Chapter 33: I underestimated them.
Blake quickly went to the area meant for the students of the Wind Griffin dormitory and waited for the event to begin.
Time trickled by as he watched the seats of the arena being filled up. After 30 minutes the arena was completely filled up and the atmosphere was electrifying as the audience was looking forward to an entertaining show.
The arena quietened when principal Lovren appeared at the center of the stage. They all listened to Lovren's speech.
"For more than a month, you all have been training hard for this day, for a chance to get into Calton magic school. Today is the day for you all to demonstrate your own abilities and show that the past month of hard work has not been a waste and as you prove that you have what it takes to be admitted into the main school, I wish you good luck." Principal Lovren didn't waste time as he quickly went into the event of the day.
Applauds were heard all around the arena as principal Lovren walked off the stage.
"Good day ladies and gents, I am Charles Gabe and I'll be your host." A slim Caucasian man who was still in his thirties, with brown permed hair and ordinary facial features, walked up to the stage and announced.
"Unlike the awakening test of previous years, this would be a blast! The rules for being accepted into the main school has been changed."
Most of the commoners in the audience that had no ideas of the happenings in the school had confused looks on their faces at first, but it soon changed to excitement as they quickly listened to know what the school had in stock for this year's test.
"The students of the preliminary school will be having the choice of getting accepted into the normal class or the elite class of the main school, but each choice comes with a challenge."
"The challenge for the normal class is a pretty easy one, all they have to do is touch the awakening orb to ascertain their levels and to cast the skill of their awakened element under a few seconds."
How can he say it is "pretty" easy?... Some of the students sneered when they heard the host's word. Even though most of them had gotten to the warrior level, not many of them could cast a spell, especially in a short period.
For someone at their level to cast a spell, they had to be fully concentrated in order to draw the energy particles to themselves before channeling the spell.
This was a big problem for them, not only will a limited amount of time be given, but there would also be the pressure of having more than three hundred thousand people watching them.
Being ignorant of how many of his generations that were cursed because of a single word he spoke, Charles continued his explanation"The challenge for the elite class is one meant for geniuses and not for those that are faint in heart. The elite challenge is a one on one combat in which skills and techniques would be tested. The winner of the match automatically gets accepted into the main school, while the loser will be judged based on his performance in the battle."
The host went on for a few minutes explaining every detail about the test, even the part about being expelled if a student was not deemed worthy by the judges was mentioned.
After all the rules were explained to the audience the awakening test began.
The phoenix dormitory was the first to take the test. The students that chose the normal test went to the center of the arena and placed their hands on the awakening orb.
As expected almost all of them had filled up the four stars of their first element, some of them had even filled the first star and had gone half of the second star of their second element, but a number of them had not reached the warrior level and they were expelled immediately.
"Wow! That means their talent level is 0 or close to that." Blake was shocked to see that some people had not reached the warrior stage even though they were given more time.
If they were to stay in the concealed space to cultivate, they would have been able to make it only by a slim margin, but the school can't afford to give their limited resources to those with low talent… Blake thought as he watched the boy with teary eyes walk out of the arena.
The student with the highest number of stars in the phoenix dormitory was Lucas Ulrik. He had awakened the earth element and had was in the early stage of the third star of the fire element.
Why wasn't he taking the elite test, especially with his level of cultivation? This was the question on the minds of most of the audience.
Even among the scions of the Ulrik family, Lucas cultivation could be considered very high, but only a few understood why he was not taking the elite test.
"Although his level is pretty high and the earth element grants high physical defense, the earth element doesn't have offensive abilities that would be useful in a one on one combat. So, it was a wise decision rather than being overconfident and getting expelled." Blake quickly analyzed the situation and came to a conclusion, but something was not feeling right.
'If the highest in the normal test was in the early stage of the 3rd star, doesn't that mean that those for the elite test were above him… I underestimated them.' This made Blake squint his eyes.
If his guesses were correct, there was a chance that someone had reached the warrior level for both elements!
Those that passed the awakening went straight to the spell casting test. They were given only 7 seconds to activate their spells or they fail the test.
Although 7 seconds looked like a short time especially for students who just advanced to the warrior level, it was considered to be more than enough because in combat all decisions made were done in split seconds, and a spell that took too long to be released only led to death.