Carla spent the next hour greeting her various relatives, both old and young with a friendly, familiar tone; from Nick's perspective, she was like a different person compared to when she spoke with him or her employees. Nick had been standing at the side quietly the whole time as if he were her shadow. After she had mingled sufficiently she led him into the main hall and the other guests flooded in as well. Everyone continued to discuss matters such as financial news, the new regulations of the Ministry of Magic, political infighting of the Magician Association and the like.

Soon an old man stood at the top of the staircase leading to the 1st floor above the main hall. He had long silver hair flowing from his head and a full silver beard. He spoke with a magically amplified voice in an authoritative and dominating tone:

"Another one of our Jenner family tournaments has come along . It is always a pleasure to have most of my relatives, seniors and juniors under one roof even if the purpose is the distribution of resources. First things first, since there are outsiders here, I would like them to be introduced before we talk about how things will proceed. Alicia, you direct the flow of things."

Alicia who walked to the side of the old man, full of smiles, spoke with some level of authority in her voice as well:

"Everyone, please be ready to introduce your champions. We will start with the Falkner faction, cousin Andrew."

A man that seemed to be in his early thirties stepped forward along with two young men that seemed to be in their early twenties. The man spoke plainly:

"Andrew Jenner reporting, my two champions are Kevin Nelly and Tom Parkinson of Raylam Priest Academy. I believe that they are both promising young men that I plan to recruit into our family gradually. They will be my champions to compete for our Falkner faction's benefits."

Following that introduction, many of Carla's other relatives stepped forward to introduce their champions. From what was being said, Nick slowly pieced together the circumstances surrounding the Jenner family tournament. Apparently, each person was a part of a certain faction that was aligned with a Jenner family elder and they were competing as a whole for the distribution of some resources and responsibility to their respective factions for the next year.

Soon, it was Carla's turn; she stepped forward and spoke, holding Nick's wrist gently as she brought him forward:

"I am Carla Jenner and a proud member of the Victor faction. My champion will be Nick Capitol of the Richter Order Academy and with him here, I have no doubt that my faction will prosper."

Nick silently cringed a little at Carla's declaration.

(It's either she really believes in me or she's just very good at bullshitting. It's probably the latter but man, she almost had me believing that she meant the former.)

Nick awkwardly waved his left hand at the surrounding family members and some chuckled at his apparent discomfort. Carla stepped back along with Nick and a few other people and their champions made introductions.

Carla leaned close to Nick and whispered:

"You know that I meant what I said, right?"

Nick discreetly rolled his eyes at Carla's shamelessness and replied:

"Yeah, sure."

Carla chuckled and then became silent. When all of the introductions were over, the old man spoke once again:

"For the outsiders here, my name is Vaughn Jenner and I am the acting head of the Jenner Family in place of my brother Victor Jenner who is currently too ill to greet you today."

When Vaughn said the latter part, Nick could see a slight quake in Carla's eyes but he ignored it.

(None of my business.)

Vaughn continued:

"We will not waste any of your time as the tournament has been scheduled to end tomorrow night, the day after which, we will discuss the results during a banquet. The first stage of the tournament will involve a comprehension test where each champion will be asked to choose the type of magic that they are most knowledgeable about and they will be given an advanced apprentice grade spell from our treasury to learn within a certain time period. They will then be tested on their comprehension of the spell and then if they are able to successfully cast it, they will also be graded on that. As you know, each champion's grade will contribute to a faction's overall score. You are welcomed to wait here until the test is about to start but all candidates must be in the arena in exactly one hour. That is all."

Nick didn't know what to expect but he didn't think the first stage of the tournament would be so academic.

"A comprehension test, huh?"

Carla spoke to Nick softly:

"This is also an opportunity for you since you get to learn an advanced spell from our treasury, that is, if you can understand and grasp its laws. What area of specialization will you choose?"

Nick pretended to think for a while and then replied:

"Soul magic."

Carla had a weird expression when she heard his answer.

"Why not space magic. If you are decently skilled in that area, we are likely to get a better grade considering the relative rarity of space path Magicians."

Nick answered while shrugging his shoulders:

"I'm not a space Magician and I happen to know more about soul magic than space magic, I only happen to know a few space spells. By the way, I heard Alicia refer to space 'path' before and now you are also saying 'path', what exactly are you referring to?"

Carla scratched her head at Nick's question.

"Oh, right, the rumors are that you do not go to classes so you are probably missing out on some common information. For rank 3 and above Magicians, choosing an area of specialization is a must and so we usually say that we are walking a certain 'path' and so we describe ourselves and our magic with a certain 'path' in mind. At rank 1 and rank 2, most Magicians don't have a path yet but the apprentices here are different, their paths would have been chosen for them since young based on their talents so they ought to have some area of specialization. As for other apprentices, focusing on one path so early on makes their methods less versatile during everyday tasks so they refrain from focusing on one or a few areas."

Nick nodded in understanding and reaffirmed:

"Then my choice has to be the soul path."

Carla sighed and spoke:

"Okay, since you're so confident in that path."

Of course Nick was confident, he was a soul path scholar so he should do fine if all he had to do was comprehend an advanced apprentice grade spell. Spells were not only classified by ranks, they also had more general classifications for spells that did not have a specific rank such as basic, intermediate and advanced; these classifications were usually given to a spell based on how it was designed. A spell graded based on the latter three classifications usually could be used suitably by any rank of Magician up to a certain rank but their power would be depend on the rank of the caster. Many of Nick's current spells were like that but the ones that he used could not be considered advanced and were intermediate because he did not want to jump the gun and bite off more than he could chew, after all, advanced spells were not simple to cast as they usually required some preparation.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Do you mind if I go to the arena now?"

Carla motioned.

"Go ahead through the passage way to the right of the staircase and you'll get to the estate's indoor arena. You'll likely see other competitors there so play nice while you are there, you are not allowed to wound anyone until the fighting part of the tournament begins."

Nick nodded in understanding and walked towards and into the passageway that Carla had mentioned. Nick walked for 10 minutes to get to an arena like setting where there were groups of seats at the outer edge reserve for spectators. While Nick stood at the entrance, other young persons flooded into the arena as well; about 30 champions were present for this tournament, each one looking polished and well dressed, Nick being the odd one out, wearing blue jeans and a slight color faded red polo shirt. The other competitors seemed to actively avoid him.

(Whatever.)

Nick walked up to a middle aged man standing in the middle of two columns of desks within the arena and asked:

"Excuse me sir, when do I get to choose my area of specialization?"

The middle aged man looked at Nick and answered:

"Well young man, you may do so now but you will not be able to start examining the spell we are going to give you until the tournament begins and your choice will be final. Have you already chosen?"

Nick replied flatly:

"Yes, Nick Capitol chooses soul path."

The middle aged man nodded in acceptance.

"So be it, I am the invigilator by the way, call me Wong. Go and take a seat and a manual for an advanced apprentice grade soul path spell will be brought to you. Remember, do not open it until I say so."

Nick took a seat in a row farthest back in one of the two columns and waited. Twenty minutes later, a thin book was brought to him and the title on the cover read: 'Retrieve Soul'.

(Retrieve Soul, the name sounds so benign. Do you have any idea on what kind of spell this might be, Slade?)

[Kid, do you actually expect me to deduce the spell's effect from just the name. Your language is not even my native tongue so that name could refer to all kinds of methods from my perspective.]

(Yeah, that was a stupid question, my bad. In any case, I'm going to try to go for the best score early on. Everyone else here should be too young to be a scholar like me, right.)

[It is as you say.]

Forty minutes later, all of the competitors were seated and had chosen their specialty. The Jenners were also all seated in the stands at the edge of the arena looking on at the young people. Nick looked towards the crowd of people to spot Carla speaking with Alicia with rapt attention, he then turned his attention towards his spell's manual. At the right time, invigilator Wong commanded:

"Open your manuals, you have two hours to review them."

Nick quickly opened his manual and began going through the laws for Retrieve Soul. After a few minutes, Nick had an idea of the spell's overall effect:

(Hmmm...this seems to be a spell that would allow me to take an entity's soul out of their body by force, plainly speaking. It won't work however if I cannot restrain their magic as well as the innate will within their soul which is not very likely for a rank 1 Apprentice Magician like me so this spell is practically useless to me in normal circumstances. Looking at the laws as a whole though, the theory behind this spell is fairly complex and before I became a scholar, I would definitely not have been able to successfully cast it...)

Nick spent the next hour looking over the spell three times and then got up and said to invigilator Wong:

"I'm ready to see the judges invigilator Wong."

Invigilator Wong looked at Nick with some suspicion as all of the other competitors were far from finished with examining their manuals.

"Young man, being eager is good but haste makes waste. Are you sure you do not want to continue reviewing whatever spell that you got?"

Nick answered flatly:

"I don't need anymore time, I've already reviewed the entire manual."

Invigilator Wong felt annoyed at Nick because he thought that should be impossible and that Nick was only making a joke out of the competition. The annoyance seeped into his tone:

"Fine, go into that tent and the judges will assess you."

Nick could hear the mockery and disgust in invigilator Wong's voice but he didn't care.

(I've heard worse.)

A tent had been set up long ago to house the judges so as not to distract other competitors when one of them was being assessed so Nick walked into the tent to see five people seated side by side at a wooden table, in the middle being Vaughn Jenner. He looked at Nick and spoke without much expectation in his tone:

"Well young man, since you are here, tell us about the spell that you received."

Nick spoke as if he was giving a lecture, there was a little nervousness in his voice at first:

"The spell that I was given was Retrieve Soul and it is advanced based on these principles..."

Nick spoke for almost thirty minutes explaining the principles of how the spell worked and even gave a mini lecture on soul magic. The judges present except Vaughn seemed impressed at his performance but Vaughn thought otherwise:

(Based on what this young man is wearing, he probably is not from a Magician family but he does know much about soul magic. At his age, with no Magician supporting him, being this knowledgeable means that he must be spending all of his time studying instead of actually practicing magic. Although his lecture was informative, it was ordinary and his disposition was shaky all the way through. This family supports heroes, dragons among men, not school boys. Carla surely could have brought a better champion, perhaps one that was rank 2. Sigh, I should hurry and get this over with so I can see the real talents.)

Vaughn spoke at this time:

"Finely done, young man, I assume that you will not be trying to cast the spell, right? There is no shame in that, you have done well already."

Nick replied with a weird expression.

(Why would he assume that, well, it doesn't matter?)

"Yes, I will attempt to cast the spell."

The judges all seemed surprised at Nick's decision, after all, the backlash for failing to complete an advanced spell was not light. Vaughn waved his hand decisively and a tied up goat with a blank stare appeared on the ground; Vaughn spoke:

"This goat has had its soul's will erased, so do what you will."

Nick nodded and focused on his mindscape. Nick started drawing laws that appeared as dull silver light within his mindscape; he drew them slowly so as not to increase the risk of failure. He understood the laws and was able to memorize them thanks to his developed mindscape but theorizing a spell and executing it were often two different monsters. Nick finished forming the laws after thirty five minutes of silent work and they began to shine in a bright silver light, Nick's magic sea decreasing by about 2000 magical units as he aimed it at the defenseless goat.

Nick placed his palm on the goat's midsection and then withdrew it aggressively. Nick held up his right hand in front of the judges as it appeared to grip a translucent grayish phantom; the goat on the ground lost all of the life in its eyes at that moment and became limp.

One of the judges uttered without thinking:

"He actually cast the spell successfully..."

Vaughn quickly sent a glance of disapproval at the judge and the judge corrected his expression and disposition quickly but an air of disbelief still filled the tent. Advanced spells were difficult to cast and often needed preparation and a deep understanding of the path involved to cast successfully so the fact that Nick cast the spell after examining the manual for an hour was very impressive in the eyes of all the judges. Vaughn nodded in approval.

(It seems that this ordinary boy has some potential. I'll ask Carla about him later.)

"You've completed the spell, you can go now."

Nick released his grip and the translucent phantom that he held dispersed like it was never there; he exited the tent with all of the judges watching him leave. Nick walked towards his seat with over a dozen stares of contempt and ridicule being sent his way. Invigilator Wong asked sarcastically:

"How did you do, Nick Capitol? You are going to get the highest score, right?"

Nick understood Wong's intention to mock him from his tone but Nick replied politely anyway:

"Sigh, I just hope that I won't make the rest of these chaps look too bad."

When Nick said that, the glares of contempt and ridicule from the other competitors intensified. Invigilator Wong looked at Nick wide eyed and then said:

"Good, good, good. You are too good."

Nick replied:

"Thank you."

Invigilator Wong squinted his eyes and decided to ignore Nick. Nick walked back to his seat and gave a thumbs up aimed at Carla in the stands. Carla saw his gesture and nodded in reply. Nick then turned inwards to his thoughts:

(The feeling I got when I used retrieve soul was interesting, like it gave me some kind of inspiration.)

Slade commented:

[As a scholar of the soul path, using different kinds of soul spells are likely to give you inspiration for things related to soul magic. You'll get used to the feeling soon]

Twenty minutes later, the other students were told to close their manuals and line up to be assessed by the judges while Nick sat quietly in his seat thinking about Retrieve Soul. The assessments took another three hours to complete and then Vaughn stepped forward to announce the results to everyone. Nick was still lost in his thought at the time.

(Wait, come to think of it, how come no one else here is from Richter Order Academy?)