Lith, Ralph and Dennis were currently standing on a flat mountain top with their teacher, Arya. In front of them was a vast mountain range. This was the test center for their flying test, which was the first one for the day.
“Goodmorning, students. Let me brief you on how the test shall be. The test is simple. All you have to do is fly from here, all the way to the end of the mountain range in front of you.
There is another mountain top similar to this one present at the end where instructors will be waiting for you. Your whole journey would be monitored, so make sure to leave any thoughts of cheating or creating troubles for other students aside.
There would be many obstacles in between, what they are or will be, you’ll know for yourself soon. That’s pretty much it. Now get ready.
The test begins in 3…”
An instructor announced to the students present. There were many students present at the centre, around three to four thousand. This was a given as there were many races present in the world who were capable of flying from a young age or even birth.
The Angels, Demons, Vampires and Dragons possessed wings since birth. The Vampires, although they had wings since birth, had to awaken it with the help of other Vampires.
The other Vampires being their parents or guardians. If they didn’t have any, they could just ask any random Vampire for help or go to a guild and hire a Vampire for the same.
The wings of a newborn Vampire were closed and hidden inside the body. They were in an inactive form. They would be active and awaken once sufficient amount of power is channeled to them and open up.
The Vampires do not possess such an amount of power irrespective of whether they were from a noble bloodline or were a commoner. They would only have sufficient powers when they awakened their magic core but there lay other problems with it.
The wings, when awakened from their inactive to active state are highly unstable and go out of control. Someone was needed to stabilize them and if they didn’t, the person would be severely injured. Thus, Vampires couldn’t awaken their wings on their own.
Every Vampire on the planet understood this simple reasoning and they were all open to help someone awaken theirs if there wasn’t any guardian or parent available for them. It didn’t cost them anything to help and it also didn’t take a lot of time, so everybody was open to help little children awaken theirs.
The students heard the instructor’s words and readied themselves. The students opened their wings and set themselves to take off.
“…2…”
“…1…”
Bang!
“Go!”
The instructor fired his gun in the air and the students took off at the noise of the gunshot.
Lith, Ralph and Dennis too took off. Arya walked towards the monitoring booth present at the corner of the mountain top.
…..
Lith was currently flying together with Ralph and Dennis beside him. They were behind the other students as their position during take off was at the last. It was all thanks to Arya for bringing them late to the test center.
The position for take off was based on first come basis. Those who arrived early got a position in front and those who arrived late, at the back. Lith, Ralph and Dennis were dead last.
“Let’s finish this up quickly. We have other tests that need to be given too.” Lith said and flapped his wings and distanced himself from Ralph and Dennis without waiting for their replies.
Though Lith had space affinity, he couldn’t use it here. The place they were in was in an alternate dimension which had a gate present at the abalax sky island. The sky island possessed many such gates and this was just one of the few.
The academy staff added a spatial inhibitor at the flying test track. This was to ensure students didn’t use space magic. All other elemental magic were allowed to be used except for space as that resulted in giving students a huge advantage and acted as a cheat during previous testing sessions. The academy learnt their lesson and therefore the element was made unavailable to students.
Ralph and Dennis too flapped their wings quickly and tried to catch up with Lith. They considered Lith to be their biggest competitor. Being beaten by him repeatedly and still not being able to secure a victory, they knew how talented Lith was and therefore constantly tried to better themselves to gain an advantage over him.
…..
“Aargh! Faster! I need to be faster! I need to win this race! Fly! Fly! Fly!”
A student said and flapped his wings with the best of his ability. There were many other present in front and back of him. Anywhere he could see, there were other students trying their best to win this race.
“COME ON YOU DAMN WINGS! MOVEEEE!” Another student a few distance away yelled loud enough for others to hear it. Though everyone just ignored him and focused on their own race.
Fuuussshhh!
The sound of air being pierced was heard loud enough for all the students to hear and be distracted. They looked towards the source and found something coming closer towards them.
From the distance, a blurry figure was flying towards them at a high speed. The figure appeared closer with each second and after a few moments, they could make out that it was a silver head wearing the academy uniforms.
“Hey, isn’t that the topper?” A student asked after stopping his tracks, clearly forgetting that a race was going on.
“Let me see clearly. I cannot make it out.” Another student beside him stopped and squinted his eyes to have a proper look. The figure came closer and the students could now clearly see the face.
“HOLY SHIT! THAT’S REALLY THE TOPPER!” The guy squinting his eyes yelled loudly.
The other students had stopped already due to the commotion and were currently looking at the silver haired boy flying towards them. It was Lith who was flying at such a high speed that a piercing sound was heard. He was not only using his wings but also wind spells to give himself a boost.
SWOOSH!
“WOAH!”
“THE TOPPER IS ON ANOTHER LEVEL!”
“Tsk. Fools, we are still in a race. Keep gawking, I am leaving.”
“You’re right! You’re right! Let’s not forget we are in a race!”
“BUT THAT WAS SO DAMN COOL!”
An amused group of students commented on Lith surpassing them in an instant with a swooshing sound. Just a second after that,
Fuuussshhh!
Crack!
“Huh? What’s this noise again?”
“LOOK! OVER THERE! OVER THERE!”
The students heard another piercing sound as well as a new cracking sound. They looked over and found another figure coming towards them at a fast speed. Just as the figure neared, another followed behind.
“Who are they?” A student squinted his eyes, to get a better look and asked.
“They seem to be…”
“THE TOPPERS! IT’S THE TOPPERS AGAIN!”
“DAMN IT! WHY DO THEY HAVE TO ATTEND THIS TEST!”
A boy with pink hair and another behind him with black hair flew towards these bunch of students. Behind the pink haired boy was a trail of silver lightning due to him using Lightning spells to boost his flying speed.
SWISH! SWISH!
Ralph and Dennis flew over the bunch of students and surpassed them. Dennis was the only one among the trio who didn’t have any spells to boost his flying speed. Flying could only be boosted by spells from Wind, Lightning, Space and Time spells.
Though he had Time affinity, casting time acceleration on self wasn’t advised to people below rank 6. The lifespan was very low for people below rank 6 and thus, using it would result in a loss of it.
“DAMN IT! FLY! FLY!” A person shouted and flapped his wings faster.
“Why did I stop to watch them? Sigh.” Another person got depressed looking at the three toppers fly over so quickly and sighed in defeat.
“If I can’t make it to the top 3, I’ll be in the top 10! LET’S GOOOOO!!” A student tried to motivate himself and flapped his angel wings in a rush to the finish line.
“KUN-KUN-KUKUNNN”
“What’s that noise?” A student stopped after hearing a strange noise and asked.
“Damn that’s super loud!” Another complained about it being too shrill and loud.
“Why are we getting so many surpr-” just as a student was about to complete his sentence, a giant black bird flew down from the sky captured him with its claws. “WAAAAAAAA!”
“KUN-KUN-KUKUNNN!” The giant black bird gave a cry and flapped its wings at the students present nearby.
“RUNNNN!”
“IDIOT IT’S FLY! FLYYYYY!”
“SHUT UP AND RUNNN!”
“GODDAMN FROM WHERE DID THIS BIRD COME FROM!”
The students panicked when a bird came at them from nowhere and attacked. They were regretting staying at one place and looking at the toppers. However, many shoved such thoughts aside and had only one thing in mind.
It was to escape!