Chapter 67: The test

Not long, everyone had entered through the gate and appeared in the valley where they would fight wild beasts.

Helena who was held back by a force that suddenly came upon her began to walk towards the tall platform that Amber stood on when the inhibiting force that engulfed her body vanished.

When she got to the platform that Amber stood on, she said respectfully "Ma'am, I would like to go into the valley too. I think my basic skills in close-quarter combat and spellcasting is nearing completion. So, I would like to go into the valley to further sharpen them. Please ma'am"

Amber looked at Helena and shook her head.

Then she jumped down from the platform and walked towards Helena.

When she arrived in front of Helena, she put her right hand on Helena's shoulder and said "Helena, you haven't acquired much skills to be able to do anything in there. You still need more training. So, I will deny you this time. But next time, when your training has been completed, you would be able to go in with the others"

Helena heard this and became sad.

She was however unwilling to give up just like that. She really wanted to go into the valley and fight beasts to hone her battle and magic prowess.

"Ma'am, what if I prove it to you that I can do something in there?" Helena suddenly said with a bright light of hope in her eyes.

Amber who had left Helena's presence to watch how the students that went through the gate to appear in the valley were doing, heard what Helena said and then stopped in her track.

She then turned to look at Helena who had a serious expression in her face.

"I can see that you don't want to give up on any chance to go in there, right?" Amber asked with a smile in her face.

Then before Helena could respond, Amber spoke further by asking "Alright, Helena. How would you prove it to me?"

"I don't know. Maybe by combat so I can show you how far I have reached in my fighting and magic prowess" Helena said with brightly glittering hopeful eyes.

Amber smiled and nodded.

"Okay. Let me see what you can do"

She then looked at an instructor in the distance and said "Create beasts from the sand here to fight her"

The instructor spoken to nodded her head.

Then she walked far away from Helena, about thirty feet away from where she stood so she could create a huge battle space for Helena.

Pointing her finger at the ground, she muttered some mystical words which Helena wouldn't be able to quickly comprehend.

Then instantly, the sand on the ground quickly gathered into a large heap before changing into a beast that roared towards the sky and then shot out towards Helena with rage in it eyes.

Seeing the beast that was running towards her, Helena quickly pointed at the beast and muttered a spell.

Immediately she uttered the spell, a focused stream of fire erupted her finger and shot towards the beast.

Bang!

The beast exploded into a large cloud of sand when the dense, concentrated stream of fire struck it.

The instructor gave a smile and then proceeded to create more beasts from sand.

As soon as she uttered the spell to produce the number of beasts that she had in her mind, sand at various areas of the large training field quickly gathered into massive heaps before changing into beasts that shot out with rage in their eyes towards Helena.

"Galaro Windus!"

Helena said very quickly.

Immediately she uttered that spell, a mighty gale-force wind that could reduce thick concrete wall to crumbles suddenly appeared in the training field and raged towards the dozens of sand beasts when Helena pointed at them.

Immediately the powerful gust of wind struck the beasts, the beasts exploded into clouds of dusts.

However, not all them could be reduced to clouds of sand by the unusually strong gusts of wind that tyrannically struck into them.

So they appeared before Helena at great speeds and leapt towards her with their jaws wide open to bite her.

Seeing what the beasts were about to do, Helena quickly uttered a powerful spell that caused searing hot flame to suddenly erupt in immense amount from her entire body.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The beasts instantly exploded into clouds of dust upon being struck by the tremendous quantity of fire that busted out of her body. While the ground around her for dozens of feet cracked in hundreds of places and looked charred. Also, fumes could be seen emitting from the charred cracks in the ground.

However, using this technique left her very weak as she fell to the ground with her knees and began to pant.

But she stopped panting in the next moment and began to inhale deeply so she could replenish the Aetha energy that had been almost drained from her body upon using that powerful, fire-based, explosive-type magical spell.

However, the instructor facing her didn't give her time to rest so she could recover lost Aetha energy.

Upon inaudibly uttering a more powerful creation spell, more sand at many different areas of the training field quickly gathered into massive heaps of sand before instantly transforming into beasts that looked towering in sizes and appeared more ferocious, such that as they exhaled, long and wide streams of thick white mist exuded from their noses.

Roaarrr!

Roaarrr!...

The beasts roared frenziedly to the sky and then shot towards Helena who was still on the ground and was trying her best to recover more Aetha energy that she had expended in that powerful blast of flame that bursted out of her body.

Helena saw the number of beasts that were dashing towards her and how ferocious they looked and an unhappy expression instantly appeared in her face, contorting it to make her look ugly.

She knew that if she couldn't destroy these beasts to pass the test set for her, she wouldn't be allowed to go through the gate to appear in the valley. And that she would have to go in some other time when the instructors have seen that she had satisfied the requirements set for her.

But what she didn't know was that the instructors watching her battle with the sand beasts were greatly impressed.

That powerful spell which generated a tremendous blast of fire from her body made them nod her head in approval at her.

"Very quick development on how to weave spell this girl has" Amber said in an impressed tone.

Helena then quickly went through many magical spells in her mind. She was looking for one that she would utter and would instantly destroy all the beasts that were dashing furiously towards her.

She stopped at one and quickly mentioned it.

With her palms now on the ground as she said the magical spell, a power moved from her hands to the ground.

Immediately that power made contact with the ground, a tyrannical wave suddenly rose from the earth to a height of ten feet and swept out in all directions with an incomparable destructive power in that same second.

One could compare the destructive capacity of this wave to that of dozens of bombs that were piled together and detonated all at once.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!...

Many loud bang sounds rang out when the tall, omnidirectional wave of high devastating power smashed into the dozens of beasts and caused them to instantly explode into clouds of dust.

This spell took a great toll on Helena as it fully drained her of her entire Aetha energy.

So at the moment, she looked pale-skinned like she was really sick. Also, her vision was blurry and she was afflicted with the worst kind of headache - It was simply like something hard and round was being rapidly and continuously smashed into her head with a lot of force.

Helena whose vision was blurry and tried her utmost best not to faint saw to her great shock that not all the sand beasts had been destroyed by the wave of high destructive power that she generated.

And before she could think of what to do, the beast which was the biggest of all the beasts that the instructor produced, arrived before Helena from it high leap into the air and sent it sharp claws at her face to slash off her head.

However, it couldn't successfully do so and could only superficially slash in her the face before it rapidly turned back to sand that fell to the ground as a large heap of sand which instantly scattered apart in the next moment.

Very quickly, all the instructors ran towards Helena to see if she was okay.

When they got to Helena's side and saw that the slash made into her face wasn't that deep, they heaved loud sighs of relieves.

Amber looked at the instructor that created the sand beasts and asked with a visible expression of annoyance written all over her face "What happened, Laura? Why didn't you turn that particular beast back into sand when you saw Helena's terribly weak condition?"

"I am really sorry, Amber. My control over the beast suddenly mysteriously disappeared. It was like my control over it was hijacked. I just unexpectedly discovered to my shock that I had lost total control over the beast. But it was when I regained my control over it that I rapidly turned the beast back to sand before it could harm Helena." The instructor who was called Laura said in an unhappy and incredibly perplexed tone.

As Amber and Laura were discussing, someone who was on the roof of a building that was far away from the training field suddenly vanished away from there.

The second this person vanished, Amber suddenly looked towards the roof of that building and furrowed her brows.

After thinking for sometime, she looked back at Laura and said "It's okay."

Then she walked towards Helena whose facial injuries that resulted from the slash of the beast claws had been healed and asked "Helena, are you okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." Helena said.

Then she continued with a sad tone in her voice "I am sorry that I failed the test. I would go some other time as you said when my spellcasting skills and fighting prowess has further developed."

Amber smiled.

"You didn't fail the test, Helena. As a matter of fact, you passed it with flying colors. Now, rest for sometime before you go through that gate to go battle those beasts and sharpen your prowess."