Mage Blake led the way into the main hall of the city lord's mansion. The crowd waiting to be tested wore looks of awe and adoration, but not one of them dared speak a word of greeting; they were cautious to the extreme, terrified that a single syllable might offend the honored Mage.
Adam and Ophelia still had no seats, but today they were permitted to stand at Mage Blake's side.
There was no one in all the Northland who did not know Ophelia; the Valkyrie's name was famous.
She's surely been chosen by the honored Mage, the boys and girls thought enviously.
When they looked at Adam, though, all they had was puzzlement. Nobody knew who Adam was. He was wearing the noble's clothes the servants had sent up that morning, so they simply took him for some nobleman's son.
Mage Blake had not been lying. Yesterday's direct spiritual-power crushing he had put the two of them through was indeed not the standard aptitude test. Today he produced a flawless, transparent crystal ball from somewhere unknown and set it on the table, then addressed the boys and girls: "Now, come up to the front one by one, put both hands on the crystal ball, and try to project your spiritual power outside your body. If the crystal ball is filled, you possess the most basic Mage aptitude. If the crystal ball lights up, your aptitude is excellent."
The youths hesitated. At this moment, on the verge of the instant that would change their fates, they were afraid, and none dared to be the first to step forward.
Mage Blake showed no impatience. Seeing this, he said to Adam, "Adam, come and give a demonstration."
Adam walked up, face blank, and covered the crystal ball with both hands. The youths stared at him fixedly, waiting for the crystal ball to change.
The change came fast and sudden—so fast that the youths could not even react. The instant Adam's hands touched the crystal ball, it filled rapidly with an unidentified gaseous substance. Adam cut off the flow of spiritual power, yet the change did not stop. The next second, a dazzling white light blazed up, and from within it came what seemed a faint bursting crack. Caught off guard, the youths raised their hands to shield their eyes, terror in their hearts.
"Hm?" Mage Blake let out a puzzled hum, but said no more than, "That's enough, Adam."
Adam caught the Mage's intonation precisely and committed it to memory. At Blake's word he took his hands off the crystal ball and quietly returned to his place. Ophelia was eager to try; she wanted to see how far she could get.
But Mage Blake was plainly not so idle: "That's how it's done. Now, starting with you, take the test."
The one Mage Blake casually pointed to was a timid boy with a scattering of freckles across his face. He looked frightened, but he still mustered the courage and walked to the front.
The boy put both hands on the crystal ball and pulled his whole body taut, spending every ounce of strength he had; his face even went red from lack of oxygen from straining so hard. Even so, the change inside the crystal ball was still slow. The unidentified substance was thin as mist, drifting through the sphere in wisps and threads, with no end in sight to filling it.
Despair gradually showed on the boy's face. He knew he was finished. The others, while congratulating themselves on not being first, grew even more frightened.
The main hall was dead silent.
A quarter of an hour later, Mage Blake's voice, devoid of feeling, broke the silence: "I'm sorry. Next."
The freckled boy's knees gave way and he collapsed to the floor, covering his face with both hands and sobbing. His parents rushed forward to help him up, their faces utterly desolate—but the path of the Mage knows no sympathy, and Mage Blake was unmoved.
After that the youths came forward one by one with the look of men marching to their execution. Each had a quarter of an hour. The outcome was tragic: nearly three hours passed, and not a single one had even the lowest grade of Mage aptitude.
The string of failures finally broke the composure of those who came after. Many of the more fragile-hearted children could not hold back their whimpering.
"Let me try."
In a situation like this, someone with that kind of positive air about her easily won people's goodwill. Adam did not care; he had devoted only a tiny fraction of his threads to watching the test, with all his remaining processing power fixed on reworking runes. But Ophelia was suffering, her spirits wilting, and this one "Let me try" made her perk up.
She was a girl with eyes that curved like crescent moons, and judging by her clothes she was a commoner. It was hard to imagine how a commoner had obtained such a qualification. She was gently prying her sleeve free of her parents' clutching fingers, and she gave her parents—trembling with worry—a reassuring smile before walking up to the crystal ball.
The crystal ball filled quickly; in under five minutes it was full. This girl was the first person today to possess Mage aptitude.
Mage Blake nodded in satisfaction. For Mordo as it stood now, one more Mage apprentice, however little use she might be, was still a gain worth making.
Just as he was about to speak, the crystal ball lit up. The light was not dazzling; it was soft as the girl's smile, and it did not shine far, only wreathing the girl herself. But lit it had, and that meant she possessed excellent aptitude.
Mage Blake clapped his hands in surprise, his face breaking into a smile: "Very good. Congratulations. Tell me your name."
"Crystal, honored Mage."
"Crystal. Good, I'll remember it. Now you may stand behind me and wait for the second round of testing—but don't worry, it isn't hard."
Mage Blake's tone was surprisingly friendly—a friendliness that neither Adam nor Ophelia—whose talent, he judged, was plainly stronger than Crystal's—had been granted. Adam judged that there had to be a reason for it.
Crystal's success was a shot in the arm for the rest. If the only commoner among them had passed, then as nobles they had no reason to fail; that was how they comforted themselves.
Perhaps because of the power of an example, by the time the sky began to darken, three more of the remaining youths turned out to possess Mage aptitude. They had not made the crystal ball light up, but it was enough to make them overjoyed.
Once the failures had withdrawn, Mage Blake once again traced the basic spiritual power solidification rune in the air before the four children. To their eyes this trick of his was already magic, and they watched spellbound.
The reason the basic rune is basic is that it is easy to learn and easy to master. Fast or slow, all four without exception left the rune in their minds.
Throughout this Adam said not a word; he concentrated on optimizing the basic rune, trying to evolve and create from it a spiritual power solidification rune suited to himself, until the four new apprentices began asking their questions.
"When will I get to learn magic?"
"After I become a Mage, can I still go home?"
"Where is Mordo Academy?"
The youths plainly did not understand how precious this chance to ask a question was. Their immature minds made them blurt out pointless questions. Mage Blake answered them lightly; as far as he was concerned this was no bad thing—at least it saved him a great deal of breath.
When it was Crystal's turn, that strange friendliness appeared once again. For the first time in anyone's memory, Mage Blake reminded her: "What is your question? First, a reminder: in the Mage world, free opportunities like this, with no limit on their scope, are few. Don't ask trivial questions like these few idiots did."
Apart from Crystal, the other three were all boys. Hearing Mage Blake's words, their faces fell. They sensed dimly that they had missed something, but missed was missed; there was no chance to do it over.
Crystal looked at the Mage gratefully. She had long since settled on her question, but this friendliness from on high was undoubtedly to her advantage.
"Honored Mage, just now I had been about to take my hands off the crystal ball, but it suddenly lit up. I'd like to know—what does the crystal ball's light mean?"
Adam blinked. Unless Crystal was Mage Blake's bastard daughter, the reason for his friendliness must have something to do with the crystal ball's light.
Sure enough, Mage Blake gave her an approving smile and said, "The crystal ball is the work of alchemy Mages. It is called the Aptitude Tester. Its purpose is to appraise Mage aptitude and to reveal spiritual power inclination: the light of the crystal ball shows the path to which you are attuned. From your light I read air."
He turned his gaze to Adam and, without even mentioning a fee, said directly, "Adam's is some kind of explosive elemental aura. Forgive me, but I cannot read it completely—there are simply too many paths of magic, after all."
Adam knew he was riding on Crystal's coattails; otherwise Mage Blake would not have been so kind as to tell him this news, even though the Mage had not said it outright.
Mage Blake went on: "You are different from Adam. Adam's aptitude is the strongest I have ever seen. As long as he isn't stupid as a pig, his spiritual power alone will make him a formal Mage without much difficulty, and it makes no difference which path he takes. But for you this is very important. Choosing a path you are attuned to will greatly raise your chances of success."
Crystal bowed deeply to Mage Blake and said, "Thank you very much, honored Mage Blake."
Anxiety showed on Ophelia's face. She too wanted to know what her own Mage inclination was. Such information could always be obtained later through one channel or another, but knowing one step early could only help, never hurt.
Count Johnson, who had at some unknown point entered the main hall, did a father's duty—or perhaps he wanted to leave a bond in his daughter's heart now, at the moment she was about to leave. He spoke up: "Honored Mage Blake, might I ask you to tell my daughter the news about her? For that, I am willing to pay a small energy vein."
In the Mage World, terms like small, medium and large have strict standards. The honored Mage was plainly not a man who liked to take advantage of people. He said to the Count, "I am happy to oblige, however—"