Chapter 9: Admission Test I
He was going to get as strong as possible.
Magnus was planning on learning everything he could from the Academy before leaving. Although he hadn't told Estelle and Remus about this, he had zero plans of graduation, it would just be a waste of time.
After registering for enrollment along with Estelle and Remus, they were guided to an open hall filled with even more people.
The hall was huge, it was gigantic, he didn't even know how to describe it. When entering, it seemed tiny, and yet when inside, it stretched out for so long.
"Gigantic, isn't it? Apparently, this room was modified by magic to become over 10 thousand square meters or over 100 thousand square feet. Magic sure is incredible huh?"
Remus said, after noticing Magnus's astonishment.
After waiting for a couple of minutes, a middle-aged man appeared in the hall. Even though he seemed to be around 40-50 years of age, his body way too muscular to be called so, however, he couldn't be described with words like bulky.
He had an average stature but was also incredibly muscular. It was hard to describe.
The second the man had entered the hall, everyone had turned silent. The man had a sort of 'Aura' around him that seemed to exert its overbearing attitude over every one of them there.
Most of the people there couldn't even move their bodies, it was like their bodies were fearful of what might happen if they did. It was an innate fear, with nothing they could do about it. However, there were also a small handful of people who weren't affected by the 'Aura'.
"Listen up, all of you."
His eyes were sharp and his posture and attitude serious, he spoke really quietly but his voice seemed to echo around the entire large room.
"The enrolling, 'Admission Test', is going to begin. Each year, the Admission Test is different. This year, due to the large influx of applicants to be students, we've decided to do it the old-fashioned way."
From the way he was talking, Magnus could infer that he was probably someone big, possibly even a Ranker. Considering there was literal pin drop silence across the entire hall, many people had probably already come to this conclusion.
"We are going to bring 100 machines here, they shall calculate the approximate force given by the person who strikes them. One thing that everyone here in this hall has in common is that all of you have decided to choose combat, or combat affiliated courses. And there's no point in combat if you're weak. We don't need weaklings. Only the top 30% of the people in this room pass. Any and all special skills or abilities you may have are applicable, feel free to use them.
In the case of any special circumstances, I will be the one that decides the outcome. Lastly, the top 30% of the 10,000 people in this room will be displayed in a large leaderboard on a screen on the roof, anyone at the bottom 70% after we finish can leave."
Immediately, the quiet hall buzzed into loud shouts, presumably from the not-so-strong applicants. Many people disagreed with this outrageous test. Firstly, the admission test was never as hard as reaching the top 30% just to enroll, not to mention that the only thing tested was strength. What about all the people who were 1 in a million strategists, or people whose bodies were faster than light.
However, even against this loud backlash caused by thousands of people at the same time, the man only had one thing to say,
"Quiet."
As soon as he said that, everyone shut up. It wasn't that they wanted to, it was more like the gravity in the area had doubled. Some of the weaker people even gagged and threw up. Silent screams could be seen across almost everyone's faces.
Even Remus was having a hard time keeping his composure. Magnus, however, was completely fine. He wasn't sure if it was due to a particular stat or trait, but he barely even felt anything. He looked around, and after 30 seconds of searching, he had found 6 other people.
Six other people, who were just like him, all six could sense each other. They all had similar levels of strength. All seven of them looked at each other. One of them was one of the purple-haired boys from earlier, the one who did the talking.
Considering he was at a similar level of strength to Magnus, Magnus was surprised. He couldn't feel it earlier when they had first met, but now he could easily feel his strength, perhaps it had something to do with this room or the aura exhibited by that man.
The boy, too, was surprised to see Magnus. He had assumed that Magnus was a servant of Estelle and Remus, so he didn't bother even giving him a proper glance. But now, he could sense Magnus's strength. However, he just scoffed, assuming that the Aurellia family had just hired a bodyguard to protect the twins.
While the 7 were scouting each other's approximate level of strength, a beautiful mature woman had appeared from seemingly nowhere and whispered in the middle-aged man's ear, "Are you sure you want the test to commence like this? It might cause, no- well, it has already caused a significant backlash. I'm not sure increasing the pressure is a good idea."
"It's the most straightforward way, just like I like it. Besides, I don't have time for weaklings." Replied the man with a deadpan, as always.
"Either way, even with so many people, I wasn't expecting these many stars this year, perhaps your aura helped us at least find them a lot sooner than expected. There seem to be... around seven of them, way more than the average 2 or 3 we get each year. This might get interesting," said the woman with a seductive expression, licking her lips at her last sentence.
Magnus had noticed her appearance, although he couldn't discern what the 2 people were talking about, he could tell it had something to do with the 7 people, including him. The woman stepped forward for a bit, seemingly having teleported a couple of dozen meters with just one step.
Now that Magnus could see her better, she was extremely beautiful, at a similar level to Estelle, but she had a more mature yet playful vibe to her.
'Sigh, don't get distracted, Magnus'. Magnus usually never noticed the appearance of women, so he was confused by his reaction to her beauty.
It didn't take long for him to realize that it wasn't just him, many boys, and even a couple of girls around him blushed or reacted severely when they saw her.
'Ah, she must have a trait that makes her appear seductive, I get it.'
Finally understanding, Magnus paid more attention to the woman, who had come forward and waved her hand, causing exactly 100 weird scientific-looking machines to appear in a straight-file line.
"Anyone can enter, there's no order. Good luck!" said the woman, biting her lips even more seductively.
Even though she said gave them the green light, the entire hall was silent for around 10 seconds before people fought against the pressure to go to the machines. Hundreds of traits and even a couple of skills flashed around the entire room, causing all sorts of particles to spread across the entire hall.
Magnus carefully observed the way people struck the machines, before thinking to himself,
'They're weak? I was expecting them to be a lot stronger.'
Even though there were 10,000 children of the age of 15 present there, Magnus felt like he was stronger than all of the ones who had taken the test so far. Names flashed at the top as the rankings changed every second. Everyone only got one attempt so they all used their all to strike the machines.
Magnus vigilantly kept on observing. He looked at the Display screen on the roof, which was enchanted with magic in such a manner that one could find their position and their rating, along with the top 30% of people so far.
He had noticed that although there was a ranking that displayed the positions, there was no actual unit of strength given, he wondered why.
At that moment, Remus and Estelle, who were right next to him, patted his shoulder as they passed him to take part. They had to take multiple other tests after this, so they didn't want to stay here for too long. The only reason they were planning on waiting for long was to help Magnus if it was a difficult task, however, it was literally just to punch.
And judging by the punch on the ring leader on the train the other day, Magnus had nothing to worry about.
"Wish me luck!"
"We're gonna go now, take your time and good luck!"
"Good luck guys."
They all said a couple of words of goodbye before Estelle and Remus left.
Magnus waited for their score on the leaderboard to pop up, and there it was. Estelle had come in 4th while Remus came in 13th place. Although this was just the beginning and only about 10 percent of the people had gone so far, their places weren't likely to change by too much.
Then, Magnus noticed one of the 7 people on his level or stronger, going forward. He wasn't the only one, the other 5 of the 7 along with the middle-aged man and the beautiful woman were all focusing their gazes on the person that had stepped forward.
It was a short-statured boy, he was wearing a black, unzipped hoodie, a white t-shirt, and some black pants. He looked like your normal, average teenager, but this was a vicious world, there was no such thing as normal and average. The boy's face was covered by the hood of his jacket.
The boy stepped in front of the machines, slowly, people stopped watching others, and even though they couldn't feel his strength like the 5 children and the 2 invigilators, they still felt a subconscious urge to watch him.
When the boy reached around a couple of meters in front of the machine, he pulled his hood down and pulled his sleeves up, and what people could see was that his entire body was covered in darkness. His skin was jet black, and so was every other part of his body, other than his teeth and eyes, both of which were shining white, which made him look incredibly scary.
The second he revealed his skin, the eyes of the two invigilators widened.
"That's... is that-" the woman said before she got interrupted.
"Yes. It does appear so." the man ended the conversation but seemed to be full of thought.
The boy suddenly dashed forward at full speed and was pretty much unseeable, and just appeared as a blur to the naked eye. Before most could even react, smoke covered several dozens of meters, in all directions. After it cleared up, the first thing everyone did was look up to check the rankings, and they saw that there was a pretty major update to it.
Everyone had gone down by one place,
The boy with the jet black body had taken first place.
'At least, for now.' thought Magnus, although he had no intention of doing things that drew unnecessary attention to himself, he didn't have much of a choice here, he wanted to see how well he compared to that boy if he would be above him or weaker than him.
"Fuuuuu."
Taking a deep breath and sigh, Magnus was about to go to the machines to test himself before he noticed something.
'Four.'
Out of the seven, one was Magnus, the other was the boy covered in black, leaving 5 people, and 4 of those people had stepped up.
'It seems like this is only the beginning'
*Siiiiiiiigh*
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