Eiden had no idea how long the written exam was supposed to feel, because the moment it started, it stopped being a test and turned into a public event. The arena was bright, loud, and full of people who were all pretending they weren’t terrified, and there were no desks, no benches, no nice little rows. It was just sand under their boots, paper in their hands, and the kind of rules that made Eiden immediately think, Oh. This place is insane on purpose.
A stack of exam pages appeared in his hands like someone had tossed him a small book. A pen came with it. That was it. No table. No clipboard.
He looked around and saw everyone else doing the same thing. Some held their papers against their forearm like that would help. Some tested where they'd put the paper once it started. A few crouched like they were about to pray.
One guy tried to lean against the wall to steady himself.
A thin line of light flashed across the sand in front of him.
“Wall writing is forbidden.” Mira Voss said without raising her voice.
The guy froze, backed away from the wall, and looked personally offended that rules existed.
Eiden glanced down at his own pages and sighed. “Okay,” he muttered. “So it’s not a written exam. It’s a handwriting endurance trial.”
He tested a few positions like he was trying to solve a puzzle, without actually writing yet. He pressed the blank top page to his thigh, then to his forearm, then to his chest, just to see which one felt least stupid.
He ended up doing the only thing that made sense. He crouched low, put one knee up, and used his leg like a moving desk. It was still awful. It was just the kind of awful you could survive.
Mira stood near the center line like she owned the entire arena, which she maybe did. Orin Keld stood a few steps to her right, arms folded, scanning the crowd like he was judging which of them would die first in a real fight. Serren Vale stood on the other side, quiet, watching like the whole thing was an experiment.
Mira lifted her badge again. “You already know our names.”
Nobody answered.
That was smart.
“We teach here,” Mira said. “Today we’re also the exam representatives. We’ll each represent an elemental section during this assessment. Follow instructions. Don’t be creative.”
Orin’s voice cut in. “Be creative after you pass.”
Serren didn’t smile, but their eyes did something close to it.
Mira continued. “Rules.” She held up one finger. “No magic.” Second finger. “No copying.” Third finger. “No destroying someone else’s paper. No stealing it. No running away with it.”
A few people in the crowd looked disappointed, which was… concerning.
Mira’s eyes moved over them. “But you are allowed to distract each other.”
The arena reacted to that like someone had poured oil on a campfire. People murmured. Some laughed nervously. Some started looking around like they were planning their first offense.
Mira didn’t care. “Talking is allowed. Shouting is allowed. If someone loses focus, that’s not our problem.”
Orin shrugged like that was just life.
Eiden blinked and felt something in his chest loosen.
He liked this rule.
Not because he enjoyed chaos.
Okay, he enjoyed chaos a little.
But because this made sense. If you can’t write a clean answer while the world is being loud, then you’re probably going to die the first time someone screams near you during a real fight.
Mira raised her hand. A bell sound rang out, sharp and clean.
“Begin.”
The first page was bad. Not hard. Bad.
Define mana conversion efficiency.
Explain attunement index calculation methods.
List the elemental interaction exceptions under the Valdenmoor Standard.
Eiden stared at the page, then he stared at the next page, then the next.
He flipped again and saw the number at the bottom.
Page 1 of 14.
“This is a lot of pages,” he muttered.
Someone near him shouted, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S FOURTEEN PAGES?”
Another person answered, “YOU ARE LYING.”
“I AM NOT LYING, LOOK AT THIS.”
A third voice shouted, “WHY IS THERE AN ESSAY QUESTION.”
The last one made the whole crowd groan.
Eiden nodded once. “Yeah. That’s fair.”
He started writing anyway.
Mana conversion efficiency is how much raw mana becomes elemental mana without wasting it. Higher efficiency means cheaper casting and less fatigue.
He wrote fast, messy, and confident, because he didn’t have time to be elegant. He just had to be right enough.
Immediately, the arena got louder. Not because the instructors did anything yet. Because the candidates did.
Someone behind Eiden started reading questions out loud like it was a group activity.
Another person began loudly reciting the elemental weakness chart, but they kept messing it up and correcting themselves, which was somehow worse than being wrong.
Two people started arguing about whether Air could beat Water.
Eiden didn’t look up. He just wrote.
Attunement index is your natural compatibility with an element. Higher index means lower mana cost and better control.
He underlined “better control” twice.
His pen slipped because sand got on the paper.
“Great.” he whispered.
Five minutes in, the written exam turned into a street market.
People shouted questions.
People shouted fake answers.
People shouted just to shout.
Someone started loudly praying, and the prayer slowly turned into cursing halfway through.
Eiden’s eyes flicked to the side. One guy was loudly announcing, “I’m already on page nine!”
Nobody believed him, but it still caused a ripple of panic. People started flipping pages like page numbers were trying to kill them.
Eiden felt a grin start.
He leaned a little closer to the nearest group of candidates and said, in a perfectly calm voice, “Hey. Don’t forget question seven is the trick one. The answer looks obvious, but it’s not.”
Three heads turned toward him.
“What?” someone asked.
Eiden shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”
Then he went back to writing.
Behind him, three people immediately started flipping pages like their lives depended on it.
A minute later, someone shouted, “WAIT, WHICH ONE IS QUESTION SEVEN?”
Mira’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with disbelief.
“None of the questions are exactly the same—and the order’s different, too.”
The man behind her spun halfway around like the news had physically hit him.
“FUCK!” he shouted back.
And suddenly five people were arguing.
Eiden didn’t join. He just kept writing.
This was efficient.
He was starting to like the Open Gate.
Someone slid through the crowd toward him like they already knew where the gaps were. Eiden noticed the motion before he registered the person, and that was what made him pay attention. People moved around this girl, almost politely, like they’d learned it was easier than resisting.
As she passed, he caught quick murmurs meant to sound like nothing.
“Thanks,” one guy breathed.
“You saved me,” another whispered.
She didn’t answer. Short, blunt black hair cut straight across her jaw; a small septum ring catching the arena light when she turned her head. Calm in a way that didn’t match the shouting or the shaking exam pages.
Eiden watched her come closer and thought, Okay. So you’re either good… or you’re dangerous.
She stopped beside him like she owned the space.
“Hey,” she said, casual. “You’re the fire guy, right?”
Eiden kept his eyes on his paper. “Who says I’m the fire guy? I’m the guy who’s going to be limping tomorrow because my leg’s going numb.”
She nodded toward his head like it was proof. “Because your hair says it first.”
She gave a quiet laugh, then lifted her chin.
“Listen up,” she said, like she was talking to him but aiming at everyone within ten meters. “If you’re panicking because you’re bombing the written—stop. It’s not the end.”
Heads turned. Pens slowed. Even the loud ones hesitated.
She continued, measured and confident. “I’m putting together a team. You work with me, you do what I say, and I’ll make sure you pass the practical. I don’t mean ‘maybe.’ I mean you will pass.”
Eiden finally looked up. Up close, she wore that sharp little smile.
He snorted once, soft and unimpressed. “That’s cute.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Cute?”
Eiden went back to writing. “Yeah. The whole ‘cling together because you’re scared’ thing. Not really my style.”
“It’s not fear.” she said. “It’s strategy.”
Eiden laughed under his breath, like the idea entertained him. “If you need a babysitter to pass an entrance exam, you probably shouldn’t be here.”
Something flickered in her expression—annoyance, maybe. Then it smoothed back into that practiced calm.
“You’re confident,” she said. “Good. Confidence is useful.”
Eiden tapped the page with his pen. “I’m not ‘confident.’ I’m passing. Both parts. Without joining your little club.”
He shifted his papers, flipped back a page, then stared at a question he’d been circling for the last five minutes like it was written in another language.
In the absence of a focus lattice, describe the minimum stabilization pattern required to prevent elemental backflow during multi-step conversion. Include one failure symptom and one corrective action.
He read it again. And again.
His brow twitched.
Then he muttered, half to himself, “What does that even mean?”
The girl’s smile widened, like she’d caught the first crack in his armor. “Still stuck?”
Eiden didn’t look up. “No. I’m just offended the exam thinks it can confuse me.”
He finally glanced at her, eyes dry and amused. “Go sell your guarantees to someone who wants them.”
Her gaze held his. “You’ll change your mind.”
Eiden’s smile was all teeth and no warmth. “And you’ll stop collecting followers. Guess we both love to lie.”
She stepped away, already moving like she knew exactly who to talk to next.
As she passed, Eiden caught the whispers again.
“Seriously, thank you…”
Eiden dropped his gaze back to the question he couldn’t decode, and his mouth curved like he was laughing at the entire idea.
Fan club, he thought. Yeah. That’s exactly what this is.
Twenty minutes in, Mira started walking.
“Time check,” she said. “Forty minutes left.”
Groans spread through the arena.
Then she added, “If you’re still writing full sentences, you won’t finish.”
That hit harder than any insult.
Eiden flipped to the next page.
And the exam stopped pretending it was normal.
In a multi-element spell sequence, a caster attempts to convert raw mana into Fire, then immediately into Air, and finally into a Fire–Air composite to create a sustained cutting jet. The spell is cast without a focus lattice and must remain stable for 30 seconds in a humid, enclosed arena.
Describe a minimum stabilization pattern (in steps) that prevents elemental backflow during each conversion (Raw → Fire → Air → Composite).
Identify two environmental variables that would most strongly destabilize this sequence, and explain why each one matters.
The caster experiences the first warning signs of backflow: heat behind the eyes, pressure in the palms, and a high ringing sound. Determine which symptom indicates the most imminent failure, and give an immediate corrective action that does not require stopping the spell entirely.
Finally, propose a grading rubric: what single mistake should be considered an automatic fail due to lethal risk, even if the rest of the explanation is correct?
“How the fuck am I gonna answer this without writing all over the page?”
Someone shouted, “HEY FIRE GUY, WHAT’S THE ANSWER TO QUESTION FOUR.”
Eiden didn’t even look up. “If you’re asking me, you already failed. And why does everyone keep calling me the fire guy?”
“Because you’ve got red hair. What else would it be—rose?”
That got a few laughs.
“Yeah?” he said. “And with hair that color, you must be the shit guy.”
The laugh that followed was louder. The kind that made people glance over just to see what they’d missed.
The brown-haired man’s smile fell apart. His jaw tightened. “The what guy?”
Eiden shrugged and went back to his paper, innocent as a knife. “I don’t make the rules. People just… born with an element.”
By page twelve, his answers were getting shorter.
Not because he wanted them short. Because the exam was eating time like a monster.
He started skipping the parts where he explained things and just wrote the result.
He started using arrows.
At some point, a candidate near him started crying while still writing.
He looked at the crying candidate and leaned in just enough to be heard.
“Hey,” he said, voice tight. “Can you not? The sniffling is making it impossible to think.”
“Finally… I’m done.”
“Stop,” Mira said.
The exam pages vanished out of his hands like they’d never existed.
Eiden swallowed.
He didn’t know if he’d passed. All he knew was that his hand hurt and he kind of wanted water.
A panel appeared.
Written Examination Result: PASS
Score: 50/100
Breakdown:
Accuracy: 22/40
Completeness: 11/25
Clarity: 6/15
Stability/Discipline: 20/20
Eiden stared at it.
“Barely…” he said.
The air changed.
Mira’s voice carried across the sand.
“Listen,” she said. “Written is finished. Disqualified candidates and failing scores will be removed from the arena.”
Someone said, “Removed how?”
Orin answered without looking at anyone in particular. “Instantly.”
Mira lifted her badge. “If you passed, stay where you are.”
Light lines flared under dozens of boots.
One by one, people vanished.
The arena felt… emptier. Quieter.
Eiden did a quick count out of habit.
From something like five hundred, it looked closer to two hundred now.
A second panel appeared right after it.
Utility Skill Unlocked: [Mana Sense] (Basic)
You can now feel nearby mana sources and sudden fluctuations. It won’t tell you what something is, but it will tell you when something is there.
Mira’s voice cut through the silence.
“Written exam is over.” she said. “Those of you still standing have earned the right to continue.”
Orin rolled his shoulders once, like he had been waiting for the boring part to end.
“Now,” he said, “it’s time for the practical exam.”