Land of Magic

6

The crowd divided into three parts. The first and most numerous part moved toward the arch of plain stone. Another herald was standing beside it. He was wearing gray clothes without wrinkles, and he had gray hair.

“If you wish to take the ordinary disciples’ apprentice test, please come here.”

After exchanging glances, Hadjar and Einen joined this crowd.

A still wide, but much less numerous, stream of people moved toward the arch in the center. It was golden, with a huge hieroglyph etched in the middle, and it stood behind a herald in blue robes — a slender and beautiful middle-aged woman.

“The trial for fully-fledged disciples will begin soon.”

There were only a few people walking through the last, jade arch, which was being overseen by a man in black. Among them, Hadjar noticed both the elf girl and the young man from the Predatory Blades clan. He wasn’t surprised to see that they had chosen this particular test. It was the most prestigious position new students of ‘The Holy Sky’ School could hope for.

“Don’t get distracted,” Einen said.

As they passed through the archway, they were suddenly cut off from the noise of the world around them. Behind them, the barely visible borders of the veil shimmered, and a hidden building appeared ahead of them.

The crowd stood on a platform, and below them, in a wide square, was a table where the exam overseers sat: five bored middle-aged men and one young, haughty man wearing a white robe.

Behind them, twenty yards from the table, a glass globe lay on a tripod. A rainbow cloud swirled inside it, radiating a very strange energy.

“By the High Heavens,” Hadjar breathed out, awed. “I swear I couldn’t even feel the veil!”

“It would seem, my friend, that we’ve made the right choice.”

Einen was referring to their decision to start from the bottom. Hadjar agreed with the islander. It was unlikely that they would be able to pass the exam for the ordinary disciples, let alone the fully-fledged ones.

After ten minutes of agonized waiting, the herald came out from behind the crowd.

“Let us begin.” The veil closed the stone archway.

Chapter 427

  

 “Welcome to ‘The Holy Sky’ School exams,” a man in gray clothes rose from the center seat at the table. “We are all happy to see that you chose our School to test your power in and perhaps even progress further along the path of cultivation. Whatever happens today, I can assure you that all of you have already achieved a lot. Only one in a thousand can climb to the level of a Heaven Soldier before the age of sixteen!”

Hadjar decided that he didn’t want to try and calculate the approximate number of Heaven Soldiers in the Darnassus Empire. Their number surely exceeded the combined ranks of all the armies of Lidus. Such power was frightening as well as shocking and didn’t even factor in those true cultivators that had left the Heaven Soldier level behind.

“We’ll start our examination immediately,” the man continued. “Dalit, you know what to do.”

“Yes, Master Jean,” the robed young man said disgustedly, and muttered: “What a stupid thing to do…”

“You will now be directly subjected to the power of one of our inner circle disciples.” The Master said calmly. Whispers of surprise and admiration went through the ranks of hopeful prospects and spectators. The inner circle disciples of ‘The Holy Sky’ School had an immeasurably high status. “Those who can’t withstand it will be immediately expelled from our School.”

Hadjar, dipping back into the World River, looked at the young man named Dalit. Through the River, he looked like a massive tree full of power. His accursed meridians were almost twice as thick as the Predatory Blades clan guy’s had been and he was at the middle stage of the Spirit Knight level.

“Start when-”

Before the examiner could give the command, Dalit placed his hand down on the table casually. The thick wooden tabletop crumbled into splinters, forming a hole in the shape of a hand. The examiners leapt to their feet, but Hadjar didn’t see them do so. He felt as if a mountain had been dropped on his shoulders, and at the same time, as if someone had slapped his soul hard enough to rattle it.

By the High Heavens, this boy, who was no older than twenty, could’ve fought Traves on equal terms and easily defeated the dragon! Sunshine Sankesh and Ragar would’ve been nothing more than a nuisance to him.

Hadjar had to use all of his energy, but even then, he could only push the ‘mountain’ away briefly, and couldn’t throw it off his shoulders. The people around him, spitting blood, fell to their knees or even completely collapsed. They were instantly enveloped in green sparks and disappeared. Apparently, they’d been sent back to the square below.

After just seven seconds of enduring the pressure, only one and a half of the twenty thousand initial exam takers remained.

Dalit, as if he hadn’t played cat and mouse enough already, placed his other hand down on the table as well. The pressure immediately increased fivefold. Now Hadjar, too, was down on one knee, forced to bow by the young man’s power. Clenching his teeth and snarling like a wounded beast, he reached for the hilt of his simple sword. Summoning his knowledge of the Way of the Sword, he imagined it merging with his energy to form a sword around his body.

The broad, sharp blade swaddled him. Compared to the mountain that was Dalit’s power, it looked like a reed swaying in the wind, but even so, it slightly weakened the pressure. It was almost imperceptible, but enough for Hadjar to hold out for another three seconds. As he fought against the enormous power, he couldn’t hear the examiners’ discussion.

“Why is Dalit with us today?” One of them asked.

“He made a bet with someone,” the chief examiner answered. “He claimed that he could ensure that only a tenth of the disciples we normally get enter our School this year.”

“So be it,” the man sitting on the far end chuckled. “These incompetent weaklings are only fit to fetch water and iron our clothes. We have enough servants already. How many ordinary disciples do we have? Twenty, forty thousand?”

“Thirty-seven thousand and six hundred,” the lead examiner said. “That’s barely enough to gather all the resources we need from the Forest of Shadows and the Valley of Swamps. Or will you, honorable Markin, go out and get your ingredients yourself?”

Markin didn’t reply. He glanced at Dalit, who was ranked as the ninth strongest disciple of the School, sighed, and propped his chin dejectedly on his hand. The only entertainment he’d have in the near future was to watch the flashes of green sparks light up around the nonentities who had come to take the exam.