134 Student Interview

After breakfast, the new students were led to a large stone brick hall. They were made to queue in the order of their wooden disks. As their numbers were called the student entered a small office. Since Jayde was forty-eighth, she had a long wait ahead of her.

"Number forty-eight."

Jayde walked the small office. Sitting behind a large dark wooden desk was an elderly mage. His wizened face peered out from under a mop of powdery white hair. His hazel eyes framed by thick white eyebrows were so heavily lidded and weighed down with wrinkled folds that it was almost like he was taking a nap, yet his gaze was sharp and alert.

Assessing Jayde he said, "Name?" Jayde had been expecting his voice to have the creakiness of old age but it was more like a drill sergeant, strong and authoritative.

"Jayde Centauri."

"Centauri? Unusual." The old mage mumbled as he scribbled on a piece of parchment in front of him, the quill in his hand making a scratchy sound as it moved across the parchment.

Glancing up and seeing that Jayde was still standing, he indicated to a chair. "Sit girl."

Once Jayde had taken a seat he gave her an accessing look, seeing the steady look in her eyes, he was slightly taken about. Most new students were nervous, but the young lady sitting opposite him was cool and composed.

Interesting.

"Attributes?" he asked.

"Fire and Earth."

The old mages bushy eyebrows rose, "Bronze dual fire and earth, a rare combination."

"Silver," Jayde corrected the old mage.

The old mage eyebrows furrowed as he asked: "Huh? Silver what?"

"I am a silver dual fire and earth mage," Jayde said distinctively.

The old mage's jaw slackened as he stared at Jayde, blinking owlishly.

His gnarled hand reached up to rub his ear as though he had hadn't heard her right.

"You silver class?" he asked slowly.

Jayde nodded as she confirmed, "Yes."

The old man gave Jayde a hard stare, as though trying to see if she was joking with him. Seeing her cool and confident look, he stood up and walked around his desk to where Jayde was sitting.

"Life disk."

Tilting her head to one side, Jayde gazed up at the old mage. Why is this old guy so worked up, Jayde thought, before she reached into the top of her shirt and fished out her life disk.

Seeing the silver disk with the fire and earth symbols etched on the front, the old mage let out a small huff of breath. As he reached out his hand to Jayde's life disk, Jayde retreated.

"Calm down girly, I just need to confirm that your life disk is authentic," he said in a gruff voice.

Cocking her eyebrow, Jayde leaned forward. The old mage then grasped Jayde's life disk, inject a tiny thread of magic into the life disk, he 'read' the information stored.

Letting go of her life disk, he took a stumbling step backward as he gasped out, "You're a Knight of the 6th class as well?"

What the hell? How could the school miss such a good seedling? This child should never have gone through the assessment but should have received an elite invitation. An icy chill slithered down the old mage's spine as he thought of how close Damonia had come to losing such a powerful mage.

Thank the all the gods she had chosen Damonia, he thought.

The competition between the top three schools in the Lower Realm was fierce. The schools fought ferociously for young powerful mages like Jayde. Every three years the school competed against each other, which decided a school's rating.

The rating of the school was vital in obtaining resources and more importantly in attracting powerful new students. Damonia had been struggling to attract powerful young mages for some time now, they had to offer absurd perks to attract the silver class students that currently had enrolled.

Giving Jayde a brooding look as he sat back down on his chair he wondered where the hell she came from.

"Young lady, can you tell me more about your clan?"

Jayde gave the old mage the story she and Isha had come up with. Once the old mage found out that Jayde's small clan had withdrawn from society generations ago, but had been attacked by bandits and wiped out a couple of months ago, and that Jayde was the sole survivor, immediately understood that must have happened.

The Centauri must have had a powerful silver class mage born a couple of generations ago, but being too small to defend this powerful child, must have hidden themselves away, hoping to grow more powerful. Somehow one of the noble families must have found out about them and hired the bandits to kidnap their children. It was a common occurrence in the Lower Realm.

Really lucky that this young girl had been away at the time of the attack, or she would have had a dreadful future, the old mage thought. A powerful female mage like Jayde would have been turned into a breeder if she had fallen into one of those powerful noble houses.

Throwing Jayde a sympathetic look, the old mage now understood why she was so much more mature than the other students. This poor child she must have gone through hell, he thought. Feeling protective of this young mage, he decided he would do everything in his power to protect her.

Giving Jayde a reassuring smiled, he said, "Young Jayde, you don't have to fear anything anymore, now that you a student of Damonia you will be protected. We take the safety of our students very seriously. Well, the first thing we need to do is get you transferred to the inner door."

When Jayde heard that the old mage wanted to transfer her the inner door of the school, she was upset, she had already found out that the school was divided into two sections. The outer door for normal students and the inner door for elite students.

While the elite students were given the best resources, the problem was that all of them came from noble families and Jayde didn't want to attract their attention just yet. She also knew that her knowledge was severely lacking compared to those students, so she wanted to take some time learning the basics before transferring over the elite class.

"Sir, I would prefer to stay in the outer door for a while."

"You can call me Elder Citro," he said, "Why would you want to stay in the outer door, surely you know that you will get better resources moving to the inner door."

Seeing how concerned Elder Citro was, Jayde told him her concerns about attracting unwanted attention, as well as wanting more time to catch up with the elite students.

Seeing how earnest she was, and understanding her concerns Elder Citro was convinced to let her stay in the outer door. As a mage from a tiny clan Elder Citro understood the threats that Jayde would face, and he was more than willing to give her any assistance to ensure that she had time to increase her power so that she could stand toe to toe with the powerful noble clans.

Just thinking of those lustful stallions in the elite class, and what they would do seeing the delicate but beautiful young mage in front of him, and he felt a small flame of protective fury alight within his heart.

Clenching his fist, he swore he would convince the headmaster to allow this young mage to stay within the outer doors. At least there she was the most powerful mage among her peers and she would be able to defend herself.

The outer and inner door didn't have any interaction, and Jayde could transfer in a year's time, she would have to challenge the inner door students and gain a ranking on the inner door battle board to transfer, but Elder Citro was confident that this young mage could do it.

"Fine, I will speak to Headmaster Albanus, and convince him to let you stay in the outer doors. Now let us talk about which classes you will be attending."

--

Quote of the day

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ― Abraham Lincoln