over a hundred people there, he couldn't feel the Cultivation of about half of them.
"We expected..."
"Let me do it, i don't want to go deaf at such a young age". The woman interrupted as she pushed the man down to his seat.
"As my loud friend was about to say, we expected to have much less students than this, however since that is not the case, our plan of having a tournament has been thrown out the window".
"There 132 of you here, 60 are in the fifth stage, 47 are in the sixth, 24 are in the seventh and one in the eighth. We only need a certain amount of people but we won't tell you how many", the woman said before pointing at a seemingly random girl in the group.
She had short yellow hair, black eyes and a distinct scar running from her chin to her forehead. She wore tight brown pants and a sleeveless jacket over a white vest.
"As the only eighth stage, you automatically qualify so congratulations", the woman smiled as the girl nodded with a neutral expression.
Another loud band resounded as the male representative from the Black Academy jumped down from his seat. "So this is how it is going to go down", he said. "I know the Law of Stone Skin, the Rank two Law of High Stone Skin, and the Rank three Law of Supreme Stone Skin".
"For the sixth stage participants, i will activate the Rank one version. For the seventh stage participants i will activate the Rank two version. I will not use any Law for the fifth stage, they are too weak anyway". he waved his hand.
"The goal is to attack me with your single most powerful attack. If you draw blood, you qualify, if you make my body move, you qualify, that simple".
One of the participants raised their hands. "And you won't defend?" he asked.
"Kid my skin is more than enough defence, especially for Cultivators in the fifth stage like you. However you can only use a single attack which uses either your element or body. No continuous attacks like a stream of fire, and no conjuring something like an earth club and hitting me with it".
"We will start with the seventh stage Cultivators. Everyone else, move to the sides". The male representative said as his colleague also moved to the edges of the clearing. The two seats they had made disappeared back into the earth.
The male representative stood about 25 meters from the small group of seventh stage participants.
"If you are using a long range attack, don't get closer than this distance. You may start whenever you're ready." he said as he stood with his arms outstretched. Then when no one stepped forward for ten whole seconds, he added; "By 'when you're ready' i mean right now".
Surprisingly, it was Kato who stepped up first. After glancing at Khaos, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Deep blue water began gathering on his forearms and before long, started flowing around his arms like a pair of snakes.
Then, he touched his right shoulder with his left hand and the 'snake' on the left slithered to the right arm before fusing with the right 'snake' and making a thicker one.
Then Kato pulled his hand back as if preparing to punch forward, it was also at this point that the male representative's fair skin turned golden brown. But only a few saw this as most were focused on Kato's display.
Kato grit his teeth as he punched forward as hard as he could, and as expected, the water 'snake' on his arm exploded towards it's target with impressive speeds.
In a single second, a loud explosion was heard as the attack and the representative's skin met head on. A shower of water drenched the participants as they waited for the falling droplets to clear up.
When they did, the representative was still standing there with his arms outstretched, his skin did not show even the slightest mark, he was not even wet.
However, two lines were drawn onto the ground front of him, and they were a half a meter long starting from his feet extending forward. "Congratulations, your attack pushed me back 50 centimeters. You qualify for the Black Academy entry exams".