Entrance Exam (3)
Entrance Exam (3)
A device was set up in advance for the Combat Magic Assessment to prevent examinees from being injured.
[High-grade Unique Magic Art — Barrier ×3]
Once inside the testing ground, three formless, colorless shields began orbiting the examinee and protecting her body. These shields were said to block magic up to three times, excluding top-grade magic.
Elemental Magic had nothing like this, so it was probably some proctor's Unique Magic Art.
If you left the ring, the shields vanished too. If that happened, the exam ended immediately regardless of time remaining, and the examinee who crossed the line received an additional point deduction.
The proctor then explained the grading criteria.
"Each time one of your own shields is broken, 2 points are deducted. Additionally, breaking an opponent's shield earns you 1 point per shield."
I already knew this from Professor Herlein. Beyond that, there were a few minor tips they didn't tell examinees.
For example, an internal rule that deducted 2 points for excessive passive defense.
"Are you ready?"
"One moment."
I put a Mana Cigarette in my mouth and lit it with the proctor's help.
"Ready now."
Fwooosh—. I watched the smoke rise into the sky and settled into my stance. Just before the fight began, I summoned my personal staff.
"That staff the Gold-Eye's using. Ever seen one?"
"No. First time. Looks pretty strange."
"It'll be over fast anyway. What's the point of pulling out something like that?"
The wait was brief.
Soon after, a bell rang out — ding — and the exam began.
"Bullet."
The first phase was reconnaissance. I dodged the fireball the other side shot and closed the distance.
Despite the talk about her having exceptional mana, the moment I got right in front of her, the female student stepped back.
A Battle Mage or Archwizard wouldn't have reacted like that. A Caster, then, probably.
Against a Caster, priority one was closing the gap as much as possible. You couldn't give them even a second to chant. I swung my staff, nearly two meters long, and prepared for a bases-loaded home run.
It was a feint.
She ducked to avoid the staff, then smiled faintly and silently summoned a fireball.
'Stacks' and 'Multi-casting' — things even active-duty mages struggled with. The way it suddenly appeared, she must have pre-loaded it when she fired that first fire bullet at me.
Clang—!
One shield shattered in an instant. A 2-point deduction.
The direct approach wasn't working. My mind went briefly blank. Maybe the nerves made it worse.
In that moment, Professor Herlein's repeated words surfaced.
— In the practical, you'll be fighting another student. Don't go in thinking you're suppressing a Magic Beast, understand?
Now I saw it. What those words meant.
My opponent was an intelligent lifeform who could think and adapt, just like me. Being a Caster didn't mean she was a piece of field artillery that always needed squad protection while only providing ranged support. It meant she'd come with her own contingencies for flexible response, same as I had.
This girl, yeah. In modern warfare terms, she was a self-propelled gun.
A latest-model self-propelled gun capable of rapid fire, at that.
I steadied my breathing. I confirmed I had two orbiting shields left and quickly drew up Plan B.
Switching to a defensive posture would cost points. But going aggressive recklessly could drop my score below the threshold.
The immediate objective was avoiding failure. Getting over 40 points in a Gold-Eye body was already arrogance in itself. I didn't want to make a bad call trying to scrape a few more points on top of that.
Perhaps sensing that the reconnaissance phase was done, the red-haired girl began multi-chanting in earnest.
I estimated quickly using Fermi approximation — over fifty. That many fireballs approached, radiating vicious heat.
No retreat. I'd become the target of a crossfire in no time.
I ran toward the widest possible gap, but she cast additional chants there. If the magic she was wielding had been High-class, she had enough talent to be sent to the front lines without raising eyebrows.
Maybe that was why a thought crossed my mind.
She was passing anyway.
I called it hitting a wall in the practical, I supposed. It wasn't my first or second time tasting frustration, but every time I saw the people of this world who could use magic without any tools or restrictions, a relative sense of deprivation washed over me. It felt like I was the only person in modern society who couldn't use a smartphone or computer.
Even after twisting my body as far as possible to evade, I inevitably got hit once. Another shield shattered.
The Maginot Line was beginning to crumble. If it ended like this, failure was certain.
But it was within my calculations.
Right on cue, the mana concentrated in the Mana Cigarette dispersed into my body. In a situation where I couldn't use scrolls or other Magic Arts tools, the only thing I could do was pack every part of myself tight with mana-particle flow.
Of course, where there's an intake, there must be an outlet. I had to shunt the mana elsewhere before overload set in.
So, where to dump all this enormous magical power?
[Supreme Unique Magic ─ Element Operation]
Where else? The staff. I used Element Operation to transfer the magical power into the iron staff.
At the tip of the staff, I had previously installed a circuit built by integrating transistors. Since this circuit wasn't a scroll, it couldn't really be considered cheating.
The circuit mounted at the tip had been built over the last three months, based on the Eightfold Way theory. In RPG terms, it was like slotting eight skill sockets onto a mage's weapon.
It hadn't been long since I learned that the four elements composing Elemental Magic were tied to nuclear physics. But the moment I realized it, I'd been able to apply the Eightfold Way concept to combat.
The Eightfold Way runs through six points on the perimeter and, at the center, two overlapping points on the interior. From there, any one point can leap to another via an isospin operator.
In simple terms, as long as I had my staff, I could switch between the spells stored inside it at will.
Although I'd been short on time and had only condensed two skills into the staff, that alone was enough to score above the baseline on the exam without difficulty.
I charged the magical power to its maximum and rushed straight at my opponent. The female student must not have expected me to run through that saturation barrage, because she chanted with a note of urgency in her voice.
Immense heat spilled out right before my eyes. Radiant heat from flame is normally hot, but this went beyond imagination. Sweat poured like rain down the nape of my neck.
My staff was iron. Uselessly excellent thermal conductivity.
I gripped the heating staff with both hands and readied the final blow. My palms felt like they were cooking, but there was no time to care about that.
The girl swiftly raised a wall of flame. I struck that wall head-on and chanted in a flat voice.
Eightfold Way — First Form.
"Short Circuit."
Her Magic Circuit and my Magic Circuit — the two circuits touched.
"Ngh...!"
An unpleasant sensation, surely. It would feel like someone had seized her very mind.
Through the connected circuits, I inserted a moderator.
Not a neutron moderator like you'd insert to run a Nuclear Reactor....
A moderator that destroyed the opponent's Magic Circuit itself.
CLAAAAANG—!!
My last shield shattered. An aftershock from the momentary discharge of the magical power stored in the staff.
It didn't matter. Mine wouldn't be the only shields that had been released.
The short-circuit radius caused by 'Short Circuit' was dozens of meters. Though I hadn't intended it to go that far, the Magic Circuit I'd taken hostage belonged to more than just the female student.
My own circuit, the circuits of the examinees waiting nearby, and even the proctor's circuit.
It had the effect of indiscriminately 'shutting down' the operation of all circuits. That was why not only the flame magic my opponent had fired, but the defensive magic and impact-dampening magic wrapped around the ring vanished simultaneously.
"Stop the exam! Stop!"
The proctor shouted, voice urgent, and ran out.
"The assessment for both students is complete! Proceed outside the ring, and if you experience any abnormalities, please notify a nearby proctor immediately!"
I swung the drained staff back and forth to clear the surrounding smoke, and saw the female student collapsed on the ground. All her shields were gone too. All three had vanished at once because of the EMP.
I asked if she was alright and extended a hand. The young lady took my hand and rose slowly.
"How did you do it?"
"My Unique Magic Art."
"How can a Gold-Eye have a magic like that...."
The conversation didn't go further. The proctor announced our scores right away.
"First, I'll inform Miss Rote Saliere. Your magical power is excellent, and the moment you used the feint was impressive. However, your final response was lacking. Three barriers broke simultaneously, so by regulation 6 points are deducted, and conversely, points earned from the opponent's shields add 3 points."
"Then my total score is...."
"Yes. 22 points."
The female student wore a somewhat bittersweet expression as she confirmed her score. Meanwhile, I was calculating my own score alone.
"Next, Miss Aether."
The maximum possible score in Combat Magic was 25 points.
I'd lost 5 points from the start for using a Mana Cigarette, bringing the initial score to 20 points.
Adding to that the loss of all three shields — three losses of 2 points — subtracting 6 from 20 left 14 points.
Also, 2 points lost for an overly defensive posture. Counting only the lost points, the total score would be 12 points.
However.
"At the end, you shattered all of your opponent's shields, so by regulation, 3 points will be taken into consideration."
Each opponent's shield I broke was worth one point. I had destroyed all three at once, earning three points.
12 points plus 3 made 15 points.
I'd received 0 points in Magic Power Measurement, and 12 and 13 points respectively in Alchemy and Scroll Writing — 25 points.
Combining those 25 points with the 15 points I'd just earned in the final exam.......
"Total, 40 points. You barely avoided failure. Hm, with a practical score like this, whether you'll pass is uncertain...... But if you did well on the written section, that would be another story. Please, do hold onto hope."
I caught my breath and returned to my spot.
I'd done my best. Now all that remained was to leave it to the heavens.