Nancy Kingdom, Camille Province, Soto City, Camille Magic Academy.

Today was the day first-year students would summon their familiars. They got up early, circulating their mana, squeezing in some last-minute training, and getting themselves into the best possible shape.

Every year, Camille Magic Academy admitted more than a hundred thousand first-year students. Any boy or girl who could sense magical elements was accepted.

More than a trillion humans lived on this continent, yet there were fewer than a hundred million Mages.

So really, anyone who could use magic was a rare talent—one in a hundred.

Mages were the cream of the crop.

But Camille Magic Academy was the finest magic academy in Camille Province. Today, any student who failed to summon a familiar would be sent to study at a magic academy in another city within the province.

After countless generations of painstaking research, Mages had finally concluded that the best age to summon a familiar was between twelve and fourteen, and that the first spell a Mage learned had to be a summoning spell.

Once a familiar was summoned, some of its abilities and talents would pass on to the Mage, giving them an excellent foundation and making magic easier and more effective to learn.

If they waited until after the ideal age, even summoning a familiar before turning eighteen would mean inheriting less from it. They’d already be starting behind.

Camille Magic Academy only wanted the best of the best. At present, everyone in the academy except the first-years was a genius who’d successfully summoned a familiar before their fifteenth birthday.

And once today was over, the first-years would be just like them.

“I hope we get three hundred this year,” one of the examiners at the hundreds of testing grounds thought as they looked out at the densely packed crowd in the square.

Don’t think three hundred qualified students out of over a hundred thousand is too few. Last year, there were nearly two hundred thousand applicants, and only a little over two hundred made the cut. Of course, the previous year’s recruits may simply have been of lower quality.

“The first one: Kray!” an examiner read from the name list in their hand.

“Here!” A handsome, tall, red-haired boy walked into the testing ground. Magical elements quickly gathered around him, arranging themselves into different patterns as he chanted, until at last they formed the spell for summoning.

Kray immediately closed his eyes. He sensed the countless beings whose souls had been reached by the summoning spell, then tried to connect with one of them and form a contract.

The seconds ticked by. Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open, and a passage through space unfolded beside him. A beautiful elk stepped out. Fiery flames burned on its antlers, and all four of its legs were powerfully built.

“Not bad. A fire elk.” The examiner nodded to show that Kray had passed. Fire elks were native to the Nancy Kingdom, not creatures from another dimension, but once grown, they could still provide considerable fighting strength. And since this was the very first student, getting off to a good start, the examiner was quite satisfied.

“Thank you, sir!” Kray couldn’t hide his joy. He excitedly threw his arms around the fire elk, which affectionately licked his cheek.

Passing the test meant free tuition, a monthly allowance from the school, and a steady job in the imperial capital after graduation. It was basically the first step to reaching the peak of your life.

A commoner’s family like Kray’s simply couldn’t afford the enormous cost of learning magic. Tuition aside, even the cheapest wand cost several years’ worth of household expenses. If he failed, he probably wouldn’t go to a magic academy in another city. He’d give up on magic for good and live an ordinary, unremarkable life.

And now, he’d made it in one giant leap. How could he not be excited?

“Go on, now! There are other people waiting to take the test!” the teacher reminded him with a smile. Kray’s reaction was perfectly normal. Almost everyone who successfully summoned a familiar acted the same way; some even got so excited they fainted.

“Sorry, sorry!” Kray hurried out of the testing ground with the fire elk, under the envious gazes of the other students. Once outside, he began playing around with it.

Tomorrow, he would officially begin his path to becoming a Mage.

“Next, Fengying.” The examiner called out the second name. A somewhat skinny boy walked into the testing ground, looking eager to give it a try. The previous student had succeeded, so he was sure he’d be the second.

It wasn’t just him. The students assigned to this testing ground were all getting restless, wishing they could take the test right away.

“If only it were that easy,” the examiner thought, shaking their head with a smile.