房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

"Dear heavens...!"

All three examiners seemed to be stunned, the first to get over it was teacher Auequas – the elderly woman began writing a whole lot in her note, and teacher Shuze followed her suit a second later.

Only teacher Ikarveth could not get over the result.

The funniest part was that by launching the spell from the examiner\'s table instead of the prepared spot, Surou increased the distance between himself and the target making the test harder for himself and still getting the best results up until that point.

And he wasn\'t done.

The red-haired teacher must have really got under Surou\'s skin with the camouflaged accusations because the blue-haired boy didn\'t move even an inch away from the examiners\' table nor did he take his hand away from the mana measuring device...

"Name undecided."

The blue-haired boy looked the red-haired man in the eye and smirked using a rather unique incantation.

Despite that, the spell did form splendidly – a stake-like almost solid-looking block of water, with the previously seen whirlpool raging inside of its volume...

"Go."

Surou moved his free hand back as if he was taking a swing and pushed his hand forward as if he wanted to physically aid the spell that was nowhere near his palm...

*PSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*

This time around the spell wasn\'t quiet – three jets of highly pressurized water spouted from its dull rear accelerating the missile and adding a rotation, propelling it with great speed that normal water spear could not match.

*THUNK*

Still, the water that was spent on putting the spell into motion was getting used up so when it reached the long-range target, only the tip crushed into the center of the armor indenting it.

The light that was produced turned out to be yellow...

...but the water jets that got closer to the tip the more water was used didn\'t stop gushing out rotating the remains of the spell and...

*CREAAAAAAK*

At the final moment of the spell\'s existence, the enchanted metal gave out a defeated sound and the indentation deepened, causing the light from the device inside of it to run yellow...!

|That... should be enough...|

Surou looked away from the speechless red-haired teacher and breathed out, thinking to himself.

With that, the second prince managed to get a better result than the transcended wind magician who had more mana than him! And of course, the wind magician in question was the one that Kierul cheered on.

"Go for it, your highness! Show them what you got! At least try!"

"...!"

At first, Surou thought it was a hallucination – but when he looked in the direction the cheer came from he indeed spotted Kierul, who definitely didn\'t mean to call that out loud as she herself looked shocked and covered her mouth with one hand.

With that choice of words, she could mean only...

|She... believes in me...?|

The sapphire-like eyes of the second prince widened and he straightened his back.

"Student Bellcephora, do you wish to...?"

"Teacher, I will continue to the special target."

The gold-haired teacher cleared his throat and asked vaguely as the sentence could go both ways, and the blue-haired boy answered in a spirited voice.

This time Surou moved away from the examiners\' table and took the proper position.

He squinted his eyes – the special super-long-range target was laughably small from over a mile away...

Still, reaching it at all was far the first obstacle, so he wasn\'t really in a position to worry about aiming.

"CURRENT!"

Surou called out and waved his hand taking a swing so wide that he spun around – but it wasn\'t a mistake but a purposeful action – as he did, all the droplets of water leftover from each and every previous spell that he used followed his motion and danced in the air.

With the wind-up, the blue-haired boy suddenly stopped throwing his arm forward and sending the gathered water high into the sky.

"...!"

With that, Surou bit his lips and waited, clenching his fists while watching the trajectory that the liquid took...

"...stu..."

"Shut up, Ikarveth."

It took a good few seconds if not even minutes him standing completely still – it reached the point that some of the students began murmuring amongst each other wanting their turn in the examination and even the red-haired teacher tried to say something but was silenced by a glare and sharp word from lady Auequas.

On the other hand, Kierul and Zoemi were following the path of Surou\'s spell with full attention.

Then, finally...

"FREEZING RAIN!"

The second prince roared and swung both his hands toward the ground.

At his command, some movement happened in the distance.

"Hoh...!"

The elderly light magician gasped while his eyes shone golden with the enchantment enhancing his eyesight as he saw the droplets of an ice-cold waterfall in front and at the armor.

"Not bad~!"

Zoemi hummed while channeling the law of Capricorn in tandem with the law of Pisces and hearing the sound of the liquid instantly freezing the moment it came in contact with anything.

"Th-this is...!"

The red-haired teacher Ikarveth gasped, standing up from his seat to have a better look at the distant target.

...even without enchantment, it could be seen that there was a white glow sparkling from the inside of the magic armor put on the testing dummy for the super-long-ranged target...

White light meant no damage at all... but...

The sheer distance the spell traveled...! It was unprecedented...! Even more so considering that the magician who used the spell was perfectly average in terms of his mana capacity...!

This didn\'t make any sense, any sense at all, and should be completely impossible with the current understanding of the workings of mana and magic...!

"Teachers..."

Surou let out a long sigh and almost slumped to the ground in exhaustion but he managed to stay on his feet and even approached the examiners\' table, reaching his hand over the mana measuring device that no one put away.

"Check it, please."

The boy asked doing his best to keep an indifferent expression even though he wanted to both cheer out... and throw up from exhaustion...

"You have good resistance to mana depletion, student Bellcephora. Go to your friends, we don\'t have anything else prepared for this part of the examination even if you wanted to attempt it."

"Thank you, teacher Auequas..."

The elderly brown-haired woman merely glance at the result showing by the artifact and smiled approvingly to the second prince who bowed his head slightly towards her.

"My prince."

"...oh...?"

Surou felt like he was about to faint and already could tell that his legs were giving out when the scarred black-haired attendant showed up out of nowhere and stood by his side...

...by both sides, actually – thanks to the law of Gemini of course.

"Allow with me."

"You don\'t have to worry about me..."

The attendant said and the second prince tried to refuse him...

"No, no, your highness. I am doing this for my master – just look at her. If I don\'t help you, she will run over and will no doubt try to carry you by herself... most likely on her back or maybe princess style."

"...!"

Zoemi shook his head and whispered to Surou\'s ear making the blue-haired boy realize the weight of the situation.

"I see... in such case, let\'s go to her to reassure her that I am okay. Please assist me, Zoemi... Zoemis...?"

"But of course, your highness."

Despite getting himself a serious mana depletion the second prince made a very clear-headed choice and nodded to both the black-haired boy and his copy getting the response from just one of them.

"My prince, should I have my attendant escort you to your room?"

Kierul walked a few steps to meet Surou faster and asked while taking the spot of Zoemi\'s copy that dissipated into a thin silver mist.

"I would prefer to stay here at least until you will be done with your exam... I don\'t want to miss it."

The second prince gulped time his saliva with visible difficulty and said with a weak smile.

"It won\'t be anything special anyway. You, my prince, have shown something amazing by only utilizing your creativity and understanding of your attribute, you deserve some rest, no one will dare speak against you for doing so."

The red-haired girl shook her head and held the blue-haired boy\'s arm reassuringly.

"It\'s not about others... I just want to cheer you on, just like you did for me..."

"...!"

Surou lowered his head, unable to properly control his emotions because of the mana depletion – he got teary-eyed, and Kierul had a hard time controlling herself.

"Okay... there aren\'t many fire magicians\' in our year, and I will finish my examination as fast as possible... but even so if you start feeling worse then tell me or Zoemi immediately."

Her logical sound won, marginally but still, and the red-haired girl agreed after putting out some conditions of her own.

The magic examination continued, despite the amazing showcase of the potential of the water magic done by the second prince, the rest of the water magicians stayed safe and stuck to classic spells.

This meant that only a few even attempted to hit the long-range target and even then most failed to even reach it.

And it was the standard long-range target, not the special super-long-range one.

It was the other way around with the fire magicians though.

Since the fire magic is explosive by nature the only safe option for the close combat test was punching the armor while having the fire enchantments active, and the short-range was generally skipped, with most students opting for putting their focus into middle- and long-distance.

Some even attempted the super long-range distance but only two or three reached anywhere near the special target...

That is until it was Kierul\'s turn...