The spellcasting license exam

Another morning, Roland woke to music and found rain pattering down outside.

Through the broad floor-to-ceiling windows, he saw distant mountains veiled in hazy mist, with sky and earth stretching into a gray expanse.

The magic lamp switched on automatically, filling the room with a soft glow like the first pale light in the eastern sky.

He rubbed his eyes, sat up as usual, and leaned against his pillow to summon a projection screen.

The familiar female mage with her teaching pointer appeared and continued yesterday's Ancient Elvish lesson.

Languages were classified by similarity into families, groups, branches, and individual languages. For example, ovesto runes, yther runes, and orthodox runes all belonged to the Elvish language family, but had originated among different peoples and during different dynasties, gradually developing their own distinctive features.

Ancient Elvish was the source of the Runes School's magic power. Once someone mastered it, modern Elvish, the Atrelin language, and the various related runes could all be learned quickly.

Roland placed great importance on improving himself. Despite everything he had been doing lately, he never dared forget that foundation.

This time, however, he no longer even needed Tongues, because it offered little additional benefit.

At least, that was the case when studying Ancient Elvish, a language he was gradually mastering.

Scholar's Zeal, on the other hand, remained as useful as ever.

Once he felt the enhancement take effect, Roland contacted the tower spirit mentally and increased the lesson video's playback speed.

Doing this required a certain foundation of knowledge, along with enhanced concentration, memory, comprehension, and other abilities. At triple speed, his learning efficiency improved considerably.

He had heard that some top students could watch three or four screens simultaneously while enhanced, each playing lessons at triple speed, and still learn effectively.

Roland thought that sounded absurd. He certainly could not manage it himself, so after studying for a while, he could only open videos for other courses to alternate between them.

Lately, he had begun teaching himself Advanced Spell Structure and Advanced Principles of Spellcasting-the academy had covered the introductory material-and studying level-one to level-three spells.

Before he knew it, an hour had passed.

Roland left his enhanced state, closed the projection screen, and went to have breakfast.

Shortly afterward, he left his residence and headed to the teleportation array beneath the mage tower to meet the others.

Skord and Yvonne were already waiting, and Froya arrived soon after.

She glanced at the three of them and said, "Is everyone ready? If you are, let's go."

They then stepped into the teleportation array together and vanished.

This time, they were leaving the mage tower to travel to distant Rune City and take the spellcasting license exam organized by the Runes School.

In the middle month of each quarter-February, May, August, and November-the Runes School held these exams to determine whether mages had mastered particular spells, and thus whether to grant them the corresponding spell quotas.

In Atrelin, spellcasting was divided according to the medium it relied upon: mana casting, magic network casting, and item casting.

Mana casting, also known as "offline casting," was the process by which a mage used their own mind under natural conditions to mobilize mana and convert it into magic elements, or magical energy, to cast a spell.

This was also the innate, original ability possessed by magical creatures-or mages with mana bars.

Magic network casting, naturally, used the magic network as its medium and counted as "online casting."

This involved issues such as converting mana into magic elements and the cost of protecting the caster. Spell quotas on the magic network were therefore quite valuable, and spellcasting licenses were issued under fairly strict conditions.

"You know, it's pretty funny. You two experts drawing special stipends from the Arcane Committee still have to obediently sit the exam alongside a lousy student like me.

"I don't know why, but thinking about that makes me feel a lot better."

After they left the teleportation array and headed toward the exam venue, Skord could not resist giving them a sidelong grin.

"Being called an expert doesn't mean you're good at casting spells. When it comes to actual combat casting, we're still at the absolute pinnacle of the weakling stage," Roland said helplessly.

"It's also to make sure we really have mastered the spells before they give us quotas," Yvonne said timidly.

"Yvonne is right. The main purpose of these exams is to ensure you truly possess the ability to cast a particular spell, so that even if you're stranded outside the magic network's service area, you can still perform mana casting through your own power.

"Many people now think mana casting is slow and troublesome, carries a risk of magical backlash, and is difficult to use properly in combat.

"But don't forget that it's the foundation of everything. Magical creatures also rely on their own mana to cast spells. Anyone aspiring to become a High Arcanist should take these exams seriously."

Froya took the opportunity to lecture the three of them.

"Don't worry, Froya. We understand."

All three hastily nodded in agreement.

As they talked, they reached the city center and saw an enormous venue with magic runes floating across its dome like a sky full of stars.

Rainbow light formed from magic power shimmered together, creating all sorts of projection screens. On closer inspection, quite a few were commercial advertisements.

Rune City could be considered the Runes School's cultural center. Many matters related to their field could be handled here. The other option was Sky City Nevis, the center of all the schools.

But considering that low-level spells were such a minor matter, as well as the difference in teleportation costs, there was no need to travel farther when a closer option was available.

After completing the formalities, they were led to a classroom for the written exam.

Roland felt confident that he could pass both Tongues and Scholar's Zeal, so those were the spells he had registered for this time. Sure enough, the exam went smoothly.

By the time the written exam ended, it was already noon. He was heading to the restaurant with Yvonne, who had also registered for Tongues, to meet the others when he suddenly spotted a surging crowd ahead. Numerous Apprentice Mages and independent candidates were blocking the main entrance.

"What happened?"

Somewhat surprised, Roland asked a passing mage.

"You haven't heard? The superstar Polina is coming here to take her licensing exam today. Everyone's curious!"

With Atrelin's floating cities already soaring through the skies, there was naturally no shortage of entertainers such as performers and celebrated singers.

However, the purely entertainment-based professions held extremely low status. To move people's hearts, especially to attract the mages who controlled society's resources, mastery of enchantment spells was essential.

In practice, only mages were qualified to become celebrities. The more powerful the mage, the easier it was for them to succeed in any profession.

"Shall we go take a look too?" Roland suggested. "There are too many people over there, though. We'll just look from a distance."

"Mm." Yvonne was as shy and timid as ever, but she could not quite suppress her curiosity either. She wanted to see what the superstar everyone was talking about looked like.

"Ow!"

Suddenly, Roland and Yvonne saw someone ahead get shoved and fall to the ground with a cry of pain.

That unlucky fellow was none other than Skord!