Professor sour-butt took us through the fancy doors in groups of five. I followed, thrilled to have all this exam business over with, one way or another.

Don’t get me wrong, I was worried about chin face’s true identity. After all, there was this itsy-bitsy chance Jake would lose his shit when he found what I did only minutes after he left. But it wasn’t like I could stand and watch as her headness plucked off Jane’s eyeballs, and I couldn´t fix the problem by worrying about it either.

My excuses made, I strolled on, eager for ending these frenzied weeks of nonstop study.

We found ourselves in a long hall. The wall to my right was full of closed doors, the other hosted a board pinned full of papers and something like a window counter. The man at the counter came in the soulless demeanor of someone who spoke the same line a hundred times:

“…Look for your forms at the board, then go to a room with a free examiner… take only the one with your name on it… if you take the wrong form, please put it back where you found it, they are in alphabetical order… Look for your forms at the board…”

I found the paper with my name and knocked my way until I found a room free of other students, but occupied by a professor and some curious artefacts. After greeting each other, my examiner looked at my papers.

“Another Grahamson, aye? Jake said his little brother entered the academy this month, but I didn’t expect to be the one examining him…” he then took a good look at me and blinked, twice, “Excuse me if am medaling my boy, but that is some of the roughest shape I’ve seen on an applicant… I mean to say, are you fine lad?”

“Oh, this? No need to worry. I didn’t had time to settle down properly after my journey here, but I am perfectly fine. A couple ruffled feathers that’s all. Thanks for the interest though, mister…?”

“The name is Arthur of Kragmad. Pleased to meet you… Blake, was it?”

“Guilty as charge!” I took the hand professed by the genial old man, then added, “You said you knew Jake?”

“Ah! Of course I do! One of my favorite students that one! Between his spirit’s talent for levitation and his shear dedication, I suspect he’ll reach grate heights!” he winked at me, “pun fully intended.”

I laugh way harder than the lame joke deserved.

“Excuse me mister Arthur,” I cleaned a tear from an eye, “but with professor sour-face calling the shots at the door, you have caught me completely by surprise!”

“Oh…! Is that bad, is it? Please don’t hold it against Professor Crimson,” my examiner chuckled, “Yes, mister Herring can come out a bit crass at times, but the poor man has been running these exams for seventy-two hours straight! That can sour the best of us! I’ll know! Had the displeasure to run this circus once or twice! It was madness! And that was without all this year´s irregularities... Huh? It says in your application that you are seventeen, Blake. Is this your second time taking the entry exam?”

“Nope. First time here.”

“Hmm… That’s unusual. Magus families send their children to the academy as soon as they are of age. Where you indisposed for last year?”

“Something like that.”

“Dodged a bullet then! If you think Crimson back there is being abrasive, you should have seen Magie of Mathreth, last year’s supervisor. The woman electrocuted two students on the spot when they failed to fill their paperwork… speaking of which, there you go…” He handed me a massive pile of documents “Do you need a pen?”

“No, I have mine here.” With a flourish, I produce a gold and blue fount pen from my jacket’s inner pocket.

“Nice one kid!” mister Arthur whistled in admiration, “It reminds me of the ones issued for the City Guard administration. Your dad must have paid a pretty penny.”

“It was a souvenir of sorts.” I lied, filling the forms with the same speed of hand I demonstrated for filling the fee’s warrant at the City Guard administration’ building, “And there you go. Now what?”

“Now the fun begins!”

At this words, Arthur’s contracted spirit, a glass dragonfly, flew off his shoulder to land over an elaborate contraption at the room’s center: A huge alembic with a neck’s so twisted it could pass for the plot of a trashy novel, a fist sized iron ball sitting at its bottom.

“I was wandering what that was.”

“Wonder no more! That, my boy, is the puzzle for this year’s entry exam.” he gave me a pointed look, “Now listen closely lad, because once I finish explaining the rules, I must commence the examination and I cannot intervene in any way afterwards.”

“I am all ears, Arthur.”

“That’s the spirit! Here is the gist of it: You’ll have thirty minutes to take that iron ball out of this glorified flask. You may, of course, use any spirit craft at your disposal, but you can neither touch the flask nor break it, else you’ll automatically fail the test. If you need any ritual components, you are to requisition them at the aisle’ window you saw on your way in. All clear?”

“I am so sorry Arthur, but I am not that bright. Would you mind repeating all of that, perhaps a bit slower?” I feigned.

“S-sure… well, like I said…”

I massaged my chin and pretended to listen. I needed to think this through:

This exam was meant to test our dominion of the forty-eight Georgian Exercises; a compendium of minor spirit craft young magus were train on before getting their contracted spirits.

There were two types of minor spirit craft; somatic tricks, that allowed you to command the boundless spirits via arcane gestures – a.k.a. waving your hands in the air like an idiot, and the slightly more powerful rituals, that often times needed an arcane circle and different material components to work, –doddles on the ground and random crap that spirits like to have hanging around.

This test appeared to be an exercise on the telekinesis ritual:

You stood over a carefully drowned runic circle with a lit candle on one hand and a bowl fill with mercury on the other. You then concentrated really hard on a single solid object within line of sight and if it weighted less than your bowl of mercury you were able to lift and move said object with your mind, until the candle ran out, you blinked or the toxic fumes of the liquid metal did you in.

I have many problems with this telekinesis thingy, but head on the line where these two:

Big fat problem number one; -to pull off the levitation with enough precision not to break the alembic, I would need to match the weight of the iron ball and the mercury pretty closely.

The professors were probably expecting us to use some obscure ritual combination to measure the wight of the ball from a distance. And that took me to that window at the aisle; why only one of them? Why not just leave the ingredients in the room with us?

Well, if you asked me the examiners wanted to punish students for guessing the wight of the ball by wasting our time making us come and go. I was betting my ass these people had prepared multiple sealed mercury containers with different weights to prevent us from discarding excess liquid… an intoxicate ourself.

But screw all that crap! Big fat problem number the second was here; I couldn't use the telekinesis ritual, ‘cuz I haven't gotten around to practiced it.

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“…And if you need any material components for a ritual, like say, some candles, you can ask for them at that window you saw on your way in. Do you understand now, lad?”

“No, sorry mister Arthur, but gosh! This exam has me so nervous I missed half of what you said! Would you mind explaining the rules to me once more? Perhaps you could flesh them out for me?”

“Flesh them out…?!”

“Yes! You know, expand on the concept! Use your Imagination to enrich the narrative! Fill in the gaps to engage with your audience!”

“Expand on the concept…” he said mystified, “I- I think I can try, but…erm… Let’s… erm… Let’s imagine that this alembic is… a-a labyrinth? Yes, a labyrinth…! and this labyrinth has…erm…”

I started rubbing my chin again.

Thirty minutes may seem like a lot, but in reality, it left us with no time to double check our runes if we were to cast both telekinesis and the multiple divination rituals to discover the ball’s wight. Worse yet, the other applicants would probably run for it, making the material’s requisition window inaccessible for the next five to fifteen minutes.

No, I couldn’t waste any time with component heavy rituals. I’ll had to improvise with whatever was at hand… My hand fell over a hard bump on my pocket. I grinned; maybe the levitation ritual would be of use after all.

When I focused back on my examiner, I found the older man making voices and gesticulating with two paper balls:

“…please don’t go mister ball! Is a trap! You’ll never come back from that accursed labyrinth!” then, with a dipper voice he moved the other ball, “I must go miss sphere! Though I fear for what the margrave of origami will do to you on my absence…”

I’ll be the first to admit this was all kinds of amusing, but whatever it was, it was getting out of hand.

“I think I got it now.” I interrupted.

“You do?!”

“Yea: take the ball out of the bottle before the time runs out. Don’t touch the bottle, don’t break the bottle. Did I miss something?”

“N-no, you got it right. Is just that, mister ball… Oh, whatever! Let’s start with it!”

Somewhat flustered, Arthur turned the hour glass on his desk. I turned towards the alembic, taking hold of the only tool I needed.

“Is that… coal? Do you just carry around a chunk of coal in your pocket…? Why?” Arthur frowned at me, taken aback.

“Why, you ask? Well, this is no random coal,” I paused for added dramatic effect, “this is Micoal.”

And with no further explanation I knelt and started drawing runes on the floor, using the newly baptized Micoal’s pointiest bit.

I made a circle of runes around the alembic.

The levitation ritual was a dumb down version of the telekinesis one; instead of letting you exert force remotely over and object, it generated a uniform upward force over the encircled area.

Arthur stood and took notes as I spent a good quarter-hour checking and rechecking the runes. I had managed to cast this ritual once or twice in the past, but only after much trial and error. Now I had only one shot to guess the force output needed to lift the ball all the way to the roof whit out it gaining enough speed to break the alembic or lifting said alembic out right… Tedious repetitive rune work! I hated every second of it!

When I was somewhat satisfied with my work, I started drawing in the next component of my scheme; The only ritual I actually liked, the delay ritual.

Why do I like it you say? Well, because it only needs one rune! Even though is officially call a ‘ritual’ is actually more of a component meant to be mixed in other rituals.

What does it do, you ask? It’s in the name you dingus! You draw the rune near another ritual and when you focus on it during casting it pauses the effects of any ongoing rituals for as long as your mind remains focused, usually five seconds or so.

I know, not the most useful thing on its own, but I used to prank my elder brothers by sneaking in this rune into their rituals and botching them at the worst time possible… Until I made Jake burn certain cottage that is.

Drawing the actual rune only took me a couple of seconds, but I had to spend another five minutes looking for the optimal placement. When I was done with all the preparations I had less than ten minutes left.

“And I’ll need this. Thank you, Arthur.” I snatched an empty mug from the examiner’s desk.

Arthur lifted a finger in protest, but lower it quickly. He wasn’t supposed to interfere once the exam was in progress.

All was ready, yet this task needed one more thing to be completed. I look into where imagined Micoal’s pleading eyes would be.

“You will die now, Micoal, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to do.”

“No, please! I have a family! It’ll be winter, they’ll be COAL without me! ARGH!!!!” the inert bar of charcoal said none of that as I lit it aflame with an arcane twist of my fingers, -the somatic trick fire-starter.

I quickly deposited the burning coal into the empty mug, where it continued to burn merrily.

Moust Georgeann rituals used candle’s because they are readily available and manageable magnets for fire and light spirits, but any small fire would do. Even if Micoal’s flame would die down much quicker than a candle’s, the over excited spirits on the test room where already flocking to the mug. They manifested as dancing sparks to the naked eye.

I threw my mind around the dancing motes of light and guide them toward my circle of runes… But for this, the over excited spirits played against me. It felt like herding kittens…

‘Urgh!’

Through shear willpower I force the skittish lights into the rune formation. The arcane symbols drunk in the spirits like parchment does ink, coming alit with sparks of their own. Now spirits of every color danced about the glowing runes, describing ineffable patterns in the air, powering my ritual until… The iron ball shot up like a bullet!

Not missing a bit, I hit the brakes, focusing all my mind into the delay rune.

The sparking spirits froze in place and the ball stopped in midair. I watched in horror how it plummeted from the mouth of the alembic’s neck all the way to its base. I hold my breath, all but sure about the glass destruction, yet the iron ball just bounced a little with an echoing tang.

I cut off the ritual’s power, and turn to glare at Arthur.

“The ball was hollow!? That’s cheating!” I accused, but the older man just shrugged at me apologetically, pointing towards the emptying sandglass with the butt of his pen; it had only two finger widths of sand remaining.

With a grunt, I turned back to the alembic.

There was nothing for it; Even is the empty iron casket hadn’t broken the thicker base of the glass, with enough speed, it’ll certainly do a number on the thinner crystal neck. I couldn’t redraw the levitation circle in time, so I would have to compensate for the extra speed with coordination and more spirit craft.

“This is gonna hurt.” I mutter through clenched teeth, my off hand going through the motions for sky-glass.

I split my focus. A part of my mind went towards guiding the spirits from the dwindling fire towards the runes, rekindling the levitation ritual. Another smaller part went to weave air spirits into my favorite somatic trick.

Focus-split was an ability trained into my brothers and I since we were able to walk. Think of it like playing two games of lightning-fast checkers at once but both of your hands have to move at the same time, and there are some concussions related risks involved.

Speaking about concussions, the spirits in the examination room weren’t in the mood for following careful instructions, so the already difficult doble game of checkers felt like playing with pieces made out of broken glass bits that I had to move with my exposed brain matter.

By the time the runes in the circle started glowing again, I could already feel the sharp edge of the mother of all headaches.

The iron ball shot up once more, but this time an invisible barrier stopped it mid-way through, breaking its momentum so that it landed at the alembic’s neck without breaking it.

It wasn’t over though.

The ball continued its ascension up the twirling loop of fine glass, its acceleration growing dangerously with every passing heartbeat. I had expected something like this, so I was able to shift my focus into the delay rune in time for stopping the ball from crushing into a sharp turn on the tube.

My already pounding head did not appreciate the move one bit though; as my focus shifted, I had to bit off a cry of pain. It felt like someone poked my brains with an ice spike.

The ball had fallen a quarter way back into the loop by the time I rallied courage enough to shift my focus again. Head pounding something fierce I manage to ease the ball through the corner an into another half loop, before I had to shift my focus once more for another steep corner.

Trice more I had to maneuver that trice damn piece of junk! I swear, to this day I still flinch whenever I hear metal clanking on glass! But I had finally reached the alembic beak! I just needed to pull the ball through another corner and…

*clink*

It didn’t go through… No matter I just needed to try the same maneuver as before…

*clink*

I have never had thought of myself a violent person, but at that fffreaking moment…!

I took a steadying breath.

The turn’s angle was way too steep for the stupid ball. Of course it was… stupid test and stupid spirit crafters… No! I had to focus or the ritual would end, along with any chances I had for getting into this stupid academy… Why was I bothering with this again?

I grinded my teeth. The ritual’s power wouldn’t last for much longer. Whatever I needed to do, it had to be quick.

Grimacing in pain, I paused the ritual one last time. Then, when the stupid ball reached the summit of its climb, I split my focus once more. This time the pain was blinding. I felt hot blood running off my nose, but I power through. With a flick of my warn out will, the sky-glass materialized into position. The empty ball bounced once and… IT CAME THROUGH!

The iron sphere fell to the ground with a clang that left my pounding head seeing stars. I turn in time to see the last grains of sand slipping down the hour glass.

“Brabo, mister Blake! Brabo!” Profesor Arthur’s claps sounded like artillery rounds to my pounding ears, “I have never seen someone employ the sky-glass construct in such a flexible manner! What a display of control and timing! Even if your methods were somewhat unorthodox, I think you must be the most talented student I ever had the pleasure to… Oh dear...”

The good professor went pale as he noticed my bleeding nose and ears.

“I… am not cut out… for this crap...” and for the second time since my arrival, I passed out.

It was true what they say; city life wasn’t healthy at all!