The Celestial Land

Chapter 4: The Talent Crystal

The man approached her with his cold piercing stare, making Elleste lowered her head and didn't dare to directly meet his eyes. Though, Elleste could also felt that the man was scrutinizing her from head to toe. Judged fron his burly figure and the huge sword that slung around his back, he seemed to be one of those swordmans.

"You are not going to answer?" The frown on the man's forehead was getting deeper as he gazed at Elleste coldly. Coincidentally, Elleste looked up and she was a bit intimidated by his figure.

"I am still resting," Elleste forced herself not to stutter. "Yesterday, I was injured."

The man didn't move his intimitading gaze from her at all. Elleste also didn't dare to move too much under that intense stare. It seemed that he patrolling team who make sure that everyone had gone into training ground.

Arlina had told Elleste that the cabin they used to live right now was for those newbies to be trained for everything from the start. It was the same systems for every race. Though, Arlina admitted that she was a middle undead at the first rank. So, she was equivalent to human who took profession at fourth stage.

The reason Arlina didn't go to her assigned place for undead and chose to mingle with newbie humans was that she was looking for a place to train quietly. Though she was a bit chatty, when it come into training, Arlina didn't want to be disturbed no matter what.

The humans would sleep at night, so there would be less noise. As for the shifter, at night also they tried to train and improving their body by absorbing moonlight energy.

Other people may unable to break the rules created by their own race, but Arlina used her father's help as the one of the three Undead Commanders to gain this advantage.

"Are you feeling better now that you are not resting?" The man asked her, the gaze no longer as cold, but also didn't contain any warm either.

Elleste didn't speak, she just nodded slightly.

"If your body still isn't able to go into training, you should be able to take the talent test then." The man looked as if he was pondering about something. "Follow me then, I will take you to the place to test your talent."

The man began to walk in wide steps. Elleste opened the door and hurriedly follow him. She was unable to catch up just by walking, so she began to run slightly. By the them she got near him, she could see that the man was shaking his head.

"Your body constitution doesn't seem suitable to be trained by body tampering. So, swordman and warrior are out of question for you. You can be either a healer or mage then." The man glanced at her slightly.

Elleste was almost gasping for breathe after she had been following his wide footsteps for a while. She didn't mind the man's comment of her weak body constitution at all. She was slightly happy when she heard the possibility of becoming a mage.

After walking for a while, taking a few turns here and there, as well as occasionally passing the uneven ground and the small hill, they finally arrived at the place.

There were a few lines of people who was about to get their talent checked there. Elleste guessed that those human newcomers must've been coming here to get tested much more early so that they can join the training as soon as possible.

She found that there were some foot print in the ground, indicating that there must've been a long line here since the morning. The waiting line had gotten much shorter.

In the swordman's talent testing, they used the sword aura. Someone who can approach a certain area would be deemed as having a swordman's talent. They should walk while resisting the sword aura, which wqs exuded by the huge sword embedded itself in the top of a hill.

The warrior's test used one's body to gauge their talent out. They run some kind of physical test, like running or lifting some heavy load.

Those talent aren't suitable for Elleste. As for the healer, they required someone to create medicinal liquid using the recipe given. There were also some people that were tested for magic healer.

As for the mage, it was the easiest. One only need to stick their hand on the round transparent crystal on the altar. The line for this profession was longer than the healer and swordman, but not the longest. Warrior's line was the longest, after all, they didn't have too much of a strict requirements. Many males usually fulfill the requirement for this profession.

"What profession do you want to be?" The man asked her.

Elleste pointed at the mage's line. After seeing that the man nodded, she began to walk and join them. Her figure was the most petite compared to the rest of the people there that she was almost mistaken as a child.

She looked to be the one most conspicious there, making other people took a few glances at her before going back to whatever they were doing. Elleste was slightly nervous, she was also worried that what if she had no talent for any of those professions?

Silently, Elleste scanned the crowd before her, leading to the altar above. There were people of various age here, starting for a child that looked around seven years old to some people that was in their 50s.

Elleste knew that the age of people here were longer if they practice the profession they pick to the fullest. A first stage of any profession can live up to hundreds of years. Second stages can live up to a thousand years, and so on. As for those who didn't practice anything, they can only live to the age of normal human, around a hundred years.

However, practicing those profession also required great resources, especially for mage. Without a teacher, it was impossible to be one. That was also why not all humans could practice the profession despite having the talent. They just simply didn't have the resources.

But, now that there were the threat of war hanging over their head, the higher ups in human society spared no effort to train those humans. After all, the war wasn't going to involve only one or two races, but all races as whole. Any races would have their worry of getting their people exerminated without one left to continue the bloodline. The outcome this war was surely going to be a devastating one.

Elleste looked up ahead at the sight of a teenager putting his hand on top of the talent crystal. At the instant, the crystal began to lit up, emitting some jumbled up colors before it finally stopped. It was blue. The teenager let out a sigh of relief at his own result. Afer he got his name on the training schedule, he finally left the alter with shinning eyes.

The crystal had lit up with four colors so far. From the conversation around her, Elleste got to know that the rarest color was purple. It meant that someone had the high talent for being a mage and storing a lot of nature energy in their body.

After the color purple, followed by red, then blue, and finally green. So far, people with the green color were at the highest number.

Elleste looked around, getting more nervous as she advanced higher. She was wondering if she really going to be able to lit up any of those colors or not, because she also had seen many people failed. The colors didn't change at all and the crystal kept on being transparent. Those people just left with dejected look and finally went to other section to try their luck.

Those who didn't have any talent in the four profession were going to be given the miscellaneous task at most. Like preparing for the food, doing the cleaning, or working as servants for powerful people with high position.

After long time passed, there was only one person left before Elleste. It was a middle-aged man with burly figure that could be clearly seen that if he went to warrior or swordman's talent, he would surely be accepted. However, he seemed to be interested in becoming a mage instead.

As the middle-aged man put his hand on the round crystal, the crystal suddenly lit up, just like the man's eyes as he gazed expectantly at the the colorful crystal.

"Red, come on, this old man definitely wants red. Blue also wouldn't be a problem. Come on!" The man said excitedly. Elleste was also gazing at the crystal curiosly.

The colorful light kept on circling inside the crystal until it finally stopped at the color green. The middle-aged man looked at the crystal with disappointment before he just sighed. "At least I have a talent for becoming a mage, huh..."

Elleste was nervous as she walked into the front of the cystal that was back being almost transparent. The examiner nodded and gestured Elleste to put her hand into the crystal. Elleste obeyed.

After some seconds passed, however, something strange happened. The crystal didn't emit any colorful light like those people before.

Seeing the weird color on the crystal surface, Elleste's heart suddenly sank. She waited a bit longer, but the color kept on being soft milky white. She didn't know what does this color mean, so Elleste looked up to find the answer from people around her.

The examiner's expression seemed to be dumbfounded, it was the same for the other mages who preside over the talent test as well. He looked at the crystal with puzzled expression. "Milky while color? What does this mean?"

The examiner looked at the other mage, who had the same puzzled expression. Elleste was startled that the examiner and those mage didn''t know what the color mean.

At the possibility that suddenly surfaced inside her head, she was feeling a bit frightened. What if they find out she actually wasn't from this world? And because of the oddity of the crystal, they want to conduct an experiment on her to find out what was wrong?

Elleste withdraw her hand, she looked around vigilantly. If anything untoward happen, she would make sure to escape from here then. Ending up in the wolves' belly was better than being an object of a species experiment.

Probably seeing the paleness of her face, the examiner try to reassure her. "Don't worry. We will find out what's wrong with this crystal to emit such color."

However, those words didn't make Elleste felt any sense of reassurance at all. Instead, she felt more worried that people actually could read her expression that easily.

Just as she was about to dash into the direction of the forest, a gush of strong wind suddenly appeared in the area. Though it was strong, the wind actually wasn't tyrannical, it only make their clothes sway slightly. This was the sign of someone doing teleportation magic.

A man with grey robes suddenly appeared on the altar. He had a long dark brown hair, bringing with him a powerful presence and mighty pressure that couldn't be denied. His eyes was sharp and as dark as the color of the night. He looked quite intimidating.

As he directed his gaze at the people in the around the altar, those who realized his status immediately bowed in respect. The examiner and the mages also bowed. "Greetings, Lord Mage Lukas."

The people no matter what they did, those who saw him also bowed at him. Elleste was also snapped out of her daze and immediately followed the lead of the examiner and the other mages. It was clear that this person had high status to make others bow at him like that.

The grey robed man ignored them, his gaze continue to sweep across the surroundings until those eyes finally landed at Elleste, who suddenly froze in place. Silently, Elleste cried in her heart. Sure, she met a lot of intimidating and powerful figures here.

Then, he moved his gaze to the examiner who was in charge of listing the newcomers' name and divided them into batches. "Give her the place in second batch of Green Wood Palace."

The examiner froze for a moment. He hesitated for a second because those people were mostly was about to reach the first stage while Elleste was a newcomer. Even so, the examiner didn't dare to disobey the order. "Yes, Lord Mage Lukas."

He was about to quickly write her in the second batch when he realized that he didn't even know her name yet. He awkwardly asked Elleste. "What is your name?"

Elleste blinked and heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, turned out that she was qualified to be a mage and not because of her coming from another world. Though, the powerful mage appearing personally to appoint her in certain batch like that didn't seem good at all. She had took a glance at the examiner's hesitant action earlier.

"Elleste Lunaria." Elleste answered, attracting quite a lot of attention. Those people would surely remember her name from now on, making Elleste felt slightly depressed.

She didn't know whether the competition here would be so brutal that it involved murdering other humans and even races or not, she hoped not.

Mage Lukas glanced at her briefly and gave a quiet nod, then in a blink of an eye, he had already disappeared from everyone sight. Some people began to cast their curious eyes at Elleste now, wondering what kind of talent that would make someone of such high status came personally.

"You will be assigned to the second batch of Green Wood Palace." The examiner's complexion was slightly pale. He was the closest to the Mage Lukas just now, and Elleste could tell that the powerful pressure would naturally form on its own around powerful people.

The examiner threw a small ring at her, and telling her carefully. "Inside, there are the schedule and necessities needed that already given to those in second batch of Green Wood Palace. This one is yours."

Elleste caught the ring and was slightly stunned. The examiner seemed to notice her expression, and with helpless look, he explained to her. "Just drop your blood into it and spread your mind to command it. It would naturally listen to you to open itself."

After being in the altar and causing quite a ruckus, Elleste finally got down in daze as she examined the ring carefully. Without waiting anymore, Elleste bit her own finger and dripped some blood into the ring.

She was surprised that the blood was absorbed by it. Elleste could also felt some connection with the ring and everything inside it seemed to come into her mind. She looked inside carefully.

There were a lot of magical scrolls and some books about the knowledge of this worlds. She also found some black robes, and a staff. Along the way, Elleste happily skipped away. She was so excited that she was finally one step on the road of becoming a mage.

That was something she could only dream in her previous life, yet it was truly exist and possible here. Elleste was so happy that she didn't look to where she was going. Before she realized it, she had stumbled upon a huge figure and nearly fall.

As she looked up, she was startled into disbelief.