He went back to the apartment to share the information he found with Marcus.
“Marcus, keep your schedule for the next few days free,” Leo said. “The registration for the academy starts on 1st August.”
Marcus was incredibly grateful that Leo got that information for him. Otherwise, he didn’t even know who to ask to find out about it. He was only starting to interact with new people around him, but it was still hard to make friends that weren’t the same age as him.
“Thanks for the information,” he said.
Leo waved his hand. “Don’t mention it.”
The three days passed in a flash. Leo and Marcus both spent their time training while not doing anything strenuous. Neither of them wanted to be in anything other than their top condition.
After the three-day wait was over, they both left the apartment to go to the academy. They guessed that the academy was where the check was going to be held.
When Leo was walking down the stairs in his apartment, he noticed that the fog covering the academy wasn’t as big as it used to be. Parts of it were uncovered, revealing some of the academy to the rest of the world.
He saw massive buildings that rose to heights that almost reached his own apartment. There were a lot of massive grounds to train in and massive magic formations engraved onto the ground. He realized that the academy was hiding a lot from the public.
He went down the apartment stairs and quickly caught up to Marcus. The both of them left the apartment and went to the entrance of the academy. The minute they left the apartment, they realized the place was completely swarmed with people.
There were more than ten thousand people in front of the academy, and that spilled out to the front of the academy. All of them were packed outside the academy, without anyone entering inside yet.
Leo realized that he would have to squeeze through the crowd to get to the front, and there was a huge chance that he would separate from Marcus. He could try and squeeze into the crowd with him, but that would slow him down.
He looked at Marcus. “Each man for himself. I’m sorry.” He left to go into the crowd. Meanwhile, Marcus chased after him.
“Wait. I don’t have the money to pay for tuition yet.” He said. He didn’t know if he was required to pay the money immediately or afterward. He didn’t want to separate from Leo for that reason.
In a few minutes, Leo got to the front of the crowd. He realized that the majority of the crowd was parents. They were there to drop their kids off and make sure that they got in.
Leo waited for a while. An hour passed before someone came out of the academy. It was an old mage who was floating in the air. He felt that it was odd for a mage to come out for the entrance of an Aura Knight Academy, but he decided to ignore it. They were both the same academy anyway.
He realized that the effect of the mage was incredibly large. Everyone quieted down when they saw someone appear in the air. Leo furrowed his brows in envy. The old man was only a 3rd Circle Mage like Leo was. He also wanted a reaction filled with a reverence like the one the mage got.
Once everyone quieted down, the mage started speaking.
“Everyone! These are the admission requirements for this academy! If you do not meet any of them, please leave.” He said.
He took out a piece of paper and started reading out of it.
“First, the applicant has to be 15 years old, or younger. We have a magical tool here to check your age, so you will be caught if you try to lie.” He said.
“Finally, all 1st Circle Aura Knights automatically pass on to the next round of selection if they pass the first two requirements. The aura level of every other candidate will be required as well. We have a total of 1000 seats available for the second round. We will take the remainder of the 1000 seats from the top candidates based on their aura level. These are the candidates who are not 1st Circle Aura Knights yet.”
When he said that, a lot of the people there smiled. Simply by being Aura Knight already, they had skipped a lot of the hassle.
“Everyone who is already a 1st Circle Aura Knight will line up to my left. Everyone else will line up to my right.” He said.
With this statement, the crowd immediately parted into two extremely unequal halves. Leo looked to the left and saw that there were only 1000 people left, with more than half of them being parents. He was surprised at this sight.
There were only 300 15-year-olds who were in the 1st Circle. After thinking about it, he realized that it made sense. Even Clarice and Evelyn took a lot of time to get to the stage they were. It was simply too hard to train when they were young because they never had the need so they wouldn’t concentrate.
Talent was also another factor. Putting both of them together, very few would actually train hard to become an Aura Knight. The last factor was resources. If the person had access to proper resources like the ones he took to break through, they would easily make the cut.
He walked to the back of the line that had grown large. When he did, he felt someone approach him. Their hands clapped his shoulders.
“Don’t leave me like that,” Marcus said. “I was actually scared I would get kicked out because I couldn’t pay for this.” He said.
Leo laughed. “Okay, don’t worry. You probably only have to pay the entrance fee for today. I don’t think you need to pay your tuition on the day of registering.”
Marcus nodded. They waited in line for their turn. At the start of the line, there was a table with a glowing orb. The old man was sitting there, observing everything. Alongside him was another person in the back.
While the old man sat right at the table, the other person was sitting with his legs outstretched 3 meters away from the table. His eyes were closed and he seemed unbothered by what was happening before him.
On the other side, there was everyone else. Almost 9000 people were waiting in the line. because all those people wouldn’t fit in a single line, they split up into 9 separate lines that walked into 9 tables.
The old man shook his head at the sight. “Too many people. I don’t know why they come here with so many hopes when they know they will fail,” he said.
“Easy for you to say, Baron Mopart. You are a noble, so you wouldn’t understand.” The man behind him said.