Waiting for the exam to start, Nolan starting playing around with the external mana around him, making balls and cubes and juggling them around. He eventually stopped using his hands, spinning hundreds of different shapes around him with his external mana control alone. Nolan doing this antagonized the other participants waiting to take the exam, taking his attempt to stifle boredom as a form of provocation. Some tried to forcefully stop his external mana influence by extending their own influence, but they failed to even grasp even a small grip on the mana surrounding Nolan, stopping their attempts to meddle. Others fired small spells or spurts of mana towards Nolan, who didn't even notice due to him subconsciously blocking them with the external mana he was controlling. Someone approached Nolan as they saw the other sabotage attempts fail.

"Hey, if you know what's good for you…stop it."

Despite sounding a little threatening, the owner of the voice seemed to be inclined towards not seeing Nolan get thrashed by the agitated crowd around him. Looking up, Nolan saw a boy with a fair complexion, staring at him with intense brown eyes.

"Hey…? What's up?"

"What's up? Do you not notice what's going on around you?"

Nolan finally noticed the commotion around him. The crowd stared at him as he looked at them. He was still spinning mana around. With a strange expression on his face, Nolan made an awkward wave towards the crowd.

"Hi? Why is everyone crowding here?"

The face of a girl at the forefront of the crowd flushed red, and she seemed to want to take a swing at Nolan's face. Similar thoughts probably occurred to the twenty or so people around Nolan.

Grabbing Nolan's hand, the brown-eyed boy pulled him over to a more secluded corner.

"Stop showing off! Are you stupid? They were about to assault you!"

"Show what?"

Nolan's reply surprised the boy, but not in a good way, since Nolan was still spinning clumps of external mana around his head.

"You're still trying to show off?"

"What? I'm just training my mana control for the exam though."

Stopping his training, Nolan swept his gaze over the boy. With intense brown eyes and tousled, messy blonde hair, the boy looked to be about 8 years old, with a skinny frame and a feminine face, you could easily mistake him for a girl. He was wearing a tight fitting white shirt with long, loose-fitting trousers, with leather straps on his left leg that formed a holster for a strange looking dagger and his grimoire. He also had a circular locket hanging from a dark chain that went around his neck.

Upon hearing Nolan's absurd claim, the boy blanked out for a few seconds.

"You call that training?"

"It's what I've been doing for the past few days…"

"Controlling one lump of external mana is hard enough, and you were spinning hundreds of them around you! What, are you a dragon or a blessed of mana of some sorts? I don't know what you're thinking, but if you're so naive to think that you can do whatever you want when everyone is tense and nervous for the exam you really need to think about-"

"Do you really think I'm so stupid?"

"W-what?"

"Did you really think I was just playing around with mana just before the exam?"

"What were you doing then?"

"Scan behind you left ear with your mana sense."

"There's nothing there though…"

"Yeah. I was just playing around."

"YOU-"

The boy's face flushed as he realizes he was played by Nolan. But upon hearing Nolan's next words, he stopped in place.

"But why did you help me…? If things went wrong, you would've gotten mobbed as well, no?"

"I- I just thought you looked quite pitiable…"

Nolan was flabbergasted by this reason, taking a look at himself in a nearby shop window. He seemed fine…just his face though. In his rush to get to the academy for the exams, he had forgotten to change his clothes he had worn for his training in the forest. Although his body was clean thanks to water attributed dirt and grime cleansing magic he had learned from the council library, his clothes were in tatters.

"Oh…I do seem in need of new attire…"

"…Here"

The boy threw Nolan a heap of clothing, indicating that he could wear them. They were all made of quality fabric, and they all seemed to fit Nolan. Except for one garment in the pile.

"Why is there a dress here?"

"Oh. Uh- it's min- my sister's. It got mixed up in the pile. Just ignore it."

Nolan didn't think much of the boy's explanation. After all, it was quite normal to have mix ups some times. After changing into the clothes, Nolan eyed the boy suspiciously.

"Why are you helping me like this?"

"I want an alliance."

"A what?"

The boy rolled his eyes in contempt of Nolan's poor linguistic prowess. Of course, Nolan knew what an alliance was, but why an alliance?

"Just treat it as a friendship. I want to be able to fend off the seniors in the school when we make it in. You know, since students are allowed to attack each other as long as there is not killing or permanent damage, many of the seniors pick on the newbies that are weak and take their resources for themselves. I don't want that…and you seem like a powerful mage, so I want you to help me when we get in."

"You seem pretty sure you'll get in."

"I will. And you probably will too. Look, if you can control mana like that at this age, any academy will let you in."

"Hmm…alright."

"Oh and I forgot to mention, I think you're also my roommate when we get in, so keep those clothes safe and return them to me once you get new clothes."

"Huh? Wait…how do you know the room allocations already…?"

Nolan seemed to have realized this point after the boy had said his piece, but the boy had already run back out to the square outside and disappeared into the crowd.

"I don't even know his name yet…"

Shaking his head, Nolan checked the clothes for any indication of a name, and sure enough, he found something. It was a string of strange characters. The seemed oddly familiar, and Nolan felt as though the meaning they represented was just barely evading his grasp. They were legible when Nolan wasn't focusing on them, but when he focused on the characters to read them, they became illegible, but still, familiar. Nolan decided not to dwell too much on it and headed back to the square, where the exams were about to begin.

Similar to how most annual events often began, the dean of the academy gave a speech on very generic items and encouraged the participants.

"Blah blah…very happy to have everyone here…yap yap yap yap yap yap…the exams this time will be a free-for-all lasting for a week in the forest area fenced off behind the school…yap yap yap… absolutely safe, our staff are constantly monitoring the situation and will immediately intervene if any incidents occur…yap yap yap… participants will be tested on their magic prowess, mana application and control, survival skills and social skills…yap yap yap…may all participants now proceed to the warping formation here…"

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Following the crowd, Nolan walked into the massive "teleportation" formation (pseudo-teleportation due to nobody having grasped concept of space yet). The dean waved as the formation activated, moving everyone to the designated area.

All the participants were distributed across the entire forest in random locations, and the moment Nolan arrived at his location, he immediately expanded his mana sense to the maximum to detect any immediate dangers. Nolan had come up with expanding his mana sense outside of this body when he first discovered mana sense and he could now finally do it with precise mana control and both internal and external mana control. He called this area of mana sense a domain, due to its capabilities of detecting most things within it and enhancing the use of his magic within it. Perhaps these capabilities could strengthen in the future, but for now, it would be better to concentrate on the entrance exam. There were countless beasts scattered across the area the participants were constrained to, many caves to explore, and other participants. The assessment was point based, and killing beasts or finding items in the caves gave points, if you were the one holding onto it when the assessment ended. This meant that participants would be attacking each other for the loot. There were also 4 zones in the large forest arena that participants were told to avoid due to the existence of especially strong beasts that treated the zones as their territory. However, it was said if the core of any of the 4 beasts were collected, it would mean immediate acceptance into the academy. This attracted many into challenging the zones right at the beginning of the exam, but the moment participants noticed the qualifying number of people dropping rapidly, they stopped heading towards the zones, opting for a safer approach instead.

And Nolan? He was in one of the 4 zones, and he was currently holding a glimmering golden orb he had been given by a large feathered serpent that had coiled itself around a large tree in the middle of the zone. The serpent had sniffed him when he approached it, and seemed to ignore him initially even when he walked extremely close. But after Nolan walked around the area for a bit, the serpent nudged him with its snout and dropped the orb in front of him, going back to sleep afterwards. Seeing how the area was quite peaceful, and the serpent's friendliness, Nolan decided to set up camp near the tree the serpent was sleeping on. He made a tent from banana leaves he had pulled, with great effort, off of an exceptionally springy banana tree he had encountered earlier in the forest. He had also scored several bunches of bananas that had a strange sheen to them. From Nolan's experience in forests, these bananas were edible, but had a strange effect that made you hot and sweaty.

Each participant had a supervisor that was monitoring them from afar. Nolan's supervisor was going nuts after seeing how Nolan had befriended a zone beast without doing very much except walk around in its territory. It turns out that every minute a participant stayed in a zone that had its zone beast alive would grant them a thousand points, ten times more than killing a normal beast or finding items, a testament to the strength of the zone beasts. However, right now, Nolan was easily racking up tens of thousands of points just by sleeping near the serpent, and the absurd thing was, the serpent was also sleeping despite Nolan being in such close proximity to it. After reporting the incident to his superior, the supervisor was told to not intervene as the dead would come by and take a look at the situation.

The dean arrived at the scene immediately, and almost instantaneously, he felt a great pressure befall him as the mana around him began to twist due to the hypercompressed mana the serpent was exuding on him. The serpent glared at the dean and uncurled itself from the tree, ruffling the feathers on its back, which were attached to a pair of wings. The serpent was actually not a feathered serpent, but instead a winged serpent that was multitudes stronger. Since the zone beasts were quite smart and could converse in language or other means, the academy had struck a deal with them just for the sake of the examination. Don't kill or cripple the participants. The zone beasts easily agreed since there was no participant that could even remotely injure them. And they would gain many resources from the academy in return. However, the zone beasts demanded no intervention from the academy during the process, lest anyone getting hurt due to uncontrollable variables. The academy had agreed to this, which was why the serpent was now wary of the dean that had appeared suddenly. Even just one fifth of a zone beast would easily overpower the dean, but there were several archmages in the academy that could deter them if they ever attacked, but not that they would, unless some idiot decided to steal or kill their offspring.

The dean nearly toppled from the sky after experiencing the pressure from the serpent, but managed to stabilize himself last minute. He saw Nolan dozing off in his banana leaf tent, and quickly inquired about the situation.

"Serpent, why have you not evicted that participant from your territory?"

"…what participant? I see nobody here except you and me."

"Under those banana leaves?"

"Are you saying that banana leaves are participants too? That wasn't in the contract."

"You-"

The dean was exasperated by the thick-skinned attitude of the serpent, but he couldn't do much about it. No matter what, Nolan was guaranteed admittance to the academy at this point, but the final leaderboards may result in some…wild discussion and accusations.

As the exam continued, Nolan continued dozing off, and when he woke up, it was already midnight. The serpent glanced at him when he came out of his tent, but otherwise ignored what he was doing. Nolan decided it would be a good time to cultivate his mana core so that he would reach further progress with his internal mana capacity and efficiency. As Nolan started absorbing mana from his surroundings, he heard a hissing whisper by his ear.

"You're doing it wrong."

Nolan immediately glanced to the right, where the voice originated from, and saw the serpent looking at him with one of its large yellow eyes.

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Everything."

"How do I do it then…?"

"Has nobody ever told you how you should cultivate your mana core?"

"No. I am an orphan."

"…I see."

"Teach me."

"Fine. But you owe me a favor. One you will have to repay in the future."

"Alright."

And so, Nolan received tutelage from the winged serpent, and he found that the previous method he was using, absorbing mana through his pores and then infusing it into his mana core resulted in huge loss of mana, i.e. it had a low mana efficiency. The serpent taught Nolan to control the external mana to enter his body through a passageway that he would make by controlling his internal mana, which would result in almost 0 loss in the mana absorbed. However, this method would require immense concentration since Nolan would need to control both internal and external mana, so he required a safe and silent space to utilise the method without dangers and interruptions. Before using this method, Nolan was only feeding his core 5% of what he was absorbing, with a 95% loss in mana. However, this new technique gave his core 99% of the mana he absorbed, making his core grow at a rate incomparable to before. Before long, Nolan had made significant progress, teetering on the brink of achieving core convergence.

===

"You are strange…"

The serpent suddenly muttered after seeing Nolan's mana core.

"How so?"

"Your core."

"What?"

"Even the others of your kind do not have such perfect cores."

"Humans?"

"No."

"Who?"

"I will tell you in due time. Or you be crushed by the weight of their name."

"How? I will be leaving in 6 days."

"I will become your familiar."

"Why? I cannot help you in any way."

"You will. Eventually. When you find your way back to your roots. It will be my honor then to have been your familiar from the beginning."

"…Alright."

"Your name?"

"Nolan."

"I am Verae."

A drop of blood had seeped out of Nolan's forehead, and a drop of blood seeped out of Verae's forehead as well, intertwining with each other under the golden light of dawn, the combined drop of blood shot into Nolan's mindspace, establishing a golden seal that floated in a corner…