“Next aspirant, Mehr from the house….. A commoner?”

The announcer’s voice slowly died down by the end of his sentence, and yet, every person in the audience heard it clearly. Their gazes turned to me, some placid, some curious but mostly hostile.

“Is this some sort of mistake?”

“Why is a commoner here?”

“I thought we were here to see competent people’s trials, not some dance of a primate.”

Laughter rang out in the hall due to that last comment. The audience, sitting safely with an ideology of a group, felt incredibly superior to the prospective students. I was not the only one to get such treatment today. I had noticed many other aspirants, mainly the ones from lower nobility, were being judged by these self serving, narcissistic, piss takers. They sat in their seats, comfortably passing comments on the ones performing under pressure, and then proceeded to feel good about themselves. Well, how could I miss such a wonderful chance to drop them down a peg. After all, I was also a narcissist but I could back my words at the very least.

“You’ll show your mana manipulation skills, as much as you're comfortable with.” Professor Willem’s voice drowned out the taunting comments being thrown at me from all the sides. The audience, after realising that it wasn’t a mistake or a joke, became confused. A commoner was standing where, according to them, only nobles should stand. While their voices had stopped, their eyes continued the hostility. I stepped forward, moving towards the middle arena while being showered by the ungracious gazes and stopped when I reached the center.

“Are you ready?” Professor Willem asked with his familiar mischievous gaze that seemed interested in what I was going to do. I nodded and proceeded to stand still, focusing on the mana around me. I closed my eyes and felt the comfort that the embrace of mana always brought me. It swirled around me, as if protecting me like a mother. My heightened senses, due to the influence of mana, reached beyond my body. I could feel things around me as I started to carve out the shapes in the hall, in my mind, and soon I could feel them. Every minute movement that happened in the entire hall was under my purview. Every tiny bit of mana, at this moment, was under my control. This was one of the skills I had learned while hiding from apex predators in the shallow badlands during our four years of training.

“Is he just going to keep standing there?”

“Well, what did you expect?”

“Look at the giant spear he has. Is he here to hunt little animals for his family?”

The comments started again as my body stood still in the middle arena. However, the mana I controlled was moving silently, encircling the hall and singling out my targets. It stopped, near the people who were laughing, commenting and jeering at me. It happened in a single moment.

The mana encroached rapidly, pouncing on the audience members like a serpent out for blood. It ripped their outer clothes apart, while leaving the inner clothes intact. It crushed the seats those people were sitting on and, the ones who were standing, it swept them off their feet. The clamour increased in the chaos. It wasn’t their laughs or comments that were heard anymore, it was their screams. They were very fortunate that they were children and it was an academy, otherwise it wouldn’t have been their clothes, but their throats that were ripped apart.

I let out a heavy breath and buckled forward a bit. Even though I had just shown quite advanced mana manipulation, it wasn’t easy even for me. My head throbbed for a while but I neglected the pain and looked around to see the satisfying scene I had created. Confused squeals were ringing out around me as I reveled in the chaos. Students were confused, trying to understand what had happened when Professor Willem’s voice drowned out all the commotion.

“Pass.” Professor Willem said. I looked at the man, who was still smiling as if he found all that I did amusing.

“However, Professor.” The lady, Professor Cecilia spoke up, “It is very unbecoming of a student of this academy to harm other non-threatening students. We can’t let such a situation pass by.”

“No one was hurt though.” I said, “Isn’t this trial to test the level of mana manipulation? I seem to be better than most of the students in the audience. I would say, that is more unbecoming of this academy.” My blunt answer didn’t go well over with Professor Cecilia, but I knew I wouldn’t be rejected. Not only was my strength enough proof of entry, but Professor Willem, the senior of the two professors, was clearly interested in me.

“Hmm.. Well, Mehr. A punishment is surely in order for what you have done today.” Professor Willem said, “So, I’ll later decide what sort of punishment would be given to you. For now, though, you have cleared the basic mana test.”

I smiled and looked at the people in the audience that had mostly recovered from their shock and confusion, and were showing naked hostility towards me. The only thing that stood between me and their hostile intent was the barrier that Professor Willem had created after the humiliation I had poured on them. My eyes shifted, as my smile subsided, towards the students who were sitting calmly while looking at me. They were the ones I couldn’t touch when I attacked the audience members. My control over mana had disappeared as soon as it got close to them. They were the students who were clearly stronger than me. Unlike other people, who showed clear disdain for me, many of these students looked at me calmly, with either curiosity or amusement in their eyes, and some even had a trace of respect. If the audience was anything to go by, I would say Sirius and I were among the strongest 1/10th of the academy. And I was sure that we would only get stronger from here on.

“Next aspirant, Sirius from House F- The House Frye!!”

And now, it was time for Sirius to put his name out in the world, and let everyone know that the heir of the House Frye has come out to play in the playground called mainland.