Chapter 6: Elements, Faith, and Steel, Part 3

Mariana dipped her quill on the ink bottle before proceeding to write her next answer.

'Earth wall', Mariana muttered the earth mage spell she was going to answer.

Given that this was Arcanus' entrance examination, Mariana assumed that the questions would be incredibly difficult — she guessed wrong. Mariana quickly breezed through her exam paper without breaking a sweat. Every item was something she had read from her grandpa's book or had heard from Marcus' stories. 

'They might haven't prepared enough.' Mariana thought when she took a quick peek at her fellow examinees when she was at around question 22. 

They looked dejected. The lady beside her — who appeared to be a wind mage — had her hands fidgeting and sweating profusely; the earth mage in front of that lady was scratching the back of his head furiously like it was infested by insects.

Theresa, on the other hand, was sitting pretty in front with her feet on top of the wooden table; her constant yawns mixing in with the scratching of multiple quills against the papers.

Mariana shook her head and returned her undivided attention to her paper. She shouldn't be bothering herself about other's businesses right now. 

After Mariana finished the last question —which didn't take that long — she decided to check all her answers in case she wrote or misspelled something wrong. Mariana carefully scanned her eyes to every number when she heard a loud BANG behind her followed by a shrieking cry of immense agony.

She quickly turned her head to see the commotion, (as well as the other students) when they heard two more explosions — also paired with intense suffering; this time, it came from two students who were next to each other at the far back.

What Mariana's eyes witnessed was a horrific sight. The person behind her was an earth mage and like most of them that she had seen, he wore a mud-colored robe with metal armor covering his chest — except his was trickled with spots of blood. His face was pale white as he put pressure on his dismantled hand to stop the blood from gushing out. His paper, unreadable anymore with all the bloodstains and ink that spilled from the tumbled ink bottle; his quill, on the ground next to his feet — burnt to crisps. 

The students from the back had the same fate: hands bloodied, voices cracked from intense wailing, while their quills laid somewhere around them, charred from the feathers down to the tip.

Mariana was suddenly bombarded with questions, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She wanted to move away from where she was but her body seemed to be glued to her chair and her feet lost their strength. Soon, the person behind her and Mariana's eyes met. She quickly understood what he wanted: he needed her help.

Without a moment's hesitation, Mariana turned around to call the attention of Theresa but to her surprise, she was still in her seat smiling with herself. Her boredom seemed to have left her as her face was now painted with a mischievous grin that was eventually followed by a delighted cackle. The others heard Theresa, too, and they all shuddered.

"Lady Theresa, they need your help! Do you have potions or anything?" Mariana said, ignoring the crazed smile that Theresa wore.

"Don't worry. They will be alright." Theresa winked. 

Mariana was tempted to ask if Theresa was blind or just crazy but she had already headed outside after answering me. When she returned, she was accompanied by two Sirens and they brought the explosion victims without a sound them without even bothering to heal their hands.

The victims' cries slowly faded until they could no longer hear them. The faces of those who stayed, however, were still painted with terror. Only Mariana could keep a calm disposition and she thought it might be due to her near-death experience. 

But Mariana couldn't just keep silent without knowing if the person who asked for her help was truly going to be alright so she finally broke the silence.

"Why didn't you treat their wounds? Their hands were covered in blood!" Mariana agitatedly asked. 

"Blood? What blood? Your eyes must be deceiving you, Lady Mariana." Theresa smiled.

"Didn't you see their hands?!" Mariana yelled. "Even their desks were covered in it!" 

"Check again..." 

Mariana, as well as the others, quickly turned around to check the injured's desks but something had already changed. The spilled ink and the scorched quill were still on the floor. The blood, however, magically disappeared. 

"Anti-cheating quills," Theresa said loudly, enough for everyone to hear. "'Explodes' whenever someone attempts cheating while using it. Never hurts, but it puts anyone nearby under an illusion that the user's hand exploded with the quill. It was created by the Elves." 

"But their screams?" One examinee from the front asked.

Theresa yawned before answering, "I would, too, if I saw my hands covered in blood. As I said, it was all an illusion. Arcanus wouldn't hurt its students but it will weed out undeserving prospects. Continue your exams, you're all running out of time." 

Theresa's reminder felt like a splash of cold water, and although some were still in a state of shock, they continued to answer their own papers. Meanwhile, Mariana, who already finished answering, was all quiet in her seat.

Mariana felt a tinge in her chest. Confused if what she did was right. Then she happened to witness her own quill, and suddenly she was already grinning ear to ear.

'Arcanus is so cool!' Mariana thought, keeping herself from squealing as she examined the poor quill.

***

Mariana and the other examinees were brought to a large dome behind the three towers when they finished their written exams. Based on what she heard from the others, this dome was called the Magna's Arena. There, they formed neat lines based on their elements, and Mariana was sorted with all the water mages. 

Mariana suddenly became the center of attention of the earth and wind mages as she stood out in her line like a sore thumb. Only Mariana wasn't wearing a robe nor a hat but she didn't mind. Mariana would have wanted to bury her face right now had she not experienced this kind of treatment before but, fortunately, the people of Common District had steeled her nerves.

Unexpectedly, the water mages didn't even bother looking at her. They all seemed to be focused on the task ahead but there would always be someone who looked as if they wanted to go back home — like the boy in front of him kept on dancing aimlessly in place while his head kept turning in every direction as he anxiously muttered to himself.

Mariana with nothing to do, roamed her eyes to look at the faces of the examinees but she realized that even if he was somewhere there, he wouldn't be standing in any of the three lines. 

'What am I even doing?' she shook her head.

After a while, the stream of students finally ended. Mariana's thought was somehow refreshed when Theresa once again showed up in front of them, holding a cone-shaped device. 

"Attention, everyone!" Theresa said from the small end of the cone, her voice echoed all around them. Mariana's eyes gleamed at the item Theresa was holding. Mariana concluded that it was another artifact as it could be the only reason that Theresa's voice could be heard throughout the entire place.

"I'm going to explain your next examination so listen carefully. Oh, but before I start... [Conjure: Dummy]!" 

Several ice statues that looked exactly like Theresa suddenly manifested in three columns in front of the examinees.

Mariana's jaw dropped. 'How can Theresa be so amazing?!' was what lingered in her mind. It instantly swept her desire to have a try of the newly discovered artifact.

"That's about enough," Theresa said, the statues stopped materializing. "Now listen..."

Theresa's instructions were much simpler this time. Mariana and the examinees needed only to shatter one statue with their element's basic offensive spell. That meant that earth mages could only use stone missile; for wind mages, air cutter; for water mages, icebolt.

Mariana almost choked on her own saliva. Had she never learned from Sir Ignis, she would surely fail this exam. 

'I should probably treat him something when we meet again.'

"You can only cast once. To pass, earth mages must shatter my statue. Water mages, I want my statue pierced, while wind mages must slice me in half." She walked to the side and yelled, "Start!"

Mariana saw the other examinee's faces lit up, they flashed confident grins. Mariana, however, wasn't sure she could piece it throughout. It was a good thing that she was in the middle of the line. There, she could observe and copy how the other water mages would do the task.

The first group of three examinees readied themselves. The earth and wind mage were both Humans, while the water mage was another Siren. With their chests puffed out, they simultaneously cast their respective spells toward their targets. 

"[Stone missile]!"

"[Icebolt]."

"[Air cutter]..."

The Siren's spell flew first, hitting the statue and piercing it cleanly.

Cheers erupted from the water mages, but it wasn't the same with the other two. The stone missile flew violently but it quickly lost its speed, therefore, disabling it from smashing its target. The air cutter, meanwhile, was too blunt as it didn't even leave a mark.  They both failed.

"Those who failed may go home. You — " Theresa pointed to the Siren. "Sit down on the floor behind me. Next!"

And the test continued. Mariana watched her fellow examinee's spellcasting intently. Many have passed but many more have failed — most of them were unsuccessful due to their spell's lack of power or speed. They might've panicked when they witnessed the first two instantly fail, Mariana thought. 

Mariana was sure that it wasn't the examinees' fault they didn't destroy the targets. Theresa's statues were just extraordinary. She rubbed her palms against each other after realizing that it was getting cold. She decided to busy herself formulating how she would properly pierce the statue.

The water mages who passed all seemed to have finer icebolts than those who failed. Mariana remembered these details as she thought it would help her.

Several minutes have passed when Mariana heard the nervous guy in front of him get called. She didn't have much time left.  She never bothered watching anymore, and just closed her eyes. In her head, she pictured carefully how her icebolt should take shape. Then she regulated her breathing to release the tension in her whole body. 

Breath in... breath out... breath in... breath out...

"Next!" Theresa yelled.

Mariana then opened her eyes and stepped forward. She wasn't sure if she had already calmed herself but her time was up. 

This wasn't like back in Pago when Mariana couldn't even form the spell properly. She already did this before with Sir Ignis. She could do it again.

Mariana readied her hand and calmly collected the mana from her ring. Her hair seemed to be glowing when it was blown away in her face but she just ignored it. Soon, the ice spear formed in her hand, but it still wasn't complete. It needed to be thin; it couldn't be too long nor too short; it had to be extremely sharp. Finally, when she felt her preparations were complete, she let it go...

"[Icebolt]"

Mariana, watched her spell fly towards the statue. Just like she hoped for, her icebolt cleanly passed through the abdomen of Theresa's statue. Mariana passed! She should've left to give way to the next person but she couldn't. That was because her spell — her deadly bolt of ice — was still going.

 After penetrating cleanly through the abdomen of Theresa's statue, it also pierced through to the statue behind it, and it still kept going until it crashed on the chest of the third statue, both her spell, as well as the statue, crumbled into small pieces.

Gasps, whispers, and questions flooded the entire dome. No one had expected Mariana to destroy the third — no — the first statue.

Theresa cleared her throat in front of her artifact and said, "T-that was impressive, all three of you passed. Now get behind me, you're blocking the other examinee's way. Next!"

Mariana, who was still planted into the ground, only moved the next person behind her shoved her aside. She went behind Theresa still in a daze.

'Did I really just do that?' Mariana thought while she slumped her body against the grass.