News of the battle between Cæ and Silian spread throughout the entirety of the Apprentice Program. Many a student spoke of the extraordinary battle between the two top apprentice freshmen.
They spoke about how the two apprentice students could effortlessly multi-cast and could even cast multi-layered magic with more than just one or two operations, showing just how great their eidos mastery was.
Their mana-motive force, which dictated how much mana they could wield at any given moment, was far, far greater than their peers, which allowed them to go on a dominant win streak in the first place.
Professor Lioxin herself praised the two students for their remarkable display of combat power, praising them as the two jewels of the Colohen Branch that academic year.
Regardless, the hyped died down quickly as the exams continued. Cæ took an exam on literally every single course in the Apprentice Program, taking one every day for three weeks straight. Progress that would take years for other apprentice programs, he simply ground through and blazed past.
The way that it worked was that all theory courses would be completed and taught in the very first year, and students would slowly take the exams for these courses, both practical and theory, across multiple years.
However, one didn't need to wait strictly if they were confident enough.
It allowed for the scant possibility of someone being gifted enough to blaze through potentially the entire program in a year in exactly the way that Cæ was doing so now. Like a madman, he went through each and every exam in a back-to-back sprint for three weeks until it was finally time for the results to be announced.
If there was one day that students feared even more than the day of the first exam, it was the day of the announcement of the exam results, where the results and scores of each and every single student who took any exam at all would be fully on display in public.
The best performers would gain public social prestige within the magicademy, and the worst performers would be publicly shamed.
The Elendir Institute of Magic was not above putting its students through a grinder with brutal social disincentives. After all, this magicademy was the institute that was responsible for forging powerful mages out of the brightest talents of the Elendir Institute of Magic, no matter what.
CLACK
Cæ closed the door to his dorm room, locking it before pocketing the keys. He buttoned his fresh and neatly ironed uniform before walking down the wide and spacious dormitory.
STEP
STEP
STEP
The loud footsteps of his firm gate drew attention to him from students who parted ways for him as he walked past them. Their eyes, filled with grudging respect, awe, and even infatuation, followed him as he headed toward the general hall for the announcement of his results.
His silence lasted only minutes before boisterous company bombarded his personal space with their juvenile, inconsiderate temperament.
"Big bro!" Kelton slapped him on the back with a whip from his burly hands.
In the past year, he had grown several inches taller, reaching almost six feet and six inches. His body was even more muscular than it had been when he joined. His brown eyes sparkled with excitement.
"Mmm…" Natana's expression was dyed with concern. "I hope I haven't failed."
"I think you're actually fine," Sorenon remarked, shifting his glasses. "If anything…"
He glared at Kelton. "I'm surprised that you are so peachy. Weren't you saying a few weeks ago that you would fail?"
"Hmph, a real man doesn't fret over such things."
Cæ shook his head over the silly juvenile machismo that the boy displayed. Yet, before he could even cajole him for his attitude, another voice had already beaten him to it.
"He who takes pride in his mistakes shall never go far."
Cæ's gaze shifted in the direction of the familiar voice. "Senthil."
His brown hair was as messy as ever while one hand of his was permanently resting on the hilt of a sword with the symbol of plum blossoms. A student council badge was proudly tapered to his chest, displaying his authority.
The boy had made a memorable impact on Cæ ever since their battle, where he managed to push Cæ quite hard.
Ever since his defeat at Cæ's hands, he had tagged along with Cæ's little clique of chicks that followed him around.
He wasn't the only one.
TUG
Cæ's eyes sharpened as his gaze shifted to the girl who coiled her dainty arms around his, pressing herself into his.
She wordlessly smiled at him.
An eerie light lingered in her eyes.
BRUSH
Cæ extricated his arm from her grasp with a frown, about to reprimand her.
"Look! The results are already published on the board!"
A wave of nervous murmurs swept across the students as they rushed towards the general hall, where announcements were made public.
"Let's go," Cæ narrowed his gaze, shifting his attention to what was most important to him.
Magic.
The six of them hurried as they finally reached the rankings and scores. Scores were tallied and rank-ordered in ascending order, clearly conveying how good one's overall performance was relative to other students.
At the very top was one and only one name.
[Cæ: #1]
A wave of murmurs swept across the students as they all turned, throwing glances at him with a mix of positive and negative emotions. He had achieved a perfect score on several subjects and near-perfect scores on several others.
He was number one on almost all individual tests and exams.
"C-Congratulations!" his young friends gasped with a shocked expression.
While they knew him well enough to know that he would do well, they hadn't expected that he would do this well. They certainly hadn't expected that he would rank number one of all ranks.
Even though he had achieved number two on the magic aptitude test, that didn't necessarily mean that he would be the number one student, since theory was also important to magic.
Cæ heaved a soft sigh as his eyes tinted with a hint of satisfaction. He had never been a remarkable student in the past unfortunately, despite his hard work. It was a kind of satisfaction that he had never experienced in the past.
More importantly, he had successfully passed out of the Apprentice Program in the very first year, as he had hoped. With that, he could enter the Senior Program and begin focusing on his business.
His attention returned to the rankings as he directed a cursory glance across the rankings.
Immediately at rank two, he spotted a name that made an uncharacteristic smile of amusement appear on his face.
[Silian Sylvester: #2]
Cæ couldn't help himself as he smirked, much to the surprise of the people around him. Few things could excite him as much as vindictive justice.
Of course, he knew that Silian would probably hate him for the rest of his life. Something he had resigned himself to, for better or for worse. He didn't understand what he could have done to prevent this outcome when the kid had been the one to start all of this with nothing short of attempted murder.
Cæ completely ignored him from then on until their most recent spat in the combat magic exam when he made it clear that he still resented Cæ for the consequences of his own actions.
"Looks like we have both passed, big brother," Senthil smiled confidently. "We will be heading to the Senior Program together."
Senthil was nineteen years old, a few years older than Kelton, Natana, and Sorenon. He had been in the Apprentice Program for several years as he completed the program at a regular pace of sorts.
"Indeed." Cæ nodded.
"I have passed all my exams as well, I suppose that I, too, will be joining you," Meilia smiled at him specifically. "I look forward to spending the Senior Program with you."
Cæ nodded with a strange expression, turning back to the rankings.
"…I almost failed but managed to pass!" Kelton grinned, pumping his fist in the air with pride.
"I got good marks, thankfully," Natana heaved a sigh of relief. "I should be able to get good grades overall."
"…My theory is good, but my practicals are sub-optimal," Sorenon muttered with a displeased expression. "Theory is also important. I don't know why practicals have such high weightage."
Cæ shook his head. "You have enrolled in the Elendir Institute of Magic. An institute for training those with talent to become mages. This institute isn't interested in producing scholars. It is interested in producing mages who know how to use magic, and that too, particularly well. Practicals are the goal. The theory is just the foundation for producing good quality mages. A lot of magic requires good foundational knowledge, magic is a deeply intellectual field as it is a physical field."
The noise from the nervous and anxious students grew louder as more and more students appeared in the announcement hall, desperately scanning the boards for their names.
Many students heaved a sigh of relief, others grew concerned, while a handful even broke down with crying and sobbing.
Cæ simply shook his head at the scene.
The Elendir Institute of Magic had no problem failing students in a brutal manner.
What the nation needed was not good students who knew how to score a test well, it was good and effective mages who had gained a good mastery of magic that they sought to produce. Thus, grueling them, on both the practical and theoretical sides of things, was a particularly good tactic.
Cæ ignored the colorful myriad of reactions from the apprentices while his gaze shifted to the announcement beside the announcement of the results.
[Students who have passed will be auto-enrolled for the next year or program as per protocol. A fifteen-day-long holiday will commence from this day forth, after which the next academic year will commence. The Apprentice Convocation will be held tomorrow at precisely…]
"Fifteen days…" Cæ murmured with a thoughtful expression, stirring at the number. "I can handle that."
That was enough for him to get on top of his business from the little hiatus he had taken from it due to needing to wanting to focus on his magical mastery while the business was in the stage that didn't quite need his intervention yet. His biggest contributions were the very concept of the business model, business strategy, and all the market research needed to flesh out all the details that allowed Feidin and Seliphaz to do their jobs efficiently from that point on.
Feidin had almost finished fleshing out all the details regarding the organizational structure, financing, and management and had even ironed out much of the operations for the production, while Seliphaz had more or less completed what would most likely be the final iteration of the HS-1 prototype.
Together, the business had come a long way since Cæ merely conceptualized it after a building crashed on him within the slums, almost crushing him under its weight. They weren't too far away from officially creating the business on paper and launching the operations.
And thus, with all his magical mastery out of the way, Cæ looked forward to eagerly jumping back into the business.
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