__Six Months Later__
__Magic Knights Entrance Exam Venue__
The magic knights... Nine squads of mages specializing in battle that work directly under the command of the Wizard King. This army of heroes risks their lives to protect the kingdom. They are admired by the entire nation.
*CHIRP!*
"Phew... I'm getting nervous." - Npc A
*CHIRP!*
"Owww! what the heck is going with these birds?" - Npc B
*CHIRP!*
"They're the famous anti-birds of the exam venue. The less magic power you have, the more they peck at you." - Smartypants Npc C
{A/N: From now i'll be putting these three NPCs as the main Npcs to explain some background stuff that is going on through conversations.}
While all this was happening, Ray was standing off to the side, eating a nomotato he'd bought with him from hage village, while surveying the surroundings.
'Status' Ray called out.
Ray's system had long been disbanded. However, this was a remanent given to him that would let him track his progress smoothly. Earlier the system had given him multiple benefits like occasional quests, an inventory, and most importantly, it allowed him to see the statuses of others around him!
{A/N: Sorry, guys i didn't mention this in the earlier chapters! I actually just decided them on the fly 😜... hehe... I'll edit the previous chapters as soon as possible! Also, I'll also drop an auxiliary volume with the Statuses of all the characters Ray has interacted with, in the story till now. Sorry once again!}
*DING!*
User Data -
Name: Ray
Race: Human (Quincy)
Age: 15 (+18.6)
Magic (Reishi) - 500 (+500 Reishi (from awakening), Improvement Locked. Storage = +983 Reishi (from vacuans))
STR - 20 (Affects User's natural Strength, Improvement Locked.)
DEX - 23 (Affects User's Natural Speed, Improvement Locked.)
DEF - 16 (Affects User's Natural Toughness, Improvement Locked.)
INT - 143 IQ (Gifted, Improvement Not Possible.)
Innate Talents: [Archery Lv. 0.5], [Aiming Lv. 1], [Combat Instinct Lv.2], [Hand-To-Hand Combat Lv.2], [Swordsmanship Lv.1 (New!)]
Grimoire details - Quincy cross, 4 leaf, reinforced.
Spells - [Seele Schneider], [Kojaku (New!)], [Hirenkyaku Lv.1 (+0% speed bonus)]
He sighed as he saw the status window.
No change huh... Ray muttered to himself.
*CHIRP!*
With a loud and dignified chirp, Nero landed on his forehead. As for why she was here? Prolly because asta bored her away. Again.
"What's with you today Nero?" Ray asked the stoic faced bird with a teasing glint in his eyes. "Your looking way too cute."
Nero was momentarily stunned, until she saw the slight upward curve on the edges of his mouth. Now annoyed, she started pecking his head while Ray chuckled away at her reaction.
"You know, at moments like this, I really feel like you're human!" Ray said, almost reflexively.
Hearing this Nero froze. However this action went unnoticed by Ray, as from the podium above the venue, 8 figures had appeared. The arena feel deathly silent.
"Thank you for waiting invited examinees." Vengeance, the captain of golden dawn spoke. "I'm going to be in charge of the magic knights exams this year. Good luck to all participants." Vangeance said and raised his hand, his grimoire flipping open beside him.
Without waiting another second he cast his spell. "World tree, descend."
The ground beneath him trembled as roots erupted from the earth, thick and sprawling like a living labyrinth. Towering above the stadium, the tree's branches stretched far into the heavens itself. The World Tree's massive trunk, gnarled and ancient, seemed to pulse with life. The roots snaked out, intertwining with themselves to form brooms, which then extended to the nearest examinee.
Ray, while watching this display of power stood rigid to the ground. This display had showed him the power difference he would have to overcome before patry manages to complete the resurrection of the elves and Zagred complete's his descent.
A broom was extended to him, which he reflexively took hold of.
Meanwhile, on the podium, vangeance closed his grimoire with a snap and spoke once again, "We shall now begin the magic knights entrance exams. The first test is to fly using these broomsticks. You may now begin." With that he turned around and sat down with the others. Yami had also arrived at podium after his brief encounter with asta at the start.
As soon as vangeance gave the green, all examinees began mounting their brooms and tried to fly. Up in the stands the captains spoke among themselves.
"by seeing a mage fly on his broomstick you get a basic grasp of his potential." Vengeance stated.
*WHOOSH!*
"It appears that we have a few good candidates. The others are decent at most." Nobel Silva said.
*WHOOSH!*
By now the ones with talent in mana manipulation had already taken to air, doing flips and stuff, to impress the captains, while the rest were trying to stay on the broom, or trying not to go out of control. But worse than these, were the two boys still on ground, not able to even lift their brooms. One of them was obviously asta. The other one, however, was quite unexpectedly ray himself.
'Crap! Crap crap crap! Why the fuck is my reishi not working on this thing!' Ray screamed internally as he tried his best to get damn broom flying.
*CHATTER! CHATTER! CHATTER!*
"*Pfftt… Hahaha!* look at those two losers, no magic powers at all lol! What do they want to achieve, coming here lol?" - Npc A
*CHATTER! CHATTER! CHATTER!*
"Lmao! Magic knights, they wanna become lol! With what skills? No magic? And still wanna be the wizard king? Good luck!" -Npc B
"What's going on… even with very little magical power, one should be able to float a little." Fuegeleon vermillion muttered to himself.
As the test continued, both, asta and ray could barely do anything as, one didn't have any magic, and the other was only able to use Reishi.
Finally, in the final test, vangeance announced the use of grimoires in combat.
"The main job of magic knights is battle. Feel free to show us what you're capable of. Pair up with someone and fight him/her." Saying this vangeance returned to his seat.
The crowd of examinees was now extremely tense. They all knew that the first pair to go up would receive more attention, both in a good way and a nervous way.
Ray was standing at the sidelines, waiting for asta and sekke to kick the final test off, but to his surprise, sekke approached him first.
"Hey, how about we go and fight first? I'm sure you're eager to show your skills the captains after your depressing performance. Cmon." Sekke said, but all of that was tuned out as ray began thinking.
'So the story is going off rails again huh… in the original, sekke was supposed to go against asta, and get his ass handed to him. But now he's after me. Heck, I'm not against it but… what will Asta do?' By now they had reached the center and sekke turned to face him.
"ready?" He asked.
"born ready," Ray replied as his grimoire flipped open beside him.
Sekke smirked and cast his spell, "bronze, creation magic! Sekke magnum cannon-ball!"
*BOOM!*
In an instant, the magic surged outward—taking the form of a perfectly spherical bronze orb that encased him entirely. The surface gleamed under the sunlight, runes rippled across its metallic skin, glowing faintly as his mana pulsed within.With a sharp crack of energy, the orb lifted off the ground, propelled by bursts of compressed magic.
Ray sighed at the flashy display and extended his left arm, as his grimoire flipped open beside him. The Quincy cross on his wrist began glowing and then a translucent glowing blue bow forms. Its string is drawn taut ready to fire.
"Kojaku" he simply says.
*[Kojaku] Activated!*
Ray then raises his right hand to his eyes and mimics a otaku pushing his glasses up. The moment he does that gesture, thin rectangular glasses made of reishi form.
"Soul sight" he mutters
He raises his hand to the string, getting the hand ready for the drawing and shoot motion but doesn't do so. He readies himself and taunts.
"Keep trying to be the next big thing—maybe you'll get there... in another lifetime." Ray says as his hands suddenly draw and fires a spirit arrow at the bronze shell. Sekke, meanwhile launches multiple bronze projectiles at ray, but ray dodges them with hirenkyaku.
*[Hirenkyaku] Activated! Consuming 5 reishi per second!*
The arrow Ray launched clanged against the bronze shell before vanishing harmlessly, without causing any serious damage.
"Is that all you can do after all that big talk?" Sekke yelled as he continued his barrage, but it was easy to dodge with hirenkyaku. However, once Ray's reishi finishes in the next 100 seconds, he'll be a sitting duck. Ray dispels his bow and instead grips a handle protruding from this grimoire.
*[Seele Schneider] Activated!*
The moment Ray gripped the handle of Seele Schneider, his speed increased twofold, which, coupled with hirenkyaku propelled him at a speed that sekke could not react to. As soon he came within range of sekke's bronze shell, he channeled all the reishi in his body to the seele Schneider.
*SLASH!*
*BOOM!*
the seele schenieder cut through the bronze shell with ease and slams sekke to the ground. The arena falls deadly silent as Ray gazes at the injured, fear-striken sekke and opens his mouth.
"Is your magic really worth all that noise? Or were you just yelling to distract from how weak you are? From my experience, it probably the latter." Ray taunts, as he turns around and walks away.