World of Laws and Magic

The diagram of laws above the students and faculty radiated a pressure that was spine tingling. Some students with weaker magical energy sat on the ground in order to cope with the turbulent magical energy that was now concentrating within the area they were in. Nick felt a little discomfort but it faded as time went on.

(That diagram is drawing in a lot of the surrounding magical energy. Whatever spell that is going to be used will be big; also, those laws are definitely used to draw in and control mostly spacial magic.)

Nick could feel how the magic energy being radiated from the diagram felt in part, very similar to the magic energy radiated by his beast capture scroll. Rebecca Jones continued speaking with a magically amplified voice:

"This exam will take place within one of our academy's private realms. As you all should know, a realm is a world that is distinct from and independent of the world that we are currently in. The realm that we are using for this exam is relatively small and contains both natural flora and fauna. Your objective in this exam is to survive a five day period within the realm; time in the realm flows faster than it does in this world so five days within the realm should be about 10 hours on Grand Earth. That is also one of the reasons that this particular realm was chosen to be used for this exam. The rules are simple:

1. You are not allowed to leave the realm once you arrive there until the exam ends.

2. You are not allowed to directly kill or cripple other students or have other students commit those crimes for you; doing so will result in your execution.

3. As long as you are alive at the end of the exam, you will receive a passing grade and will be allowed to take one free apprentice grade spell from the academy's magical archives office."

Nick found one of the rules strange.

(Students are not allowed to kill or cripple each other? This is a survival exam so I thought that students would naturally be allowed to kill each other but it seems that is not the case. Then that means that rather than survive the actions of the other students, I'm supposed to survive whatever is contained naturally within that realm. Rebecca said that the realm contains natural flora and fauna; they must be dangerous. I have to keep that in mind.)

After Rebecca announced three of the rules she, paused for several seconds to let the students think them over and the spoke again:

"Now, as for how your student ranking will be determined. There is a certain criteria that will contribute to how we assess your performance that involves things such as: initiative, critical thinking, adaptability, magical power, magical knowledge, etcetera. Although the before mentioned assessment is important, the main thing that will contribute to your individual ranking is this..."

Rebecca pointed towards the diagram of laws and a ray of golden light shot down from it, landing within an empty area below the platform surrounded on all sides by the group of students, revealing a creature standing on four legs. The creature looked similar to a dog, it had a line of thick bluish fur growing along its spinal column, glowing red eyes, bone spikes protruding from its meter long tail, dark grey fur and noticeably large spike like fangs that protruded from its mouth, similar to that of a saber-toothed tiger.

GRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWW!

The creature shrieked loudly and looked as if it was about to lunge towards the the nearest students but before it could position itself to do so, Rebecca waved her hand and a cross of orange light emerged from the creature's neck in four places, decapitating it. The creature's head floated up to Rebecca while its body lied on the ground convulsing, red, blackish blood continuously flowing from the neck of the creature's carcass, creating a small pool.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh"

Many students, mostly women, started to scream at the sight of the dead and decapitated creature but Nick looked at the creature's carcass with disinterest. He turned his attention to the floating platform with Rebecca now holding the creature's head in her right palm. Rebecca seemingly cast a spell and the head of the creature started radiating orange light. Once the light dissipated, only the creatures skull could be seen in Rebecca's palm; the skull's flesh and blood had been completely stripped away. Rebecca ignored the screams of the students and explained:

"The creature that I just killed is called a 'wary dog' and they are the pests of our academy's realm; they are literally everywhere within the realm and they are fast, have very keen perception, an exceptionally strong sense of smell, a tendency to hunt both day and night and are extremely hostile to creatures that are not apart of their species. The one I just killed was a baby and there are far larger and more powerful wary dogs within the realm. Your main objective is basically pest control. You must eliminate as many wary dogs as possible and your individual ranking will mostly be determined by the mass of the wary dog skulls that that you presents to us at the end of the test. Yes, and I do mean the mass of the skulls and not the number of skulls. You see, as wary dogs age, they not only gain stronger magical abilities, they also grow in size at a startling rate; An adult wary dog can be the size and mass of an armored military truck with its head having a mass of around 800 kilograms while a baby weary dog's head might have a mass of around 20 kilograms and so the stronger and older the wary dogs that you execute, the better you will be ranked. Of course we don't care if you had help in killing the wary dogs, we only care about the mass of the heads that you present to us at the end of the exam. The only rules during this exam are what I mentioned before. Also, the academy's realm has been allowed to flourish naturally without too much human intervention and is largely unexplored so whatever natural resources you find in there can be kept by you as long as you declare it at the end of the exam."

Rebecca paused again, this time for about 2 minutes so that the students could digest all the information that she had just given them. She then motioned for one of the male faculty members that was standing behind her to step forward and as he did so, he held out a wristwatch like device and spoke:

"This device is called a 'space band' and it is engraved with many laws related to spacial magic. You will use this device to hold the heads and/or carcasses of the wary dogs that you kill. Each person will be assigned and given a device as soon as they enter the realm. If you lose the device, your score and ranking for the exam will be adversely affected and if you were wandering, it is completely legal for other students to steal your space band so it is in your best interest to act prudently at all times during this exam."

The seemingly thirty year old man wearing an all black robe and black rimmed glasses warned the students with a solemn tone and stepped back. The students broke out in all sorts of discussions after the man finished speaking.

"So we are allowed to steal the results of others hard work, that will give an advantage to the stronger students."

"That wary dog was seriously ugly, you are telling me that there are even bigger sons of bitches than the one that teacher Rebecca killed. We're fucked."

"What are you guys afraid of? With so few rules, we can easily form groups in order to get good rankings during this exam. They only brought that creature out to scare us; this exam doesn't seem that hard."

"Ciara and Jenny, since you two are still rank 1 Apprentice Magicians, you should roll with me. I'll protect you."

...

While most of the students were conversing, Nick was wrapped up in his own thoughts.

(So the main objective of this exam is the kill wary dogs and obtain the highest mass of their skulls possible. That seems fairly simple but with all these students and our unfamiliarity with the realm, things are bound to get complicated. My plan should involve exploring the realm while being as invisible as possible to the others. Although, we can't kill or cripple each other, we can definitely fuck each other up enough to cause indirect deaths.)

Nick would be lying if he said that he wasn't somewhat scared of what was to come but he knew that he had no choice but to dive on into whatever the situation would be in that realm.

Rebecca began speaking again:

"It's time for the exam to begin, the diagram above us will transport you to the realm within the next thirty seconds. Do not resist it!"

After saying that, within several seconds, golden light shone down from the diagram of laws which then receded, seemingly carrying the students that the light touched away. Nick stood in his position watching the spectacle in awe and reverence.

(One day, I'll definitely be strong enough to do something like that. I just have to work harder and learn even more.)

Nick steeled his resolve as he was bathed in golden light and taken away from his position.

Rebecca looked on as each student was taken away from Grand Earth and transported to the academy's realm. She looked back at the group of faculty members behind her and said:

"The two of you have been itching to find new disciples, right? Maybe this is your opportunity to find good seeds. Let's go to the observation building and watch the show."

The two men standing behind Rebecca shrugged their shoulders in unison and within an instant the three Regular Magicians vanished from the platform, Rebecca doing so amidst a column of blue light, one of the male Magicians, amidst a collection of fog and the last Magician seemed to break apart into flower petals and was carried off with the wind. 

......

When the golden light dissipated, Nick could see again, he was standing on the bank of a stream. Nick's right arm now had a shiny black device wrapped around it that looked like a wristwatch. 

"This is the space band? It doesn't seem very special, I can't even feel any magic energy coming from it. I guess I'll find an opportunity to test it out later."

Nick looked around with curiosity, seeing that he was now standing within a clearing where there were many trees at its edge.The clearing was filled with green slippery grass growing within soft wet soil; the stream flowed from within a path that originated from the woodland that appeared to surround Nick's current position. Nick noticed that the end of the stream seemed to slope downwards as it approached a rock wall that rose over twenty meters into the air and so Nick walked a few meters to discover a large opening in the ground that extended into the rock wall; it was large enough that Nick would definitely be able to jump down and walk around alongside the stream.

(Should I go down there or wander around the surrounding woodlands? Why plan is to kill as many wary dogs as I can while avoiding direct confrontations with other students; walking around the woodlands would probably more likely result in me coming into contact with other students which I want to avoid so early in the exam. I'll check out this underground space and if anything seems suspicious, I will immediately leave.)

Nick jumped into the opening and landed within the shallow stream of water. Nick's leather boots were covered with water so he quickly moved to the bank of the underground stream. When Nick got to the stream bank he looked around to see a dimly lit space with moss covered rock formations all around. The air was damp and smelt moldy but Nick could easily cope with it.

(This place isn't very well lit so I should use the flashlight on my phone to see my way around.)

Nick took out his old smart phone and turned on its flashlight. He could explore his surroundings with much more clarity now. Nick walked for a few meters until he reached a group of rock formations. These rocks had a mix of blue and green moss all over them but did not seem special in any way. As Nick was ready to go deeper down and explore the underground area, he heard what seemed like rapid footsteps approaching his position; it was dark so he couldn't see what exactly was causing those sounds but as the sounds got louder Nick remembered what Rebecca said: "The creature that I just killed is called a 'wary dog' and they are the pests of our academy's realm; they are literally everywhere within the realm..."

(Oh shit, I messed up! I actually nonchalantly walked into a poorly lit space when I know about the existence of those wary dogs.)

Nick didn't hesitate to turn around and run back to the entrance of the underground space but before he got to the entrance he could hear the footsteps from before being made only a few feet behind him.

(Sigh, I've got no choice.)

Nick had already gotten near to the well lit entrance so he could see fairly well; he took out one of his throwing knives from his vest with his right hand and turned around while swinging it as the footsteps behind him quickened its pace.

(Big.)

Nick's throwing knife became the size of a machete and as the wary dog lunged at Nick, Nick held the knife firmly and swung it at the wary dog's approaching head.

PAAAACCCCKKKK!

Nick's enlarged knife landed hard on the wary dog's face, splitting its skull and going deeper by about two inches. The wary dog's body became lifeless and it fell to the ground with Nick's knife stuck in its head.

"Man, that was close."

STEP STEP STEP STEP

As Nick was feeling relieved, a set of footsteps became audible in the distance and from the darkness emerged a wary dog that was three times that size of the one that Nick had just killed.

Nick looked at the grey furred, menacing beast with glowing red eyes and for just a moment, he regretted not pretending to be sick in order to skip this exam.

(Sigh, why does my life suck so much?)