Now within striking range Arthur thrusted his fist forwards towards the instructors face and with a loud smack punched them in the face. Taking the opportunity Arthur grabbed the instructor to use them as a body shield against the remaining instructor and began casting any powerful spells that came to his mind starting with a few earth bolts to have something on hand quickly.
The second and conscious instructor watched with confusion and then surprise by the tactic that the young mage before her employed, though a body shield wouldn’t be enough to keep her from firing away. ‘Smart kid, if he doesn’t pass with this type of quick thinking I think I will contest the results.’ The second instructor noticed Arthur casting his own spells and quickly began matching him with another far more unpredictable and likely unknown to him.
‘Is she seriously showing such little regard for her ally? The cast time is taking quite a long time, that makes it likely a tier three spell. Why would she risk hurting her ally with such a dangerous spell?’ Arthur watched on with confusion as the second instructor continued the casting of her spell, then suddenly once she finished it she pointed her hands towards him and the first instructor. With that gesture came two small projectiles that were made of earth and covered with fire, those two projectiles curved in an ark above and over the body shield Arthur had with enough speed to be almost blurs and struck him in his shoulders breaking the earth armor he had there and knocking him on his back.
“That is enough!” Akkar shouted as he stepped in between Arthur and the two instructors. “Gellia, that was not called for and I certainly hope that this will not be a recurring topic between us.” Everyone in the room could tell that Akkar was angry with what the second instructor named Gellia did. Arthur suspected it had something to do with the spell.
“I would like to apologize Mr. Arthur, now to be honest you weren't supposed to win this fight, but my instructor used a spell that was not permitted to be used for such a task and that changed the results of the test. I honestly believe that you would have won if such a spell was not used and as a result you would have immediately passed.” Akkar looked quite embarrassed as he spoke, clearly this didn’t happen often.
“It is fine, as long as this will not impact whether I will pass or not.”
“Do not worry, your magical performance was already more than enough to accurately determine your skill and is more than enough to decide your score. I am merely apologizing for such advanced magic being used against you when it was specifically pointed out to the instructors that they were not to be used unless an emergency were to occur. Though I would recommend avoiding punching your instructors in the face during subsequent tests.”
Before he left Arthur was required to sign one last form covering any possible damages that may result from the high tiered spell that was used against him and instead taking legal action against the mage in question he would instead seek medical attention and would have such costs paid by the guild.
He was also told that he would learn of the results in a few days time and that there would be an event later in that day to congratulate and have the advancing mages take the pledge of secrecy, this pledge amounted to a promise to not share anything they learned from the guild with anyone that may wish to do either the guild, the kingdom, or its people harm.
For the remainder of the day Arthur was at his home teaching Gaelin a few things about aeromancy as it was the subject that he was having the hardest time with.
********
Nearly a week later Arthur checked his mailbox within the guild mailroom and found a letter from the guild itself for him. Opening it up he found that it was his results, as he expected from what Akkar said to him he passed with flying colors. The ‘event’ that would happen for all those who were advancing to the rank of Evoker was actually akin to a graduation with a buffet for everyone there to enjoy. It also mentioned that it would be an excellent opportunity to become an apprentice to someone as many powerful mages like to attend looking for someone to share their life's secrets with while they have the choice to.
‘Becoming an apprentice again? I guess I shouldn’t write that off completely, as long as I don’t need to do that right away and can instead look around the library for info on things like golemancy so I don’t really have a problem.’
Technically he wasn’t considered an Evoker within the guild yet so he did not have any of the privileges that would come with it such as access to the Evoker section of the library. This didn’t really leave Arthur with much to do aside from filling out his journal with all the events that he did not have the time or energy to do before.
Most of the previous month didn’t really have anything of note, so he instead focused on the few things that were noteworthy. Those things included but were not limited to Gaelin joining the mages guild, achieving the peak apprentice level mastery of all four evocations, sparing with Calavia and even winning occasionally when she didn’t use powerful tier three spells, and taking the test and passing as well as the graduation of sort that he would be attending later in the day.
Arthur wanted to invite both Calavia and Gaelin but they were both quite busy, Gaelin with his studies in the guild and Calavia with her work at the clinic. The graduation happened at three o’clock in the afternoon in room 76 which was one of the auditoriums that were located a few floors below the surface. Inside were another ten mages all round his own age from what he could tell, though a few were not human which made it a little harder to tell.
He actually arrived a half hour early like the letter he received told him to, he and everyone else were also instructed to wear their best clothing and stay clean the whole time.
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Waiting there for everyone was a woman who was hired by the guild to organize events such as this one, she clearly wasn’t a mage as he needed help from the eleven there including Arthur to move things around and help prepare the stage for when the possible masters would arrive. “Now each and everyone of you should be on your best behavior. You never know what type of person might be watching and be willing to take you on only to find that they absolutely hate your attitude, you will need to make sacrifices for your future and it helps to avoid making terrible mistakes.”
Everyone just looked at the woman as if she was crazy, and truth be told her fashion sense sort of also gave that idea. She wore a scarf made from a skinned fox with a hat that was clearly designed for hot temperatures, the rest of her clothing was typical wealthy person stuff that was also just as impractical and ugly to most people. Each of those advancing to the rank of Evoker was clearly uncomfortable with what she was saying, especially the women that were there. Though that might have been due to her clothes.
For the remaining thirty minutes the woman had everyone put the last required parts of the graduation together which involved setting up the food tables, cleaning the seats, and wiping down the stage where they would all receive their cloaks and take the pledge.
Surprisingly these three seemingly simple tasks took nearly the whole thirty minutes they had even with magic on their side as they needed to be thorough in doing them. They were each randomly sorted into one of three teams, the first team dealt with the food, the second team cleaned the seats, and the third wiped down the stage.
Arthur was assigned to the first team along with a dark elf woman and a dwarven man. In a room off to the side was a kitchen where all the food had already been made, the prepared food was quite diverse consisting of several meats, some fruits and vegetables, and a few bottles of alcohol. Even mages liked to have a drink from time to time.
The tables that the food was to be put out on were already set up thankfully so the trio only needed to place the food on them in an appealing manner. Thankfully that wasn’t hard with the woman organizing the event telling them where to put what, it was a little annoying to listen to her but it was a lot easier than going against her.
Shortly after all the food had been brought out and was in its optimal place, but that wasn’t the end of their work. Instead they were ordered to help with the three that were cleaning the seats. Begrudgingly Arthur walked towards his fellow students that were clearing the seats and asked them how exactly they were doing it.
“Truth be told we are mostly just using aeromancy to collect any dust or dirt that is on the seats, anything like a stain on the other hand requires you to use hydromancy and give it a really good scrub. Otherwise it will not come out.” The student who was male high elf said as he gave a simple demonstration of what to do to Arthur and two that just joined.
With the basic knowledge of what to do the three new seat cleaners quickly joined in at the back row of seats so that they would meet the original three cleaners at the middle when they were done. This lasted for around another twenty minutes before all the seats were clean, thankfully very few seats needed an actual scrubbing.
Around this time the stage was finished being wiped down and people slowly began trickling into the auditorium, most were older mages with visible grey or greying hairs on their heads and or faces. It was roughly mixed with half men and half women and a mixture of all sorts of different races from humans to elves and even the occasional dwarf mixed in.
Eventually around fifty or so mages were seated in the auditorium across the available seats, a few took some food from the tables but most went straight to their seats to watch. “Hello everyone, I would like to welcome everyone to the advancement ceremony for Obsidian on the 1148th year of the third era.”
A calm round of clapping followed this welcome from the woman running the ‘ceremony’ as she gave a bow towards the audience. After waving her hands towards the stage the all of the soon to be Evokers walked out in a single file line and stood straight up like they were part of the military. By this time the clapping had already stopped and two other people who turned out to be assistants to the woman running the ceremony walked over with a large box. Small glowing symbols could be seen across the sides of it indicating it was enchanted.
“Mr. Mettius, please step forward.” The woman called out to the young man in the very front of the line as the woman demanded. Nervously Mettius stepped forward until he was just about a meter from her and she was handed the winter variation of the Evoker robe.
“Mr. Mettius, do you swear to uphold the laws of the mages guild? Even if you were forced to report someone else, someone that you might even be close with?”
“Yes ma’am, I would.” Mettius could feel a small trickle of sweat from his brow dripping down his face as he answered, so many people were looking at him and watching what he was doing. It was hard for Mettius not to feel worried in such a scenario.
“Do you swear to refrain from illegal magic and hand over any books or other ledgers containing such illegal and immoral information that can and will pose a risk to the common people of not just this kingdom, but the whole world in the wrong hands?”
“Yes ma’am, I swear to keep such dangerous magic out of the hands of those that would use it for harm.” The lines of questioning continued on for around another three or some minutes, by the end the woman was clearly satisfied by his answered and waved her hands towards her assistants, one opened up the box and brought out a new cloak while the other draped the one in her hands over Mettius’s shoulders.
Mettius let out a deep breath and along with it his stress, without knowing he had been holding his breath during the wait half expecting something terrible to happen.
“Mr. Mettius, I welcome you into the arcane community not as an apprentice any longer, but as a full fledged Evoker and all the privileges that come with it.”
With this the people sitting and watching began to clap for the new Evoker who quickly gave a deep bow and returned to his original position. Then the woman brought the next person in line this time being the dark elf woman that worked with Arthur in moving the food to the tables and then cleaning the seats. She too was given the same questions and answered in a similar but not entirely identical way, by the end she too was given a cloak and returned to her original stop like Mettius before her.
This process continued all the way until the very last person was to go, the last person being Arthur. “Mr. Arthur, please step forward. Arthur obeyed and stepped until he was around a meter from the woman and stood with his back straight like everyone before him.
Like everyone else he was given the same line of questions and answered in the most truthful way he could, he believed that he was doing quite well until after the very last question the woman just stopped talking, looked down at her hand and looked back up.