"Haa...haaa...haaa."
The sound of a person breathing could be heard coming from a certain part of the large forest, somewhat away from the lake.
Leaning his back against a tree, Jay was currently resting, clutching the center of his chest as he breathed heavily, the side effects of having used his trump card were still present in his lungs.
Gone from his face was the lingering trace of frostbite he'd had only minutes ago, this thanks to the mage taking advantage as he was being carried to absorb the icy mana.
"Hm, looks like even someone as energetic as you can get tired huh..." Said the mage somewhat surprised, watching Jay from the ground.
Because Jay was in a hurry to rest, he simply set him down on a part of the ground that looked somewhat more comfortable than the entire surroundings.
The reason the young mage seemed to be surprised was because he had watched Jay dodge for more than a quarter of an hour the slithering tentacles of the Aqugas snake without stopping for a second.
In addition, he had also carried him for quite a while at full speed before he began to get tired, so the young mage had been somewhat amazed at his incredible physical ability despite being an esper.
As for the anger he felt at first, it had already faded, what filled his insides now was only relief that he hadn't been caught by the Aqugas snake.
'This guy is undoubtedly much more reliable than he looks...' He thought.
After a few minutes, they both seemed to recover slightly, though the mage still couldn't move, even though he had absorbed the icy mana that had been affecting Jay's cheek, that amount wasn't enough for him to fully recover.
"Ok, I'm ready now, do you have any ideas on where to go from here...?" Jay asked as he stood up and started walking towards the mage, "Oh right, I never asked what your name was..."
Although he already knew due to having seen his state window, he asked so it wouldn't seem odd.
"My name is Kesar Ghale, a mage from the prosperous magical kingdom of Gliedal!" The mage replied, intentionally emphasizing both his name and the name of the kingdom he came from.
"Ohh, someone from Gliedal, well you certainly live up to its reputation, the spells you used back there were undoubtedly first class, and my name is Jay, I'm from Beati, as you may have noticed, I'm an esper." Jay said with a smile on his face.
Jay's response was rather simple and straightforward, not hiding his intentions of wanting to create a good impression on this mage, which seemed to work as his little ones conveyed that this cheered him up a bit.
While flattery usually worked on anyone, that was especially true when it came to someone from Gliedal, which was a country known worldwide not only for being the place historically recognized as the birthplace of mages, but also due to the fact that the vast majority of its inhabitants had strong national pride.
Of course, this was understandable, as the country was strong in every aspect, be it economic, military, cultural and even the quality of life of its citizens, there would be little to complain about living in a country like Gliedal.
The reason for this was mainly thanks to two factors, the first being the royal family ruling over the country fairly and looking out for its citizens, and secondly the vast territories filled with rich mana that endowed the nation with an abundant amount of resources.
While there were people hailing from Gliedal who were exceptions to this rule, as with any subject, Kesar was not one of them.
"Beati eh, well, you sure come out of the average compared to the espers I've met from there." Kesar added, also praising Jay.
As the son of a renowned family, he had traveled to several countries to further his knowledge, Beati being one of the ones he first visited due to it being Gliedal's neighbor, though the impression its people left on him had not been a particularly good one.
"Thank you, and roughly how long do you think it will take you to regenerate your mana?" Jay asked, wanting to know the estimated time for them to be able to move.
Even though his little ones were still inside Kesar, they couldn't know something as complex as how long it would take for him to recover.
"I'd say about 10 minutes or so."
Hearing that, Jay put a hand to his chin as he thought about what to do in that period of time, unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything.
"If so, then let's chat while you recover, I've always been interested in learning more about Gliedal." Jay said as he again sat down to better listen to the mage.
With nothing better to do, it wasn't a bad idea to deepen his knowledge about that country, incidentally it might also improve his relationship with this unexpectedly reasonable mage.
"I'd love to... but first change my position please, lying on the floor is starting to get a bit uncomfortable."
"Ah, right, sorry."
Just like that, Jay began a short learning session about Gliedal, the magical realm.
***
*BAM!!*
A heavy sound echoed in the wooded surroundings of a small mountain, located at the heart of the island.
What had caused the sound was nothing more nor less than the body of a large bear which was more than 5 meters long falling to the ground.
The fur of this bear was completely black, with some white lines around its legs and arms, which were extremely burly, indicative of the great strength it possessed.
Although this monster had fallen, if one got close enough, one could tell that despite the sharp fall it had suffered, it was only unconscious.
"I really don't want to kill you, my father has one like you in his garden after all..." Said a blue-haired girl standing in front of this bear.
This girl was quite beautiful, with a fair complexion and fairly smooth skin that was only interrupted from time to time by several runic tattoos covering both her arms and legs.
Of course, this girl was Sarah, who unlike Jay and James, had not encountered any postulants the entire time she had been on this island.
What she had a lot of contact with however, had been the monsters that inhabited this small mountain, this bear being one of them.
"Hm, I really wonder what's the point of testing us like this...?" She wondered as she walked over to the large bear in front of her, sitting down in the middle of its wide, furry belly.
It was quite obvious that she didn't see the bear as a threat at all, the reason for this was that the bear had no means to attack except for its large body and strength, something that already put it at a tremendous disadvantage when facing someone like Sarah.
Only using the same spells as always, "Levitation" and "Movement", even though the bear was a monster that could easily defeat a rank (C) pugilist, all his movements were stopped by the first spell, then she used both spells to make a large stone come out of the ground and float to position itself on top of the bear's head, finally falling and knocking him unconscious.
Instead, what Sarah was most interested in at the moment was finding out what exactly it was that the Eitsirc Academy wanted to test by transporting them all to this place.
While the examiner had said that they only had to survive a one entire day, this was something incredibly easy to accomplish if one simply stayed hidden in a treetop or if they found a cave and stayed there until the next day.
Although there would be risks with both options, they would be minimal, especially for supers whose lowest rank was (D+).
As for the risks one might encounter while navigating this island, based on the monsters that she had encountered so far, they were nothing special, with this bear being the strongest of them all.
Therefore, Sarah couldn't help but think that there was something else that needed to be done in this place, something like a hidden criteria that they had to meet in order to move on to the next phase or something along those lines.
Unfortunately, with the limited information she had, she couldn't come to a definite conclusion, only thinking of certain possibilities which would take a while to check out.
"I guess I'll just go with my original plan for the time being."
After saying that, she got off the bear and climbed a particularly tall tree nearby.
The reason she had come to this small hill had originally been so she could get a better view of the island to get an idea of where she was, the encounter with the bear was just pure coincidence.
"...It looks like it will take me quite a while to find them..." She said as she saw that in front of her there was only a sea of trees stretching for miles.
Sarah had also planned to find Jay and James, but seeing that the island was much larger than it looked on the map, she was having second thoughts about this.
"!"
At that moment, Sarah suddenly jumped out of the tree she was in, the tattoos on her body beginning to give off a faint blue glow, indicative that the mana in her body was beginning to fill these tattoos.
*CRASH!*
Half a second after she jumped, the top of the tree she was in was pierced by a slender spear-like object, which undoubtedly possessed an incredible amount of power.
Sarah then activated several spells in order to be able to detect if there was anyone in her surroundings since even after falling to the ground, she could not see anyone.
As a few seconds passed, she was able to detect a source of energy coming from a nearby bush.
"There!" She shouted, moving her arms as she activated her spells.
The moment she finished saying that, two smallset of runes located on each of her forearms lit up, activating the spell that was engraved within.
While the general purpose of the tattoos was to help with mana usage and to be able to regenerate mana faster, they also had other uses, such as being able to engrave spells so they could be used instantly.
Immediately, the bush was crushed due to the pressure caused by the spell Sarah had just used, but it was unable to trap the person inside as said person jumped out the moment it felt that it was in danger.
The person who had emerged from the bush was a red-haired girl of about 18 years of age with long hair and a graceful face, although her overall appearance was thin, visible efforts of having exercised could be seen on different parts of her body.
Without wanting to give her time to think about more, Sarah began to run towards this girl while she made several nearby rocks levitate with the spell engraved in her right arm and moving them with the spell on her left arm.
Although Sarah didn't know what this girl's motives were for attacking her, she decided that she would ask her after she had beaten her up, besides, this would be the perfect opportunity for her to test one of her theories about the requirements of this test.
In response, the red-haired girl began to back away as she raised her right arm, a spear made of a transparent material slowly appeared in front of her, which she immediately threw towards Sarah.
*CRACK!*
Sarah was already prepared, so she only used a rock to block everything the girl threw at her, without stopping her march and increasing the number of rocks that were following her.
Seeing that none of her spears managed to hit the target, the redhead abandoned the idea of continuing to throw them while fleeing and instead took one of the spears and threw herself against Sarah.
Unfortunately for her, that was a very bad decision.
Although she was able to cut through 3 rocks, after the fourth and fifth, she could only focus on defend herself due to the speed and strength they had, worst of all, the amount of rocks didn't seem to diminish in the slightest.
Finally, while the girl was busy dealing with the rocks, Sarah reached her and jumped into the air, a particularly large rock could be seen above her.
*Crack*
The indistinguishable sound of the rock breaking into several fragments could be heard, first into two, then four and so on, only stopping when the rock had now become more than a hundred small stones the size of an egg.
"Sh*t!" shouted the red-haired girl upon seeing this, wanting to run away with all her might due to the fact that she felt she was in great danger but unable to do sobecasue if she stopped defending herself for a second, the large rocks in front of her would hit her.
Then, a rain of stones fell on top of her, causing a whirlpool of pain to invade her body.
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