Today is the day. Sixteen years of waiting led to Jayce standing in line for the past four hours waiting his turn to get tested. It consists of three parts: first, they bring you to a large auditorium and after 1000 people are there they start a knowledge exam. This will test you on everything from basic math to high pressure decision making. Second, they bring you to a large gym and test your physical abilities. How much weight can you lift, how long can you hang from a bar, how far can you run, etc? Finally, you get taken to a back room where they test your aptitudes. These are the elements you can learn and decide everything about what is possible for your future. Once those are complete you will be given a score out of 100 based on how well you did on the first and second parts of the exam as well as how useful your aptitudes are expected to be.
Each academy in Hilzarya has three different qualification levels: the lowest score you can get in if you pay extra (money rules the world everywhere), the score to get in with normal tuition, and the score to get in for free. For Resco, those scores were 70, 85, and 95 respectively. It wasn’t considered the number one academy for nothing. An average score was 50 with only 10% of people scoring 70 or above, only 2% scored at least an 85, and .01% scored 95 or above. This resulted in the average class size at Resco being only 1500 students a year, of which 1300 paid extra. An average academy had about 50,000 in a year which resulted in much less personal instruction. On top of that, Resco was famous for bringing in teachers for a specific student if they qualified but didn’t have anyone to help them learn.
Jayce fully expects to get a 100 on the physical and mental parts so the only part left to chance was his aptitudes. If he had to go to a subpar academy it would invalidate everything he had worked for all these years. As he approaches the front of the line an official asks for his information and leads him back to the auditorium. He is one of the last people to sit so thankfully doesn’t have to wait long. Another official steps on stage and begins to talk,
“Welcome to the most important day of your existence. Today you will be tested and put on a path for the rest of your lives. I know many of you are itching to get going so I will keep this brief, there are only two rules throughout the testing today. One, if you talk to another participant during an exam you will be sent out and not be able to learn how to use your element. Two, if you, in any way, are supplementing your body with alchemical pills or outside magic please come to the front and say something now. It will be discovered, and once again you will be expelled. If you admit to it now we will wait out the effects and administer your test after. I will leave a few seconds for anyone to decide to move.”
At this everyone started glancing around before one student suddenly stood up and walked to the front. As everyone watched him walk up, a few other students decided to follow.
“Good, some of you have brains this year. You’d be surprised how often people try to pull one over on us. All of you up here with me please follow me out of the auditorium. Everyone else, begin your test”
Jayce picked up his quill and began to read, If you didn’t want combat and had a fire aptitude what might you go into? If you were exploring on the edge of the known lands and saw someone laying on the ground bleeding and injured what would you do? What is 17/4 * 32?
The questions continued, all staying relatively easy for Jayce until the final one:
What is the strongest aptitude?
What? There is no strongest aptitude, what could they want here? He began to think about what could possibly not lose in a fight before considering what if the strongest was the most comfortable or the easiest to learn or that gives you the most social power? A couple of others were beginning to finish their exams and Jayce was feeling nervous for the first time. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to clear his mind. He starts to consider that the strongest is different for each person; each person wants something different in life and has had a different upbringing. Therefore, the strongest would be the one that best allows you to do what you want to do right? That’s the answer he puts down before going up to hand the test in.
He is then directed to follow another attendant through some halls before reaching a large arena covered in sand and physical equipment. He is passed off to a trainer that looks him over and says,
“Finally, someone not pathetic. Let’s go boy, to the bar. Hang for 100 seconds to get a perfect score, every second less drops it by one.”
Jayce quickly gets on the bar and as he jumps up the trainer starts a timer. Jayce easily makes it to 100 seconds and quickly gets ushered over to do push-ups, bench press, lifting rocks, run a 5k, and finally climb a rope. This test was just as easy for him as expected and he can’t help but thank all the training he has put in. Before he is led away for the third, and most exciting, test the trainer tells him,
“Boy, my name is Mostro. I haven’t seen a perfect score in years. If you qualify for Resco everywhere else come find me and I’ll show you a thing or two about combat.”
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Unreal. An instructor at the best academy in the country wants to give him instructions. Feeling a bit like he is in a dream, Jayce is led to the final testing site; a room with only him, an official aptitude recorder, and the test proctor.
“You will sit here and I will cast a spell to allow your soul more freedom. I will then cast another spell that will cause your soul to start glowing in the color or colors of your aptitudes. The lighter the color the stronger the aptitude. Let us begin” says the test proctor.
The first spell is cast and Jayce feels his body start to relax. He slips into an almost meditative state where his mind drifts from topic to topic with no real substance. Once the proctor sees him relax he casts the second spell, causing Jayce’s body to feel heat emanating from deep within. It continues to build until he can hardly stand it before slowly stabilizing there. The proctor and official both look confused and when Jayce looks down he sees two bright shades of purple, noticeably different yet closely intertwined.
The proctor and official start to quietly converse but he can’t hear anything through the heat pounding in his body. Both start to write something down before the proctor walks to a shelf and grabs a reference book. After looking through it for a bit he shows the official something, gets a nod of agreement, and they both finish marking down the results. The heat is finally starting to fade and letting Jayce get back to feeling like himself.
Jayce looks at the proctor with hope and nerves abound in his eyes as he waits for the results to be read.
“You have two aptitudes, both some of the rarest to be seen. Your primary element is Space, and your secondary element is Void. I have 60 years of testing under my belt and I’ve only seen Space once and never Void. I haven’t even heard of them together.” the proctor says consideringly.
Jayce’s heart starts to drop. Space and Void. What combat role could come from those? Each has only a couple of teachers across the whole country, no one with the combination exists to help teach the synergies. Space mages are almost always relegated to travel assistants or mail carriers; void mages sometimes can make it as a tank but mostly end up as research assistants ensuring experiments don't explode. Jayce notices the official slip out of the room as the proctor takes a breath.
“I have no idea how they will play together, but I expect that, when nurtured, they will provide a lot of utility.” The proctor continues. “You will have to work with whatever academy you end up at to see where you want to go and how the combination can help you get there. I hope you did well elsewhere, a high score here is not enough to get you into a prestigious academy by itself, and boy will you need one. Go ahead into the next room where another official will give you your total score as well as a list of what academies you qualified to attend in which circumstances as well as how to register. Wherever you choose to go you start in one week. Good luck.”
Jayce proceeds to the next room deep in thought; being told he had a high score in aptitude usefulness was nice but with such rare elements individually, let alone as a combination, he knew very little about the potential.
As he walks in he notices the official from the previous room along with another person waiting for him. The official steps forward and offers his hand as he says,
“Jayce Beltenborn, my name is Brutan. I am an official aptitude recorder for the country of Hilzarya. Our job is to go to each city during the testing week and record all the results for our records. In the case of powerful or rare combinations such as yours, we are to introduce ourselves and see if we can help place you a little higher score-wise in the case of poor results on the first two stages. Thankfully you did very well there so no assistance is needed. Without further ado, your scores: first stage, 98/100. Second stage, 100/100. Third stage, 90/100. Comes out to a total score of 96, qualifying you for any academy, including Resco, on a full ride. Congratulations. Do you know where you want to go already?”
“Yes sir, I want to attend Resco,” Jayce replies.
“Ok, I will give you this sheet listing your results and my recommendations on the next steps for the academy personnel. Once you walk through these doors you will be in a large auditorium where each academy has booths set up. Go up to the one for Resco and give them this sheet. I’ll also add that I recommended they bring you directly to the academy as soon as possible so you can meet with the headmaster and start to plan out your lessons. I expect they will have to bring teachers in for you so the more notice the better. Is that ok with you?”
“I can be there tomorrow sir, just need to let my family know and I can be on the next train.”
“Perfect, good luck Jayce. I expect big things from you.”
Jayce walks up and accepts the paper from Brutan before walking through the next door. The next room is just as was described, a huge auditorium with hundreds of booths. He quickly realizes the booths are ordered based on the academy rankings and so begins to walk toward the front. As he keeps walking further and further he hears whispering from everyone he is passing wondering how far he made it. He finally makes it all the way to the Resco booth and hands the attendant his sheet. She reads his scores and her face assumes a look of shock as she looks up at Jayce again. She quickly looks back down and reads the recommendations before saying,
“One moment please, I need to get my supervisor for this”
She walks to the back and very quickly comes back with another older woman. The older woman looks over the sheet before saying,
“Well isn’t this a pleasant surprise? The first day of the testing week and already an exceptional student. My name is Diedre, it’s a pleasure to meet you Jayce. Are you aware of the recommendations we were given?”
“Yes ma'am, I can be at Resco tomorrow morning. Just need to let my family know what’s going on and I can be there.”
“Great, with no tuition to worry about all that's left is the paperwork to register you and to pass this along to Headmaster Artiuo so we can figure out who to get for teachers. Is there anything you’re leaning toward wanting to do? Knowing that can help us find teachers more knowledgeable in that field.”
“I already know I want to be a delver when I graduate. I’ve been dreaming about it for as long as I can remember.”
“Perfect, I have that noted. I will leave you and Cynthia here to complete the registration paperwork while I get this passed to the Headmaster. I look forward to seeing what you become.”
Jayce looks over to Cynthia who is holding the paperwork and she gestures to a seat. As he sits down and gets started all he can think about is the excitement of what the future holds. His goals accomplished, his dream achieved, it’s time to figure out what a Space/Void combination can do.