The elves' eyes widened. "He is Astra Van Vontrea, the third prince of the Vontrea Kingdom."
Another said, "I guess we got lucky just to get a broken leg."
Astra entered a beautiful auditorium which was so grand that it looked like a banquet hall. In front of all the seats, there lay a stage with a lectern on it, and behind it, a massive black screen. This was not something new for a high noble like Astra, so he looked over and saw an empty seat.
He took his seat in one of the beautiful red chairs. As he sat, his body lazed into the seat. 'This is so comfy?'
The seat beside him was taken by a fairly skinny elf girl with pale skin and beautiful long green hair. She then tapped on Astra's shoulder to get his attention, then took out a book and wrote in it — Thank You. Astra first looked at it, confused, then realized that she was the elf that was getting bullied. With a smile, he said, "You're welcome."
Then Astra looked over at her and was stunned by her beauty. He shook his head and asked, "Umm, may I know your name?"
The elf then spoke in a gentle and shaky voice, "M-My name is Sylvie."
'What a gentle voice.' He let out a small smile, making Sylvie a little flustered.
The lights of the auditorium turned off, making the whole place dark.
Clap—a rigid sound played through the whole auditorium as a mage clapped on the stage, making the lights turn off.
Everyone's eyes were on the tall man in a blue robe. He had sharp eyes and a large beard which he stroked. He looked like he was around the age of 50. He stood on the stage right behind the lectern.
Astra had a huge smile on his face. 'So this is a person with strong mana. I've only met people with aura.'
Then he spoke with a calm and serious voice, "Hello, new students of Valkorian. I am your principal, the 7-star mage, Oracle. Even though I am from Atlantisa, I won't discriminate against anyone. You are all my students, so all of you will be treated equally. You won't be considered as people from your kingdom, nobles or commoners. I don't care. Here in Valkorian, you are placed by your strength and not your status. So from now on, you are not a prince nor a merchant but rather a Valkory."
He brought out a staff and tapped the ground with it. Water flowed throughout the room, and in front of each student, a blob of water handed them a ticket with a number. "Those numbers are your placement for the class selection, so don't lose it."
Astra looked at his hand and clenched the paper. His number was 48. 'I'll be part of the first group participating in the selection.'
"There's a total of 200 students in this batch, so we will have 4 groups of 50 students each. One group will go at a time and participate, and just for your information, you won't be teammates but rather you will be enemies trying to score more than anyone else." He coughed three times and continued, "Now the instructions of the class selection will be given by Sir Richard."
He turned towards a man with a muscular body, with blonde hair and a blonde beard which was cut sharply. "Sir, you may come and explain the selection."
Richard walked to the middle of the stage and put his hand on the lectern in front of him. "Ok, now listen up, everyone. I'll only explain it one time." A cold breeze filled the class, making every student tremble.
'He applied ice magic on his words?? I didn't know that was a thing you could do.' Astra sat trembling.
"All of you will be sent in groups of 50 like the principal told you. You will be sent to a forest filled with imagery beasts made by the academy's illusionary gadgets. There are 5 kinds of species in the forest, them being — slimes, goblins, boars, twines, and orcs — each will give you a different number of points, depending on their strength. We have also placed a few white orbs which are considered 10 points each. Now, you all will have 3 hours to kill the monsters and gain points. The more points you get, the better your chances to get into Class S. Your goal is to get more points than the students around you."
'Just need to kill a monster. That will be easier than expected.' Astra sat while shaking his leg rapidly, which also caught Sylvie's attention.
"These are how the placements work." He pointed to the black screen behind him.
The black screen displayed a ranking system on it.
Class S - 1 - 5
Class A - 6 - 12
Class B - 13 - 25
Class C - 26 - 40
Class D - 41 - 50
The numbers shown were the rankings of where you are placed in your respective group, so for example, if you reach the 30th rank, you will be placed in Class C.
"Now, we won't be talking anymore, so may the students part of the first 50 groups follow me, and I'll lead all of you to the forest."
As he spoke those words, 50 students including Astra stood up from their seats and went to where Sir Richard was. He took all of them out of the auditorium. After a bit of walking, the group reached the forest, and he also gave all of them a watch — which gave the location and the points of all the students to the staff taking care of the exam.
"Now then, the selection will start when you see a ball of fire in the air."
He then clapped his hands, teleporting all of the students into a random part of the forest.
He couldn't do this from the auditorium as this spell consumes a lot of mana and he had to teleport 4 groups, so he just teleported the students when they reached the forest.
Astra was teleported to an area with a large number of trees and no one in sight. "Damn, there's no one near me." He looked around. Then he looked at his watch. 'This looks cool.' He tapped it, and in front of him a screen popped up saying he had 0 points. 'I can check my points with this.'
Then, in front of him, a ball made of fire flew up.
He unsheathed his sword. "Let's do this."