Chương 12: Final Verdict

It was not a simple matter to judge how good someone was at practicing magic. After all, it wasn't like there was a single innate characteristic that one could measure and point at as proof that someone would make a great mage if given a chance. Instead, mages trying to evaluate potential students looked for people with strong souls, compatibility for their foundational technique, and ability to handle various forms of magic exposure.

If all or most of these tests came back with high results, the candidate was almost certainly a good one – barring any issues with their personality and work ethics, they were likely to go far. However, such a result was rare. Most people that deviated from the norm had only one good trait or were a mixed bag with a list of pros and cons. As such, the final judgment about any particular candidate tended to be somewhat subjective.

Especially since powerful mages often had their own esoteric ideas of what was really important for a mage to have… Marcus stood at the center of the wooden stage that had been temporarily erected just outside the Willowhill orphanage.

There was a large crowd of people gathered around the stage – all of the children living in the orphanage, many of the families from the nearby Willowhill village, and even a handful of travelers passing through the region who had decided to stop and watch the spectacle for whatever reason. On the left corner of the crowd, Marcus could see a handful of richly-dressed men who he recognized as royal agents – observers sent here by the king of Elora to take notes and report back to him.

Also present was a small group of older children that kept themselves visibly separate from the rest of them, accompanied by a pair of severe-looking mages. This group was part of the Great Tree delegation, so it was understandable they were a bit awkward when interacting with others. All of these people gathered here were present for the same reason: to attend the judging ceremony and have a chance to be chosen as Marcus's students.

Marcus estimated there was about 150 candidates present in the crowd, plus a bunch of adult spectators. Marcus stood on the stage in silence, his fingers rhythmically tapping on his staff as his eyes repeatedly swept through the crowd, observing them.

The usual procedure for this kind of event was for the organizer of the event to make a dramatic entrance, showcasing some of his magic and wealth to the gathered candidates – not just because powerful mages tended to be prideful people, but also to reassure the candidates they're making the right choice and motivate them to try their best to get chosen.

Yes, the adults had told the gathered children that Marcus was a powerful mage and how it would be an incredible boon if they were to get chosen by him, but most of these candidates were in their early teens and had their own thoughts and biases. Landing on the stage on a powerful magical beast or a cloud of magical energies, openly dressed in a dazzling and elaborate outfit, wielding an obviously magical weapon… these things tended to do a lot to put the candidates in the proper mindset for a judging ceremony.

But Marcus refused to do any of that. He had simply walked onto the wooden stage like a regular person, wielding no visible magic, dressed in his usual robes, and carrying nothing except his simple wooden staff. And now he was just watching the crowd in silence for a full minute, ignoring the confused muttering from the people watching him.

In all likelihood, the only reason the crowd was so relatively calm was that Pliny and Titus were standing a few steps behind Marcus, to the left and right of him respectively, lending him their authority by their very presence. Pliny was well-known and respected by the orphans and locals alike, and Titus was the leader of the Great Tree Academy. If they stood behind Marcus and at his side, that meant he had to be someone powerful and distinguished.

If anyone asked him, Marcus would say this was just another test for the gathered candidates to overcome.

"My friends," he finally spoke.

"Welcome. Thank you for coming here. I see that a number of curious passersby have joined us, so let me formally announce the occasion: I am here to choose five or so students from these gathered children. More if you're all brimming with talent. None if you are all inadequate. Although some of you are here by happenstance, you are welcome to participate in the judging ceremony, if you have children of appropriate age present. We'll call it fate."

There was no inherent reason why people couldn't learn magic as very young children or as mature adults. However, very young children did not have the mentality to practice magic responsibly and grown adults usually had families and other obligations to worry about. As such, it was generally agreed upon that the best time to start learning magic was when one was somewhere between twelve and sixteen of age. Marcus did not intend to deviate from that custom.

In any case, his statement that he was going to allow random travelers to participate visibly annoyed some of the gathered orphans, and one of them immediately called out to him.

"Oi! Big guy! I thought you used to be one of us! What gives?" one of the orphan boys protested. He pointed rudely at the Great Tree children huddled together on the right side of the gathering.

"You even brought a bunch of people who are already mages! What kind of nonsense is this!? How are any of us supposed to compete with that?" Marcus waited for him to finish speaking and then fixed him with the most intense stare he could manage, letting a tiny sliver of his spirit leak out of him. Not enough to manifest a ghostly tree behind him, but enough to give even regular people in the audience a subtle feeling of mental pressure. Of course, the orphan he was staring at was particularly affected.

"They are not competing with you, young man," Marcus told him.

"I will pick exactly one of them as my student, assuming any of them pass the muster. Not one more. Make a good showing here, and one of the five students I spoke of earlier could be you." The boy tried to respond, but after a few seconds of opening and closing his mouth in silence, he only managed an unintelligible mumble in response. Marcus reined in his spirit, and the entire crowd suddenly seemed to take a deep, panicked breath. Hm. Maybe he'd gone a little overboard on that one.

"We've gotten side-tracked already," Marcus remarked loudly.

"But maybe it's for the best. Instead of giving you a long motivational speech, let me just state this: the only way to truly fail my tests today is to give up or to not give it an honest try to begin with. You should also remember that nothing you see today can kill you or even truly hurt you, no matter what it looks like at first glance. All the dangers you encounter are illusory in nature." His words did not seem to put the gathered people at ease.

"Now that we have that settled, I will tell you what the first test entails," Marcus continued. He pointed at the orphanage not far from the stage.

"We will start with something simple. Your first task is to run ten laps around the orphanage building and then come back here." The children glanced at one another in confusion. Although most of them had never been at a judging ceremony, they knew in broad strokes how they usually went. The candidates were usually presented with a number of magical items to see if they resonated with any of them and how strongly, a mage or two held their hand and performed some kind of esoteric examination on them.

Sometimes a test of patience, or an interrogation under a magical oath was required, but a display of physical prowess was not typically mentioned. This was because mages did not need to have strong bodies to perform their magic. The ability of a mage to cast their spells depended primarily on their mental and spiritual traits. This kind of test was more appropriate for a warrior adept than a mage…

"Why are you all just standing there?" Marcus asked them, feigning puzzlement. He knew why they hesitated, but didn't feel compelled to explain himself.

"Didn't I just say that the only way to truly fail my tests is to give up? You will all fail if you don't start running." Almost immediately, some of the children started to break off from the group and start running towards the direction of the orphanage. Those few were soon followed by a dozen more, and then the whole group started to break off from the spectating adults and run towards the orphanage in a disorganized wave.

Marcus paid close attention to those who reacted first, and was a little pleased that Cricket was one of the first children to heed his command and start the avalanche. He knew he'd liked her for a reason.

"No trying to sabotage others!" Marcus yelled, not bothering to come down from his wooden stage. His voice was magically carried so that every candidate in the area could hear him as if he were standing right next to them. It was the exact same spell that Gaius had used on him during their last meeting. Marcus had hated that Gaius had access to something he didn't, so he went through quite a bit of trouble to track down the spell in question.

"Yes, tall boy, I'm talking to you! Try to trip the other children one more time and you're disqualified. And the three of you hiding behind the orphanage building, what do you think you're doing? Do you think I was born yesterday? I'm adding two more laps to your count just for that!" He kept shouting threats for a few more minutes before the children finally understood that he had some way of monitoring them, even from a distance and through walls.

After a while, they stopped trying to outsmart him with 'clever tricks' and just kept running. They were doing better than he thought they would. Perhaps because his candidates were mostly orphans and rural villagers, but they seemed to be in decent shape. Many of them had slowed down considerably after only a few laps, but none of them looked like they were on the verge of collapse from a little bit of exercise.

If Marcus had done this test in a big city like Adria, he suspected he would have gotten much, much worse results… He glanced to the side and saw that Titus had taken a step up to join him on the edge of the stage.

"The candidates you brought are doing much better than I'd thought they would," Marcus remarked.

"They don't even look that resentful that I'm making them run laps."

"We are a minor academy situated on the edge of wilderness. Our members are frequently given tasks that require them to traverse the forest for days at a time. A certain level of physical fitness is expected of all our recruits," Titus told him, a hint of pride in his voice. He gave Marcus a strange look, however.

"That said, I must admit I'm a little mystified as to why you're doing this. What does running have to do with picking a mage?"

"I want to see how they react to physical stress. I don't care who is first and who is last, I care about who quits and who pushes through till the end," Marcus said.

"That said, my lessons will involve lots of hands-on experience and travelling around, so it will be nice to know in advance which of the students I pick have to be whipped into shape and which don't." Marcus observed the Great Tree candidates running around the orphanage for a second. Although they were currently behind the orphanage building, Marcus had scattered a number of arcane eyes throughout the area, and there were essentially no blind spots where his vision couldn't reach.

He was still limited in his ability to divide his attention between everything that was happening, but that was not a big issue at the moment. He couldn't help but notice that all of the Great Tree candidates were suspiciously clustered together as they ran. That was very suspicious, because the group consisted of three boys and three girls. Barring magic use, boys were nearly always faster than girls, yet the three boys seemed reluctant to speed up and leave their female counterparts behind.

Looking at the group more closely, Marcus realized that two of the girls were the same – they were also capable of going faster, but they refused to do so. The reason for that appeared to be a tall girl with long brown hair and glasses. She was the final part of the Great Tree delegation, and she was clearly in the worst physical shape out of all of them, visibly struggling and breathing heavily as she ran. Yet, the other five refused to leave her too far behind, as if afraid of showing her up too much.

Thinking back on it, Marcus realized that even when the group was standing in front of the stage, everyone basically followed her lead, moving when she did and rarely saying anything unless she spoke to them.

"Be honest, Titus," Marcus said.

"You want me to choose the girl with the glasses, don't you?" Titus was visibly taken aback by the question.

"Wha- How? Was I that obvious?" Marcus raised an eyebrow at him. Titus had the decency to look slightly ashamed.

"Julia has a wood affinity," the Great Tree leader admitted.

"I wasn't going to say anything but she's the natural choice for your student." A wood affinity… it was almost tragic. Having an elemental affinity was usually an incredible advantage, and guaranteed that you would have mages fighting over who gets to teach you. However, since wood spells were functionally non-existent, most academies didn't care about children with wood affinity. Great Tree academy was probably the only academy that placed some kind of value on them.

"I don't like that the other children are holding back for her sake," Marcus said.

"I'll have to make sure to put all the other Great Tree children before her when conducting the next test, so they can't know how she did before making their own attempts."

"I'll talk to them after this," Titus sighed, rubbing his temple.

"I swear I didn't tell them to do this." Marcus glanced to his other side, where Pliny had stepped forward to stand beside him and Titus while they were talking.

"I forgot to ask, but how did the written exams go?" Marcus asked Pliny. Pliny had organized a test of basic reading and writing skills for the orphans a few days before this judging ceremony, as part of the general preparations for the event. It also tested for other academic subjects, such as mathematics, geometry, history, and religion. The academies did something similar with their candidates, but even more extensive.

Since Marcus was dealing with a bunch of orphans who lived in the middle of nowhere, he had opted to be very tolerant of the poor results, but he still wanted to know what he was dealing with.

"Since you decided to add a bunch of newcomers to the candidate pool on a whim without consulting me first, the results are obviously incomplete," Pliny told him matter-of-factly. Oops.

"But yes, I tested all the orphans and the Willowhill villagers. The results are all over the place, like usual, but there are a few gems here and there. Is there someone in particular you're interested in? Livia did awful, in case you're wondering."

"The short, shifty-looking orphan with black hair and dark eyes," said Marcus, pointing at one of the figures running in the distance. He tried to remember the boy's name. He did his best to memorize the names of every orphan in preparation for the day, but he wasn't confident he didn't mix them up in his head.

"Renatus, yes?" Pliny was silent for a second.

"Of course it's him you find interesting," the old man finally said, sounding a little defeated and annoyed.

"What? What's wrong with him?" Marcus asked curiously.

"Do you remember when you first came back?" Pliny asked.

"I was telling you about how one of the kids caused a road accident and somehow caused a merchant wagon to flip over?"

"That was him?" Marcus asked.

"That was him," Pliny confirmed.

"Hm," Marcus said, not sounding particularly scandalized.

"I've been watching him the last few weeks I spent around the orphanage. He is… as you said, interesting."

"He's a bigger troublemaker than you were," Pliny warned him.

"That said, he actually did extremely well in the academics test."

"Do you think he cheated?" Titus asked, frowning.

"No, this is normal," Pliny shook his head.

"Renatus is a huge troublemaker, but he's always been one of my best students. He actually listens during my lessons and even asked to borrow some of the books in my office to read in his free time. I'm not surprised he did well on the written test. The problem is not that the boy is dumb. The problem is that he's clever enough to think up all manner of wild ideas, but not clever enough to realize he shouldn't try them."

After a while, the candidates started finishing their laps and a steady stream of children started returning to the space in front of the stage. Marcus watched them like a hawk, vigilant against people trying to cut corners near the end, but by this point all of them knew he had some way to spot cheaters and no one tried to claim they finished more laps than they did. Even the ones he punished by adding on extra laps for cheating actually finished all the extra laps before trying to return.

Marcus waited until there were only eight people still circling the orphanage before deciding to move onto the next phase. The crowd in front of him was getting increasingly loud as they talked to one another, indicating they had rested long enough.

"Alright everyone, listen up!" he shouted, slamming his staff onto the wooden paneling of the stage a few times for emphasis.

"The eight of you who are still slowly walking around the orphanage, dragging yourselves along like earthworms, you are disqualified! You fail not only this test, but the whole judging ceremony. The rest of you, follow after me." Having said that, he left the stage, ignoring the loud protests of the eight candidates he just disqualified, and then proceeded to walk with purposeful strides towards a seemingly empty patch of grass to the east of the stage.

The children followed after him, some of them still a little wobbly after their recent exertion. The ones at the front were a little confused where he was leading them, however, as there was seemingly nothing in front of them.

"What is he doing now?" one of the boys whispered to his friend. He thought he was quiet, but Marcus had better senses than most people realized. Even his fellow mages usually underestimated how well he could see and hear.

"He is not going to have us hike through the forest, is he?"

"We're here," Marcus said, suddenly stopping in place. He snapped his fingers theatrically, and canceled the illusion covering the place in front of him. The air shimmered and blurred, and the landscape in front of the crowd fell apart like a bad painting dropped into a river, revealing a large stone basin filled with metallic spheres. Each sphere was made out of brass, and a complicated web of lines was carved into their surface.

They gleamed brightly under the summer sun, and many of the children were unfamiliar with different metals and loudly wondered if they were looking at solid gold instead. The stone basin was surrounded by a circle of dirt, where all grass had been uprooted, creating a clear boundary. Marcus was standing on the very edge of that circle.

"Your next task is to claim one of the metal spheres behind me," Marcus said, pointing at the stone basin.

"However, this is not as simple as it appears." He made a series of quick gestures with his left hand, and a large grey snake seemingly materialized out of thin air, coiling itself protectively around the edge of the basin. Black, tiger-like markings covered its grey body, and a pair of small horns jutted just above its eyes, which were slitted and bright yellow. It reared its head threateningly in the air, flicking its tongue curiously at the group. All the children collectively took a step back.

Some more than one step. One girl screamed.

"This snake is only an illusion," Marcus told them.

"It is not poisonous, and it will not do any lasting damage. However, it will still bite you if you try to grab one of the spheres it is protecting."

"You can't be serious!" the girl who screamed protested loudly.

"Who wants to be the first to give it a try?" Marcus asked, ignoring her outburst. Marcus expected the whole group to hesitate for a long time. He wouldn't have been surprised at all if nobody volunteered to be first. In that case, he would have simply taken out the list of participants Pliny had made for him and started going through it alphabetically. Instead, after a second of silence, one of the orphan girls straightened herself up and strode forth without hesitation.

She didn't slow down her steps even when the horned snake opened its mouth and hissed at her approach, clearly preparing to strike. She stepped straight into the snake's attack range, not even attempting to dodge the strike, and shot her arm forward to snatch one of the spheres in the basin. The snake struck without hesitation, burying its illusory teeth into the girl's shoulder. The girl winced, but didn't cry out in pain.

She simply threw herself back, brass sphere clutched desperately in her hand, and then took a deep, panicked breath. Her other hand immediately shot towards her wounded shoulder, only to find it completely healthy and intact. Not even her clothes were damaged by the fangs. Marcus stared at the girl appreciatively, impressed with her courage. While the snake's fang did no damage, they did hurt … and yet the girl in front of him powered through the pain and the fear without any visible issue.

She did not look particularly remarkable at first glance – just a regular orphan girl with short, messy blonde hair, average in height and build. The only notable feature was an old scar clearly visible on her left cheek.

"Cassia, right?" Marcus asked her. His question seemed to break her out of her shock, and she stopped examining her shoulder. She immediately took a deep breath and stood prouder, extending her hand towards him to show off the brass sphere she was holding.

"That's me," she said.

"I win, right?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"You win," Marcus said, bursting into laughter.

"I will definitely remember you." Marcus turned towards the rest of the gathered children and pointed at the stone basin guarded by the snake. The illusory animal seemed unconcerned by how utterly ineffectual its bite ended up being, and continued coiling around the basin in clear warning to all future attempts.

"Who wants to go next?" Marcus asked.

Inspired by Cassia's show of bravery, one of the orphan boys immediately stepped forth next to give it a try. Marcus instructed Cassia to stand to his side, separate from the rest of the group, and cleared some space for the attempt. The boy confidently strode forth towards the snake, trying to replicate Cassia's feat by simply reaching for the sphere and ignoring the snake bite. Yet, fear got the better of him.

His hand reached out too slowly and hesitantly, and before his fingers could close around the brass sphere, the snake bit him in the wrist. He immediately jumped back with a cry of pain, his other hand clutching his bitten wrist. The pain faded quickly, and he soon realized, as Cassia did, that he was unharmed. However, unlike Cassia, he didn't have a sphere in his hand. His trial wasn't over yet. The boy looked at Marcus, then back at the brass spheres guarded by the illusory snake.

Gritting his teeth and balling both of his hands into fists, he stomped towards the basin again. It took him two more tries before he managed to claim a sphere of his own. The third person to make an attempt was Cricket. Amusingly, after stepping forth to make an attempt, Cricket then spent the next thirty seconds visibly talking to herself, trying to hype herself up with things like 'You can do it!' and 'It's not real!'

Marcus was just about to poke her with his staff to break her out of it when she stepped forward towards the snake. Despite talking to herself about how the snake was just an illusion and the pain was nothing, Cricket opted not to confidently walk into the snake's attack range. She did not want to get bitten and, credit where credit was due… she succeeded. By hesitantly hovering near the edge of the snake's attack range, Cricket eventually managed to bait the snake into lunging towards her and missing.

Before the snake could recover and make another attack, Cricket snatched a sphere out of the basin and ran out of its range. The snake did not follow.

"I did it!" she yelled, running towards Marcus with a sphere clutched so hard in her hand her fingers were turning white.

"I did it, I did it, I did it!"

"You did it," Marcus nodded.

"Now stand to the side and let others make the attempt as well." After Cricket, another twenty or so children volunteered to make the attempt. Most of them opted to try and copy Cricket's method rather than Cassia's, which was probably a mistake, as most of them ended up being bitten several times due to this, instead of just once. They simply didn't have Cricket's timing and reflexes, and were unable to duplicate her feat.

One of the last people to volunteer was Renatus, that troublemaker that Pliny spoke so negatively about. Unlike others, he had a relatively unique method in mind. He took off his shirt and swung it at the snake, hoping it to distract it and claim a sphere without issue. He actually did succeed in confusing the illusion and the snake missed him with its first strike, but in his rush to claim the sphere before it recovered he tripped over his feet and was too slow to recover himself.

He ended up being bitten in the ass as he made his retreat. He did claim a sphere after only getting bit once, though, which was better than most.

"Congratulations," Marcus told him.

"Now please put your shirt back on and step to the side."

"Um, actually, can I just say something to my friend before I do that?" Renatus asked. Marcus stared at him for a second, trying to think up a reason to deny his request.

"Go ahead," he eventually said. Renatus quickly ran off to another orphan and pulled him to the side before whispering something into his ear. He then ran back to Marcus and joined the group of twenty or so children who claimed the sphere from the basin. Whatever Renatus told his friend, it clearly convinced the boy to volunteer for the attempt next. He was very reluctant, and he ended up being bitten no less than four times because of it, but he did claim a sphere for himself by the end of it.

After him, there were no more volunteers. When Marcus called for the next attempt, everyone shifted awkwardly in their place, kept their head down, and tried to look as small as possible. Marcus took out the list of names from his pocket and started reading it in alphabetical order. Although fearful, most of the children did step forth when he read their names. Marcus deliberately scrambled the order by which the six candidates from Great Tree Academy made their attempts, ensuring that Julia made her attempt last.

All six ended up claiming a sphere of their own, and truthfully, Julia was probably the bravest among them. While she did not volunteer to make the attempt, she basically copied Cassia by simply walking up to the snake and accepting a bite in exchange for snatching a sphere as quickly and efficiently as possible. The only difference was that she screamed upon being bitten and was more obviously frightened afterwards. Not all of the children that made the attempt succeeded in getting the sphere.

Many of them gave up after being bitten too many times, or tried to claim a sphere without risking a bite and failed. It didn't help that as children successfully claimed sphere after sphere, the remaining were now concentrated deep in the center of the basin, making them harder to snatch without getting bitten. Marcus separated these candidates into two groups, one for those who had made the attempt but failed, and another for those who had succeeded in getting the sphere.

However, when someone failed to step up when their name was called, or stepped up but then failed to make so much as a single real attempt at getting the sphere, Marcus sent them back into the waiting group, along with those who hadn't yet made any attempts. By the time Marcus reached the end of his list, this third group contained more than 40 people.

"One last chance," Marcus told them.

"Do any of you want to make a second attempt?" He waited for ten seconds. Nobody stepped up.

"Very well. All of you are disqualified," he told the entire group. Many of them looked like they expected this, but two of them ran away crying. Marcus simply turned away from them and stepped up towards the group that had made the attempt at the snake, but gave up before getting the sphere.

"You have failed," he told them. A few of them visibly winced, and all of them looked either dejected or sullen. They probably expected to be disqualified as well, but Marcus had other ideas.

"However, I have said at the beginning of this that the only way to truly fail my tests is to give up and not try, and I meant it. Perhaps you will do better at other things." They immediately brightened up at this. Marcus snapped his fingers at the snake coiled around the stone basin, and it immediately collapsed into smoke and faded away.

"You will need one of the spheres for the next test, so please claim one for yourself now that the snake is gone." There was a brief stampede as the whole grouped rushed towards the basin. Marcus waited patiently for them to finish, amused by their pushing and cursing to be the first to claim one. There was more than enough for all of them, after all.

"If you're all done here, then follow me," Marcus told all the remaining candidates, gesturing with his staff.

"The next test will be happening over there."

"Excuse me!" one of the girls called out to him, waving her hand in the air to make him notice her.

"Is this a puzzle box?" She pointed at the brass sphere in her hand.

"It is," Marcus nodded.

"I'll explain more when we reach our destination."

"Ooh," he heard her mumble to herself.

"I like puzzles…" Marcus led them to another seemingly empty patch of land. This time, no one was confused when he snapped his fingers and caused the illusion on the area to fall away, revealing several rows of wooden stools. Enough for all of them to pick one to sit on, with plenty of them left empty.

"Don't worry," he told them.

"There will be no snakes involved this time." Nobody seemed to find this joke funny, for some reason.

"As one of you has already guessed, the sphere you're holding in your hands is actually a puzzle box. There are nine layers to the puzzle, with a new one unlocking every time you solve one. You will each pick a seat in the area, after which illusory black walls will spring up and separate you from the rest of your fellows so you can't collaborate with one another on solving the puzzle. You have exactly one hour to solve as many layers of the puzzle as you can manage. The more the better. Any questions?"

A hand immediately shot up in the air. It was the girl from earlier who had asked him about the sphere being a puzzle box.

"Yes?" Marcus asked.

"I solved it on the way here," she said.

"I highly doubt that, young lady. There is n-" Marcus began, but quickly cut himself off so as to not appear truly foolish. She was holding her outstretched hand towards him, showing individual pieces of the sphere piled into a crude lump. The puzzle box had been clearly disassembled entirely. Marcus immediately dismissed the notion that she had crushed it. The brass sphere was made out of metal and magically reinforced. No one here had enough physical force to forcefully pry it out.

Even Marcus would struggle to do so. The only way it was coming apart was if someone solved all nine layers of the puzzle correctly. But that was almost as ridiculous. The sphere was a copy of something Marcus had stolen from the ancient ruins of the Four Seasons Academy. It had taken Marcus two months to fully solve it, and that was with all the clues found in the area where he had discovered the original. He knew he wasn't exactly a puzzle person, but come on!

This girl really solved it in the ten minutes it took him to bring her to a new area?

"How?" he demanded.

"U-um, is there something wrong?" she said, suddenly uncertain.

"I didn't mean to offend…"

"There is nothing wrong, I just want to know how you figured it out so quickly," Marcus quickly clarified. He had chosen the puzzle box precisely because he'd thought it to be impossibly difficult for the children in front of him. He expected most of them to be stuck on the second layer by the end of it. The idea that someone could solve it completely never even crossed his mind.

"Oh well, the ball is clearly a riddle about the four seasons and the sun and the moon," She picked up two of the largest pieces from her palm.

"If you looked at these lines here-""Stop, stop," Marcus said quickly, waving both of his hands in front of him wildly.

"I believe you. You're giving too many clues to the other candidates! They're supposed to tackle this with their own wits. All of you quickly pick a seat and start! Time is already ticking! One hour! Go go go!" The other children scrambled towards the chairs, scattering in the area. Nothing seemingly happened when they sat down, but from the way they stared at their surroundings Marcus knew the illusory barrier he had put on the stools was working.

The illusory walls did not stop Marcus or anyone from outside from seeing everyone clearly, but from the perspective of the children, they had become suddenly surrounded by featureless black walls and everything had gone deathly silent. He had told them this was to prevent them from collaborating on solving the puzzle, and it was. But it was also deliberately somewhat disturbing and meant to unnerve them.

If any of them couldn't bear the darkness and the silence and rose from their seats before the time limit was over, they would be disqualified on the spot. Glancing beside him, he saw that the girl who solved the puzzle hadn't joined the others in claiming a seat of her own. She seemed uncertain what to do, and was staring at him curiously.

"You stay here," he told her. He couldn't help himself from sighing.

"You know, that was supposed to be a really difficult puzzle." She smiled at him awkwardly.

"I like puzzles," she said.

"I can see that," he said.

"What's your name?" She was not one of the orphans, nor one of the Willowhill villagers, and neither was she part of the Great Tree delegations. She was the child of one of the travelers who had stumbled upon the judging ceremony while passing through the area and had chosen to stay and observe. Only three such people sent their child to try their luck in the ceremony, and two of these were already eliminated.

"Claudia," she said.

"Where are you from, Claudia?" he asked her.

"Tell me about yourself." The other children had known origins and allegiances, but Claudia was a traveler he had allowed to participate in this on a whim, and was thus a big unknown. He would look into her more closely if she actually got chosen, but for now he wanted to know at least some basic facts.

"I'm from Drelzen," she said.

"That was, um, in the Siliciel Kingdom, except I don't think it exists anymore. It's in the Chaoswood region, and after the first Academy War, the king and the rest of his royal family were killed by rebels. After that, my family decided things weren't safe for us anymore, so we went north to try and find a new home elsewhere." Ah. She was a refugee. Marcus imagined there were a lot of those right now, especially ones pouring out of Chaoswood.

He tried to think up something encouraging to say, but he wasn't really good with words in this kind of situation.

"I see," he simply said after a few seconds. The two of them stared at the rows of children sitting on their stools, most of them staring at the brass puzzle box in their hands in complete silence. After a few seconds of this, Claudia spoke up again.

"Do you have another puzzle box for me to solve while we wait?"

Since Claudia gave everyone present a giant clue regarding the puzzle, they did much better at solving it than Marcus had originally intended. None of them had come even close to fully solving it like Claudia had, but Julia and Renatus both managed to solve five layers of the puzzle, which was impressive. Five more students solved four layers of it, and then most of the others had gotten stuck on either the second or the third layer.

Cricket and Cassia both solved only one layer of the puzzle, and even that with great difficulty. Very few people got disqualified in this round of testing, but ten candidates failed to solve even the easiest aspect of the puzzle within the time limit, and Marcus considered that a complete failure and sent them away. Either they hadn't even tried to think about the puzzle, or they were too stupid to be a mage.

After this, he led the ninety or so remaining candidates back to the wooden stage where the event had begun. He climbed back on it and motioned them to quiet down and listen.

"The next test is also the last one, and arguably the most important one. This is where I will test your overall compatibility with magic and my foundational technique," Marcus said.

"Why didn't you start with this!?" somebody shouted.

"Don't make me summon the snake again," Marcus threatened. Only silence answered him. Marcus was pleased.

"In the beginning, the gods spoke the world into existence, speaking words of power to both describe and define everything in existence. They determined what can be, and what cannot be. They set boundaries and rules, transforming the ever-churning primordial chaos that surrounded them into an orderly garden where lowly beings such as us could live our lives and aspire to join them in their heavenly abodes one day," Marcus said.

"These words form a pattern that makes up everything around us. You, me, the rocks and the trees around us, the ocean and the sky. I call them words, but they are more than that. The adepts call it logos, and it is the language of creation itself." The actual description of world creation differed slightly, depending on which temple or priest you asked, with some claiming the world was sung into existence, written like a book or a scroll, or drawn up like an architectural blueprint.

"Logos is not some unnatural or mystical thing. You encounter it every day of your lives. You are suffused with logos, defined by it. In a very real sense, you are logos. And that is why it's important that you approach this test with the right mindset. What you think of as talent for magic is simply an ability to resonate with the world around you and comprehend the logos that surrounds us." Marcus doubted that many of the children understood even a fraction of what he was really saying. But they didn't have to.

He simply had to put them into the right mindset for this. Although he was simplifying things a lot, having a proper mindset meant a world of difference for this kind of testing. Enough so that some families had their children take hypnotic potions before this kind of testing to make sure they were in an ideal mindset for the judging ceremony.

"Close your eyes," Marcus said. He closed his eyes too. He would not need them for what was coming next.

"Take a deep breath. Breathe out. Feel the air as it leaves your body. Extend your awareness outwards. Try to feel the world around you with your soul." Marcus let his spirit flare out behind him. Although their eyes were closed, Marcus knew that everyone in the vicinity was currently witnessing a massive ghostly oak materialize in the center of their consciousness.

"Everyone," Marcus spoke, his voice boring directly into their minds and soul.

"Repeat after me: I plant in my soul a seed of a mighty tree. Its roots stabilize the earth. Its branches reach out towards the heavens…" Every foundation technique had a magic chant. It was not real logos, for mortal words could never express the transcendental concepts that made up creation. But they could point towards the right way – a path that other people had trailblazed in the past, cutting channels of understanding that future generations might follow.

Marcus repeated the words for the Soul Tree Technique again and again, a hypnotic repetition of words and concepts. The mass of children repeated the words back at him, gradually synchronizing their pronunciation and timing as time went by. The reason was simple – he wanted to see how compatible everyone present was with the Soul Tree Technique. Compatibility with a foundational technique was easy to determine – just have a person try to perform it in front of you for a while, and see how they do.

A single hour of repetition was enough to get a very accurate reading on how suitable someone was to practice a particular technique. Unless there were external factors at play, a student was unlikely to suddenly develop an affinity for a foundational technique they were no good at, no matter how much time passed. Marcus could already tell that some of the children were completely unsuited for the technique.

They didn't chant along with the others, instead completely losing themselves in the illusion of the oak tree. They were mesmerized by it, their minds lost in a maze of thoughts and sensations, unable to follow any path. Some of the others were reciting the chant, but he felt no resonance from them – they just spoke the words, but didn't seem able to connect to the underlying logos that actually made the technique work.

Finally, there were about ten children that did perform the foundational technique correctly, and were resonating with its logos, but that resonance was weak and did not improve with time. They would be able to practice the technique, but their compatibility with it was very bad. Out of the 90 candidates that had gone into this final trial, 30 had already been effectively eliminated. However, Marcus did not intend to immediately send them away.

There was still a chance that some of them actually had really good elemental affinities and mana responses, and were simply poorly matched with the Soul Tree Technique in particular. It was a somewhat weird foundational technique, after all. If so, Marcus would not choose them as his students, but he would refer them to some other mage so they could try their luck again. Marcus had lots of enemies, but also quite a number of friends – his recommendation letter would carry a lot of weight with certain people.

After an hour of this, Marcus stopped. He opened his eyes and let the ghostly tree fade behind him. In front of the stage, the children started to wake up from their trance and discuss among themselves how they did.

"How did I do?" someone demanded.

"Master Marcus, how did we all do in the test!?" another agreed.

"The test is not over yet," Marcus told them. He pulled up a list of names again.

"When I call your name, come over on the stage and give me your hand. Ahem. Aelius King?" One of the orphans immediately ran up to the stage and stuck his hand at Marcus. He was positively vibrating with excitement. Marcus went through the names very quickly. Judging ceremonies in most academies could be very lengthy affairs, sometimes taking place over the course of several days.

It was difficult for a bunch of low-ranked mages and mundane bureaucrats to puzzle out someone's magic talent, and usually involved a collection of magical items and even specially enchanted rooms that candidates were meant to be exposed to. Marcus, however, only really needed to hold their hand, connect to their soul, and subject them to a rapid succession of small tests, most of them so subtle that the people he was judging didn't even realize there was a test to begin with.

It was basically the same thing he had done with Elid, and it only took him a minute or two per person. The only complication was when he got to the Great Tree delegation. They, unlike the other children present here, had already undergone several months of mage training, and were not complete beginners. That… complicated things.

Practicing magic strengthened the soul and increased one's ability to react to mana, and there was no way to distinguish whether someone had seemingly great talent because they had received prior magic instruction or because they were naturally talented. Assumptions could be made based on the student's circumstances, but Marcus did not know of their circumstances, so it was very hard to judge which of them was more talented than the other.

As such, he took nearly five minutes to do full testing on Julia, and when he finally let go of her hand, he found her staring at him with a frown, visibly biting her lower lip.

"Is there something you wish to say?" he asked her curiously.

"Doesn't… doesn't this kind of test usually involve items… and stuff…" Of course. She had gone through another judging ceremony already, when she joined the Great Tree Academy, so she undoubtedly knew how these things usually went.

"It does," Marcus confirmed, nodding sagely.

"Mages typically bring out a plethora of magical items such as rune tablets, elemental crystals, special potions, trapped magical insects, and whatnot. Then they observe whether the candidates can make them react in some way, and make educated judgments about their talents based on that."

"Then why aren't you doing that?" she asked, a trace of challenge in her voice.

"Because I'm a fifth rank mage, and I absorbed all six common elements into my foundation and spirit, as well as several uncommon ones," Marcus told her, unbothered by her lack of faith in his abilities.

"And since I have a spirit, my mana is like an extension of my body, and I can detect even the most minute alterations resulting from your attempts to interact with it. There is no better detector of elemental affinities and mana sensitivity than me. Any items I bring up would be superfluous."" All six common elements?" she asked, disbelievingly.

"And a few uncommon ones," Marcus pointed out. She looked like she wanted to call him a liar. He glanced at his list and put a check next to her name to indicate he had done her assessment.

"Marcellus King?" he called out.

"Get over here. I'm done with miss Julia."

After he had finished assessing all of the candidates, Marcus retreated to one of the rooms inside the orphanage, accompanied by Titus and Pliny, so they could discuss the results of the testing. The final choice was ultimately up to Marcus, but he wanted to discuss his thoughts with them and hear their opinion. Unfortunately, Marcus did not have any amazing news to report. If he had to describe any of the gathered children as 'talented', he would say Julia, Renatus, and another male orphan named Volesus were good.

Just good, however – not amazing. If this were an examination conducted by the Great Sea Academy, everyone except those three would be turned away. Even then, those three would merely be given a chance to compete for the final selection, and there would be no guarantee they would get in.

If Julia had a more useful elemental affinity, she would be instantly snapped up, but as it were, she would have to compete against more mundane candidates that nonetheless had far greater mana sensitivity and other advantages over her. Great Tree Academy being just a minor academy, couldn't afford to be as choosy, and would consider a slightly wider array of candidates.

Julia, Renatus, and Volesus would be almost guaranteed to get into their academy, and they would be willing to consider some of the others, who had one or two really good traits and little else. Claudia, for instance, had excellent resonance with four different elements – air, earth, fire, and water.

Unfortunately, none of them rose to the level of elemental affinity, so most academies would not be interested, as most magical legacies specialized in one type of magic and being reasonably good at four different ones was considerably worse than being really good at one of them. However, Great Tree Academy didn't have a strong specialization, so they would take notice. Cricket and Cassia, despite having impressed Marcus in other tests, were very average magically speaking. He was inclined to pick them anyway.

"All of this is just pathetic," Titus told him.

"Even this Renatus and Volesus… you could get guys just as good from my academy, except they would have proven work ethic and some basics already driven into them. It seems such a waste of your talents to spend years of your life teaching these… mediocrities."

"I'm not filling all my students with members of Great Tree Academy, Titus," Marcus told him.

"I admit that Julia is good. She and Renatus are the only ones I'd describe as somewhat special-""It's disrespectful to even mention that brat's name in relation to Julia," Titus frowned.

"Special? Don't make me laugh. I heard from Pliny about him while you were doing your tests. He's just a troublemaker with eyes bigger than his stomach. And why is he special, but not this Volesus fellow? You admitted yourself that Volesus had the best scores out of everyone out there."

"It's a secret," Marcus told him mysteriously. Titus made a crude gesture at him. Marcus ignored it. He was the bigger man.

"I think you're looking down on my charges a little too much, Titus," Pliny told the other man.

"Some of your own academy staff ultimately came from this place, remember? And besides, even if none of the children Marcus takes under his wing end up accomplishing much, it's not the end of the world. He can always take another generation of students." After some more arguing, writing down names and then crossing them out, Marcus made a finalized list with six names. It went like this: -Julia Argenta -Renatus King?

-Livia from Black Spruce Village -Claudia from Drelzen -Cassia King -Volesus King"I think this is it," Marcus said.

"Once I add two people from Great Sea, and one from Beortan, that will be nine people. That's a good number. Spiritually significant." Marcus was not the biggest believer in numerology, but it was clear to him from studying various magic lore that some number combinations were better than others. Number three and its multiples tended to show up a lot in various places. Considering the nature of logos, it was not a big stretch to guess that numbers played a role in how the world was constructed.

"Well, you know what I think," Titus said.

"I think you could easily drop Cassia and Livia from that list and not lose much. But if you want to pick at least five orphans, I guess you got to pad out the list somehow." Pliny glanced at the list in Marcus's hand.

"Why is there a question mark next to Renatus' name?" he asked.

"Didn't you say you liked him?"

"No, I said he was special," Marcus said.

"I need to speak to him in private before I decide if I want to teach him or not." Pliny and Titus gave him other a questioning look.

"Wait. There is seriously something special about him?" Titus asked. Marcus nodded.

"Why are you keeping it a secret from us?" Pliny asked.

"Isn't the whole point of this meeting for us to advise you? We can't do that if you keep things to yourself like this."

"It's not something related to today's judgment ceremony," Marcus said, shaking his head.

"Everything I found out about him today, I told you. It's what I saw about him while I was living in the orphanage these past few weeks and observing the children."

"I missed something?" Pliny asked, surprised.

"I can't believe you've noticed something this old dog hasn't. These are my charges, Marcus. I see them every day, and believe me, I pay extra attention to troublemakers like Renatus."

"Then, I presume you're aware that he's something of a thief?" Marcus asked.

"Thief?" Pliny was taken aback.

"No, I… I mean, he did steal a few things from the village when he first got here, but I put a stop to that quickly. He doesn't do that kind of thing anymore."

"He does," Marcus told him.

"He just learned how to use his divine blessing better to avoid detection."