Chapter 12 Ethos entrance exam

Arriving in front of the room, there was a fairly big door as all of them stopped there, waiting for them to be able to go into that room.

"You may now come in. I am ready to receive you and show your power. Come in one at a time now, and you can decide who will come in first and in what order amongst yourselves."

The entire group of students seemed to suddenly understand something as this was told, as if they had all spoken about and practiced this all before numerous times; however, they had not but still did it as if they had all the same.

The group of students quickly split open, leaving the area clear enough, forming a clear path for the group of heroes to go into the room.

"Haha, seems they're clearing the path for us, right sis?" Takashi said.

"Yes, brother."

"Well then, why don't you wimps let the big man go in first, then you little wimps can go in afterward when you are sure it's safe and all that, hahaha!" Takashi said with a big, arrogant laugh.

Michiko suddenly went forward ahead of the group with a determined look on her face.

"Takashi, I know you want to go first, but I cannot let you do that. As your teacher, I have to go first. I cannot allow you to go in there knowing it might not be safe for you and that you may be in danger," she spoke with her hands clenched tightly as she stared at her student.

"Tshh." Annoyingly scoffing at her, Takashi crossed his arms. He had been about to step up to her and make his way in first anyway, but as he was about to take that step, he stopped.

Closing his eyes, he remembered it, he had known it all too well.

Drowning; it was like that one time when he was a kid and he had fallen into a lake, but this time, however, it was different… it was thick, much thicker than before… like drowning in a sea of thick, heavy blood. He felt his body being crushed by it, pushed down and forced into submission.

By the time he had come back to from remembering the events from a few minutes ago, he had a small bead of sweat running down his face before he snapped out of it and shook his head, seeing Michiko already making her way through the door and going into the room, already having been way too late for him to stop her now.

'What even was that thing that he did to me back there?' Takashi thought before looking over at the shield amulet on his arm. 'Shouldn't that have stopped that thing? Or was it some type of bypassing capability?' Takashi thought, confusedly.

Arriving in the room, Michiko looked around the new room. There were a few things that she realized as soon as she came in there. This room, similarly to the bathroom, used her powers to create another dimension, much like that one, with the only difference being this one seemed to be more safe, more protected, higher. Unlike the bathroom, which was only an eleven-dimensional room, this one, in fact, was not an eleven-dimensional room. It was instead not a thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, but it was an infinitely high-dimensional room. There was not much in the room, mostly being empty with some dark red curtains acting as the walls to cover the infinite dimensional spaces behind them. There seemed to only be two chairs, one on each side of a circular table.

Arriving in the room, Michiko sat down facing the young-looking royal court magician who had been seated in the other seat, waiting for her to come.

"Welcome, hero. I am Vivienne Flameheart, the great royal court magician. I will be looking over this part of the entrance exam while you heroes are to be put into the school in Sir Aruji's class, whether or not you pass or not, so do not worry but please do your best either way."

"Yes, I will."

"Now then, as you saw with Sir Aruji, you have to put some mana in the crystal, and if you get a power of one thousand then you would qualify to be in the class and be seen as on a level of a proper heroic figure but worry not even if you were not to be on that level you will be in there either way."

"Understood. Would that be considered as very high, then, I take it?"

"Yes, it would be very high for most magicians; you could cast quite a few spells with powers like that."

"Ooh, here I go then."

Lifting her hands, she put her hands on the crystal ball and closed her eyes. She let out a breath before starting to let out her magic in a steady stream of her mana into the ball.

The crystal-like ball started to quickly start to shine and light up, slowly increasing more and more until it eventually stopped, and the many letters started to appear, going down more and more with the many letters appeared.

Shining for a bit more once more, it started to show her stats:

Name: Michiko

Age: twenty-five

Gender: female

Race: Dryad

Hair color: brown

Skin color: white

Eyes: brown

Height: five four

Weight: one hundred five

Mana: two thousand two hundred and fifty

And so once again, more and more things appeared on the ball as it went down more and more. There seemed to be a big list of numbers and words going down, saying things about her such as her physical appearance, muscle mass, and much more until reaching the bottom where she was shown to have had a few special abilities.

Racial ability: nature manipulation, tree growth, bloom, water manipulation, earth manipulation, wind manipulation and a lot more once again went on showing more and more information as it seemed that she had quite a few abilities thanks to her Dryad race and some other special abilities she seemed to qualify for such as healing and recovery magic and such.

"Wow, you're a natural at this Michiko!" Vivienne Flameheart said as she looked over the crystal ball with shining eyes and getting close to Michiko as she did, making her go back a little to not smack with their faces together.

"Ah, yeah, it's really cool, I think?" Michiko nervously said as she looked uncomfortably at her.

"Yeah! It's really REALLY cool, there's not many people who can do that kind of stuff! Out of the trillions and trillions of people in this world there's not many people in this world who can use that."

"Hahaha," chuckling nervously, Michiko tried pushing the smaller girl off her, leading to the girl latching harder onto her and speaking more and more.

The former class one a and now soon to be the class of summoned heroes watched as their teacher Michiko walked out of the room, sweating and panting heavily.

Walking out, she was quickly held by Akane, Sora, and Kuro, all three of them caught her, stopping her from falling.

"You should all be very careful about this… she's… dangerous…" Michiko warned with the last of her strength before seemingly passing out.

Takashi scoffed as he entered the room.

"You wimps stay out here since y'all don't have the balls to."

Arriving in the room, Takashi saw a much similar room as Michiko, however, there was something that stuck out not that Takashi knew this, however.

Unlike before with Michiko, Vivienne was not as happy and relaxed as she had

been before, no she, in fact, looked like she had been ready to start a fight at any moment, as if she was ready for something to happen.

"Sir Takashi, I am Vivienne Flameheart, the great royal court magician. I will be looking over this part of the exam, and as such, I have complete power over what happens here.

Raising a hand, something strange started to happen.

Reality itself seemed to shift and bend, twisting and turning before something started to form from it.

No, it wasn't something, but someone; a ghost-like body started to form into the empty space before she suddenly appeared, his sister Akane suddenly appeared before not realizing what was happening. She looked around to see where she was.

'What happened? Where am I? Takashi? Doesn't that mean I'm in there? Or am I hallucinating?' Akane thought as she looked around confusedly before landing her eyes on the royal court magician.

"Well then, now that you're here I'll say it again. I am Vivienne Flameheart, and I will be going over this part of the entrance exams, and so I get to decide what happens here."

"Why was I brought here and how- I was just outside with Michiko and the others…?" Akane asked, sounding worried and confused.

"You are both here because of one thing. As the royal court magician, I have a great deal of knowledge in magic and magic items, and so I would like to ask how you two heroes gain such magical items." Vivienne Flameheart asked with a glint in her eyes and a serious look on her face as if judging them rather harshly.