"Y-Yes! To become a Fourth-Year, you must predict what level of magic I'm gonna use," Galak responded.
"Huh?" Lawrend blinked his eyes at him in confusion.
"I won't cast my spell but predict what level it is from the flow of mana you can observe on my body," Galak further explained.
"I got it," Lawrend replied with a nod of his head.
"Let's go outside. I might accidentally destroy this room," Galak said.
And so, everyone in the room walked outside. They stood around in a circle on the grassy open area beside the building of the Lightning Department.
Lawrend and Galak were standing in the center as they faced each other.
"Ready?" Galak asked.
"I am," Lawrend replied.
Galak straightened his body and closed his eyes. He then raised his hand into the air.
"O' Thunder of Heaven, hire me as your servant, use me as your lightning rod, cast destruction through my body, Lightning Sundering Net!" Galak chanted.
His body partially glowed purple but nothing happened as he stopped it from fully executing.
"Phew. What do you think? We can wait for as long as you want," Galak asked with a smile on his face.
"High Mage," Lawrend replied calmly and confidently.
"What? You aren't gonna think about it seriously?" Galak asked in confusion.
"I'm confident in my answer," Lawrend replied.
"...Correct," Galak replied in a daze.
"Have you perhaps heard about this spell before?" an instructor on the side asked.
"No," Lawrend curtly replied.
"Very well. Let me test you too then," the instructor replied.
"Sure," Lawrend replied with a calm shrug of his shoulders.
In his mind, there wasn't any difference between whoever tested him. After all, he already knew the technique to determine the strength and level of a spell.
Galak and the instructor nodded at each other before they exchanged places.
The instructor closed his eyes and firmly planted the soles of his shoes on the ground.
"O' Zeus, herald my call, blast the ground into pieces, Lightning Smite!" the instructor chanted.
"True Mage," Lawrend said with the same calmness as earlier.
"Wha—!"
The instructor widened his eyes and stared at him in incredulity.
"Anyone else wanna try?" Lawrend asked as he eyed the crowd in a relaxed manner.
Seeing his carefree appearance, some of the instructors felt humiliated. One by one, they tested him without any rest.
As for Verkoli, he was simply watching the proceedings calmly. He already knew how Lawrend was figuring it out.
It was because of the length of the chants. The more lines there are in a spell, the stronger it was.
"The next ones, stop chanting your spells," Verkoli said.
Immediately, the instructors that were about to go next furrowed their eyebrows in confusion. They hadn't had any idea that Lawrend could tell because of the length of the chants.
"Yes, sir," the instructors replied.
Lawrend furrowed his eyebrows after hearing Verkoli's words. He knew that Verkoli found out about his trick. Nevertheless, that didn't faze him.
"+Judgement Strike+!" the instructor in front of Lawrend shouted.
"Arch Mage," Lawrend replied calmly.
"No way…"
This time, Verkoli was truly surprised. The only way Lawrend could do this was by actually sensing the flow of mana inside the body of the instructor.
"Next," Lawrend said.
He then glanced at Verkoli and smirked at him.
"This kid…"
Verkoli's cheeks twitched. Lawrend's provocation was blatant and insulting.
'I'm several steps ahead of you,' Lawrend thought to himself as he stared at Verkoli.
And so, several more instructors challenged Lawrend until they couldn't anymore.
The instructors all turned their heads to Verkoli after they were all finished. They were all telling him through their eyes that he should go next.
"*Cough* I believe everyone here can unanimously agree that Lawrend is worthy to become a Fourth-Year immediately," Verkoli said awkwardly.
"..."
The instructors looked at each other in shame. They all tried their best, even using obscure lightning spells, but they all failed in the end.
"But I want to ask, how did you do that, Lawrend?" Xervius opened his mouth and asked.
He was dying to know the answer.
"Simple. At first, I figured it out through the lengths of the spells, but when the Purple Thunder Grand Mage made the rest stop chanting, I had to figure it out by sensing the mana inside your bodies," Lawrend explained.
"But why didn't you do that in the first place?" Xervius asked curiously.
"I actually didn't know how to distinguish them… Only after seeing dozens of you do it was I able to figure it out," Lawrend replied with a humble smile on his face.
"I see…" Xervius nodded his head in understanding.
The other instructors around them had looks of enlightenment on their faces. Lawrend's words taught them that the length of the spells dictate how strong it would be.
"Do you have a piece of paper?" Lawrend asked Xervius.
"Ah, yes," Xervius replied.
A piece of brown paper appeared on his hand, and he passed it to him. Lawrend took it and a pencil appeared in his hand.
He wrote something on the paper before passing it back to Xervius.
"What's this? A spell?"
"That's the Beginner Mage spell, Shock Arc and its True Mage version," Lawrend explained.
"True Mage? I don't remember my older brother succeeding in creating one," Xervious replied in confusion.
"That's because I made that using the Shock Arc as the foundation," Lawrend replied with a smile on his face.
"You…"
Xervious widened his eyes and stared at him in disbelief. The other instructors too were dumbstruck.
Creating a Beginner Mage spell is hard, but modifying one to a higher level is even harder. They couldn't fathom the talent required to be able to do that.
"In fact, I have something better to show you," Lawrend said with a smirk on his face.
He pointed his finger to the sky and closed his eyes.
"I will show you what I learned from all of your spells today," Lawrend said grandly.
