Reylor held out his hand, instantly condensing all the spacial energy around him into his palm and spoke: “Seldin Art: Void Disruption”

“BANG!”

A surreal scene was presented for all present. Everyone felt a dull pain in their chests as all the mana within half a mile was instantly dispersed from where Reylor stood out. All the mages in the area felt a chills run down their spines as their magical sense instantly went blank and their magical artifacts seemed to have gone dead. At the same time, the summoned spear combusted. But this was not all. The entire space around them began to decay right before their eyes, before finally shattering.

They all found themselves just inside the gate to the Votran Academy, as they had been transported into a formation, but Reylor’s ability had broken through it, returning them to where they had been before, plus all the mages who had apparently been assigned to evaluate them. Along with the active evaluators, a few others who had been secretly watching the duels were stripped of their invisibility.

Reylor’s eyes had turned completely black, even the whites of his eyes, as he walked toward the mage called Xeld. Reylor placed the tip of his sword to Xeld’s chest.

“You will not dare to touch those under my watch. If you cross the line one more time, you will die,” Reylor said coldly. Xeld looked up but could not utter so much as a word, as he peered into what felt like the eyes of death incarnate. He was petrified, not to mention having received a debilitating psychological blow when his spear ability was forcibly canceled.

Seeing Reylor point his sword at Xeld’s heart, a mage yelled out “Stop!” And he reached out his hand to cast a restraining spell on Reylor. His already pale face turned blank. “I can’t use magic” he whispered.

Reylor pulled his sword back and sheathed it, before returning to Aileen. His eyes returned to normal as he embraced her. “You are safe,” he said softly, as she hugged him back. He and Aileen walked back to where Elany was.

“Void Dispersion: Recall”

Mana followed back into the space and the mages felt their power returning to them. Their artifacts also began to glow with power again. Yet everyone just stood there for a time: Reylor with a calm but icy gaze, the mages with expressions ranging between shock and terror, and Aileen gripping Reylor’s cloak as if letting go meant death. Elany was stunned as well, but recovered a bit faster than the rest, having witnessed this ability when Reylor removed Lucy’s restrictive artifact.

Reylor broke the silence. “Do we pass?” he asked flatly.

“Uh, y-yes.” One of the three previously hidden mages stammered out. “Each of you take one of these,” He handed devices which also appeared to be badges. “These will be your means of identification in the school, so please take care of them. For now, enter your information into the blank spaces, and then we will continue with some ‘ehem’ less exciting evaluations.

After tinkering with the devices enough, Flira and Reylor’s parties managed to activate their devices, which could project interactive screens. The first screen available had blank spaces for basic personal information, such as names and where they were from. After filling out the necessary information, they were ushered into a building that had a stone in the middle, with lines extending from it to other stones of various colors.

“My name, by the way is Jelet, and I am the director of evaluations for the Votran Academy of Magical Arts. This building right here is our resonance hall—a building which houses a system for assessing magical affinity. When a person places their hand on the center stone and directs a stream of mana into it, the stone with split the mana into multiple smaller streams, directed at various smaller stones. These smaller stones will then glow if the mage has an affinity for that stone’s particular form of magic. The brighter the glow, the greater affinity the mage will have for that particular magic.

“Many mages will have a slight affinity for multiple forms of magic, but most will have anywhere from one to three major affinities. It is best to focus primarily on a single form to begin with.

“Many prefer this to be a private matter, so we will be testing you one at a time while the others wait outside. An exception can be made in the case of the barrier mage, if she so desires” he added on, noticing Aileen’s young appearance and timidity.

Flira’s went first, followed by Gelt then Flint. They didn’t say anything, but their faces implied that they were each satisfied with their result. They were pointed to another building by Jelet. Elany was the first of Reylor’s group to enter. She came out with a bright smile on her face. “Reylor! Reylor! I have affinities for light and holy magic! I can be a mage too!” she excitedly cried out.

Every high level mage would learn at least one or two minor healing spells, but healing anything close to life threatening would be incredibly difficult, if even possible, for anyone who did not have at least moderate affinity for holy magic, or very high affinity for light magic. And while light mages were fairly common, holy mages were not. As it turns out, Elany had high affinity for both light and holy magic.

After congratulating Elany, Reylor went into the hall with Aileen.

“Ok, so all you need to do is place your hand on the large stone there and emit a weak but steady stream of mana.” Jelet explained. Aileen walked over to the stone and placed her hand on it. As she emitted a stream of mana, the large stone began to glow brightly. Following that, many of the other stones began to emit colored glows at various brightnesses. “Judging by the glow of the large stone, you must have an incredibly large internal mana pool,” Jelet continued to explain. “This is not surprising, considering it takes so much mana to construct barriers. You also see that many other stones are glowing, but since most of them are glowing very dimly, that means they will not be useful to you.

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Now that brown stone glowing over there shows that you have a minor affinity towards earth magic. You can learn earth magic. However, since you have some other stronger affinities, so I would advise against this. That glowing purple stone shows that you have a high affinity for the Void arts. This is excellent, considering it is the best type of affinity for constructing barriers, and Votran has the best void magic instructors.

The blue stone shows you have a very high affinity for water magic, which is higher than you void affinity. However, I would still advise you to focus on void magic, as synergy between it and your natural barrier magic abilities will more than make up the difference in affinity strength.” Aileen nodded at Jelet.

“Ok, you may remove your hand from the stone and wait outside.” Aileen obediently left, joining Elany outside.”

I wonder what it will say about this guy, Jelet thought. This guy nullified every magic in the whole area of the combat assessment, I wonder—is he a master void mage? Or maybe it is some strange shadow magic dark magic ability, considering the dark kind of energy he used.

“Ok, your turn.” Jelet said. Reylor stepped up and placed his hand on the stone, smiling faintly. He poured mana into the stone, lighting it up moderately with a pure white glow. This was strange, because usually it would have a yellowish tint, but this mana was so pure that the light was snow white. Jelet was left in awe, but for a different reason.

What the heck! What even! How in the world? Am I losing it? What is this? This has got to be a dream. Just what is this? He said in his heart, as he gazed at all the smaller stones in the resonance hall.

None were lit.

There was not a single glow to any of them, indicating that Reylor did not have even the smallest hint of an affinity for any form of magic.

But how, why… Just what is going on? Jelet could not understand. Reylor nullified all those magics, so he must be some sort of master magician, but then why did he not show up as having any affinities for magic? What made his wonderment even greater was the fact that being devoid of affinity on Aretor was unheard of. Even those with zero magic ability and no perceived magical potential would show at least a couple of miniscule affinities when tested, yet Reylor showed none.

Reylor, on the other hand, wanted to bust out laughing. Having watched what happened with Aileen, he already knew what would happen here. Affinity was not actually dependent on mana quality. The stones would establish a connection with the meridians of the one being tested, and light up accordingly. For Reylor, the stones were unable to do so.

As a Seldin, Reylor had spacial meridians, which were adapted to channeling spacial energy. These could channel either spacial energy or magical energy, depending on which energy pool he connected the meridians to. For the assessment, he did not want the school to know he had flawless affinity for every form of magic, so he left his meridians connected to his spacial energy pool and drew mana from his mana core via a less efficient path.

In short, Reylor had just pulled an impossible prank on Jelet.

Removing his hand from the stone, Reylor smiled at Jelet. “I should tell you now, that my body is a bit different. This system will not be able to tell you what affinities I have. I have come to study void magic, so you should just write that down as my affinity.” Reylor said. Jelet just nodded and entered some things into his computer. It was standard practice for Votran Academy to record the affinities of their students for the reference of instructors, and for research purposes. “Who are you?” ran through Jelet’s mind again, a thought that would be repeated many more times in the future.

Reylor Elany and Aileen made their way to the building Flira’s group had gone to before. A huge sign read “Housing office” They walked in, finding themselves in an ornate room with several couches lining the walls. Flint was sitting in one of them.

“Yo, Reylor! How’d your evaluations go? Flint casually asked. “Pretty good. We all had quite suitable affinities. Aileen and I will be studying void arts while Elany—Reylor nodded at Elany. “I can use holy magic!” she exclaimed. “Oh wow, that’s awesome! As for me, I will be focusing on Earth elemental magic. The last sentence was spoken with a bit less enthusiasm than the first.

“Is there an issue with that?” Reylor asked. “No, I mean it’s not a big deal. I was actually hoping to be a paladin, but that’s not going to work out. It’s alright though, I mean, we did make it into the academy, so that’s pretty cool.” To be a paladin, one must have a holy magic affinity.

Reylor nodded his head at this. Reylor and Flira’s groups made the trek, but both parties were exceptional, considering their lack of formal magic instruction. Votran was a prestigious academy, despite being located in such an obscure area.”

A door opened, and Gelt walked out. He gave Reylor a casual glance before exiting the building. “Next” rang out through the same door, which Flint then entered.

A moderate length of time passed before Reylor’s turn came. He left Elany and Aileen sleeping on the couches as he entered the room.

“Hello, my name is Dristle, and I am the housing manager.” A slim man who appeared to be around sixty peered out through his pair of spectacles, giving him a scholarly look.

He explained where various major facilities were for the school, and also explained were the various housing areas were in relation to these facilities. “Do you have a preference for where you will be staying?” Dristle asked.

“Before that, I have a question,” Reylor said. The man motioned for him to continue. “Do you have any group living quarters?”

“A single apartment space can accommodate two people, if that is what you are asking.” Dristle was used to this question, as many mages liked to work in pairs, desiring to not only work, but live with each other. War would bring out a strong sense of camaraderie, after all, and many prospective mages were not unacquainted with bloodshed.

“I need a place for three,” Reylor stated.

“I am sorry but I am afraid the only residences that fit that criterion are the squadron houses, and they require at least an “A” rank squad in order to access.

“Is there a test we could take to reach this rank today?” Reylor questioned. “No,” the reply came “You are lucky to have a place here, so please just pick a residence.”

“I see. Well, thank you for your time. We will be leaving then.” Reylor got up from his chair and turned to leave the room. He was preparing to leave Votran Academy, just like that.

Dristle furrowed his brows. Who is this man? Surely he knows this is Votran of all places, and yet he decides to leave just because of some housing situation? Something felt off, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. Oh, well, he’s the one missing out. I should return to my other work. The man let out a sigh.

This was a mistake he would not live down for a long time.