Arya advanced with confident strides toward the Great Kingdom's Gate, where guards were stationed regularly like deaf statues, clad in golden combat suits that reflected the sunlight with a brilliant luster.
Their gazes hunted her figure as she approached with an eerie calm; they sensed no magical ripple in the Ether surrounding her.
Her body did not pulse with a single atom of Mana; instead, a magical silence enveloped her—a silence unfamiliar to those accustomed to the din of energy, save for the rhythmic beating of her heart, which hinted at a human life amidst this colossal power.
Upon reaching them, Arya gave them no room for whispering or mockery; she addressed them with a decisive voice:
"I have come for the Academy entrance exam."
The lead guard's features froze. He scanned her body from bottom to top, looks of astonishment and denial etched on his face as if he were seeing a mirage. His senses finally awakened at her hurried voice, which pierced through his daze:
"Hurry up, I am already late."
The guard bristled with rage at her tone, which completely ignored his rank and prestige. He retorted sharply, his voice tinged with irritation:
"Watch your tongue, girl!"
He exhaled in exasperation, eyeing her tattered cloak and her appearance that clearly did not belong in this luxurious place.
Then, with a practiced flick of his hand, a magical record sheet materialized from nothingness and fluttered before him. He asked irritably:
"Name?"
She replied with a single, brief word:
"Arya."
As soon as her name appeared in the magical register, the barriers receded, and she was allowed entry.
She passed him with her usual coldness, while the guard tightened his fist, wishing he could shatter that cold mask covering her face to extinguish the fires of resentment ignited by her disregard for him and his position.
The moment her feet touched the Kingdom's grounds, a strange sensation washed over Arya—one she had never felt before, as if she had crossed a temporal rift to land in a parallel world unrelated to her reality.
She stood transfixed for a moment, her red eyes widening with childlike wonder as she observed the marvels around her.
She saw someone gliding through space atop a soft, snow-white cloud as if it were a piece of the sky, and another rising on a disc of air spinning like a miniature tornado, carrying him with incredible lightness.
The streets hummed with life and magic; passersby strutted in elegant clothes designed to reflect the Kingdom's luxury, and nobles were scattered in every corner, their lavish garments flickering with the overflow of Mana.
Arya walked through this fantastical masterpiece, her eyes darting between the towering palaces and the magical technologies that made the impossible a tangible reality.
Her fascination was evident in her eyes, which had known nothing but the color of ash.
However, in return, the gazes of the people followed her like whips; to them, she was not just a stranger, but an intruder breaking the fabric of their harmonious reality.
What stirred their astonishment and condemnation was not just her tattered cloak, but that terrifying void surrounding her; no aura radiated from her, and no Mana flowed in her veins—she was completely hollow of everything they sanctified and considered the essence of existence.
She moved among them like a silent gap in a loud symphony, a being defying the laws of "Aetheria" by her mere magic-less presence in a world that worshiped energy.
Arya stood amidst this enchanting bustle like a lost stranger, walking with stumbling steps without a specific destination.
She turned around with bewildered looks overflowing with apprehension, searching in this opulent labyrinth for a glimmer to guide her to the testing site—or as she liked to call it, the "execution platform" of an existence that recognizes nothing but Mana.
She tilted her head right and left, but the grandeur of the palaces and the crowd of sorcerers passing above on their clouds and air discs made her vision hazy.
Suddenly, amidst the crowd, her eyes fell on a familiar face; a young man standing in the distance, talking to someone with a playful smile lighting up his face.
Arya blinked several times, racking her exhausted brain:
"Where have I seen this face before?"
Moments later, her red eyes widened with a sudden spark of hope; it was Christoph, the young man she had met in the "Forgotten Forest."
Seeing a savior in his face, Arya raised her head and intended to advance toward him, but he suddenly turned to leave the place.
At that moment, her usual composure betrayed her, and she found herself shouting his name in a loud, thunderous voice that pierced the street's silence:
"Christoph!"
Her shout caused the young man to freeze in place as if struck by a magical seizure, while a sudden silence fell over the surroundings.
Passersby stopped flying and walking, and heads turned slowly toward her, staring at the red-haired girl who dared to break the Kingdom's prestige with a primitive cry.
The looks cast her way were a mixture of condemnation and astonishment that Arya could not interpret, while she remained standing there, her breath shallow and her eyes fixed on Christoph's back, waiting for him to turn and save her from her displacement.
Christoph turned very slowly, casting inquiring glances searching for the owner of that loud voice.
The moment his clear blue eyes met the magic of her red eyes, time froze in his veins. His eyes widened in shocking amazement, and disbelief marked his features, as if he were seeing a ghost from the Forgotten Forest suddenly manifested amidst the Kingdom's luxury.
At that moment, Arya felt a bitter lump in her throat as she swallowed hard; regret instantly gnawed at her for that impulsive shout.
Her thoughts clashed violently; she had not an ounce of trust in this world, and her doubts toward Christoph specifically intensified:
"How can someone be this kind in a world that crushes the weak? Is he planning something?"
Her confusion did not last long, as Christoph began advancing toward her with steady steps, a shadow of a warm smile forming on his lips, as if brushing the dust of shock from his face.
He stopped at a distance appropriate for their status and said in a voice filled with wonder tinged with fascination:
"The girl with the red hair!"
He uttered it with a surprise he could not suppress, his eyes still shining with a mysterious and sincere spark of joy at their renewed meeting.
Arya settled for a slight nod, cursing herself and her predicament in secret; what would she say to him now?
How would she justify her presence?
She felt certain in her depths that he would inevitably mock her if he knew that she, "The Hollow One," had come to knock on the doors of the Great Magic Academy.
A strange silence prevailed between them, broken by Christoph's deep voice, which carried an unusual tone of reassurance:
"I am truly happy to see you well... but, what are you doing in the heart of the Kingdom?"
Question marks were clearly etched above his head, so much so that Arya felt she could almost touch his bewilderment manifested in the air.
Arya gathered the shards of her pride and, with the same deadly calm, looked directly into his blue eyes and said:
"I have come for the Academy test."
At that moment, Christoph's expression changed completely; his brows furrowed in a mixture of amazement and horror.
He tilted his head coldly and murmured in shock:
"I... I truly don't mean to offend, but this question is gnawing at my mind... How will you pass the test when you are without a single atom of Mana?"
He fell silent for a moment, then leaned closer, whispering sharply:
"You will be killed, girl! Leave this place now before destruction falls!"
He instinctively reached out his hand to place it on her shoulder to convince her, but he had barely touched the fabric of her cloak when Arya clamped down on his wrist with a steel grip that made his features contort in pain.
She said in a voice sharp as a blade:
"Do not put your cursed hand on me!"
He quickly raised his other hand in a gesture of surrender, groaning:
"Fine! Fine! I didn't mean any harm, believe me! I only wanted you to survive, not throw yourself to the guillotine!"
Arya narrowed her eyes at him, an internal struggle tearing her apart; why did he care?
Was this kindness merely a wicked mask, or was he naturally insane?
She sighed deeply, exhaling all her doubts and pressures, and decided with an uncalculated risk to play along and see where his play would lead.
She released his hand sharply, and he began rubbing his wrist complainingly, casting her a look of childish blame at the finger marks imprinted on his skin.
He finally said as he turned to walk:
"Follow me... Fortunately for you, or perhaps unfortunately, I am heading to the same place."
Christoph walked ahead with confident strides, while Arya followed in silence, her sharp gaze fixed on his back like a blade ready to pierce at the first sign of treachery.
After a journey that was not long, through the Kingdom's bends decorated with crystals, Christoph tried hard to break the wall of silence and boredom.
He began reciting to Arya details of the places, markets, and magical machines surrounding them—a desperate attempt to distract her mind from what awaited her, or perhaps to ease the weight of the guillotine she would face.
Every now and then, he would turn toward her, casting looks shrouded in sadness, as if taking final mental images of her rare features before inevitable death took her.
As for Arya, she settled for nodding or humming, playing along with his complex talk, of whose technicalities she understood nothing—for magic, to her, was a foreign language whose letters she did not master.
Their steps suddenly stopped in a square of towering majesty, crowded with throngs of applicants from everywhere; nobles in their lavish cloaks, and top students with Ether radiating from their bodies.
Christoph turned toward Arya and said in a calm tone:
"We have arrived... but first, we must draw our numbers before waiting for our turns."
She nodded in silence, her red eyes roaming the square, absorbing every detail of this place that reeked of Mana and arrogance.
She advanced beside Christoph toward a large window where an elderly man sat, his face marked by stoicism and sternness.
The man began distributing numbers, following the Academy's strict protocols and laws.
When it was Arya's turn, he looked at her with condescending eyes, full of surprise and contempt; he scanned her hollow body, certain that she was merely a suicide case who would not survive the terrors of a test that sanctified magical power above all else.
Arya took her number coldly, feeling the weight of the gazes that began to focus on her from every side in that square, as if she were a strange prey that had entered the lions' den by mistake.
As they stepped toward the Great Arena, which was covered with the ambitions of competitors, Christoph remained glued to Arya like her shadow, not leaving her for a second.
Whenever a passerby dared to cast a look of contempt her way, or a conceited noble tried to approach with the intent of mocking her emptiness, Christoph's gentle features would turn into a mask of ferocity.
He would cast them sharp looks dripping with menace, as if behind his blue eyes slept a monster that no one dared provoke.
This terrifying shift in his personality increased Arya's confusion; the question began to grow in the depths of her mind:
"Why does everyone tremble with fear at just a glance from him? Does he hold a special status in this world? Or is he a descendant of one of the highest noble families whose word is never refused?"
She felt a curiosity gnawing at her to know the truth about this mysterious young man, but her pride stained her tongue with silence; after all, they were just travelers who met in a forgotten forest, not friends to dig into secrets.
Suddenly, heavy mechanical sounds echoed, announcing the closing of the front gate; the reception time had ended, and the hour of truth had arrived.
A voice amplified by the magic of vibrating Ether echoed throughout, calling numbers in a strict sequence.
The solemn rituals began; each person advanced toward the high
"Sorcerers' Committee" platform to place their hand on the measuring crystal, which would expose the Mana reservoir in their body and grant them their rank.
The scene was a human tragedy; some left the platform with an expanding smile after receiving a high rank, while others grumbled bitterly at their medium or low rank that shattered their dreams.
Amidst this magical bustle, Arya stood with her eerie calm, watching the numbers approach her own, realizing that the moment everyone would be shocked by her absolute zero was near.
Time passed slowly and heavily, and the arena gradually emptied of the throngs of applicants; some received their acceptance and stood aside with pride, while others had their ambitions crushed in public due to their weak magic, leaving the hall broken, followed by deliberate laughter of mockery that gnawed at their dignity.
This scene boiled in Arya's veins—not out of fear, but rage. She wondered in secret about the cruelty of these hearts that knew no mercy toward the weak, and she gripped her cloak with a force that made her knuckles turn white, while her scowling features spoke of an overwhelming desire to uproot those mocking throats and silence them forever.
Beside her, Christoph watched every twitch in her beautiful face, reading her anger and resilience.
In his heart was a lump; he wished he could shout at her to leave this hell.
The thread of his thoughts was cut by the amplified magical voice that thundered through the place:
"Number 748... Christoph of Aetheria, step forward for inspection!"
Christoph turned toward Arya and gave her a sad, parting look; his heavenly eyes shone with sorrow, knowing that her turn was immediately next, meaning he would witness her magical "execution" up close. He said in a low voice, trying to charge it with reassurance:
"Try to hold on as much as possible, Red One."
Then he smiled at her with a rare sincerity before advancing toward the platform.
Arya remained in her place, her gaze bewildered and distracted; this unsolicited kindness he showered upon her was something she had only known in the embrace of Mother Joanna and among the laughter of the children.
She stood staring toward him, her red eyes shining under the reflected sunlight, which gave them a captivating, breathtaking glow.
Christoph arrived before the Sorcerers' Committee, cast them a brief, cold glance, and then placed his hand on the central crystal.
For a few seconds, an eerie silence prevailed. Suddenly, the place exploded with a brilliant, fiery red light; the crystal glowed with a blinding intensity that covered the entire arena, to the point that no one could see anything but that breathtaking fiery radiance.
Suddenly, a terrifying crackling sound echoed; the crystal split into scattered shards under the weight of a colossal power it could not contain, leaving behind a silence of astonishment that paralyzed the sorcerers even before the applicants.
Arya was stunned for a moment by the magnitude of what she saw; that fiery explosion was not merely a display, but a declaration of a dominance dwelling in that young man's veins.
She now realized the secret of the terror that marked the faces of the applicants as soon as he approached; they sensed with their pores that terrifying raw Mana boiling in his blood. As for her, due to the nature of her body, which represented an "absolute void," she remained resilient, feeling no pressure from the aura or weight from the magic, as if Christoph were just an ordinary human with no influence over her.
Unconsciously, her lips parted into a slight smile—a hint of spontaneous admiration for that power that shattered the crystal's bonds. However, she quickly regained her coldness and erased the trace from her face.
Meanwhile, the judges' shock had surpassed all limits; they were frozen in their seats, mouths agape in wonder, for this young man's energy level was far higher than any usual academic classification.
Soon, their wonder turned into overwhelming joy and pride; this discovery represented a new weapon to protect the Kingdom. Whispers began to rise among them to classify him as a "special case"—a rank that placed him among the Harvesters. Despite his lack of a nature spirit, his raw power was legendary by all standards.
Christoph stepped aside with confident strides, eyes following him as if he were a new machine of war.
But before joining the ranks of the successful, he cast Arya a brief glance—a look that mixed his pride in what he achieved with his intense worry over what would befall her now, for she was next in this bloody theater.
The commentator's voice thundered across the arena like a thunderclap, but this time it carried a tone of mockery and wonder:
"Number 749... Arya of the Cinder Outskirts, step forward for the test!"
Immediately upon the name being spoken, the stands exploded with a wave of provocative laughter and mocking shouts that filled the air; the name "Cinder Outskirts" had always been associated in their minds with poverty, and its pairing with "Arya" meant the pinnacle of weakness.
Arya did not blink; she advanced with confident steps, her features covered by an aura of coldness and stoicism, her sharp red eyes eyeing the sorcerers with an eerie calm, as if she were the one judging them and not the victim being led to her execution platform.
One of the judges replaced the shattered crystal with another, intact one glowing with purity, while the other two judges exchanged looks with her that combined amazement and contempt for her daring to stand in this assembly while being completely hollow.
The judge signaled her with his hand—a cold signal ordering her to place her palm atop the crystal.
She raised her gaze toward him and roved her eyes over their faces one by one in a silent challenge.
Then, she slowly raised her hand and placed it on the cold surface of the crystal. Moments passed like an eternity, and nothing happened; the light did not flicker, the colors did not change—the crystal remained still as a dead rock.
Arya smiled inwardly and withdrew her hand before they could issue their command. Here, one of the judges exploded with a loud laugh tinged with bitter contempt, saying as he leaned his body forward:
"Arya... have you come here to die? As you have seen, the testing device does not respond to you, because you simply do not possess a single atom of pure Mana in your dry veins."
The sorcerer stood up from his place, and Arya instinctively took a step back, tightening the muscles of her steel body; she realized that the Kingdom's law dictated the erasure of the "Nothingness" that pollutes the testing arena. The sorcerer raised his hand before her face, and a dark magical aura began to form in his palm as he smiled wickedly:
"Do you have any final words before we send you to the nothingness to which you belong?"
A mocking smile formed on Arya's lips, and she spoke in a deep voice that shook the judging platform, emphasizing each letter to reach the ears of the entire Kingdom:
"Go to the depths of hell, all of you, you cursed sorcerers!"
The smile froze on the sorcerer's face, and his features sharpened with terrifying cruelty, while his eyes ignited with rampant rage at her insult that touched the pride of them all.
A profound silence fell in the hall—a silence preceding the explosion of death the sorcerer was about to release from his hand toward her chest.
As Christoph watched the scene from his place, his heart pounded like war drums, certainty gnawing at him that Arya had already written her end; what he saw now was the personification of pure death.
Magical energy began to flow from the sorcerer's hand insanely—Mana black as pitch, twisting around his palm like hungry snakes threatening to swallow existence. In a tone dripping with hatred, the sorcerer shouted:
"Then die, you stinking filth!"
He released a dark black beam that pierced the air with the speed of lightning, aimed accurately at her chest.
An anticipatory smile of victory formed on the sorcerer's face, for he believed that his dark magic left nothing behind but ash.
But Arya did not budge; she stood tall like an ancient rock that the winds do not shake, receiving the magical strike with an open chest and an annoying calm.
Here, the attendees' eagerness for her death turned into a madness of terror and a shock that paralyzed their breath; for upon that dark mass touching Arya's body, her chest did not explode, and she did not fall as a lifeless corpse.
Instead, the strike vanished completely like black dust scattered by the wind, as if the sorcerer's magic were but an illusion that evaporated before her reality.
Everyone gasped in total amazement, and the judges' eyes widened until they almost popped out of their sockets from a total lack of comprehension.
"Th... This is impossible!"
The sorcerer murmured with a stutter as he retreated backward. The other sorcerers leaped from their seats, a collective panic seizing them.
They directed their hands toward her all at once, releasing a barrage of raging fire attacks and flickering lightning that shook the ground around her and shattered the marble beneath her feet.
They attacked insanely to deny what their eyes saw, but the miracle repeated; every raging flame and every scorching thunderbolt that touched Arya's body vanished and disappeared as if it were a mirage encountering a solid reality.
Arya remained in the center of that destruction with a composure that did not waver, her red eyes looking at them with silent contempt, while her tattered clothes were not even touched by a scratch, as if she were a black hole swallowing all the Kingdom's magic and turning it into nothingness.
A deathly silence prevailed throughout the arena, and an indescribable terror hung over the applicants until they were completely silenced by the magnitude of what they saw.
As for Christoph, he remained frozen in his place, eyeing her with eyes that could hardly believe that the red-haired girl possessed a body insulating against magic—as if it were a black hole that swallowed every Ether and magic it touched without return.
On the opposite side, the judges had already retreated backward, a shiver of death seizing them as they stared at this living nightmare that stood before them; for what they faced was not just a "hollow" girl as they thought, but an existential opposite to everything they represented.
The air around her seemed still and dead, as if their magical energy, which they had long boasted about, had evaporated in the presence of her invincible entity.
Arya did not settle for the evaporation of their magic; she retreated several steps and tightened her fist until the veins of her hand stood out as if cast from iron.
With a swift movement, she delivered a punch that shook the pillars, splitting the Academy arena in two with a massive rift that extended to tear through the judges' platform, which had been fortified with the strongest protection spells, leading some of them to fall from the magnitude of the tremor.
Amidst the thick clouds of dust, her red hair and tattered cloak fluttered like a war banner, while her sharp red eyes stared at them threateningly, rocks scattering around her.
Everyone stood in a state of total paralysis, among them Christoph, whose features were frozen as he tried to comprehend this scene with his mind; he felt a mixture of joy for her survival, and shock and fear at her destructive form, which was hard to believe.
Arya straightened with the same eerie calm and coldness, brushing the dust off her fist, which was not scratched, and off her simple clothes.
As soon as the dust cleared, revealing the destruction she left behind, she raised her fist before the faces of the stunned sorcerers and said in a voice that shook the hall:
"Your magic determines your status... but my fist will determine your fate... Have I passed the test?"
With the last word, the same wicked smile they had greeted her with moments ago formed on her lips, announcing the breaking of their dominance before her pure strength.