Entrance Exam — Magic Department (2)
The moment I slammed all three mana bolts from my first Triple Casting attempt straight into the floor, a strange sense of impending doom began to drift through my mind.
Wait a second… didn't I just screw this up?
Setting Mana Blast aside, I had two usable offensive spells, Triple Casting on top of that, and even Clean as a support spell, so I hadn't been particularly nervous. But the instant I actually sat down for the target-destruction exam, a crisis sense smoldering up from somewhere told me I was already doomed.
Lilith's current Luck stat was a measly 2.
Converted through Luminor Academy's accuracy formula, that worked out to roughly 4–5 percent — an utterly hopeless number.
And since the most spells I could deploy at once capped out at Triple Casting, even if I burned all five attempts on it, that gave me only fifteen spell casts total.
Ah, no. Wait. I'd already frittered away one attempt, so twelve tries left. …Even more hopeless, dammit.
There was a very real possibility of disaster here — of throwing nothing but Triple Castings for all five rounds and failing to destroy a single target, washing out of the exam entirely.
That wasn't the time to be running my mouth about how this would be a cakewalk, was it.
This was not the moment to sit back and assume I'd pass with room to spare — not when the very real prospect of crashing into the ground exactly like that first volley of mana bolts was flickering before my eyes.
It was the moment Lilith's congenital curse — a Luck stat that refused to climb no matter what — sank its teeth in properly.
…Rather than mourning the despair of that single-digit number even after hitting level 9, I figured I should focus on digging myself out of this hole first.
After all, the problem staring me in the face was an Academy entrance exam where failing wouldn't have surprised anyone.
"Don't be nervous. Take your time."
"…Yes, ma'am."
It wasn't nerves that made me miss, though. The character was simply built wrong for offensive magic — what was I supposed to do about that?
But now that I'd committed to taking the entrance exam through the Magic Department, there was no undoing it.
Switching to a different department at this late stage was out of the question too.
Once you'd applied to the Magic Department, filing concurrently for another department counted as cheating under Luminor Academy's rules.
…So I'd just have to give it my best shot, even if it meant leaning on luck.
For someone with no luck to speak of, betting on luck was outright insanity — but I had no other options left anyway.
Shockwave came with a modest accuracy bonus, but it was a close-range spell, so it wasn't on the table right now.
Mana Blast consumed every last drop of mana the instant it was cast — a spell with literally no tomorrow attached — and strictly speaking, its range wasn't wide enough to guarantee a pass, either.
On a genuinely lucky day it might take out three targets at once; more often, two was the ceiling.
Worse, even spending my stockpiled nine skill points, there was no way to learn a usable offensive spell right now.
The only thing worth attempting at low accuracy would have been a wide-area spell — and learning one of those required more than nine points.
"Mana, dwell in my hand."
Having made my decision, I formed three mana bolts through Triple Casting just as before.
And just as before, I cast them as if hurling them at the three nearest scarecrows.
"Pierce through! O bolts of mana!"
-Thud-thud-thud!
"……"
"…Oh."
Ah.
Ah, ah, ah!
Watching those mana bolts sail off on their own, graze a target, and faceplant into the ground again, I let loose every scream in my internal repertoire.
The proctor, unable to bear the sight, even offered me a carefully worded piece of advice.
"It's fine to attempt Triple Casting, but wouldn't it be better to land one or two properly? Once you pass the entrance exam, the Academy will teach you Triple Casting properly anyway."
"…Thank you for the advice."
I understood why she said it. From a staff member's perspective, letting a prodigy who could already Triple Cast before enrollment slip away would be a bitter loss indeed.
Double Casting was something an individual could manage through sheer effort, but from Triple Casting onward, the spell was simply beyond anyone without exceptional magical aptitude.
So her thinking was obvious — pass them first, cultivate them at the Academy — and while the sentiment nearly brought tears to my eyes…
…the problem was never my scattered focus from attempting Triple Casting in the first place.
The problem was this body of Lilith's catastrophically terrible accuracy, offense magic only.
"Pierce through! O bolts of mana!"
-Crack!
"Oh!"
"…Huh?"
On my third attempt, a miracle: one of the three bolts connected, and a target shattered.
Granted, it was only the second target from the front — but the fact that it had been destroyed at all was what mattered.
It meant I'd punched through a slim 5-percent chance and glimpsed something like a miracle.
Now, if I just land four or so of the remaining six…
Destroying five out of ten would squeak me past the borderline pass mark one way or another.
That level of skill would put me at an ordinary noble prospective-mage's caliber — no wide-area spells or multi-casting, but solid enough to hit targets steadily, mistake-free, over five attempts.
More precisely, I only needed one hit on my fourth try. Do that, and I could scrape by with a Mana Blast destroying up to three on the final attempt.
With that plan in mind, I fired off three more mana bolts on the fourth try with roughly the same feeling as the third — and for Lilith, whose accuracy and luck were both stuck in single digits, the results were gruesome.
-Thud-thud-thud!
"Ah…"
"……"
The moment my mana bolts flopped to the floor, a sigh laced with despair escaped the exam proctor.
And shame began to wash over me — me, the person who couldn't even hit a scarecrow that was just standing there.
"Take a moment to steady yourself, examinee. Why don't you try again? From what I can see, you have plenty of talent…"
"……"
Honestly, it felt like one more hit was all I needed to turn things around.
But the only card left in my hand was a single Mana Blast — hurling every remaining drop of mana at once.
Even if luck smiled on me and it took out three targets, that moment had already drifted far out of passing range.
If I'd landed just one more hit across all those Triple Castings, I could have allowed myself some hope…
…Hold on.
Come to think of it, who said Triple Casting had to be used with mana bolts?
Yes — the premise itself was wrong from the start. The assumption that mana bolts were the ideal spell for Triple Casting had been wrong from the very beginning.
My brain had been so hijacked by the idea of Mana Blast as a last resort that I hadn't thought of it until now — but in fact, Mana Blast was the single most effective spell to deploy through Triple Casting.
Since it consumed all remaining mana, the power of all three bolts would scale up roughly evenly.
Even if the power spread across them shrank the area somewhat, Mana Blast was already a wide-area spell of considerable force.
If three Mana Blasts could take out the special targets — or even two-plus targets each —
"Examinee, for now just give the remaining attempts your best—"
"MANA!!!"
"—?!"
The instant that thought crystallized, I channeled the sensation of casting Mana Blast into both hands and began chanting the incantation of my ultimate finisher — with Triple Casting layered on top.
The Mana Blasts chanted in tandem with the Triple Casting immediately began forming three orbs above my palms.
The time for playing it safe with comfortable nonsense like "I'd rather not stand out" was long gone.
Right now, nothing mattered except passing instead of failing.
"Wh-what?! W-wait just a moment, examinee?!"
The proctor, watching the three mana orbs swell larger and larger, called out to me in a panic — but a spell once started could not be stopped.
Whatever she yelled at me afterward, the only move right now was to hurl them with everything I had.
Each orb packed roughly five hundred mana, so the power was guaranteed — and unlike the Mana Blast I'd used before, there was no need to aim for a five-meter wide-area bombardment.
The targets were exactly three.
The farthest target. The moving target. The hardened target.
If I could destroy those three highest-scoring targets for certain, then even at my worst, my name should still clear the pass line.
And if luck let me shatter a few other targets along the way, that was just gravy.
With that thought, I hurled the three mana orbs floating above my head forward with every ounce of strength I had.
…A short while later, three explosions rang out across the Magic Department's examination hall.