Azura felt like he might have made a mistake, several mistakes actually, but this last one was a real big one. His whole body burned, it felt like he was being torn to pieces. The power test had been easy, he just held one of the crystals and his power cycled through it and then back to him till it had an accurate measure. They measured regen by seeing how much extra mana was leftover in the crystal. It was the control test that had him feeling like he was taking a dip in a volcano.
“If you don’t focus you’ll die.” Yeah thanks, he already knew that. He would have made a snappy retort at the headmistress, but he couldn’t afford the distraction. His mana control was normally excellent, but he wasn’t usually controlling it in a zone saturated by the mana of hundreds of people, a good chunk of which had mana more powerful than his. The mana was surging violently around him in an array of colors so dazzling he had to keep his eyes closed in order to focus.
He focused on keeping a tight control of his own mana to try and control the maelstrom of magic threatening to tear him apart. He had a few cuts across his body from when he had failed to keep small bursts of the magic from breaking past his defenses. He debated on drawing on some mana from his enchantments, but decided that would just make it worse since there would be even more magic to control.
He grit his teeth as a burst of magic he lost his control over made a cut across his cheek that began to bleed. He wasn’t going to make it, He was burning through his energy too quickly and this test was even more mentally taxing than it was magically. He had an idea, but it was going to hurt. He retracted a good chunk of his mana that was holding the magic at bay, accepting dozens of small cuts appearing on his body in the split second he had released his hold. He made 2 copies of himself facing him in a small triangle. His body still ached from the strain, but with 3 of him controlling this level of magic was much more feasible.
Now that the burden was divided, he could spare the focus to look at the headmistress. Her raised eyebrow was the only hint that she hadn’t expected this. Now that his control over the roiling magic was cemented, he and his copies began to gradually force the magic back into the crystals they were released from. After a few minutes of intense concentration from him and his copies they managed to force every last drop of magic back into the crystals. His copies immediately vanished, restoring a small amount of his dangerously depleted reserves. The boost helped a little, but not enough to stop him from collapsing.
He laid on the ground panting and bleeding. “That.. Was the worst…” He struggled to get the words out between gulps of air. He wondered what favor she would have asked from him, but decided it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be forced to do something he didn’t want to ever again.
“Well done. I admit I thought for sure the magic would kill you for a bit.” He had never been so tempted to flip someone off before. Given his father is who he is, that was really saying something. “The test of control is a pass. I will allow you 5 minutes of rest before we check the density.”
5 minutes?! That was too short. He doubted she would care though, even if he complained it wouldn’t do him any good. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He focused his entire being into his breathing. He focused on turning ambient mana into his own enhancing his mana regent. He didn’t think he would be able to get it to full in just 5 minutes, but he should be able to get it to a little over half including the mana he still had in him.
The headmistress said and did nothing this time. She simply watched as he gathered his mana. After the 5 minutes were up she told him to get to his feet.
He reluctantly did so struggling to use his aching muscles. Everything hurt. He had cuts all over his body, and if that wasn’t enough his body had taken vast physical strain in order to keep up with the magic he had to keep control over. He wasn’t in any shape to fight, and the mental strain had been just as bad. Even spell casting was going to be difficult in the condition he was in now. Even so he stood without slouching, and had his head raised in defiance of the headmistress that wanted to control his future.
“Testing mana density is a bit tricky, but we can get a pretty good estimate at least.” She grabbed one of the crystals of the table and handed it to him. “Place as little mana as you possibly can in this.”
He took it from her and glanced at it. He had wondered how they would test density, but this made sense. They knew his amount and his control. So when they see how much power the smallest amount he could put in there had, they could estimate the density. This part was safe, there shouldn’t be any issues. He put the smallest possible sliver of magic into the crystal. It began to glow softly. He then handed it back to the headmistress.
She created an orb of magic around the crystal that suddenly exploded. His eyes widened, but she looked only mildly interested. “Decent density, easily your second highest trait after control…” She rambled briefly jotting down some notes in a notebook he hadn’t noticed until now. “Ok on to the last test, General spellcasting ability. This one is quite extensive, but shouldn’t be terribly difficult. We are going to see how many spells you can cast concurrently, and normally it would be where we test any unique magic, but you already showed yours off.”
This part took 10 minute all on its own, but she was right it wasn’t difficult. She had him cast a few spells, and asked for specifics of his unique magic that he didn’t give. It was oddly therapeutic to see the wizened old lady pouting like a child. It almost made up for her so brazenly setting him up… Almost. After the general test was done the headmistress flipped her notepad closed.
“Alright all done, now you must be wondering where the rest of your class got to.” A little, having them go through a portal would have been a total waste if they were put anywhere close to here. Magic that dealt with time or space was extremely volatile. Even a small portal somewhere took an obscene amount of magic power and concentration, and distance was actually irrelevant. A portal to the opposite side of the planet would take the same amount of energy as one that only went 5 ft.
The ground beneath his feet began to glow, an extremely complex magic circle that had apparently been there the whole time awoke from its dormant state. A bright purple light began to fill the entire room, and after a minute the energy finished gathering and coalescing until it was a glowing purple whirlpool in the middle of the circle. “The fourth trial won’t be held here. You will still have 2 days to prepare and a say for the trial, but the preparation time wouldn’t do you much good if you don’t really know what you’re preparing for.” She gestured for him to walk through the portal.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
He had never seen a portal before, it wasn’t something one person could typically do on their own, even now he got the feeling many of the staff had donated their mana to the portal's opening. Probably even on both sides of it. He reluctantly managed to force his sore and bleeding body through the portal. He felt his body break apart and be put back together thousands of times in an instant, it didn’t hurt per se, but it felt strange. Space magic was extremely difficult and complicated, so he honestly didn’t know too much about how it worked. He vaguely remembered seeing a world of white before he blacked out.
***
Azura awoke to an unfamiliar place, so he immediately examined his surroundings. He was in a small room, the walls were made of stacked logs like a nice cabin. There was a nice fluffy white rug covering most of the floor, a lit fireplace was in the very center of the wall across from him lined with stone and behind a metal grill to prevent the wood around from catching fire. He laid in an absurdly comfy bed with a very warm blanket up to his neck. It took all of his not inconsiderable willpower to get up. Once he was up he noticed that there was a door off to his left and that the bed was pushed all the way to the opposing wall. A desk sat directly across from the bed with a single letter sitting on top. He rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”
“Dear taker of the trials
Congratulations on passing the third trial, and don’t feel bad about blacking out. Everyone does their first time through a portal, they can be very disorienting. I’m sure I warned you that simply knowing what the test is wouldn’t be enough for you to truly prepare yourself. Now you will understand. Every student was sent to a unique and remote location, unlike last time, this is not an illusory world. Meaning that there won’t be an obvious trail for you to follow. You will have 2 days to make preparations in the safe house. After that the safe house will lock and will no longer be open to you. If you are inside when this happens you automatically fail. There is a magical artifact hidden somewhere in your area, and it is well guarded with traps and a guardian. You will have 24 hours to find your artifact, only once you have it will the safe house open up to you again. Once again you have 2 days to prepare after this one, use your time wisely.
Sincerely the headmistress of G.F.A.”
He suddenly had a very bad feeling. A warm log cabin in a remote location, and worse he vaguely remembered white before passing out. “Please don’t tell me.” He ran over to the door, and hesitated before opening it. He firmed his resolve and opened the door completely in one swing. “I hate my luck.” The second he opened the door he closed it, but even that small time frame was enough for the chill to completely steal all the warmth he had in his body. All he had seen was snow all the way into the distant horizon. “Why did it have to be somewhere cold?” He hated the cold. He could handle it in small doses, but constant cold was the worst. “I knew I should have tried to learn father’s flame mantle spell.”
He used his time telling spell to see how long he was out. He had slept through the whole day of the third trial, which makes today preparation day 1. He sat down in front of the fire to warm up from his brief interaction with the frigid air outside. There weren’t any closets or any other storage spaces in the cabin, but he did notice a shelf with canned food on it. “How am I supposed to prepare something warm to wear? I’m not a tailor.” He had his equipment on him, but he would have to clear the enchantments his clothes already had and start over if he wanted them to keep him warm.
Well that would kill an hour, but ultimately, he didn’t think he really had much of a choice. So he stripped down, and got to work.
***
Azura was starting to get a little aggravated. He had been out in this stupid snow for hours. His new enchantments kept him warm, but they didn’t make treading through the piles of snow any easier. Actually, the worst part is that they did make it easier and it was still this difficult. His shoes were enchanted to increase traction and solidify the snow they came into contact with. He would still sink a little each step as the snow too far below the shoes gave way, but it was the best he could do at the moment.
Not for the first time in the last few hours, he wished they had at least given a clue about what the object he was looking for was, or at least a general direction to search. He didn’t have to get to the artifact today, or even tomorrow, but he was at least hoping to find its rough location today. That would leave him time to scout out the area for traps and enemies tomorrow. Then he could go in with a plan of action on test day.
His hope for things going as planned dwindled with the fading sunlight. He would be lucky to get another hour of even this dim light as the sun began to disappear over the horizon. He jumped backwards. A giant worm that looked like it was made of snow, and had hundreds of jagged icicles for teeth shot up from the area he had just occupied. To his horror it kept rising. He saw the head start to arc and begin coming back down about 100 ft in the air. The most horrifying part was that the body was still rising out of the whole in the snow. “Well I think that’s as good a sign as any to get the hell out of here.”
He was lucky that he had felt the slight shift of the snow under him, or he would have been devoured by that thing. Running around a place like this in the dark was probably too dangerous. He felt that was even more true when the tail of the giant worm finally emerged. He took off back towards the cabin as fast as he could go. He kept his senses on high alert, which ended up being wise because apparently this place had a whole slew of monsters that only came out at night. He managed to avoid any confrontations this time, but barely made it back to the cabin as the last of the light faded.
“Well day one was a total bust.” He hadn’t accomplished anything, and that worried him. They were right when they said this wasn’t like the first trial. There was no obvious beacon of magic to follow, and he was on his own. He needed a way to cover more ground. Well he had yet to receive the memories of his copies so maybe they had better luck than he did. He had summoned the most he could at once four. He had figured that he could avoid fighting until his mana recovered from the drain. None of them would have enough magic for any spell aside from brief enhancements, but he figured it wasn’t worth having them waste an hour meditating to restore enough mana for them to do anything else.
Since they hadn’t died or dispersed, he guessed he had made the right call. He briefly wondered what it was like to be the copy. He received their memories, but not their thoughts. They have to be somewhat different from him, because they didn’t have too much issue risking their life over relatively minor things. Well maybe he would do that too if dying wouldn’t really kill him. After he started a fire with a brief red glow from his left vambrace a tiny fireball casually tossed at the fireplace he began removing his armor pieces and weapons.
He was mildly concerned when after an hour he still hadn’t received any memories. Did this place have some way of trapping the essence of his copies? They were intrinsically linked to his soul and magic, so he had yet to find anything that could stop the memories from instantly coming to him when they dispersed. He decided there wasn’t really too much reason to worry about it yet and began eating some of the rations from the shelf. His worrying was pointless anyway, he could still feel his connection to all 4 copies, though they were too far for him to give mental commands.
After his lackluster dinner of canned beans, he decided it was probably time to go to bed. He would probably assimilate their memories as dreams. He idly wondered how the others were doing, and where they got stuck for this mess. He got as comfy as possible, and after a few minutes sleep over took him.