The Review i

It had been two months after Magnus made the deal with Biertgarden and since then things had been smooth sailing.

Many tarverns in North Berlin made similar deals with him and he had further increased the production of beer , capable of producing five thousand packs (6 pack ) every six weeks but still it was not able to satisfy his consumer base .

It could even be said that he had the entirety of North Berlin clamouring for his product .

His total wealth now after subtracting all expenses was 1.7 million tokens and still growing.

But as Magnus was growing, he was unknowingly stepping on some toes. He had ultimately pushed ale out of business and had been tapping from their supposed revenue and this pissed a lot of people off .

That Friday was the recruits annual review, this review determined if the recruit was worth keeping as an investment .

The objective was simple, pass the test and retain your position as a mage of the Black Lion clan. Fail and you will be kicked out to become a lone mage .

For Magnus , it had been ten months since he came to this world and now he was thinking if he could use this review to kick himself out of the clan.

It was a mostly combat test so his plan was to exchange a couple of blows with whomever his opponent was and then mud fight he would just forfeit the match . That was supposed to be enough for him to get kicked off, or so he thought.

He made his way to the tournament pavilion where he would be tested and saw that many recruits were already there and had gathered in small groups talking about what the review was going to be like.

Some people looked nervous while some people looked totally indifferent to the upcoming trial.

" Move." A voice startled him .

A group of recruits were standing right behind him scowling . These were the lakeys of one of the clan elders son , John Morrison.

There were many like him entitled, pompous kids who were born of high ranking executives of the clan with high magic levels but John was actually one of those that was actually strong.

He was a bully nonetheless but he had both the background and physical strength to pull that off .

As for Magnus, despite his new business he never slacked off on training and by now he could actually hold his own against maybe someone like Johnathan his former squad captain. This was just hand to hand combat for training but when it actually came to a life or death situation, Magnus was confident that even the clan leader would fall .

" Attention everyone! " Everyone then turned their attention towards a man standing on a podium wearing the official color of the Black Lion clan. Behind him were four other mages standing with blank expression on their faces.

" Your review will begin shortly and would be divided into two ; the first would be a match amongst you recruits and it would determine if you stay in the clan or kicked out .

The second would be against a veteran mage and your performance would determine your ranking within the clan .

Soon you will start hearing your names and that of your opponent so good luck."

Soon enough the names were being called out for the review. During that period Magnus noticed something, he noticed that the judges had fixed the match so that the "weak" mages would face against stronger mages. It was a way of pruning the herd .

Magnus was one of the supposed weak mages due to fact that he had never gone on a mission and had taken up patrolling.

Usually patrolling was reserved for injured mages who couldn't fight as well as they used to . They were generally just scouts that informed the real guards if there was any problem.

Then the match started , one by one the recruits faced their opponents , some fought gracefully and despite their win or loss , Magnus had developed a sense of great respect for them .

The other people who Magnus abhorred were those that fought with a brutality that was unbefitting of people who believed themselves to be comrades.

He understood the need to be brutal and effective in a fight against an enemy, but here he saw no enemy and believed that there was a more compassionate method of defeating an opponent that you may or may not have to rely on in the future.

" Magnus vs Joe." His match was finally announced.

He has never met Joe once before and regardless of his fighting style, there would be only one possible outcome.

They both took their place in the middle of the pavilion stage and then without warning Joe lunged straight at Magnus, sending powerful jets of water towards Magnus who dodged them with ease . He knew that he would have to forfeit the match but that didn't mean that he would stay to be used as a punching bag.

Joe's advantage was his range , it either meant one of two things, either he was confident that long range attacks were just enough to take care of his opponent or that he was not confident in his hand to hand skills.

Regardless of the reason Magnus quickly closed the distance between them in a way that threw Joe off guard and then he proceeded to gut punch him so hard that Joe actually threw up on the pavilion.

Magnus could see the faces in the crowd and up the judges up in the balcony expecting him to finish the fight , but then he surprised them .

" I would like to forfeit the match. "

Just there was an uproar throughout the entire pavilion. This could have been a very easy win for Magnus but he had decided to throw in the towel .

" Has he gone mad ? "

" He was clearly winning."

" What is his end game ?"

These were the thoughts of both recruit and judges .

As for Magnus , he had thought that he was done after this , that he was done with the clan. All that remained was for the results to be officially called and then he would be out of there.

So he listened attentively as the result was called out.

" John Morrison, Darius Goodman, Parker... And Magnus."

Magnus was surprised to hear his name and so were the recruits. It seemed that the clan was not going to let an asset like Magnus just fail out like that or do he thought.