The arena was a chaotic swarm of wobbling bodies and panicked screams. The Broom Flight test was the great filter; it separated those with innate mana control from those who had merely brute-forced their way through life.
"Fly!" the Proctor commanded.
Lencar watched as the nobles immediately shot into the air. They had been riding brooms since they were toddlers. It was second nature to them.
Then he looked at Asta.
"HRRRGHHH!" Asta was gripping the broom handle so hard the wood was groaning. He was red in the face, veins popping on his forehead. "FLY! WHY WON'T YOU FLY?!"
The broom lay dead on the ground. Asta had no mana. Zero. You cannot pour water into a cup if you don't have a pitcher.
"Heh, look at that scrub," a noble sneered from twenty feet up. "He can't even lift it an inch."
Then there was Yuno.
Yuno didn't mount the broom. He stood on it. He folded his arms and simply willed the mana to obey him. The broom shot upward, cutting through the air like an arrow, stopping perfectly at the fifty-meter mark. He looked down at the arena with the detached gaze of a god.
"Incredible!" Vangeance murmured from the balcony. "That boy... the four-leaf clover. His control is absolute."
"He's got style, I'll give him that," Yami grunted, exhaling smoke.
Now, it was Lencar's turn.
Analysis: If I use my full control—the 10x multiplier I achieved in Sosei—I could fly loops around Yuno. I could stand on the broom on one finger.
Result: That would attract the Golden Dawn or the Silver Eagles. They would want to recruit a "prodigy." I would be placed under Vangeance's eye or Nozel's scrutiny.
Correction: I must aim for the median. The average height for a passing commoner is 15 meters. A "good" commoner hits 20.
Lencar channeled his mana. He didn't use the flexible, high-frequency energy of the Soul Crystals. He used a rougher, unrefined layer of his own base mana. He mounted the broom and pushed.
He rose into the air. Ten meters. Fifteen. Twenty.
At twenty meters, he stopped. He deliberately introduced a slight instability into the mana flow—a "wobble." He let the broom drift a few inches to the left, then corrected it with a visible jerk of his hand.
"Steady..." Lencar muttered loud enough for the nearby proctor to hear. "Focus..."
To the observer, he looked like a hardworking commoner who had practiced just enough to be competent, but who still struggled with the finer points of levitation.
"Not bad," the proctor noted, making a mark on his clipboard. "A bit shaky, but he's got the height. Pass."
Lencar hovered there, looking up at Yuno, who was thirty meters above him. Yuno glanced down, his eyes narrowing slightly. He knew Lencar could do better. He had seen Lencar's mana in Hage.
Lencar met his gaze and gave a microscopic shake of his head. Don't blow my cover, Yuno.
Yuno turned away, understanding—or at least, accepting—the game.
The tests continued, each one designed to measure a different aspect of magical aptitude.
Test Two: Magic Power Ability.
A thick brick wall was erected. Candidates had to blast it with a single spell.
A noble used a lightning bolt to shatter his section.
Asta, having failed the flying, ran up and punched the wall, cracking it with physical force. "I DON'T HAVE MAGIC BUT I HAVE MUSCLES!"
Yuno unleashed a [Towering Tornado] that disintegrated the wall entirely.
Lencar stepped up. He opened his grimoire. He selected Fire Magic.
Option: [Crimson Needle]. High penetration, low visibility.
Selection: [Fireball]. The most generic spell in existence.
He cast it. A ball of fire the size of a beach ball struck the wall. It exploded with a decent boom, leaving a blackened crater and cracking the bricks, but not destroying the wall completely.
"Standard output," Fuegoleon noted from the balcony. "Decent heat, poor penetration. He lacks the royal fire."
Test Three: Magic Control Ability.
Candidates had to maneuver a ball of pure mana through a floating obstacle course of rings. This was where Lencar decided to show his "specialty."
Reasoning: Mages with high control but average power are seen as "Support" or "Utility." They are useful, but rarely suspected of being potential threats to the leadership.
Lencar summoned a small bead of Wind Magic. He sent it through the course. He didn't wobble this time. He guided it with surgical precision, threading the needle through the smallest rings without touching the sides. He finished the course in record time for a commoner.
"Oho?" Rill Boismortier blinked, pausing his painting. "That hooded guy. His mana is boring, but his fingers are steady. He'd be good at mixing paints."
"Control is the foundation of trap magic," Charlotte Roselei observed. "He has discipline. A rare trait for a peasant."
Test Four: Creation Magic.
"Create something," the Proctor said.
Lencar used Sand Magic. He didn't create the [Desert's Guillotine] or the [Obsidian Glass Burial]. He created a simple, perfectly symmetrical cube of sandstone.
"Structural integrity is high," the proctor noted. "But zero creativity. No artistic flair."
Test Five: Evolution (Plant Growth).
Lencar poured earth mana into a seed. It grew into a sturdy, thick-stemmed sunflower. It wasn't a magical forest like Vangeance could create, but it was healthy.
As the tests concluded, the Captains began to confer.
"This batch is... polarized," Gueldre Poizot sneered, counting his potential bribes mentally. "We have the four-leaf prodigy, who is obviously Golden Dawn material. We have the magicless boy, who is a waste of time. And the rest are just... fodder."
"I don't know," Jack the Ripper cackled, slicing a piece of salami with a mana blade. "That boy in the hood. The one who made the sand cube. He's... tight. No wasted movement. I'd like to see if he breaks when I cut him."
"He is average," Nozel Silva dismissed. "He has reached the ceiling of his commoner blood. He will make a fine infantryman for a lower squad, but he has no place among the Eagles."
William Vangeance looked down at Lencar. Behind his mask, the elf soul of Patolli stirred.
Patolli's thought: "That human... his mana feels strange. It is composed, but beneath it... there is a silence I do not like. It reminds me of a predator holding its breath."
William's thought: "He is diligent. A solid recruit. But he lacks the spark of greatness that Yuno possesses."
Yami Sukehiro took a long drag of his cigarette. He looked at Asta, who was currently yelling at a rock. Then he looked at Lencar, who was standing perfectly still, cleaning a speck of dust from his grimoire.
"The loud kid has guts," Yami muttered. "But the quiet kid... he's hiding something. And I hate people who hide things. Maybe I should draft him just to see what falls out if I shake him hard enough."
The sun began to set, casting long shadows across the arena. The physical and magical aptitude tests were over. The crowd was exhausted, their mana pools drained.
The Proctor stepped forward for the final announcement.
"You have shown us your magic," he boomed. "But a Magic Knight must fight. The final test will be Combat."
Lencar looked up. This was the dangerous part. In a fight, instincts took over. If he was pushed, if he was threatened, his body might react with the speed of an 8x reinforced titan. He had to fight, but he had to fight badly.
"Phase Five, Step Two," Lencar thought. "Win... but make it look lucky."
Asta grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Finally! Something I can hit!"
Yuno stepped forward, his wind already swirling.
The real exam was about to begin.