Chapter 69 - Admission

After the floo travel, Elder Atulya and I were back in his room. This was becoming an great day will lot of good things happening at the same time.

After we were comfortably seated in chairs, Elder Atulya asked, "Before we go through the admission process, I want to know something. How old are you?"

I replied "I turned 15 years old a few weeks back. Why? Is me being an underage wizard going to be a problem?"

Elder Atulya "It seems Elder Nainesh was right. He informed me during your test that you had not undergone your magical maturity yet despite your high magical strength. I am surprised you are this strong magically even before your magical maturity. This the first time it has happened so I have to check the rules. Usually the people who join the academy are mȧturė wizards who came here to better themselves. You are the first underage wizard who has passed our entry test which is designed keeping mȧturė wizards in mind. We do have underage wizards inside the academy premises but they are allowed inside due to them being the family members of the various elders."

Before he could continue I decided to intervene and said "I want you to know that I am an emancipated minor in the British magical world. I hope that solves some of the problems."

Elder Atulya noted the information and after going through some files, said "You being emancipated does solve some of the problems. After going through the rules, there is only one extra condition that you have meet before you are allowed to enter the academy. the condition is that you must have magical reserves equal to that of an Adept Wizard. After seeing your duel, I am sure you will meet this criterion but we must do this for formality sake."

This made me curious since this was the first time I was hearing about magical ranks. I always wanted to know the numerical measure of my strength but did not find any way to calculate it in any book. This was my chance to know how strong I have become.

I asked curiously "There is a way to measure magical capacity and what are the various ranks of wizards?"

Elder Atulya became shocked and replied "Yes there is a simple way to measure magical capacity. You do not have a means to do that in Britain? This is news to me. Here it is quite common. We have a spell which measures magical strength quickly. It is quite handy when you want to know the results of your hard work. The ranking system followed here and in most of the other parts of the world is

No magic – 0

Squib – 0 – 50

Novice Wizard – 50 – 200

Apprentice Wizard – 200 - 300

Competent Wizard – 300 - 400

Adept Wizard – 400 - 500

Elite Wizard – 500 - 600

Mage – 700 - 800

High Mage – 800 - 900

Grand Mage – 900 - 1000

Archmage – 1000 - 1100

High Archmage – 1100 - 1200

Grand Archmage – 1200 +

An average ȧduŀt wizard is ȧssumed to have the strength of an Adept wizard. Also there are no known Grand Archmages presently in this world. In fact the only ever known Grand Archmages since the beginning of magic were from Britain; Merlin and Morgana le fay. They lived during the golden age during which there were many arch-mages around the world. There hasn't been another Grand arch mage anywhere in the world in the past millennia. Now I am going to cast the spell at you to measure your strength. Don't worry it will not hurt. Ready?"

When I nodded he cast a blue spell at me. The wordings of the spell made no sense to me due to it being in another language. The spell hit me and I felt a tingling sensation throughout my body. When the sensation stopped, in front of Elder Atulya, a large number in blue appeared.

Elder Atulya said in a shocked tone "491!! You have not undergone magical maturity and you are already this strong! I knew you were strong but this is crazy. The power boost you will gain on your maturity will be a lot. You will catch up to my strength of 957 in no time at all."

After hearing Elder Atulya's strength, I know that Dumbledore and Voldemort have the strength close to that of an Archmage. I knew they were not arch mages though since they are said to have an aura around them when they fight and I have not heard about that happening when Dumbledore and Voldemort fight. Despite that I was sure that I couldn't defeat them in a fair fight anytime soon. I am sure it will require more years of hard work before I can defeat them in a duel. I really have to find the reason due to which Harry was able to defeat Voldemort quite easily in those duels since it did not make any sense to me.

Elder Atulya "Let's move on. Since you meet all the requirements, I will take you through the admission process."

An hour of paperwork later, I was the newest member of the academy. It was a tiring hour since I had to go through a lot of contracts that I had to sign before I could join. The contracts were there to protect the secrets of the academy. The contracts for people belonging to ICW countries were stricter than those used for other people since the academy did not want the ICW to know anything about them. After signing the contract, I could not tell others a lot of information about the academy. I couldn't even tell others the exact location of the academy. There were no limitations on what I could study in the academy but there were limitations on what I could teach to other from what I learned at the academy. In an essence, the contracts were there to protect the secrets of the academy.

During the admission process, I also had to pay an admission fee of 50,000G. This was a one-time fee for a life time membership. I did not need to pay more fees every year. This was a lot and again the fee was five times as much due to me belonging to an ICW country. The fee allowed me access to all the facilities that the academy provided like training facilities, libraries, common courses, accommodation etc. Of course, for specialised courses and food, I had to pay extra. The fee was not a problem for me since I was loaded and add to that I had a basilisk corpse worth nearly 1 million Galleons waiting for me at Hogwarts next term.

After paying the required fees and going through information about the academy, I had my schedule planed for my next two months in the academy.

5 am to 7 am – Meditation and Exercises

8 am to 12 pm – Duelling Course

1 pm to 6 pm – Healer Course

8 pm to 12 am – Library

The meditation and exercise in the morning was an important ritual followed in the academy. Elder Atulya told me that I will be taught various things that will be very beneficial for my mind and body and encouraged me to join everyone for the meditation exercises.

Of all the magic fields, I chose Duelling and Healing because the academy gave me what I desperately needed to complete my mastery studies in those fields. Healing course includes working in the Hospital which will provided me the much needed experience and Duelling course will provide me lots of opponents to have a duel with.

After all the formalities were over Elder Atulya said "Congratulations on joining our academy family. Make good use of the short time you are going to stay here. I have great expectations about your future. Tomorrow morning after the meditation exercises, go to the Academy hospital and get yourself immunised for all the local magical diseases. It will be done free of cost. Now I remember Elder Nainesh wanting to meet you. His room is on the 3rd floor, right corridor, second room. He will be free in his room at this time so it is better if you meet him now."

After clearing few more doubts I had about the academy from Elder Atulya, I left his room.