The witch’s trials. Challenges that were set up to test students in the Morgan Academy on how well they could perform spells and to evaluate the philosophies students must adopt to move up in rank.

  The female mage in front of Andrea looked at the mini crystal ball attached to her robe. “Andrea Wildfire, you say?” the mage said, unimpressed. After all, someone of Andrea's age should have moved up in rank a long time ago.

  “There will be a witch trial in two months.” She slid a coin to Andrea. “This is your participation token. Do not lose it.”

  Andrea picked up the coin. One side had the faceless Morgan on it, and the other had a carving of a chimera. Andrea had seen this coin before. After all, she had tried the witch’s trials before.

  She had always failed to meet the requirements to advance, so she had to give up. But now, things are different. With her new grimoire and her higher mana reserves, she was confident.

  “Next!” the mage yelled, snapping Andrea back from her thoughts. She left the queue and exited the hall with the token between her fingers.

  She took glances at the coin as she walked. Her heart began to race, and her breath started to shorten. ‘It’s okay… it’s okay,’ Andrea calmed herself. ‘My mana is greater than before, and my grimoire…’

  Andrea took out her grimoire, which she had placed in her robe, almost as if she had brought it out from thin air, and opened the pages of the large tome. On the pages were multiple spell trees. She had learned some new spells—well, that wasn’t entirely correct.

  She had advanced the spells she already knew. During the week away from the academy, Andrea noticed the grimoire reacted to every spell she cast for the first time after they bonded by creating spell trees for each spell.

  The grimoire gave her more powerful alterations and variations to her spells. Her magical growth spurt was exhilarating, and learning enhanced spells had made her feel like a whole new person.

  She was confident that she could move up a rank, after so long of thinking it was an impossibility.

  “COME ON, ALL MAGES! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT A NEW REVELATION! A NEW OPPORTUNITY! FUSING MAGIC WITH TECHNOLOGY!!!” a voice screamed.

  Andrea turned her head toward where the voice came from. In an open courtyard on the grassy field, a young man stood behind a poorly made stand with many pamphlets on it.

  “Well, you don’t see this every day,” Andrea remarked, surprised. The young man had brunette hair, dark eyes, wore glasses, and donned the student robes.

  “Come around! Come around, and look at my techno-magical device I have created.”

  Next to the pamphlets were rows and rows of gadgets. A couple of students gathered around him—not many—and Andrea was one of them at the very back.

  A male student picked up a digital watch from the stand. “Excellent choice. Now, that might appear to be a normal smartwatch. But in reality, it is a watch that has been programmed to cast a set of spells by voice command.”

  There were murmurs among the small crowd. “Seriously? That’s so cool,” the male student said. He put on the smartwatch, and it activated, revealing a grid of basic spells known to most students in the academy.

  “Aqua,” the male student chanted. A stream of water appeared on top of the digital watch. The murmurs turned to cheers and a few claps. “It’s amazing! I didn’t have to use my own mana; it just happened.”

  A gleeful expression was on the male student's face. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” the brunette student said, taking bows.

  In the midst of the cheers and celebration, the stream of water floating above the watch fell down onto the watch. Immediately, fire, lightning, and other elements cracked from the watch uncontrollably, causing great pain to the student who volunteered to try it on.

  He screamed and used all his strength to rip off the watch from his wrist, throwing it at the stand as a reflex. The stand was set ablaze, destroying the remaining devices on it. The brunette student was able to duck away in time but pulled his hair in horror upon seeing the chaos.

  “NOOOOOOOO!” he screamed. He chanted “Aqua,” and a stream of water poured down on the burnt stand, but it was barely enough to quench the flames that now seemed like a bonfire.

  “Screw this! I’m out of here!” one of the students said. All the students fled the scene, leaving the brunette student trying his best to put out the fire.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Crap! This went so much worse than I thought it would,” the brunette student said. The fire kept getting larger and larger, and the water spell seemed to be doing less and less.

  Until—a great torrent crashed into the large fire, quenching it in an instant and leaving a great amount of steam in the process. The brunette looked toward where the torrent had come from and saw a redhead with both of her hands out.

  “Thanks,” the brunette said.

  “No problem,” Andrea replied.

  The brunette turned back to the site of destruction, walked to the burnt stand that was now ashes, and knelt in defeat.

  He pushed the ground, which was once grassy but was now dead soil. “Damn it!” he screamed.

  Andrea walked over to him, squatted, and patted his back. “It’s okay,” Andrea said. “I thought your watch was pretty cool.”

  “I don’t need your pity,” the brunette grunted.

  “Okay, asshole, I was just trying to be nice,” Andrea snapped. She turned away from him.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said. He looked back at Andrea, who still looked away. She was still mad. “I know I said it before, but thanks. You really saved my butt. This fire could’ve done a lot more damage without your intervention.”

  Andrea looked back at him and gave him a soft smile. “You’re welcome,” Andrea said.

  The brunette mage turned away from her and looked back at the burnt site. His face displayed a depressed look. His eyes were lifeless and baggy, mirroring the rest of his expression.

  Andrea knew the look well. It was the look of someone who tried achieving a goal but failed time and time again and was on the brink of losing it and questioning why they even bothered to try. She knew it because she had seen it countless times in the mirror.

  She didn’t know this person, but she felt a sort of similarity between the two of them.

  “My name’s Andrea. Andrea Wildfire. What about yours?” Andrea asked.

  The brunette turned to her. “My name’s…..”

  A figure in a dark cloak suddenly appeared before the two students. Their sudden presence wasn’t sneaky in the slightest. It was accompanied by a dim light and a sudden boom.

  The same went for the other five hooded figures that appeared consecutively after the first. Both Andrea and Timothy were now surrounded.

  Andrea’s eyes widened as she came to a sudden realization. The reason the other students ran away when the fire started wasn’t because they were afraid they would get hurt by the flames. It was because they were afraid they would get punished because of it.

  It took Andrea all her might to keep herself from slapping her own forehead due to her stupidity. “The two of you shall come with us,” the first figure to appear commanded.

  Andrea had never seen these mages before, but if she were to take a guess, they were probably teachers in the academy. None that she’d be able to recognize. The hoods did a surprisingly good job of concealing their identities.

  Both Andrea and the brunette student stood up. A hand was placed on both of their shoulders by one of the hooded figures. A magic circle appeared between the two of them, growing brighter by the second.

  The brunette student looked towards Andrea with a regretful look on his face. “I’m sorry.”

  A bright ray of light engulfed the five figures, Andrea, and the brunette. They disappeared, and the bright ray of light thinned into nothingness all in a second.

  Andrea blinked and found herself in an office. An office that was properly furnished, tiled, and had oval walls. It was also large, with most of the spaces being empty.

  In front of them sat a woman with dark hair and green eyes. She wore mage robes like everyone else, and she looked pissed. Really pissed.

  She sat on a chair with a large back and behind a wooden desk that almost stretched to the walls. “Timothy... Timothy... Timothy,” the woman repeated.

  She tapped her fingers on the table in sync with repeating the name. It echoed throughout the large room, almost like a drum was being banged.

  The brunette looked down at the floor in an attempt to hide from her gaze.

  “Timothy? I’m guessing that’s his name. I’m a bit impressed that the Head Mage knows his name,” Andrea thought.

  Andrea was well aware of the lady who was in front of them. She was Jessica Vale, the Head Mage of the academy. It was similar to a principal or a dean of a non-magic school, but one would have to earn the position by being extremely powerful. So much scarier than a principal or a dean.

  She was well known in the academy. Andrea was surprised that she knew Timothy’s name since everyone knew she only took note of talented mages, and Timothy…

  Andrea took a look at him from top to bottom, and he didn’t seem talented. He didn’t present the aura, grandeur, and confidence that a lot of talented mages had. But who knows? She could be wrong. Looks can be deceiving.

  She noticed the crystal ball stuck on his robe. “A griffin?” Turns out she was right. Timothy, as the Head Mage called him, was no talent.

  “Then how does she know his name?”

  “I told you, again and again... and again, to abandon this silly fantasy of combining magic and technology,” the Head Mage said.

  “I also explained to you time and time again, even if it was possible, it would rip the very essence of magic itself. Magic is an art, a discipline. Technology would stop what made magic so special by making it accessible to those who have not earned it.

  “And you reward the wisdom I bestowed upon you by disregarding it completely and endangering the academy and its students.”

  She got up from her large seat and walked to Timothy. He still looked at the floor while she approached him.

  “As for your punishment, expulsion is the least of your worries.”