I slowed down the Whizz board as I finally arrived at the largest magi academy in the empire by 4 am.
As the host for the exam, I am supposed to be here from the start to the ending ceremony of the exam.
Dexter, Titus and Maximus had organised everything I needed for the long graduation exam I had prepared for the students.
I walked to stop in front of the huge academy doors and knocked on it. It took only a few minutes before the huge ornated door was opened by Archer.
He seemed to have been inside since yesterday 'preventing' any leaks for the first stages of the exams from occurring.
"Good morning your highness." He greeted me cheerfully as he closed the massive golden doors behind me.
"Morning. Any leaks?" I asked back while observing the long empty corridor brightly lit from the lights on the ceiling.
"Quite a few, including from our own faction your highness." He replied while smirking at those peoples misfortune.
"Excellent. Here." I said as I handed him a container wrapped in foiled paper.
"I was told by Dexter to make this for your." I said as I saw his barely contained excitement of wanting to eat a pie made out of Level 11 beast ingredient.
"Thank you, your highness. I was informed you wanted to see the location of the first exam?" He asked me while holding the box close to him.
I nodded as I followed him through the long corridor decorated with many awards and certificates along with other things on either side of the walls.
After a walk of 10 minutes, we arrived at the massive exam hall constructed in the past few days. It had enough space to contain the registered 10,000 participants coming to participate in the graduation exam from all over the empire.
Although the exam is held at the magi academy in the capital, the participant for the exam comes from all over the empire.
The official magi graduation exam every year is held in the capital inside the best academy in the empire. This is because it's close to the magi association HQ and therefore they can get the paperwork done immediately and pass the information to all branches.
Rather than having a mini branch complete the exam send it to the major branch, then the major branch has to see if the test was conducted properly among other things, to finally pass the official graduation record to all branches, which requires much more effort from the associations part.
Holding it in one place was a lot less effort and free of hassle for the magi association. However, a local examination can be done, only in extenuating circumstances such as not being able to make it to the HQ or if the particular kingdom under the empire was going through war etc.
All those that want to work as a certifiable magi have to graduate from the exam.
It's a bit like getting a degree in my past life on the 21st century Earth. Those who have a degree are usually more reliable than those who don't have one when hiring a person.
Although a graduation certificate isn't necessary to apply for ranking in magi association, but when applying for important jobs both a certificate and a ranking is required, especially for the big shots.
It's a bit like have both a degree and work experience on Earth as this is what an ideal employee is to an employer.
"What about the invigilators?" I asked as I became satisfied at the layout of the exam hall-100 rows with 100 columns. Each student had a chair and desk each for their first exam. The desk had an in-built screen, that during the exam will showcase their question paper.
There was a clock function built-in on the screen that displayed the remaining time for each student.
Every 10 rows there was a row of screens displayed on the top, that was meant for announcements.
"All of them are ready and have been informed. But I still don't understand why you wouldn't want the invigilators for the first part to be our own men, your highness?" The confusion and curiosity were easily visible on his face.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Usually, invigilators for an exam would be a neutral third party, that has no association with the students, but for this exam, I hired 100 invigilators equally from each faction in the empire, including magi, mercenaries, merchants, nobles etc who had some kind of relationship with most of the high social standing students here.
This sort of selection of invigilators will bound to have more people cheating and encourage people to cheat during the first part of the exam, as students could get help from their allied faction invigilator to help them.
"It's more fun this way. I would love to see what they come up with as they realise all their planning has been for nought.
I have split 10,000 students into groups of 100. Each invigilator will monitor an area of 10*10 students, and they won't be allowed into other invigilators monitoring area.
"Has all students been given their unique numbered id along with the invigilators?" I asked Archer as I took a document from my bag to look at the special seating plan I had just prepared.
"Yes. Each of them was given their unique id during the past few days including the chosen invigilators." Archer nodded whilst replying.
"Ok. Make sure to inform our agents to double-check if they have the right id before giving them their badge during the registration process outside." Archer nodded while being distracted by the fragrant smell from the container.
"Now we just have to wait. Take me to the waiting area, you can eat your food whilst I sleep."
-------------------------------------------
I felt someone blocking my airflow which soon woke me up from my dream, only to see Albert pinching my nose, with his cheeky smile.
"Hahaha, finally, you are awake. I wish I could sleep and laze around like you." He laughed while still holding onto my nose.
"Why are you here?" I asked as I moved his hand and stood up from the couch.
"Few bigshots decided to participate in the opening ceremony, especially your two brothers, so I thought I might as well join in the fun. You wanna guess why?" He asked me excitedly.
"I have heard that one of my siblings have been charmed by your magi skills and had rejected awakening an award. Due to this, she enrolled in the academy." I replied as I stretched.
"Yeah, but what does that have to do with all this?" He asked me back.
"The day that sibling of mine entered the magi academy, it caused quite the sensation especially when the said sibling of mine is one of the fabled royal princesses of great beauty.
That was the year that the magi academy received the highest amount of applicants, especially from boys of high influential families. So, it is only fair that when she takes the test those horny kids take it with her to show off and get her attention. Not to mention a few of these brats have quite the arrogance and the talent to back it.
Which means these boys had rivals, who are not interested in my sibling, who decided to take the exam at the same time to challenge their rivals, along with few rivals of my own sibling princess.
When the top magi academies most influential and talented students are taking the exams, it won't be a small issue. This, in turn, started a domino effect where most major talents across all the academies in the empire learned that this year's magi graduation exam will have lots of talents from the capital competing, causing the other magi academies to send their major talents as well to compete with them.
So, it's no wonder lots of important people turned up for the opening ceremony, including the other 2 Princes. As this year a lot of important peoples descendants are taking the exam." I explained to him while looking at his smug grin.
Hence the reason why they wanted me to take up this year's exam. As it has lots of major figures and talents participating, the exam needed to be suitable for them. If I failed to give a test suitable for their talent, then I lose the support of quite a lot of people who has high expectations of me, especially when I am so constrained in time.
If I win nothing was lost or gained, as it assures those who back me that I am capable while proving to Steven's faction that I am a serious threat and they need to take me seriously and slightly forcing Steven to bring the alliance back. The emperor and this old man must have spent quite the time thinking this through. Quite a brilliant plan.
"Meh you are always so serious and no fun kid. Besides most of them are the same age as you if not older. Why the hell are you addressing them as if you are an ancient sage of some kind? Just relax will you?" He said as while poking his nose bored at my explanation.
"They may be the same age as me, but they lack what I have, Wisdom. And sages are known for their wisdom old man." I humoured back, smiling at him.
"I don't know if that is a joke or not since it's coming from you." He said as he walked back to the door, rolling the treasure he dug from his nose on his fingers.
"Let's go brat. Its almost time. I was told to bring you to the stage." I followed him, remembering how he skilfully evaded my first question to him. 'Why are you here?'.
Most people in the empire don't know the exact identity of the current commandment other an insignia representing that particular commandments family. This nut jobs insignia is a rose flower with 10 different petals of a different colour.
So even if he entered the opening ceremony no one is going to recognise him as the commandment, other than the top league big shots, who will be forbidden from even revealing his identity.
The only thing the rest of the people are going to know is that he is someone from a specific commandments family.
But it still is a problem, if he were to sit with the big shots during the opening ceremony it will raise the doubts that he is a commandment among the public thus revealing his identity, which wouldn't be exactly what he wants as the commandment who rules over information. If he were to act inconspicuous it would raise doubt that he is staying low as he really is a commandment.
Besides, I doubt this nut job can sit still through the whole opening ceremony of plain old boring motivational speeches.
So, he must be here for something or someone!