The written tests
After meeting Mangel and Nelia Cades went to the exam sites, his first test was about mathematics.
The math test took place in a wide hall filled with simple wooden stools and tables with four-sided tests, which included things like Pythagoras theory, although they did not call it that, as they did not have a ehetrian known as "Pythagoras".
Overall it included rather simple equations, as it was not supposed to be peculiarly difficult.
Cades wrote the test and had a pretty good feeling about it, because artificing had a lot to do with exact and rather complex equations and calculating how much energy is going to last something for exactly how long.
His second test, written in the same room, was about alchemy, the art of concocting magical consumables such as edibles that would strengthen oneself or a powder that would explode as soon as it came in contact with water, earth or even air.
He didn't have any problems with that one either because an artificer had to know what material would be able to interact with what material and if that reaction could be explosive and harm them, his mom had forced him to study that for his own safety long before he was allowed to begin his work at artificing and magic.
His third test started directly, with barely any break, as it would be for a long time in this school.
It was about basic magic theory, nothing too difficult and especially easy for Cades, as for example the flute already utilized a lot of intermediate magic theory so this was really just the basics of the basics for him.
After a short break in which he went to the library, a big room full of well....books and looked around to see if he got all his answers right, which he did in most cases, he went back to the test room to write the itril test.
The fourth test saw him back in the already known room and writing a long essay about the history of the city he was in, "resun".
Cades struggled with that part because he was not the best with words and had trouble with his handwriting, which looked similar to a doctors.
In the fifth test the students went outside into an empty field, looked into the now darkened sky with their school-issued telescopes ( Cades was not happy about that) and had to find out where what was and how to navigate themselves.
Navigating oneself was very important for ehetrians.
From a birds viewpoint the earth looks very similar and it is easy for them to get lost because of their enviable speed and high stamina in relation to flying.
A lot of the non-ehetrian students seemed like they were struggling but the ehetrians didn't have any trouble because they had to learn this back when they were just three years old.
After the written tests were finally done everyone was exhausted, each test took about 2.5 hours, so it took 12.5 hours altogether, they had arrived in the morning but it had already been dark for quite some time.
After a 15 minute break and loud moaning and complaining from the students the practical tests began...
The Instructors who were previously watching them during the tests so that they would not cheat came up to them, in Cades case a rather big ehetrian male with strong forearms and multiple scars in the face which looked like he beat up orks for a living, and asked them for their race so that they could be evaluated according to it.
The people who were taking the tests were often from different worlds and capable of different things.
A human can not fly without any help, a ehetrian can not breath underwater without any either.
The physical test was to make sure that they had the stamina for swordsmanship and magic, both practices utilizing the energy stored inside a person to cause something external to happen.
The test consisted of a 45 minute stamina run, a 100 meter sprint and a few simple strength exercises after that.
It was pretty exhausting for everyone involved and the cold air of the night was whipping their faces while they were running circles on the big, uneven dirt campus.
After they were finally done most students fell on their behinds, including Cades, but the swordsmanship and other physical students were still fit and followed the instructors to the second fitness test, the swordsmanship test, consisting of a simple test to see how good they were with their weapons.
The magic students seemed to be relaxed, but then a bad surprise awakened Cades from his thoughts.
"Magic Students, come with me !"
He had forgotten the practical magic test....
How could he forget that ?!
It was incredibly important !
Cades tried to calm himself down and tried to remember what the practical magic test consisted of.
'I think it consists of a simple physical spell to see if we can already cast magic'
While Cades was panicking the instructor, still the Same burly man, was leading them to a place reminiscent of a archery range.
"You all are here to show us if you can already cast magic. This will be very simple, just cast any spell and you pass.", the burly instructor said.
Cades was definitely calm now, he had been casting magic since he was 8 years old after all and this test seemed to be particularly easy.
The instructors took a few steps back to give the students some space to cast their magic.
After concentrating for a bit the already well known violet light already began to shine brightly from the inside of his right hand while resonating with the waves of mana inside of him.
While casting the simple violet light spell, a particularly easy spell that barely consumed a bit more energy than the normal light spell, Cades looked around to see how others were doing.
Most of the others had no problem casting the spell and looked relieved that it was this easy, some seemed to be particularly concentrated, trying to keep the light from spreading or causing a flash of white light and consequently blinding the other test takers.
At that moment he saw Nelia who was smiling while shielding a bright light even more yellow than her hair in her right hand and waving to him with the left.
Cades continued looking and quickly saw Mangel.