Exam Day: Succeeding while Failing
The alarm clock was beeping, over and over, like a happy child welcoming the morning sun. Eric fell out of bed, stumbled across his small bedroom to his windowsill, picked it up and threw it across the room and against the wall. It finally went quiet.
He fell down the stairs, grabbing the rucksack that was on the bottom one on the way down. He leaned into the kitchen and grabbed a small plastic bag left on the main table and ran out of the house, long before his mother or father had woken up. He was 16, he didn't need his parents telling what he had to do.
School, if you could call that torture school, was just around the corner, so he arrived extra early. He sat, on the ground, just outside the gate and took out the stuff that was in the plastic bag. Two ham and chocolate spread sandwiches. He ate them while waiting for his one and only friend to arrive. Something important was gonna happen today, he could feel it, and having Mat by his side would be great.
The rest of his class arrived and separated: girls went to get their affinities checked while the boys went to the exam hall. Hatch, the 'cool kid' of the class who had no friends, passed by Eric without a second glance. Suddenly, Eric felt a tap on his shoulder.
Mat had that same beaming face that seemed to light up the world around him. Shame that doesn't improve Erics mood, since he was almost the exact opposite. This continued with their clothes: Eric had an orange top and green pants while Mat had a blue tank top and a red pair jeans. The colours may have dulled over the years, but that was fine since nobody commented on it any more.
"Are you ready?" Mat exclaimed, bouncing up and down, "I'm gonna be a mage! The most powerful one ever!"
"Im not ready for anything, and you shouldn't either. You could have no affinities, you could be so weak that they wont train you. Or you could just die, before you ever got the chance at doing any of that." Eric stated, as they began the long journey to the exam hall.
They entered the exam hall together and after one parapare the exam was finished. Mat passed with marks to spare.
Eric completely failed.
The boys then headed to the designated place for their attribute test. They passed by the girls who were going to the exam hall. All of the girls were crowded around one girl. Eric only just grabbed a glance at her, and whoever she was she was really enjoying the attention.
Eric was last to be tested so he had the joy of watching Hatch and Mat both getting decent scores. He entered the white room, which had black tiles on both the ceiling and the floor. A black suited man sat across a table from an empty chair. He had already drawn the black-purple eye in mid-air. He sat across from the man with his arms crossed. The man snapped his fingers and Eric blinked.
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He was back in the void with the system ball thing off to one side. In front of him, however, was three lines of text:
Strength - 238
Intelligence - 100
Magic Potential - 88
The system floated over to him and displayed a further three lines:
Become Strength 250 --- 50 system coins
Learn all forms of Ball --- 50 sc
Learn'The Shadows Eye' technique --- 50 sc
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And, just like that, he was back in the room with the man. The guy didn't look to good, pale and sweating. Eric got up and left the room with barely a second glance.
Eric found Mat in the centre of the gym with all the other teens from his class. Matt pointed at the white canvas sheet which was at the far end, where the results of the top five students would have their affinities displayed.
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The man wiped his head with a white cloth. Two kids today had the potential to take the emperors throne. Both with light and dark in their hearts. Both able to channel Shine and Shadow. And, of the two, one was an all channeller, which only ever happens every ten generations. He grabbed his phone and dialled the pinned phone number immediately. The Royal Mages had better get to the boy before one of the Seven Houses claimed him.