Chapter 14: The Test Leilin placed both hands on the surface of the crystal ball, just as the old witch had instructed.
Cold! Pulsating!
A strange sensation spread from his fingertips.
His head throbbed—as though a glass rod were being twisted violently inside his skull.
As the pain began, the crystal ball before Leilin started to emit a faint glow.
"Good! Don't let go!" The witch fixed her eyes on the crystal ball.
As the pain grew increasingly severe, the crystal ball in Leilin's hands blazed brighter and brighter. "I can't—I can't take it anymore!"
Leilin clenched his teeth, but the agony—so intense it felt like his skull was being split in half—forced his hands to release the ball against his will.
"Hmm! So that's as far as you go?" The witch nodded and pulled out a quill pen, jotting something down on Leilin's form.
"We rate an apprentice's aptitude on a scale of one to five—one being the lowest, five the highest. You're at tier three. That's average aptitude!!!"
As she spoke, the witch flipped a ring on her finger and pressed it onto the parchment, branding a strange symbol that shimmered with a soft, luminous glow.
"My test here is done. Go to the back! Next!!!"
Leilin watched a freckle-faced girl enter the tent, then took the parchment, stood and thanked the witch, lifted the curtain, and moved on to the next stage.
It was the same bare, open ground as before, with nothing but a white-bearded old man sitting in the middle.
"Judging by the size of these tents, there are probably only two tests total. Pretty simple!" Leilin thought as he sat down in front of the old man and handed over the form.
"Tier-three aptitude? Not bad!" The old man stroked his beard. "Alright! Now we'll test your Elemental Affinity!"
The old man tapped the table. It split apart, and a black basin rose up from the center.
The basin was pitch-black, seemingly carved from stone, and inside it flowed a silvery liquid that shimmered like mercury.
"Watch the center of the water surface carefully!" The old man's voice came through, carrying a faint hint of instruction.
Lei Lin couldn't help but focus his attention on the center of the mercury. As his concentration deepened, the mercury in the middle began to spin, as if an opening had appeared at the bottom, forming a vortex.
"Now, tell me — what do you see?"
Lei Lin's eyes glazed over slightly. "Shadows… a black vortex! And at the very edges, there are red spots!"
"Anything else?"
"There are some green specks of light around it!"
"A lot of green?"
"Not much! Very little!"
"Mm!" The old man snapped his fingers, and Lei Lin suddenly came back to his senses. "What just happened to me?!"
"Your test is complete! In terms of Elemental Affinity, you're highest in shadow and darkness, followed by flame, and lastly there's a trace of plant affinity!"
As he spoke, the old man quickly filled out the parchment, then pressed his thumbprint on it.
"Here's some advice! Though Wizards can harness any power, choosing the path that aligns with your highest affinity is the only way to go the farthest!"
The old man handed the form to Lei Lin. "Done! Your test is finished. Head out through the back door and start choosing your academy!"
Lei Lin bowed and left the tent.
He pulled open the tent flap at the back, and a ray of sunlight streamed down.
"Chip, pull up my status from just now!"
"...Subject was subjected to unknown Field interference and entered a hypnotized state!"
"Just as I thought!" Lei Lin's face darkened, and he let out a helpless sigh. "Thankfully they had no ill intentions, otherwise..."
In his heart, the desire for power burned ever stronger.
"Hey! Lei Lin!" George's voice rang out beside him. "You finished your test too?"
George's voice rang out.
"Mhm!" Lei Lin nodded and raised the parchment form in his hand.
"I finished too, hehe! This young master is a genius with fourth-grade aptitude!" George burst into laughter, wearing the smug expression of a petty man who'd struck it rich.
"I don't really understand wizard aptitude yet — can you explain it to me?" Lei Lin asked.
George's family was far more powerful than Viscount Fairer's family, so they naturally had access to more secrets about wizards.
"Of course! This is all common knowledge. No matter which academy you enter, someone would tell you," George said.
"A
"Fourth grade is a bit lower, but still a fifty percent chance! This young master is a genius in that regard! Haha… my old man is going to be over the moon!" George went off on a tangent again, clearly overjoyed.
"What about the rest? Keep going!" Lei Lin punched George on the shoulder, finally pulling him back on track.
"Oh? Right, so I was talking about fourth-grade aptitude. Below that is third grade, meaning a one in ten chance of becoming a Wizard. Second grade drops to one in thirty or forty, and first grade is the worst — one in a hundred, one in a thousand, anything is possible."
"In short, you need at least third-grade aptitude to have a shot at becoming a Wizard. First and second grade? You're basically doomed to be a lifelong apprentice!"
"I see. So my aptitude is mid-range — no academy would turn me away, but none would value me too highly either!" Lei Lin quickly sized up his own situation.
"What about Elemental Affinity?" Lei Lin asked again.
"Elemental Affinity — that's a Wizard's path going forward. You know, some Wizards can command lightning, some can command flame, and others can command ice! These are the paths you choose."
"Although in theory a Wizard can use any school of magic, the one with the highest affinity not only casts faster but also gets a power boost. If a Wizard with fire affinity insists on casting water magic, it'll cost far more Spiritual Power and the power will drop dramatically — they might try to summon a pond's worth of water elements and end up with a single water ball!"
"In short, Elemental Affinity determines which path a Wizard walks, and aptitude determines how far they can go on that path!"
George summarized.
"That last part is quite insightful, but it doesn't sound like something you'd come up with!" Lei Lin repeated the final line.
"Hehe! Caught me — it's from a traveling Wizard's journal! I saw it in my old man's study." George scratched his head sheepishly.
"Oh right! I just found out why that black-rode Knight who's been traveling with us is so cold!"
George suddenly remembered something and couldn't wait to share it.
"The power of a Wizard — even an Apprentice — is something no Knight can withstand. Didn't you find the behavior of those black-robed ones on the road rather strange?"
"It was a bit strange, sure!" Lei Lin nodded and ventured a guess. "Perhaps they have some kind of background?"
"No! No! No!" George shook his head. "My dear brother, you've got it completely backwards. Those black-robed Knights are actually a Wizard Lord's test subjects!!"
"Test subjects!!!" Lei Lin's eyes widened. In his era, experimenting on living humans had always been a taboo in the scientific community. Even when it happened, it was done in secret — yet here it was being done so brazenly.
"During the experiments, this batch of test subjects received an excessive amount of radiation. They don't have more than a few years to live, so they've been put to use — sent to escort us Apprentices!"
"Is that the reason?" Lei Lin recalled Angelei's somewhat pale complexion and silently nodded.
The Chip had previously detected traces of radiation on them as well, but the white-robed Wizard's radiation was a hundred times more intense, so Lei Lin had naturally assumed there was no impact.
"Otherwise, for us Wizards — or at the very least future Apprentices from noble families — which Knight wouldn't bend over backwards trying to curry our favor, hoping we'd pick them as retainers? It's only those who don't have many days left to live who couldn't care less about us!"
George spoke with visible resentment, his expression indignant. As the heir of a great noble house, it was clear he was deeply displeased with the black-robed Knights' earlier rudeness.
"Forget it — come on, let's go pick an Academy!"
"Ah, about that! My old man already picked one for me — the Nine-Ring White Tower. Our family has a connection with one of the senior Wizards there... Why don't you come too!" George extended an invitation.
Lei Lin was somewhat tempted, but remembering the ring around his neck, he still hesitated.
"That Wizard Lord never said which Academy the ring would grant me entry to. What if there are restrictions?"
"Pass! I'd rather look around some more!" Lei Lin politely declined.
"Alright then, I'm going to handle the paperwork. You can come find me at the Nine-Ring White Tower's grounds!" George waved and squeezed his way into the crowd.
"Where should I go? Oh well — let me check out what
Lei Lin wandered aimlessly through the camp, taking in the bizarre and amusing tents. Some looked like enormous mushrooms with a small door carved into the middle, while others were shaped like the horned head of a demon — Apprentices had to enter through its gaping maw, making the whole thing look like a haunted house.
In front of the various buildings, names were marked out in letters.
"It's the Continent's common script — thank goodness!"
Lei Lin strolled through, glancing around at everything, and noted down the names of each school: "Nine-Ring White Tower," "Mesopotamia University," "Wetland Garden"...