He walked slowly into the circle, looking around he could see all the people of the village sitting on the benches, there were also a lot of unfamiliar faces amongst the crowd. This just highlighted the importance of the ranking ceremony.

Finally having arrived in the centre of the circle, one of the elders stood up; “Ike Spalding you’re the first of the boys today. Show us three skills so that we may judge your skill and potential this day”.

With all the eyes focussed on him he felt nervous, hesitantly he started to create an ice dart. Focussing his mind he channelled his mental energy into creating the dart, first focus and collect the water floating in the air around him. A small ball of water grew bigger and bigger right in front of him, next was cooling it down while focusing on the shape of a dart. Lastly he need to give it momentum, he took care to aim it at one of the targets on the edge of circle and fired. Being nervous his aim was horribly, only getting into the larger yellow circle around the bull’s eye.

Floating from a distance he could hear the people clap, it started slowly but soon everyone was clapping. Hearing the applause he finally was able to relax, feeling surer of himself he waited for a moment until the applause had died down.

With the relaxed feeling Ike decided do his most difficult spell now, he started to draw a summoning figure into the sand. It wasn’t a difficult design just two circles connected by zigzagging lines, fitted into a larger circle in which he was standing. Ike started to concentrate on the image of the spirit animal he wished to summon. Next he focussed on the path, a corridor between his world and the world of his summon. He could feel it coming into his world, opening his eyes he saw his little fish. It looked like any other fish apart from the lantern on his head which filled the surroundings with a gentle and warm light. Radiant fish of renewal they were officially called according to the only encyclopaedia in the town.

Making the fish swim circles around him he stared at the audience, he couldn’t help but become quite confused. Ike could see people whispering to each other while others looked confused, some people hesitantly started to clap. The constant mental drain to keep this little fish in this world was quite tiring and knowing he should show one final skill he released his hold. The warm light slowly disappeared, but his remaining mental energy was quite low.

Feeling quite tired he decided not to summon another spirit animal instead he focussed on making a fireball. Focussing his remaining strength he was barely able to summon a pitiful fireball, nevertheless people were applauding quite enthusiastically.

He could see one of the elders standing up, within moments the applause was replaced by a deep silence. “We have seen your skills this day” the elder said “Leave the field now so that others may show their skills”.

Ike bowed to the elders sitting in the audience and turned around and walked away without a word. Near the exit he saw Dickey and Remy his other competitors in this ranking ceremony. He could see Remy looking quite unhappily while Dickey was smiling from ear to ear. Just before walking past the both of them he could hear Dickey say “Making it easy for me, only summoning a little fish”.

If it hadn’t been for his teacher forcing him into summoning this little fish during the ranking ceremony he would have chosen something which looked a lot more impressive. Walking onto the stage near the exit he was just in time to see Remy arriving at the centre of the circle.

He could see the elder standing up and he could hear the elder speaking the ceremonial words, “Remy Dal, Show us three skills so that we may judge your skill and potential this day”

The first thing he could see Remy do was summon a fireball, it was a pretty decent one at least much better than his had been but then again he had been mentally exhausted. Ike was sure that Remy wouldn’t exceed his performance he was always last in any competition the three of them had had in the past. He could hear the applause start and he joined in as well.

The next skill Remy showed the summoning of a fire salamander, it was generally regarded as one of the lowest level of difficulty to summon from the different spirit animals. After Remy had dismissed the spirit animal Ike could hear the applause again, he was looking forward to which skill Remy would show next. He saw Remy creating another fireball, this fireball’s radiance was low and he could see the fireball barely travel half a meter before it disintegrated into hot air.

Ike couldn’t supress a smile despite knowing Remy was quite a bad magician he was happy nothing surprising had happened. After the elder had spoken he could see Remy turning around and walking back to the exit, he couldn’t see any emotion on his classmates face.

Next he could see Dickey walk towards the centre, he really disliked him. Everyone in the whole town knew he was the spoiled little grandson of one of the elders. Despite Dickey’s bullying and petty thefts nobody did anything. He of course got the blunt of it as the only possible thread to Dickeys rank amongst the boys.

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The same elder stood up again to say the usual ceremonial words “Dickey Deen, Show us three skills so that we may judge your skill and potential this day”.

Ike could see that Dickey arrogantly erased the summoning figure he had drawn to draw his own into the sand. The first spirit animal summoned by Dickey was a fire salamander, Ike knew Dickey quite well and this summon was only done to humiliate Remy.

Ike couldn’t help but notice that Dickey kept his summon barely 10 seconds here before dismissing it, while both he and Remy had kept their summons much longer in this world.

This time Ike didn’t join in on the applause, he could see Dickey of course waiting until all the clapping had disappeared before showing his next skill. Seeing a golem appear, Ike knew he had lost, this clay puppet half the size of a human was ten times as strong while being impervious to all but the most vicious of physical attacks. Before good and well half a minute had passed Dickey had again dismissed his summon, the applause that followed was much louder this time.

Again Ike could see Dickey slowly turning with a big smile on his face revelling in all the people clapping. Once the applause had died down it didn’t take long to see the fireball forming in front of Dickey, it was the size of a ball and deep red. Ike could see it moving towards one of the targets placed around the circle. As it moved along it grew larger and larger while the color became a lighter red, finally it smashed into the target completely enveloping it. A blackened and red glowing target was left standing once the fireball had disappeared, again the sound of applause filled the air.

Not wanting to wait until the applause was gone Ike silently left and went to his room. Entering his room he could see the spirit animal encyclopaedia, which he had borrowed from the library, lying open on his desk.

Staring at the little fish he knew he had tried to summon it simply because it was the only spirit animal in there requiring a good affinity with the light and water element. It had taken him weeks to summon the little fish because he didn’t have a good picture of the fish as the one in the book had faded quite a bit.

He started to browse the pages, wondering if he should have tried something else. Seeing the various spirit animals he knew most of them were out of his reach. Seeing the small image of an ice golem he wondered if he should have tried summoning it, despite his fire element affinity being average instead of the required good. Lost in though and wondering if he could manage he heard someone knocking on his door.

Opening the door he saw his favourite teacher miss Babcock together with a man and women he didn’t recognize. Looking at the man he could clearly see the shape of well-trained muscles despite the clothes on the man, compared to the man the women looked frail but beautiful.

Before he could introduce himself to these people, Miss Babcock said “Ike please meet Johan and Carla Shepard, they like myself wanted to congratulate you on you surprising performance today.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet u Ike” Carla said, “Summoning a renewal fish, without a doubt you’ll be ranked first after today’s performance”.

Ike could help but feel confused first he found his performance to be worse than Dickey’s. Besides that the little fish he had summoned could only heal and wasn’t strong like the golem Dickey had summoned. “Why? I’m sure Dickey will be ranked first his demonstration was much better” he said.

“Ike” Miss Babcock said “Few people have the right elemental affinities to summon those fish, besides that u managed it using an image from a book. Most people can’t manage that, Ike what u showed us today was really exceptional”.

He could help but stubbornly reply “Even though u tell me I was better than Dickey today, I’m sure his grandma will make sure he is ranked first”.

Seeing Carla and his teacher Miss Babcock exchanging a meaning full glance, he felt he had struck a nerve somewhere. “Not afraid to say what you really think” Johan said “From what I can tell u aren’t a little weasel or a weakling like the other two. Wouldn’t he be a good match for…”

It would have been difficult for Ike to not notice Carla elbowing her husband full power into his stomach. The odd think Ike found was that Johan only seemed to have stopped talking because he was surprised by the sudden attack.

“I think it’s better if we go” Carla said “I hope u will win Ike. Miss Babcock please inform us about the final results, especially if they are unexpected.”