The spectators returned their attention to the exam site again at Yuria’s action. She and 20 other examinees stood side by side.

“Yuria Fendria, where is your wand to assist in flight?” the woman sitting on the left side of the exam site with other examiners asked while twitching her eyebrows. Everyone else was holding a wand or broomstick, but only Yuria was bare-handed.

The woman twitched her eyebrows and continued before Yuria could answer. “We can’t give you time to go get the assistive tools. Are you fine taking the exam like this?”

Yuria nodded her head at the examiner. “Yes, that’s fine.”

“Good. I’ll take it as you having confidence to do it without assistive tools.”

The examiner’s words somehow sounded sarcastic towards the unprepared Yuria. Truly, preparation was so important for magicians that they were called preparers. Therefore, the other magicians who valued preparation were not necessarily on her side. Well, there’s no way the examiner would know that Yuria was from the Butterfly Tribe, so maybe it was just me.

“The exam will start now. Begin the flying magic.”

At the examiner’s command, the examinees began putting mana into the flying magic they honed. Among the serious faces, only Yuria’s face was relaxed. She easily released some magic and immediately started flying up. Compared to other examinees who were still slowly rising up on their cane, it was a world of difference.

Yuria ascended naturally and quickly to 10 meters and began to do aerobatics. She made figure 8’s like honeybees, temporarily stopped her magic to fall only to soar up again, and sped up and down the exam site from end to end. Her use of mana was refined enough to be called an art.

Clap, clap, clap!

I clapped sincerely. I could also do the aerobatics that Yuria showed. The part I admired was her sense of mana usage. To be exact, it was precisely using only the necessary mana, with no error. Growing up with chaotic mana of the Olympus Forest, such control was possible but was still difficult for me.

Other examinees were also in awe by Yuria’s graceful mana control, they stopped rising and stared blankly at how she was flying.

“What are you doing! Nothing is more important than concentration for a magician! But what are you doing, getting distracted while using magic! Deductions for everyone!”

At the angry admonishment of the examiner, who twitched her eyebrows, the other examinees started flying again with faces that seemed to say ‘oops’.

The female examiner, twitching her eyebrows, marked ‘- 5’ for all examinees except Yuria. But it looked like there was already a ‘-10’ written on Yuria’s evaluation sheet. Was it just me? I must have misread it, looking from afar without magic. There was no way such a perfect flight could have gotten deductions.

Immediately after the flight portion of the exam, magic shooting began. While other examinees were still trying to gather their remaining mana after flying, only Yuria was leisurely manipulating and moulding her mana. Suddenly, magic letters that meant “encapsulate,” “fire,” and “rotation”, came up in front of Yuria to form a magic circle.

She added “replicate” and “repeat” to it, and shouted the incantation: “Ice Queen’s endless crystal attack!”

KwaKwaKwaKwa-!

At the same time as Yuria’s cry, the magic circle fiercely rotated, and magic bullets continuously flew towards the target. Like shooting a machine gun, the magic bullets instantly turned the target into a beehive.

Judging from the incantation she had shouted and the arrangement of the magic circle, it seemed like an original elemental magic that was supposed to fire ice crystals, but Yuria seemed to have replaced the ice with pure magic bullets on the spot.

Thanks to this, the power seemed to have been cut in half, but the process of making ice was omitted, so the speed probably increased a little. However, my guess was that the most effective aspect of the original magic was left out. It was fine to say that it was fantastic compared to others, but compared to the previous flight, the on-the-spot change could be considered a mess.

After the magic shooting, the examinees displayed their specialty magic in order. Come to think of it, I was looking forward to seeing if Yuria was going to use elemental magic which she said was her main focus, or try alchemy, her reason for coming to the capital. Either way, it was a rare opportunity to observe the magic of the Butterfly Tribe.

I was not the only one paying attention to Yuria’s magic. The examiners sitting on the panel seemed expectant of her magic, even though they pretended not to be. One by one, after the not-noteworthy displays passed by, Yuria turned her back on everyone, including the audience and examinees, and stretched her arms out toward the plaza. And as her mana fluctuated, the normally invisible mana turned bluish, twirling around her arms.

“The ice wolf carrying the north wind runs–”

During the magic shooting, it was a magic circle using magic characters, but now it was attribute magic that applied attributes to pure mana. The clearer the color of the mana wrapped around Yuria’s arm, the lower the surrounding temperature became. Like turning on the aircon during a very hot July, a cool breeze blew.

“The army that protects the queen advances–”

Yuria focused on the mana wrapped around her arms and considered the timing to materialize the magic. Then, when she thought, ‘This is the time,’ she waved her arms that had gathered the mana and vigorously shouted, “This is the land of the Ice Queen! Appear! Ice Castle!”

The blue mana from her arm began to spin and cover the plaza. Then, in an instant, a small castle made of ice was built in the center of the plaza. Even though it was a castle smaller than an actual castle, it took up almost half of the plaza, which was large enough to fit two or three mansions, and gave off a sense of majesty.

“This is!”

The examiner in the center was astounded. Spectators, examinees, and even formal magicians who were serving as examiners did not realize it and simply thought they were seeing moulding magic that used elemental magic. But, the examiners were not examiners for nothing, and managed to recognize the true nature of the ice castle.

“—It is a domain proclamation.”

At the words of the examiner on the left, who twitched her eyebrows, the examiner on the right exclaimed unbelievably.

“That’s!”

Three examiners looked at the ice castle with disbelief.

Domain proclamation — a magic considered to be the ultimate magic. The domain proclaimed by the magician literally belonged to the magician who proclaimed it. The magician within the domain could increase the power of all magic and interfere with the magic of others. You could call it absolute supremacy.

I closely observed the ice castle made by Yuria. Domain proclamation was not a magic that could be seen so often. The only ones who could even proclaim a domain in the first place were those who have already reached the peak as a great magician and entered the path of the magic way.

That’s strange!

It seemed to me that Yuria was a magician who had yet to enter the magic way. If she had reached the magic way, she would have sensed the mana I had hidden earlier. Although there was a chance that she was at a much higher level than me and was concealing her knowledge, the probability was not high.

I looked at the ice castle with suspicious eyes. Domain proclamation was magic where seeing was not everything.

Let’s analyze… Looking at it, Yuria was outside of the domain. A domain is the land which the magician proclaimed. A domain without the magician was a barren land of no value. Usually, when proclaiming a domain, it was basic to spread the domain with the caster as the center. Considering the location where Yuria was standing, did she want people around her to not get caught up in the domain and injured? That’s ridiculous! In the first place, if she did not want it, a domain wouldn’t hurt anyone. A domain that one cannot control is not a domain.

Wait, can’t control it? That’s a possibility.

If it’s just an imitation of a domain proclamation, it makes sense to make it in a deserted location and not let yourself be in the domain.

I looked at Yuria, not at the ice castle.

Certainly! I could vaguely feel a weak sensation of the ice castle from her. If it was a real domain, that ice castle and she would have been completely united. But I couldn’t feel that sensation from her right now.

As a weakness was found in Yuria, I started noticing the flaws in the ice castle, one after another. In the end, that ice castle was not a domain proclamation. If I had to name it, could it be a domain proclamation look-a-like?

To be exact, it did not give absolute supremacy to the owner of the domain but more like assistance. It was a whole new magic that mimicked a domain proclamation. Even so, rather than calling it a completed magic, it was more at a level where it was still too difficult to actually use. But still, even at that level, that magic was great.

What was great about it was that if that magic were to be properly completed, it would be much more cost-effective than a domain proclamation. Comparatively speaking, if a Tetris game was the result of magic, the domain proclamation required a gaming computer tuned up with millions of won.[1]

Meanwhile, Yuria’s ice castle, though incomplete, was like a Tetris on a low-end laptop. But what difference did it make between gaming computers and low-end laptops when playing tetris anyway?

Still, I wanted to applaud her for maximizing efficiency. Seeing a domain proclamation was difficult not only because it was difficult to find someone who could do it, but those who could, would not do so in normal circumstances. They did not have to use it because they already had enough ability to solve problems without a domain proclamation.

Unlike me, examiners did not seem to realize that Yuria’s magic was not a domain proclamation. Although I was also almost fooled, it was easily noticeable if you could find a single flaw. I was disappointed.

Yuria had a slightly sullen face looking at the ice castle she had made. She seemed to know that her magic had failed.

In my opinion, even if she had just used elemental magic to create an ice castle that big, it would be a confirmed pass, but Yuria seemed dissatisfied and erased the ice castle. The only traces of the ice castle left were a few large ice pieces that had naturally formed in the plaza. The ice castle that had just been there had completely disappeared. And like that, Yuria’s entrance exam ended.