"I'll be waiting here, Olivia. Just relax and follow the instructions of your evaluator." Yunsha smiled warmly, her blue-stained lips parting to reveal very human-like teeth.

"Yes, Olivia, my name is Mrs. Poyle, and you can follow me. I'll take you to your evaluator." She gestured to the door on her left and began walking. Olivia pushed down her anxiety and followed. She'd always been good at tests, and she decided just to go and do her best. Magister Karn had seemed impressed by her abilities, so it wasn't like she had something to hide - she wasn't trying to sneak in here or anything. As she followed Mrs. Poyle down a long hallway past a dozen or so offices, she examined the source of her anxiety.

She'd always felt anxious during tests or when giving speeches or presentations in her past life - not because she didn't know what she was doing or because she suffered from imposter syndrome. No, it was always because she worried about meeting her parents' expectations and, later, her investors'. None of that was relevant here - she had no one to let down but herself. Sure, it would benefit the colony if she could perform well in this school and learn as much as possible about different types of magic and even about the world and the System. Still, no one back in the colony could or would fault her for not succeeding here; they hadn't even gotten an invite.

She took a deep breath and slowly released it as she followed Mrs. Poyle through a wooden door with a bronze placard in the center that read, "Gan-dak, Senior Evaluator." The room she walked into was about the size of a large broom closet. Or maybe it just seemed small because it was so crowded: a wooden desk took up the rear half of the room, and bookcases lined every wall. The bookcases were positively overflowing with books and loose papers, and notebooks. A single wooden chair sat before the desk, and, in a sizable leather-wrapped chair behind the desk was a man that looked like a devil.

Olivia had to struggle to retain her composure as she took him in. He wore a loose black robe, belted with a silvery cord, but that isn't what stood out about him. His skin was cherry red, and, as the man smiled to greet her, he revealed the long fangs hiding behind his lips. His eyes were a bright, glittering cobalt color, and he didn't have horns, so with some effort, Olivia dismissed the idea that he was actually a devil. No, he just had bright red skin and sharp teeth - nothing to worry about.

"Welcome, prospect! I am Gan-dak, and I'll be administering your evaluation. Thank you, Mrs. Poyle; I'll take it from here."

"You're welcome, sir. Good luck, Olivia," Mrs. Poyle said as she brushed past Olivia and out into the hallway.

"Thank you...." Olivia called after her, but the door clicked shut, cutting her off. She turned back to Gan-dak and cleared her throat, "Um, hello, sir. I'm Olivia Bennet."

"Yes, yes, excellent. Please sit down." He gestured to the wooden chair in front of his desk. Olivia nodded and sat down. "Now, are you familiar with the evaluation process? Did your mentors prepare you?"

"Ahem, no, sir. My people are new to this world and Energy. I don't have a mentor." Olivia consciously kept her gaze steady, meeting the eyes of Gan-dak.

"Oh, truly? Well, that may be for the best. Often we have pupils arrive with as many misconceptions as proper preparations. You may be a clean slate, so to speak. Hmm, well, let me try to explain the process a little. First, I'm going to want to scry you to be sure you meet the level requirements and that you have at least a passable Core and pathways."

"Okay," Olivia said, breathing out a slight sigh of relief. That didn't sound hard.

"Then you and I will have a brief struggle of wills, which will help me to determine your Energy affinity and your mental fortitude. Finally, I'll have you try to complete some rather difficult channeling tasks. When I say difficult, I mean it - don't be alarmed if you can't complete all of them; few students can." Gan-dak's voice was deep, and the rhythm of his speaking was slow but steady, and it made Olivia feel relaxed. In fact, he reminded her of a teacher she'd had when she'd started at MIT when she was fifteen. He'd had a very positive impact on her career, reminding her that it was essential to enjoy life and not just try to toil for one achievement after another mindlessly. Her parents had hated him.

"Okay, sir." Olivia nodded firmly, her lips pressed into a determined line. Gan-dak smiled again and opened a drawer on his desk, pulling a baseball-sized crystal ball out of it. The ball was perfectly smooth and round, but whorls of silver and black smoke drifted in an endlessly random pattern within it. Olivia was instantly entranced by it.

"Quite something, isn't it? The Gonnarath Empire had some of the best Artificers known to our world, and this is a remnant from their time. Not that we couldn't craft something similar today, though I don't know if it would be as elegant. Now please place your hands upon my desk, palms facing upward, and I'll place the scry-orb into them. All you need do is hold onto the orb, and I'll handle the rest. Okay?" Olivia nodded and reached her arms forward, resting her knuckles on the desk. Gan-dak lifted the orb and gently placed it in her palms; the surface was cool, as she'd imagined it would be. While she held it, she looked into its depths and felt herself mesmerized by the patterns of smokey light within.

"Very good, Olivia; you can release the orb now." Gan-dak's words came to her as though muffled by a blanket. "Olivia, that's all we need from the orb. You may let go." His voice was louder and more firm this time, and Olivia blinked rapidly and swallowed. Her mouth was dry as a bone, as if she'd been holding it open for several minutes without swallowing. She realized her hands were gripping the orb in a white-knuckled clench. She relaxed them and felt some pain in her fingers as the blood started to flow into them again. "Yes, thank you, Olivia." Gan-dak quickly pulled the orb away and tucked it back into the drawer. "The orb sometimes seems to contain more wonder within it for certain people. You’re apparently one of those. You were completely gone while I did your initial evaluation."

"It seemed to me like I just grasped it, and then you were asking me to let go." Olivia licked her dry lips and glanced around nervously. "Did I pass?"

"Oh yes, this stage went very well. You are not yet level nine, and your Core and pathways seem very robust. You even have a fairly rare Core. You’re doing quite well for someone new to Energy." Gan-dak opened another drawer and pulled out an utterly black cube, its sides about three inches long. "This is a contest cube. I take it you haven't seen one before?" Olivia shook her head. "Nothing to worry about - it functions very simply. I will push Energy into the side facing me, and you will push Energy into your side. The goal is to get it to change to your color. I'm not sure what color you or I will have - they're based on what side you push in your Energy. It will be apparent once we start." He set the cube on the desk between them.

"So we'll be competing? I should push as much Energy as I can?" Olivia asked, stretching forth a finger to touch the cube's side facing her. Gan-dak nodded and touched the opposite side.

"Start with just a trickle so you can see what it's like." As he spoke, the cube started to turn green, spreading toward her from the side that he was touching. Olivia nodded and sent a trickle of Energy into the cube and saw that the face she was touching turned yellow and began to spread toward Gan-dak. "Very good! Now, gradually increase your Energy flow, and I will try to match you. Let me know when you are pushing as much as possible."

Olivia nodded again and pressed her lips together in concentration, staring at the side of the cube she was touching. Slowly she began to increase the flow of Energy from her Core. She was pushing fire Energy out toward the cube, and she saw the yellow portion of the cube surge forward to meet the line of green coming from Gan-dak. It stopped advancing, and Olivia pushed more and more Energy. She glanced at Gan-dak's face and saw that he seemed utterly relaxed.

Olivia inhaled deeply and began to channel all of her other attuned Energies out along her pathways and out into the cube. The line of yellow surged into the green, pushing it almost to the far edge of the cube. Gan-dak inhaled sharply, but then the green line stabilized and pushed back against the yellow and slowly gained ground until they were at an equilibrium again. Olivia strained with all her might, willing the Energy in her Core to flow, but she couldn't get the yellow line to move forward anymore. "That's my best, I think," she grunted through clenched teeth.

"Ahh, excellent. Now relax; you can stop pushing. You definitely passed that test, Olivia!" Gan-dak was smiling broadly. "The best contest I've had from a prospect in a long time. I would admit you based on this test alone, but I'm afraid protocol states that I must continue with the evaluation." Olivia breathed deeply and relaxed, pulling her hand back from the cube.

"Thank you, sir."

"Oh, no need to thank me for the truth. While we're alone, you may call me Gan. If other students or teachers are around, please refer to me as Professor Gan-dak." He smiled at her again, and though his voice was warm and his eyes seemed kind, Olivia still felt a twinge of panic when she saw his long, white canines hanging down to his lower gums.

"Now, Olivia, you have several Energy affinities, which is a positive and a potential negative for you. Students with no affinity are a bit more moldable by the staff here and are therefore looked at a bit more favorably by some. You, however, don't just have a random affinity; your Core is attuned to four different elements. The question is, how well can you manipulate your different attunements?" Once again, Gan reached into his desk, and this time he pulled out something that looked much like a candelabra. It had a silver base and eight different arms arching out. At the end of each silver arm was a small, golf-ball-sized crystal.

"That's lovely," Olivia said quietly.

"Oh, yes, it is. This is a relatively simple device, though - each crystal lights up based on the attunement of the Energy that is channeled into it. Allow me to demonstrate." Gan-dak held one hand out toward the device, and one of the crystals flared to life in a brilliant golden hue. A moment later, another of the crystals began to glow with a strange smokey greenish-black light. "The golden light is pure Energy. The other is my corruption-attuned Energy." He smiled, closed his hand, and the lights winked out. "Now your turn!"

Olivia thought about what he'd said. He clearly had some sort of corruption attunement, but he could still channel pure Energy. Was she able to do that also? She always just channeled one of her elementally attuned Energies. From looking at her status sheet, she knew that she still had a pure Energy affinity of 9.1, though her other affinities were higher at 9.6. Still, she knew that, relatively, her pure Energy affinity was very high. Shouldn’t she still be able to channel it? She held out a hand and concentrated on the crystal device. Slowly she reached into the heart of her Core, where the unattuned Energy spun in a tight golden ball. She willed it to travel out along her pathways and pushed it forth into one of the crystals. She couldn't stop the smile that burst across her face when the crystal started to emit a pure, golden light.

"Good, Olivia, are you able to channel your attuned Energy at all while maintaining that light?" Olivia locked eyes with Gan-dak, and her grin spread even further. She carefully willed her different elemental affinities out through her pathways, maintaining their separate threads, just as she did when she made attuned Energy beads. When the four threads of Energy reached her hand, she just extended her will, pushing the different elements into different crystals. Suddenly the device lit up with green, red, blue, and bright white lights, adding to the pure golden crystal still steadily pulsing forth its glow.

"Five? At once? Hold onto that, Olivia, don't let it drop!" Gan-dak stood up and walked over to the wall on his left side, pounding on a small space between two bookshelves. "Tilia! Tilia, come here! You want to see this!" He shouted.