Sixth Ring Wizard

Chapter 34 Test

In the dark forest, Herag and the others followed Dino silently.

A cold wind blew by, bringing a biting chill.

The stone path beneath Helag's feet was clean and tidy, without a single fallen leaf, and every stone slab looked exactly the same.

After walking along the stone path for ten minutes, a garden-like place appeared before them.

The garden is circular, with many paths extending out from it, their destinations unknown. The stone path that Herag and his companions were on was just one of those paths.

In the center of the garden is a fountain, spouting water.

Herag noticed that there were people in the garden; he counted eight in total, scattered in twos and threes.

When Dino arrived, they all looked over.

An elderly woman, wearing a tall, pointed gray hat and a long gray robe, approached. She appeared to be in her sixties or seventies. Looking at Herag and the others, she said, "Dino, I've heard that a beautiful and outstanding lady is joining our Augustus group. Who is she?"

Dino smiled and said, "Professor Nina, don't worry, you can take her back after the test."

He turned to Lillian and beckoned, "Lillian, come here. This is Professor Nina from Augustus Academy."

"Professor Nina!" Lillian gave a timid bow, exuding the air of a noble lady, her demeanor both proper and slightly shy.

Herag almost burst out laughing when he saw this; the woman was faking it.

Nina liked it more and more as she looked at it, and pulled Lillian over: "Hmm, not bad!"

The other seven wizards also approached at this time, some male and some female, and their auras were not simple.

Dino looked at the wizard apprentices behind him and shouted, "Those with tokens, stand to my left; those without tokens, stand to my right."

The eleven wizard apprentices quickly split into two groups: seven of them, like Herag and Lillian, had tokens of their magical possession, while only four did not.

To Hrag's surprise, Fegal also did not have a token.

Dino took out a crystal ball, held it in his left hand, and then said to the wizard apprentices in the two rows on the left and right: "Next, we will conduct a wizard aptitude test. The maximum score is one hundred points. The higher the score, the better the aptitude."

"It's important to note that aptitude doesn't mean everything. In the wizarding world, knowledge and hard work are always more important. Good aptitude only means you can progress faster, it doesn't mean you can skip the effort."

"Hrag, you go first."

Helag stood in the first row and went up first.

"Place your hands on it, then channel your magic, and relax," Dino instructed.

Herag did as instructed, placing his hand on the crystal ball and channeling a wisp of magic into it.

White mist immediately surged inside the crystal ball, then condensed into the number seventy-five.

"Hellag, seventy-five! That's great!" Dino patted Hellag on the shoulder to encourage him.

This number surprised Helag himself; he had thought he would be a mediocre character in his forties or fifties.

A middle-aged man with a sinister face walked over. He stared at the fireball ring on Hrag's hand and said, "If I'm not mistaken, what you have on your hand is a token of our Moonglade."

"Yes, sir." Herag felt a strong sense of oppression as he approached, not intentionally, but rather from the unintentional aura emanating from the other's every move.

Dino patted Herag on the shoulder, and the pressure Herag had felt vanished instantly. Dino introduced, "This is Larry Church, a powerful wizard from Moonglade. He'll take you back later."

"Mr. Larry," Herrag greeted politely.

Larry glanced at him expressionlessly, nodded slightly, and said, "Okay, you'll come with me later."

"The second one, Lillian," Dino continued testing.

Lillian was standing behind Hellagur, so she was the second to be tested.

"Eighty-seven!"

The number was clearly displayed inside the crystal ball.

"Excellent! Miss Lillian!" Dino exclaimed.

"Thank you!" Lillian said, lifting her skirt.

Nina came over and took Lillian's hand, her smile impossible to contain. She whispered something in Lillian's ear, something no one else could hear.

The wizard apprentices who possessed the tokens quickly completed the tests. After Lillian, there were no more high-aptitude candidates. The best one only scored 72, and the worst one only scored 15.

Herag noticed that the boy who scored fifteen points was the same one who had been fished by Fegal at the bow of the ship as soon as he boarded, and his name seemed to be Joshua.

Joshua's face was ashen and filled with sorrow. His keepsake was a quill pen, a token from the Aruf Marsh.

Herag watched for a while and then stopped paying attention to him, because the second wave of tests was about to begin.

Of the four wizard apprentices without tokens, Fegal stood at the back; he always seemed to prefer standing behind others.

The first three wizard apprentices all had aptitudes between sixty and seventy, and it was Felgar's turn last.

Herag watched intently, curious about the aptitude score of Fegal, a second-class apprentice.

Fegal's eyes remained devoid of emotion, like a snake; he always wore a cold and indifferent expression.

He placed his hand on the crystal ball, and the white mist began to swirl, eventually condensing into a number: "five".

……

A moment of silence fell over the scene.

"Five? How did someone with five aptitude advance to a second-class apprentice, and at such a young age?" Herag was astonished; he had thought that Fegal should have had very high aptitude.

He recalled what Dino had said: "Look at Fegal, although his mental strength is very high, it is extremely unstable. This kind of reliance on extreme methods..."

"Extreme methods... What kind of methods could allow someone with only five aptitude points to advance to the second-class apprentice level...?"

Dino didn't seem surprised. He coughed to break the silence and said, "Then the test is over. Those who have the tokens, go find your corresponding contacts."

He turned to the eight wizards who had come to fetch the apprentices and said, "So, gentlemen, there are still four wizard apprentices who don't have the necessary tokens. Which of you is willing to take them on?"

Of the four, apart from Fegal, the other three were all above average in terms of aptitude and were quickly recruited by various wizarding organizations.

In the end, only Fegal remained standing there, ignored by everyone.

Herag and the others who traveled together never expected that Fegal would not have a token and would become the last remaining wizard apprentice.

"Is nobody here?" Dino asked again, trying to find the answer.

"Come to our Green Hut." After a moment of silence, a bearded man walked over and extended an invitation to Fegal.

Fegal did not speak, but simply nodded slightly.

"Let's go," the bearded man said, then walked ahead without looking at Fegal.

Dino looked at Fegal as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he moved his throat and still didn't speak.

(End of this chapter)