The Stargazer

by Nikostar A

  Alexander soon arrived at the room where the ancient relic was displayed and as he expected, a large crowd was standing at a reasonable distance from the relic. The excited students pushed each other, trying to get a better glimpse at the relic.

  Closer to the relic, ten professors in white lab coat were circling around discussing among themselves. It was clear that they were studying the ancient relic. They could easily figure out the materials used for the relic but it was almost impossible to deduce how the enchantment was made.

  Alexander could not see the ancient relic very clearly but he could determine that it was a crown covered with various rare gems. The metallic part looked old and rusty but the gems were still shining brightly as if they had just been polished.

  "Hey, Alexander. Here to take a look at the relic?"

  Alexander turned toward the source of the voice. It was Jonas, the president of the crafting club. As he was a regular at the club, Alexander was familiar with the club's old members. Quite a few students tried to join but many would just end up wasting their Earth Credits there.

  "Yeah. I was too late though. I did not think people would rush here that quickly. I only took ten minutes to eat my lunch..." answered Alexander with a disappointed expression.

  Jonas laughed and replied, "Don't worry. You are not missing much. Although the crown looks impressive, the reason it was sent here rather than being kept by the government is that the crown has absolutely no effect. It is clearly an ancient relic filled with various enchantments but when you inject your mana inside, nothing happens."

  "What? An ancient relic that does nothing?" asked Alexander. He was not an expert in relics but an ancient relic that did nothing was completely unheard of.

  "Yes. That's why you don't see those department heads flying around like annoying flies. If the relic was actually useful, they would have all applied to obtain it. But since no one knows how to use it, they decided to leave it here for the crafting department to study," answered Jonas.

  Alexander nodded. "How peculiar... Where did such a relic come from?"

  "It heard that it was excavated by the Flemming Organization. It does not come from Loha but from one of the worlds beyond the rifts of Loha. I don't know the details. The organizations won't reveal the location of the ruins."

  Alexander lingered among the crowd for a moment but seeing that he won't be able to get any closer, he decided to leave. "Ancient relics that do not react to mana... I wonder if it will react to star energy? As far as I am aware, none of the constellations are related to the crafting of items. It can also be a relic designed for a different path," said Alexander to himself.

  Elemental mage and stargazers were not the only way people could acquire power. Through his travels, Alexander encountered several people using different kinds of power. Unfortunately, even if they became acquainted, these people never revealed the way to obtain their powers. Had it been the case, Alexander might have started walking down a third path.

  If Alexander was given the choice to choose between all the existing path of power, he would have never picked the stargazer path or the elemental mage path. He would have chosen the strongest path of power. One that only existed in the old legends. The path of an anti-mage.

  Unfortunately, there was no tangible evidence of the existence of the anti-mages. The rumors even said that it was a mythical path that only existed in people's imagination as a result of their dream of overthrowing the oppressing mages.

  "I wonder if I'll be able to practice three different paths of power if I ever come across a third one. However, as long as I stay at the academy, I'll never get the opportunity. The academy no longer has anything interesting for me. The only benefit I have in staying here is the protection it can provide me. Once I master a few more constellations, I should start meditating so that my pocket dimension will be able to accommodate mom. I cannot let her stay on Earth; the invasion of the Xals is approaching."

  Chapter 23: Competition

  Another month flew by quickly and before Alexander realized it, it was time for the first term exams.

  "D*mn, I was almost late!"

  Alexander stopped in front of the magic department, completely exhausted from his mad run. He slowly adjusted to the slow student life at the academy. He became relaxed and carefree. So much that he even almost managed to miss the appointed time for the examination.

  The academy welcomed about ten thousand students each year. It was easy to test theoretical subjects like history, language and so on. But it was a challenge to appropriately test magic. There were no accurate devices to measure how much progress the students had made. The performance index could only be used to measure how much mana was found in the mana source but it did not give any indication of the size of the mana reservoir or spirit circuit.

  They could not be measured by any means. Originally, the mana reservoir was tested by asking the student to use a specific spell as many times as possible but later on, it was found to be an unreliable method. Each person's spirit circuit would use slightly different amounts of mana to cast the spell. Furthermore, during this exam, some people would fake their results by consuming recovery herbs first, injecting a lot of mana in their reservoir.

  Magic could not be solely evaluated by looking at how much mana a student possessed. They also needed to test their comprehension to see how many spells they managed to master and how fast their casting speed was. There was a lot of factors to consider.

  Consequently, the exams of the magic department were different from that of the other departments. It took the form of a competition and involved both first and second years. Although they competed against each other, first-year students were graded separately from the second-year students.

  It meant that more than twenty thousand students would be participating in this competition. For the rest of the term, the timetable was going to change. For the first part of the competition, the students would be randomly distributed in groups of five hundred. The group stage did not have a lot of impact on the student's result, it was only a way to determine the student's power and match them against someone of equal power.

  All students had an extensive record attached to their name detailing their progress in class but the records were not accurate enough to judge someone's strength. The content of the group stage was kept a secret from the students; all they knew was that their afternoon was no longer free. Depending on which group they belonged to, they would need to turn up at the magic department at a specific time.

  Thanks to Egriss, the Archivist, Alexander already knew the content of the exams. He had no qualms in using his ability to cheat; he would be a fool to not use the advantage he had. Unless he was allocated to a different group, his group's exam should be taking place in the jungle.

  Alexander arrived just in time at the main hall of the magic department. It was not that he forgot about the time, what Alexander did forget was the small notice in the examination instruction, telling the students to arrive at least twenty minutes before the exam time.

  Inside the hall, most of the examinees were already there chatting among themselves. The atmosphere was slightly tense; it was a similar scene to the awakening ceremony. Alexander was not nervous but that was not the case for the others. Alexander looked around and to his disappointment, he did not recognize anyone.

  He waited by himself and soon, one of the instructors made an announcement. "Good afternoon everyone. We will begin shortly. Please follow me to the real venue of the examination. We will guide you there. From now on, please maintain a non-communication rule. The content of the examinations will be revealed right before the start of the exam."

  Under the guidance of the instructors, Alexander and the other students walked out of the magic department and boarded the private shuttles of the academy. The students looked at each other but no one spoke.

  Alexander looked at the path the shuttle was taking. He internally smiled, "As I expected. We are going to the jungle. The shuttl
es should stop at the field near the walking path."

  When they got closer to the destination, Alexander let out a gasp of surprise when he looked at the walking path. The landscape has completely changed, a huge stage was built where Alexander could see installed giant screens. A whole surveillance set-up appeared out of nowhere for the purpose of the examination.

  On the stage, several instructors were seated in front of their computers, making the final checks of the system. Today was the first day of the exams. Several department heads decided to show up symbolically. A group of professors was also waiting on the stage; they would be the judges for the examination.

  "Everyone, please line up quickly! We are about to announce the details of the examination. Please listen carefully." An instructor loudly shouted as he guided the students in front of the stage. The staff members were fast and efficient. In just a few minutes, the students were neatly arranged on the open field, waiting for further instructions.

  "Good," the instructor nodded and went up the stage to report to the professors. At the same time, a group of staff members started distributing a talisman of protection to the students.

  Alexander calmly watched the professors discussing among themselves. He could feel the tense atmosphere. The students were nervous. Although the group stage only accounted for 10% of their final marks, it was still better to perform well. Winning or losing in this competition did not count. The only factor that was taken into consideration was the skills displayed throughout the competition.

  A few moments later, an instructor stepped forward to make an announcement. Alexander instantly recognized the instructor's stern face, it was instructor Keno!

  "Good afternoon. The examination is about to begin. I will give the instructions so please listen carefully."

  He took out a small shiny golden badge and showed it to everyone. "These badges are the focus of the examination. We scattered two thousand badges all over the jungle. Some of them are gold badges like this one, others are either bronze or silver badges. The gold badges are worth ten points, the silver badges are worth three points and the bronze badges, one point."

  "The more points you have, the better your final results will be. Bear in mind that the group stage will only account for 10% of your marks. Don't be too reckless. For the purpose of the examination, you are allowed to use spells in the jungle. You will be given one hour to collect the badges but as soon as your talisman of protection is broken, you will immediately be disqualified."

  "Furthermore, if your talisman of protection is broken, your points will be halved and the person who defeated you will get an increase in points. This field will be a safe zone. You need to make it back here for your points to be validated. It is not enough to just collect points and hide in the jungle. However, using spells outside of within the safe zone or to target anyone inside the zone is forbidden. Please look at the markings on the ground; they will indicate the limit of the safe zone."

  "You don't have to physically pick the badges. You just need to scan them using your X-Driver. You can leave the badges behind to use them as baits or bring them with you. That is up to you to decide. All the badges on the examinations can be used by anybody; you can even bring the badges back here to share with your friends. Teaming up is not illegal but you should take advantage of the opportunity to display your own strength."

  "Instructors will be patrolling the jungle at all time. If your talisman is destroyed, please report to the instructors as soon as possible to avoid you being attacked by others. I don't need to clarify that attacking after your talisman is destroyed is forbidden, just like attacking someone without a talisman is also illegal. That is all I have to say. Please watch the timer on the screen. The exam will officially start as soon as it hits zero."

  ***

  On the stage, ten professors and about forty lecturers were seated, looking at the nervous students. The magic department head turned toward an old professor. "This is the first batch going into the forest. Do we have any interesting students that we might want to keep an eye on?"

  "Sir, there are a few. The first one is a second-year student from Arthemis called Mathew. Then there is one of the twins from NXT, Ingrid Feist. Among the first years, the only outstanding student in this group is someone called Ben Davies from Nuevo Mundo. Apart from these students, there are also a few that are on the headmistress' watchlist," answered the old professor.

  "That's not too bad," commented another professor.

  "It's a pity that even with the moving robots in the jungle, we won't be able to watch all the actions."

  "Old men. I was wondering whether you will be willing to work together to set an array? It is rare for so many of us to be together. Shall we seize the opportunity to practice a few spells?" asked the head of the history department.

  Hearing the suggestion, the professors started to smile and turn toward the head of the crafting department. "Sure, I don't see why we cannot try. We are all mages. We cannot fall behind the Lohans."

  The professors were visibly excited. They studied magic for a long time but there was still a wide gap between the mages of Earth and Loha. Fortunately, they had their modern technology to bridge the gap to some extent.

  The mages started casting their spells. With their combined efforts, the spells overlapped each other, forming a huge array and then, the faint image of the jungle appeared in front of them.

  "Did it work?"

  "Yes! Turn on the holograms! Let us check if it corresponds to the same location."

  Following the instructions of the professors, the staff started the hologram. In front of the professors, a miniature representation of the whole examination field appeared. It even included the open field where they were currently waiting. On the hologram, there were several red dots representing an X-Driver.

  The set-up would allow the professors to select those red dots and one of the large screens would show the student's location. Technology had advanced but it was impossible to observe mana directly. However, by using the array of the professors, they were able to look at the flow of mana in the students' spirit circuit.

  The cost was high but it was worth it. Naturally, this method would not allow the professors to observe all the students but they only needed to focus on the main ones. There were other lecturers and staff members in charge of observing the regular students.

  The professors wore satisfied expression; their array was working. Among the department head, there was one particular person that was ecstatic at the success of the array. It was the head of the discipline department. He was tasked by the Flemming Organization to prove that Alexander was able to use magic while hiding it from the sensors of the X-Driver.

  Unfortunately, that was not an easy task. He could not follow Alexander's every move as he still had his own tasks. Furthermore, observing the flow of mana in the spirit circuits was not easy. A mage could feel the fluctuation of mana when someone was casting a spell but they would not necessarily be able to which spell the mage was casting. Naturally, it was easy to tell what a novice mage was casting; their control of mana was not on point yet and they would leak a lot of mana from their spirit circuits.

  Now that the professors had set up the array, it would be easier to watch Alexander's fight and determine if he could hide his use of magic by comparing the logs of his X-Driver with what they saw. For that, he would simply need to ask to switch the projection to Alexander when needed.

  The professors sat back and waited for the countdown to reach zero. When they received the signal, the professors watched as the students suddenly rushed toward the jungle. There was no time to lose, the faster they moved, the more points they would get.

  For now, the projection was still set on the student called Mathew. According to the lecturers, he was the most promising student of this group and would be the most interesting to watch. At the same time, the large screens also displayed the students mentioned earlier.

  In just a few seconds, almost all the
students had disappeared from the open field. Almost.

  The professor curiously looked at the field where eight students were still standing there motionless. For some reasons, these students decided to stay in the open field and among them was Alexander.

  The examiners frowned. "Are they planning to wait for the other students to bring them badges?"

  Chapter 24: The first gold badge

  Alexander was very familiar with the camping strategy. There would always be a few students who would wait near the safe zone and take advantage of the weakened students who went out to look for the badges. However, the reason Alexander did not move was not that he wanted to use this strategy.

  Alexander looked around him. Most of the students that stayed in the safe zone were second-year students. He could feel the stares coming from the stage. The professors and lecturers did not approve of the camping method but at the same time, it was not against the rules to do so. Furthermore, those students would also spice up the competition, forcing the students to fight.