“Lina.” When she heard the teacher call her name, Lina let go of Eve. At first, she’d only meant to comfort her, but then she’d found Eve so soft and comfy to hug that she’d forgotten herself.

“Coming!” She walked into the exam room, closed her eyes, and quickly began chanting a spell.

Once the magic took effect, Lina did her utmost to form contracts with the living creatures around her and make them her familiars.

Unfortunately, she still hadn’t succeeded by the time her magic ran dry.

“So what if I failed?” She came down looking completely unconcerned.

Lina hadn’t wanted her score to affect the other two girls’ nerves. Instead, it only made them even more tense.

So when the teacher called Alice’s name, the girl rushed up in a panic and immediately tripped, sprawling on the ground.

She got back up awkwardly and continued the exam. Her result was easy to guess.

“You can do it, Eve!” Even though Alice had made a fool of herself during the exam, she still remembered to cheer Eve on.

“Good luck!” Lina added.

“Eve.” The examiner took one look at her and figured she didn’t stand a chance. Eve was only about 1.3 meters tall, with a sallow little face and a frail-looking body. She was obviously from a poor family—an especially poor one, where they couldn’t even afford to meet the most basic nutritional needs.

Casting spells was mostly a mental task, but it still required a certain level of physical fitness. Later spells were long and complicated, and anyone in poor shape might not even be able to finish chanting the incantation.

What a shame. The examiner couldn’t help feeling a little sympathy for Eve.

But sympathy was one thing. The exam still had to go on.

“Eve, please begin the exam.”

At the examiner’s words, Eve quickly closed her eyes and began chanting.

But whether from nerves or low self-esteem, halfway through, she actually got the words wrong.

Fortunately, the examiner noticed in time and shielded Eve with a magic circle. The backlash from a spell was no joke.

“Can you still continue?” he asked Eve, whose face had gone a little pale.

“I can!” Eve thought of the villagers. She’d come all this way. She couldn’t give up.

This time, Eve chanted much more slowly, but at least she didn’t make any mistakes.

Even at that slow pace, fine beads of sweat still appeared across her forehead.

When she finished chanting, she slowly closed her eyes and tried to sense the presence of living creatures, thinking about how she could form a contract with them.

Even the weakest slime would do.

But something unexpected happened.

Eve couldn’t sense the presence of a single living creature!

The little girl panicked. Her brows furrowed as she searched again and again, but still found nothing.

Could that be why all those people before her had failed? The thought suddenly came to Eve.

Maybe only people with talent could sense them.

And someone like her had actually dared to dream of becoming a Mage.

Grandma, Grandpa, I’m sorry… Eve thought miserably. Still, she used the last of her strength to keep searching, before her already meager supply of magic ran dry.

A minute later, Eve opened her eyes. Crystal-clear tears slid down her cheeks.

“Eve…” Lina and Alice looked at her with pained expressions, but neither knew how to comfort her.

“I’m okay!” Eve kept wiping at her tears, forcing a smile that looked even worse than crying.

She didn’t want the two girls to feel sad because of her.

“Little one, there’s no point forcing something like this…” The examiner was just about to offer Eve a few words of comfort when he suddenly noticed the back of the hand she was using to wipe away her tears.

“Don’t move!” He dashed over to Eve. His sudden movement startled her, and she froze in place, afraid to move.

The examiner held Eve’s right hand. A black “Xing” was faintly appearing on its back, growing clearer by the moment.

He didn’t know what it meant. Most familiar marks were written in unknown scripts. But he understood one thing.

“Little one, don’t cry. Look at the back of your hand!” he said with delighted surprise.

Eve realized what he meant and slowly turned her gaze to the back of her hand. The “Xing” there had become perfectly clear.

“I… I did it?” Happiness had come so suddenly that the little girl hadn’t managed to take it in yet.

“Of course you did…” The examiner hadn’t even finished speaking before Lina and Alice squeezed past him.

“That’s wonderful, Eve!”

“Congratulations!” The two girls were sincerely happy for Eve.

At last, Eve accepted that she’d really succeeded. She was one of the few hundred geniuses among more than a hundred thousand people.

She smiled happily, feeling as if life was full of hope again.

“BOOM!” Dark clouds blotted out the sky. Rolling purple thunderbolts turned into thick, dazzling-gold streams of lightning, then gathered into the shapes of different creatures: an eagle soaring through the sky, the king of beasts, a tiger, and a five-clawed golden dragon with shrimp eyes, an ox’s head, and deer antlers. They burst and roared as if the might of heaven itself had descended. Yet any powerful Mage could faintly sense the sorrow in those sounds.

It was like a bolt from a clear sky—and no one had ever seen such terrifying lightning.

“Ah!” Terrified, Lina and Alice clung to each other and fell to their knees, nearly crying from fright.

The examiner’s face had gone deathly pale, and his body shook violently. He struggled to keep himself from falling to his knees. He was a teacher; he absolutely couldn’t lose face in front of his students.

Eve had started crying again at the first clap of thunder. Eyes squeezed shut, she screamed in terror. She was only a twelve-year-old girl, and her hard, poverty-stricken life had left her almost certainly the most timid student there that day.

But the next second, with her eyes still closed, she felt her feet leave the ground.

A pair of large hands scooped her up in a princess carry.

“I’m sorry, Master. I’m late.” Xing Hai looked at the trembling Eve in his arms, and a glint of starlight flickered in his eyes.

“Y-you are…?” Eve cautiously opened her eyes. The first person she saw was Xing Hai, holding her in his arms.

What a handsome big brother. That was Eve’s first impression of Xing Hai.

Beneath his ink-black short hair was a strikingly handsome face with soft features. His deep eyes seemed to hold all the stars in the heavens. He was tall and straight-backed, a full 1.8 meters, and his clean white robe made him look like an immortal descended from the heavens. An air of elegance and nobility seemed to cling to him.

If only he didn’t have that same expression as a stone-faced doll. Eve might’ve liked him a few points more.

“I’m your familiar, Master. You can call me Xing,” Xing Hai explained to Eve in his arms.

“Just call me Eve…” The little girl’s face turned red. She was actually a little embarrassed.

“Understood, Eve.” Xing Hai nodded. He didn’t particularly care what name she called him.

By now, everyone had recovered from the shock.

Lina and Alice stared at Xing Hai, who was holding Eve. They’d both turned into lovestruck fangirls, with little pink hearts in their eyes. The examiner, meanwhile, looked utterly stunned.

How could a familiar summoned by summoning magic be human?