"There will be no talking during the examination," Ms Sterling paced up and down with her hands clasped behind her back. Her voice boomed out of a speaker.
The entire class was seated in a grid of single desks in the event hall in the Richter Building. The floor at the front of the hall was covered with backpacks, tote bags, coats and jackets. Jacob was towards the back, in the fifth row. He'd never written an exam like this before and quite frankly it unsettled him. He could see everyone else in the class, and they could see him as well. Every scrape, scratch, cough, sniff echoed in the hall's vaulted ceiling, turning what would be a normally silent gathering of eighty or so people into a cacophony. Several TAs marched down the aisles like attentive prison guards.
"There will be no communicating of any kind during the examination. If students are caught colluding in any way they will receive zeros and will be escorted out of the examination room.
"If you have a question, you will raise your hand and wait for myself or one of the TAs to come over.
"If you need to go to the washroom, you will raise your hand and wait for myself or one of the TAs to come over. A TA will accompany you to the washroom and back.
"Use of phones is prohibited during the examination.
"Use of magic is prohibited during the examination. Casting of any spell will result in an immediate zero on the examination and you will be escorted from the examination room.
"You have three hours to complete the examination. When you finish you will bring your examination up to the front and place it in the pile on the desk here.
"The examination is made up of short answer questions.
"You may not leave within the first hours of the examination, nor in the last fifteen minutes. If you finish within the last fifteen minutes, wait in your seat until the examination is over.
"You may turn your examinations over and begin."
A nervous rustle of papers being turned over filled the auditorium.
Jacob took a deep breath and flipped his over as if he were checking the back cover of a semi-interesting looking book at the store. He wrote his name at the top, and then looked at the first question:
1. If you were to run into a Reaper in the magical realm, what kind of magic would it use? (3pts)
Jacob blinked. Bit of an odd way to word it, but maybe that was the point? He scribbled his answer:
It would use Decomposition
Grinning, thankful for his in-person familiarity with Reapers and their magic, he moved on to the next question:
2. A nexus is a natural point of crossover between Earth and the magical realm where the barrier has become so thin one can walk across it. Nexuses can be caused by many things, and are commonly found in cities. The most common creature found near nexuses are small Producers.
a.) Why are small Producers drawn to nexuses? (2pts)
b.) What is the cause of the effect in a.)? (1pt)
c.) What are two major changes one would see in the magical realm if they moved away from a nexus? (2pt)
a.) Producers are drawn to nexuses because the latent magic around nexuses is in a very simple form that can be directly absorbed by small Producers.
b.) The cause of the effect in a.) is that since the barrier is so thin, more sunlight shines through it. Sunlight breaks down complex magic structures into their simplest form, like breaking up a chemical compound into separate molecules.
c.) One change is that the latent magic would become more complex as the barrier becomes thicker, which makes it harder for small producers to absorb, but easier for certain larger Producers. The other change is that the creatures would become more powerful, as the threshold of power required to cross the barrier has increased, allowing for creatures to become more powerful without risking crossover.
Kinda bullshit that a short answer question was three parts. He flipped the page and moved on to the next question:
3. Where on the visible light spectrum would a shapeshifting spell be? Include a wavelength in your answer. (2pt)
Shapeshifting? Was that what Mr Rodriguez had done in class when he'd changed his arm into a sword? Yeah, it was. It would be:
Consumption close to Decomp / blue. Maybe 520nm.
He answered the rest of the questions with minimal difficulty, and finished two hours in. He got up and placed his exam in the small pile as instructed, grabbed his backpack, and left the examination hall.
Stepping out into the lobby was like immersing himself in a pool of cool water. He'd finished his first exam at Tisdale.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
He'd noted that Camilla had left earlier, but instead of going and looking for her, he sat down to wait for Blake, and texted her, asking her where she was. Blake came out a quarter hour later.
"What'd you think?" Blake asked.
Jacob shrugged. "Pretty easy. That question about the pixies was a little vague, but other than that, not bad."
"Yeah I said I'd run for the nearest nexus, but I don't think that was right. Didn't know enough to put anything else."
Jacob nodded along as if he'd thought the same thing.
"I'm starving," Blake said. "Let's go grab something to eat. We can talk about it at the cafeteria."
As good as it felt to be done, it was a fleeting sensation. They were joined by Camilla and later Grace in the cafeteria, and by the time they finished their meal, they'd left the Basics midterm in their wake and had started discussing Intro the next day.
It was going to be a long week.
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Tuesday:
Long Form Essay (20pts):
Choose one of the following prompts:
1. To what extent did the Sons of Dynas cause the Imbalances of the 90s? Make sure to compare and contrast their role with factors such as other insurgent groups and natural fluctuations in crossover frequency.
2. To what extent did the so called 'Big Three' contribute to the rapid globalization of the Regulation Order following World War 1? Discuss each of their contributions separately and as a whole.
3. Arthur Dynas foresaw the coming change to the world of magic by translating his life experiences in the mundane world. Give an example of something you have experienced that could predict a coming change to the world of magic.
Each essay should consist of three main parts: introduction, body, conclusion. Each essay should also contain a thesis statement in the introduction that is restated in the conclusion!
Jacob rubbed his eyes. If he wanted a good mark he'd need to cash in on this. But which one to pick? He was still a little iffy on the Imbalances and the Big Three. They'd only learned about them a couple weeks ago, and it seemed like everyone else knew about them already.
The third one would be the easiest, if you had an experience to draw from. He could talk about the incident with the rogue mage, but would that be translating from the real world? What if he mixed it with himself? There might be something there. The rogue mage had presented an issue, but perhaps the real issue was the fact that Jacob was from a non-magical family and had gone unnoticed by the Order. And why? Because the local Rangers had been overwhelmed.
He glanced at the poster-sized digital clock that hung above the front of the room. Forty-five minutes left. He'd better get rolling:
In this essay I will refer to one of my own experiences and discuss why it could predict the Order's revelation of itself to the mundane world.
A few months ago, I was walking in a botanical garden...
Wednesday:
4. The Xiao Variant is an alternate way of casting which spell? (2pts)
Fireball
Thursday:
2. Fadhil Ekhtiary pioneered which technique, and how did he discover it? (3pts)
He pioneered the ability to target fine and gross motor movements separately using Consumption magic. He achieved this through deep meditation and playing an accordion while walking down the streets of Paris.
Friday:
3. Which magic falls between 400nm-410nm? (2pts)
Necromancy?
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The Decomp midterm ran Jacob right to three hours. A dozen people had left early—Camilla, Tanaka, and Archie among them—but it seemed most of the class struggled with it.
Jacob met Blake and Grace amidst the eager horde spilling out of the Richter Building and into the bright, fake sunshine. The light summer breeze on Jacob's face felt like a cleansing blast, washing away the grime, sweat, and angst of the past week.
After the first midterm he'd been elated, but right now he was too ragged and worn to even mimic excitement.
"You'd think they'd put the festival of lights after midterms, give us something to look forward to," Blake grumbled.
"That's what the gala's for!" Grace said.
"Yeah but that ain't for two weeks," Blake said.
"What did you guys put for question three?" Jacob asked. He knew he'd gotten that one wrong. He'd only been able to think of Necromancy while reading it.
"Portal magics," Blake said.
"That's what I put, too," Grace said.
"Damn it," Jacob groaned. There went another two points.
"What did you put?"
"Necromancy. Couldn't get it out of my head for some reason."
"Tough. What do you think you got?" Blake asked.
If Jacob had exercised one non-magical skill this week it was math. Adding up his potential points, divvying up certain questions he thought he'd only gotten partially. It seemed every waking minute not spent studying had been spent speculating about test tallies and what he termed Lowest Potential Mark. He'd air-balled question three on Decomp. Question four and six were fifty-fifty and each worth three points. Question seven had also been a wild guess, so...
"I'm thinking a 75," Jacob said.
"Could be worse," Blake said. "I was maybe around 80."
"Oh. My. God!" Grace stomped her foot. "I refuse to listen to any more talk about marks and midterms! They're over, and it's the weekend!"
"Fine, fine," Blake said.
"Probably for the best," Jacob said.
They walked towards Schumann Hall to meet up with Camilla in silence, each stewing in their own thoughts. The crowd of first-years dispersed into trickles. Jacob wasn't even sure he was hyped for the weekend. He just wanted to sleep.
"That was fucking gruelling," Blake said out of the blue. "Back to back to back to back to back. It was basically just regular old tests, too. We're at an Academy for magic, you think they'd find some funky magic way to test you."
"I could have used a self-writing pen," Jacob said, flexing his half-corpse right hand.
"Like questions that change based on your knowledge, or interactive tests that make you actually use magic, or testing your ability to sense spectrum location by actually using spells instead of just asking what spell falls at 400nm, or like-"
Grace suddenly aggressively reached up and put her hand over Blake's mouth. "No! No more!"
Blake raised his hands in mock-surrender and Grace relented. "Fine. Fine. I'll actually stop this time."
Jacob looked up at the blue-bird afternoon sky and sighed. Blake was right. It had felt like just a regular old test. Apart from the subject matter, he could have been back in Vancouver writing a history test for all he knew. The same format, the same feel.
But, now that he thought about it, science tests felt like math tests, geography tests like social studies tests. In fact, they all felt the same. For one, why was that? But, for two, why should magic tests be any different? Was it that Tisdale was trying to emulate normal high school, or was it that that was just the best way to learn?
Jacob frowned. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the best way to learn things. Why else would the school system use it?
But it didn't feel like it. Apart from maybe Intro, he hadn't come out of any of those tests feeling like his knowledge had been challenged. He felt nitpicked and somewhat taken advantage of, his knowledge in certain places untested yet gouged deeply in others.
Grace and Blake seemed content to wallow in themselves, but Jacob wasn't. He was a little peeved and felt like doing something.
"What are we doing tonight?" He asked. "I have half a mind to go to the theatre just to turn my brain off."
"Not a bad idea," Blake said.
"Victor said something about a party the other day," Grace said.
Jacob grunted. He wasn't sure he had the juice to socialize with a big group for several hours.
Grace's phone jingled. "Archie says he had a plan for tonight."
"What?" Blake frowned.
"He says he'll tell us when we get to Schumann."
Jacob bit his lip. How was he going to deal with Archie? He wanted to hang with the others, but if the other boy was there...