The Magic Academy
Antonidas was leisurely watching the landscape with a smile on his face. Even though it wasn't especially beautiful, but for Antonidas who secluded himself for more than centuries, it was a magnificent landscape that interested him. The carriage was following a tiny road in the forest, the icy mountains that could be seen far away from the east, the noises of a river could be heard from the west, the big fir trees surrounding the road, the deems that could be seen passing by or even the humming of the sparrows.
It was a kind of feeling that he never thought until now. Antonidas was always too much busy researching for new discoveries or magic theories, thus, he couldn't enjoy the beautiful landscape of his former world, or rather he paid no mind to it until now.
It wasn't his first time ridding a carriage, but until now, he was mostly using teleportation scrolls or magic teleportation so far. He forgot this feeling he had while riding it and it wasn't a bad feeling as he felt his body relaxed while hearing that melody from nature.
The travel went pretty well. Antonidas was accompanied by his personal maid, Jiu Mei, who was slightly older than him, but for him, she was still a sixteen years old girl.
Although it wasn't an easy thing to leave everything behind and follow his master, as a maid she had great conviction and was unexpectedly determined.
YuHan was only two years younger than Jiu Mei and considered her personal maid as her real big sister when he was young, which makes Jiu Mei realized YuHan's feelings towards her and resolved about becoming YuHan's maid when she first comes to the castle.
She was an orphan who lost her parents during the last war between the Stone Jade Empire and the Heavenly Sword Empire. YuHan's father, who found her in the forest near Stone Jade Village, decided to welcomed her and ordred the maids to teach her about the maids' everyday, and after meeting with YuHan when he was six, she resolved herself to become her personal maid and decided to repay the favor of YuHan's father who gave her a new home and new whole life.
Jiu Mei who always stayed next to Yuhan inside the castle became close to him little by little becoming a big sister in the existence of such person called Yuhan.
Worried that YuHan went to the Stone Jade City all on his own, his father ordered Jiu Mei to accompany him and decided to hire 4 knights from the holy church. YuHan's father even gave him an amulet coated with magic, even though it was only a weak magic aura, Antonidas could perceive through the magic item and know that it was a barrier-type amulet. Maybe it was YuHan's feelings that was mixing inside his body, but he became weepy once he received the amulet. Antonidas knows the high price of such magic items in this world and giving to him such a priceless item, he was grateful towards YuHan's father.
During the travel, they met severals weak magical beasts such as horned-rabbits, horned-boar, wolves as well as weak monsters such as goblins, hobgoblins, and slimes. Antonidas was slighly astonished of the knights his father hired since they were a strong existence called Paladin.
Those knights could use lights magic and could enhance their body or weapons with light, it was actually the first time he saw such light magic for the first time and became interested in those so-called Paladins. They were polyvalent and could control enemies with blind, taunt, or even stunt if they had shields.
The magic spells they cast were not weak either, even though compared to his former world, the magic from their spells wasn't something that could deal huge damage, the spells they cast were enough to heavily injure weak monsters and deal a fatal blow during an important fight.
After learning about the Paladins' spells from the knights of the holy church, he also asked them few questions about the Stone Jade City since the Stone Jade City also hold a Temple which was the base of the holy church.
They told him about good weapons shops, the authority of the Stone Jade Imperial soldiers and the bad rumors circulated about them.
From what Antonidas learned from his YuHan's father, the holy church, and the Stone Jade Imperial soldiers hated each other and maybe it was only speculation from the adventurers, but maybe it was the truth. Unless Antonidas see it with his own eyes, he couldn't confirmed it yet.
Reaching the Stone Jade City's entrance, the Knights showed to the guards' entrance the pass and once they arrived in front of a famous inn for its cheap price and its high quality towards the clients, Antonidas decided to visit the town after booking a room in the Inn. He first wanted to go towards the weapons shop, since in the Magic Academy, each student could keep a magic weapon with them. Of course, Antonidas could enhance his own weapon so he didn't go to a magic weapon shop but a normal shop instead.
Once entering the weapon shop, the clerk noticed Antonidas' clothes, it was the school uniform of the Magic Academy, thus, he tried to rip him some money. He first tried to sell him a rusty sword for forty silver coins. Noticing the scam from the clerk, Jiu Mei, who often went to the Stone Jade City started a thirty minutes scolding to the clerk making him sweat all the water out of his body. "Don’t you have shame to scam such a young boy? Do you know who's father he is? Do you want your shop to close forever?" She vented all her anger while shouting towards him.
Of course, Antonidas wasn't some kind of pumpkin from the countryside, after calming Jiu Mei, he succeeds to negotiate with the poor clerk that was totally freak out of Jiu Mei and bought a cheap sword for twenty silver coins. He knows Jiu Mei's temper from YuHan's memories but didn't expect her to throw a tantrum against the clerk for thirty minutes. After watching the spectacle that happened in front of him, Antonidas thought that no matter for what reason, he will never mess with Jiu Mei in the future.
YuHan's father had a lot of troubles to gather money and gave to YuHan only three gold coins. Jiu Mei also knows this fact and that was also the reason why she throws a tantrum towards the clerk. Since the inn he booked cost three silver coins per night, he didn't want to spend too much money on the weapon. Not to mention the Magic Academy exams' fees that cost two gold coins, he could only stay few days in the Inn.
Fortunately, the clerk couldn't sell these kinds of cheap swords to the other nobles from the city, so in the end, he was grateful towards Antonidas and told him to come back whenever he wanted to buy a new weapon at cheap price but he begged for Antonidas to make his maid wait outside next time. Even though it was still a high price, it was still better than the other weapon shops who sells for more than five gold coins per magic weapon. Since it was the only shop who sells normal weapons, Antonidas was a little depressed to spend that much money for a sword he could make himself with the necessary materials.
Once he finished visiting the town, he returned to the Inn and ate dinner since it was already dawn and prepare his stuff before went sleeping since the test exam starts early in the morning, he didn't want to be late.
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Tomorrow was finally the day of the exam test of the Magic Academy, Antonidas was excited like a little child, in the end, he couldn't sleep, he literally used a sleeping spell but didn't expect to almost come late the day of the exam test...
******
'If it wasn't for Jiu Mei who woke me up, I was certain that I'll be late...' Antonidas was yawning while walking towards the Magic Academy. Hopefully, the Magic Academy was situated 5 minutes of walking from the inn he was lodging.
Arriving in front of the Magic Academy's main gate entrance, there were several luxury carriages parked next to the entrance.
Antonidas could see each student accompanied by their own servant, it was truly a Magic Academy truly for rich people. Handsome girls and boys were directing at the Magic Academy's entrance.
Each of them was wearing the same uniform as Antonidas and all of them were wearing shiny weapons such as swords, rapiers, lances, staffs, and even some with gauntlets or magic wands.
The academy was a really huge blue building made by blue stones which were probably blue aquamarine magic stone. It was a stone that could endure all kind of magic spells up to intermediate magic in his past world.
Truly a good stone for the building, with this kind of stones even if it was a huge intermediate fireball cast by Antonidas it couldn't break the building easily, on the contrary, he needed to at least summon a high-tier magic spell in order to totally destroy the building. He was slightly impressed by the building. 'To find such a strong anti-magic building after only two hundred years... Really amazing.' When Antonidas thought about how much they improve even though it was only two hundred years of magic researching, the people of this world was far from stupid, especially the magic researcher from this world who succeed to create such an anti-magic building.
Once he entered in the Magic Academy, groups were made with the paper he received from YuHan's father. After the groups were made, each group followed an assigned teacher and directed towards a classroom where the written exam was held.
'What the hell are these questions...Does this school think that we are retarded or...?' Antonidas was dumbfounded by the stupid questions that were written in the written exam. Obliviously it was related to magic, but most of the questions were simple questions such as 'What element is from the spell fireball?' Or 'What element do you need to cancel a fireball spell?' There were also more difficult questions such as 'How do you increase the power of a spell?' Or 'What materials do you need to create a magic item?' Such questions were far more interesting for Antonidas but it was still easily answered as he finished the written exam after twenty minutes.
Disappointed by the written exam that was way too easy for him, Antonidas took out a blank magic scroll and started drawing simple magic formation instead. Even though he had a lot of magic scrolls inside his space inventory, he only had complex magic scrolls, thus, he couldn't use them yet with his low magical power.
When the written exam finally ended, they directed outside the Magic Academy walked for around fifteen minutes and went 400 meters away behind the Magic Academy. They arrived at a large plain with several magic training dummies 200 meters away from them. The teacher stopped at the center of the plain and explained to the students.
"From there, you'll need to cast one of your spells to the magic training dummy. Of course, the spell doesn't need to be powerful, but keep in mind that we need a proof that you can correctly cast a magic spell without any problem."
After he finished speaking, he called the name of one of the students, The student who got called move forward and started spelling an incantation.
"Ô wind, listen to my request, blow my enemy away and reduces him into torn dead leaves! Air ball!"
When the girl finished her sentence, a large air ball appeared in front of both of her palm and went flying towards its target. The training target dummy only flinches a little and nothing else happened.
Hearing the student's incantation, Antonidas was shocked. He honestly didn't know whether to cry or laugh.'What kind of incantation is that...do incantations in this world are that long? The spell was also damn weak! The incantation itself was so embarrassing I'd rather died from eating a poisoned mouse than spelling this incantation...' He thought that maybe it was only this student and thought that the next one would spell a better incantation but it was the same.
"Ô fire, listen to my request, ignite my enemy and reduces him to ashes! Fireball"
A fireball appeared in his right palm, it was smaller than the air ball the other student created but at least it burned the target for several seconds, unlike the air ball who only flinch its target.
After watching the third and fourth student who incantations were long and weak as much as the first and second student, he didn't even bother to watch anymore until that it was his turn.
Antonidas move forwards and look at the training target dummy. 'I should at least use a weak spell otherwise, problems will arise.' He decided to do one of the spells he saw from the adventurers during his travel.
"Light became my friend, purge my enemy by piercing its heart with the wrath of the light! Light laser!"
A little light laser came out of his index, the laser that pierced through the dummy. Antonidas retained the powerful magic he released so the incantation so the laser was small and weak, but when he turned around to watch the teacher's expression, the teacher and the students were showing an amazed expression.
Noticing that Antonidas was tilting his head wondering why they showed such faces in front of him, the teacher coughed and asked.
"You... Right now, did you just cast an intermediate spell right now?"
'So that's why they were amazed...' Antonidas only nodded his head. The teacher regained his composure and started writing in his notebook then called another student.
Once everyone finally finished the practice test, the exams were finally over after a speech from the director in the main hall. The speech of the director explained the rules inside the Magic Academy, the regular magic tournament occurring every month, the rules of the dorms and several others things related to the Magic Academy.
After that the director finished his speech, the students could finally take a break until the afternoon where the results of the exams and the organizations of the classes will be shown in the main Hall.
Antonidas exited the Magic Academy with Jiu Mei who was waiting for him next to the Main Hall in an exclusive special room only for the servants who were waiting for their masters to finish the exam.
What he didn't know after leaving the school was a mysterious group of boys who were looking at him exiting the Magic Academy. One of the boys pointed at him while murmuring.
"They said this guy could use intermediate magic and light magic on the top of that... Do you think he'll become a threat for the magic tournament?"
Another boy who seems to be their leader answered to the boy.
"So what? From what I heard it was weak but we needed to check his profile. If he really is a threat, then we'll just get ride of him before the magic tournament start. Easy don’t you think?"
All of them nodded.
******
Inside the director's office, the director was reading a written exam with shocking expression.
"Are you sure that the boy who wrote this could also cast intermediate light magic?"
The director asked.
The teacher standing in front of him could only nod while tilting his head.
In the first place, he couldn't correct a written exam of a student so he called out the director and showed him the written exam of that student while reporting the practice exam of the students he was assigned to the director.
"All the questions correct... The terrifying fact is that even I, who researched magic for more than ten years couldn't answer the last question, but the fact that this boy maybe has the correct answer is a too much shocking new to the existence of magic..."
The director couldn't leave his glare towards the last question of the test which none of the students could answer and was counted as the bonus point.
'How to increase your magic power?' It was a simple yet difficult question that even magic researcher couldn't answer or could only write one or two ways, but the boy wrote more than ten ways, it was too much that he couldn't believe whether the boys who wrote that was actually a young fourteen years old boy...
MuTang, the director left the Magic Academy with the written test of the student and started ordering for the materials written in the paper.