It was a wasteland as far as the eye could see. Everything was rocks and sand. In the midst of this wasteland, Hiro opened his eyes. He was sitting right in the middle of a path made of reddish gravel. Everything had a red tint in it. The sand was a reddish orange, the rocks was the color of blood. There was no sun in the sky. The sky itself was dark orange. It made one feel a chill creep up their spine. The silence was absolute. There wasn't even any wind.

  Hiro's first choice in the test was the way he had to go. In the distance, was possible to see endless desert in one of the paths. In the other way, the same could be seen, but it was possible to see in the limit of his vision, the five stars school. This time in red as opposed to it's normal blue.

  As he stood up and looked around, he quickly made up his mind and started walking away from the school. His path was not to end at some Five Stars school. His path was longer. Harder. It lead to power. Glory. The path of the King was not one where you could see the end of.

  As he felt like he was walking for a while, writing appeared in the sky in front of him.

  "What is magic? Write your answer with mana." It seemed like a quiz. A written test of sorts.

  Concentrating, he focused on the mana in his heart and guided it to his right index finger. Letting the mana leak slowly, he wrote his answer in the air.

  "Magic is a tool. Magic is knowledge and magic is power." As he stopped the mana from his finger, his mana faded away with his answer. Together with it, the writing in the sky went away as well.

  Resuming his path, he came across the first noise not made by himself. A low growling coming from behind rocks in the sides. A mechanical voice sounded out, looking like it was from G**gle Translate.

  "Combat simulation started. Death is equal to failure." As soon as the voice faded, a pack of dire wolves jumped in his path.

  "All right. This King will dance with you a bit." Hiro said with a frown while he readied his mana in his hands, ready to use destruction magic.

  All schools of magic had a way to get past this combat simulation. Destruction was the most straightforward. Illusion could cast rage or calm in the wolves, to let the student walk past unharmed. Alteration could harden your skin or manipulate the terrain around you to trap the wolves. Conjuration could summon a mana wolf to fight for him and Restoration was a bit tricky. It could make wards, barriers, to let you pass unharmed. And destruction, well...

  Hiro dual-wielded two different magics. One in each hand. His left hand was casting a freezing spell, like a frost breath, and his right hand was casting a lightning spell, expelling electricity in a beam from his hand. Those spells were called Frostbite and Sparks.

  The wolves tried dodging around as they split and tried surrounding him. Not one to let himself be surrounded, he kept moving around and evading the wolves who tried jumping at him. It was an easy battle. All he had to do was run around. The longer it went on, the easier it got. The cold was slowing the wolves and the electricity was paralyzing them. Soon, they were all dead.

  Taking a deep breath after the fight, he resumed walking ahead. Right as he started walking, a bear walked from behind a rock and stood in front of his path.

  "Damn. Now comes the boss fight." Hiro frowned. But then he grinned as he lifted his hands as the air around them slowly heated and little flame sparks appeared. "Come on, you'll be barbeque in no time. This King will cook you up nicely."

  As if the bear could understand his words, he charged after roaring furiously. As the bear charged in a straight line, Hiro entered a Kameh*meha position, with a small ball of flames being created between his hands, enlarging every second.

  As the bear was just three meters away from him, he released his kameh... I mean, his magic. A flamethrower was fired right in front of the bear. Unfortunately, the bear kept the charge and ran right through the flames, headbutting Hiro in the head. It couldn't be helped. He was a kid after all, if he was as tall as an adult, it would headbutt his stomach.

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  Hiro fell to the ground as the bear tried mounting on top of him to munch his face off. But he couldn't allow that, so he rolled to the side and got up quickly.

  "You're a difficult fellow, aren't you? Fine, This King will bring out the big guns." Even though he said that, he does not, in fact, have any stronger spells at the moment. What he does have, though, is his mana control. By taking more mana from his heart than what the spell needs, he can overcharge it. More fuel makes more fire. The heat keeps going up with the amount of fuel you give it.

  With that said, he not only took the most he could from one source of mana, he fused it with what he could take from another. Tying them together, he dumped everything in this one spell.

  The result was one hell of an overpowered Sparks. A lightning bolt that could not be dodged, when the spark was made, it took less than a second for it to shoot out, and after it shot, it was instantaneous. The lightning bolt of an overpowered Sparks was as thick as an arm. In comparison to it's normal counterpart, which is just a few finger-thick electricity bolts, it was huge.

  As soon as it hit the bear, it stopped. His muscles were paralyzed, his fur was charred where the bolt hit, and he dropped to the floor. It's hard to say if he was dead. Probably not yet. He should be unconscious though. The amount of electricity in that spell was big enough to kill a human. The more resistant and less conductive bear should at least black out with it.

  So, with a dignified look in his face, he approached the fallen bear.

  "Looks like you're just this much. This King shall remember you as the first person... Wait, no. First animal to make This King a bit serious." After he said that, he used an overpowered Alteration spell to bury the bear as deep as he could. If he was dead, it was a sign of respect. If it was not, it was a way to make sure it died.

  As much as he wanted to keep going and walk, he stopped for a while to rest. Overcharging a spell was not easy. He was mentally tired and something about fusing mana from different sources took a lot of him.

  He rested for a few minutes before resuming. The test had a time limit after all.

  As he kept walking, more questions appeared. Things like magic history, magic theory, questions related to the different branchs of magic, etc.

  There was no more battles. Soon he reached an oasis. In the middle of all the red, the water was a beautiful blue. It shined in the dull ambient. As he approached, he realized that it was not water. It was mana. The tree at it's side and the single patch of earth it was growing out of, was also blue. It was purely infused with mana. It was beautiful.

  As he approached the oasis to take a better look, he opened the eyes he didn't realize were still closed. He was back at the classroom. That mechanical voice sounded out again.

  "Time has ran out. Calculating test results, please wait."

  "Test results is as follows. Combat test, B. Knowledge test, A. Theory test, A+. Mana quality found is higher than in the records. Mana quality overwritten. Mana quality, A. Calculating hidden parameters..."

  "Final result: A"

  "Numerical value: 189, Checking test ranking. Fuji Hiro is placed as number eight at the top test takers at the moment."

  "Please wait in the room as someone will be called to guide you to your new dormitory. Congratulations, you have been accepted at the Five Stars School."

  As the voice finally stopped talking, Hiro had a strange look in his face. 'Is this thing a computer? Isn't this simply too advanced? This is simply breaking the immersion.' Hiro shook his head helplessly and waited for said guide.

  'My mana quality improved, huh? Looks like This Kings method of training is the best. It really doesn't matter if This King has talent or not. I went from rank F to A in just a few years.'

  That rank was, of course, a kid's evaluation, but it was a start.