It was the morning before the theoretical exams.
Caecus sat in the library, but he wasn't the only one.
It seemed like everyone in his building was cramming in here, some even pulling an all-nighter.
He was lucky and managed to get a seat on a small couch, which only had space for Titus and him.
Titus was actually pretty good at theory, but that was expected from a corpus heir.
The blind boy enjoyed the cushioned feeling of the couch, while he read an article.
Due to his incredible comprehension speed, he was able to read a hell of a lot of articles and books in just one hour.
'The way things are going, I'll be able to get full marks. Amelia was right about getting carried by the theoretical exam grade!'
Psychéion had many main branches, of which you had to choose at least one.
They included: Theory, Combat, Soul Forging, and many others.
Caecus wasn't really sure which he would enter, but he knew that the combat branch would always have the most students.
'I will probably have to choose that one too… well, it's okay. After all, I came here to get stronger.'
Each of the main branches split up into smaller branches, allowing specialization in the exact field you wanted to study.
For example, the theory branch would further split up into: General Knowledge, Soul Theory, and so on.
General Knowledge would have classes like Maths, Geography, and things that were taught in schools for mundane people.
To be part of one branch, you would have to attend at least two classes from that branch.
For the main branches, yours would just be the one you attended the most classes in.
'Well, deciding my classes is for after I pass the entrance exams. First of all, I'm going to have to study.'
Caecus revised all of the topics that could come up, and when he was done, he stood up.
"Titus, let's go eat breakfast. I can explain the things you don't understand there." the short boy nudged the taller one, who was extremely focused on a book.
"Okay, I guess we should eat well before the exams."
Both of them stood up, put their books away, and left their building.
Titus took out his phone and looked at the time.
"It's nine twenty-seven in the morning right now, we still have three hours before the exams start." the Titanus heir explained.
"Okay, good."
The cafeteria was surprisingly empty when they entered.
Usually it was pretty full.
After all, there were only two cafeterias on the whole campus that were accessible to them, and they numbered almost in the ten thousands.
Caecus only sensed around three hundred souls here.
'The rest of them must be studying right now. I'm saving my brain juice for the exams or something like that.'
Yes, Caecus was trying to make excuses for his own laziness.
He and his friend grabbed their trays, loaded up a hell of a lot of food, and started eating, while Titus asked questions about the topics he didn't quite get a hang of, which, to be honest, were not many at all.
"Seems like you studied well, Titus! You will definitely get good marks like this."
"How are you even able to understand everything so fast?! You must be a genius or something!" the huge boy exclaimed, clearly irritated.
Caecus just chuckled and replied, "Something like that."
"What do you mean, something like that? I demand an explanation right now!"
"Eh… if we both pass the entrance exams, I'll tell you after the tournament, I promise."
"You promise? Okay."
Titus just left it at that, showing his trust.
When they both finished eating, they returned their trays and looked at the time.
"Two hours passed already?! Caecus, we need to get to the exam rooms quickly!"
"Are we in the same groups as yesterday?" the black-haired boy asked.
"Yes, I think so… let me check the app…"
Titus took out his phone, which was a little bit bigger than the average phone, so that the huge boy would have no trouble navigating it.
"Yeah, same groups. The theoretical exams aren't in the dorm area though, they are in the academy classrooms."
"Really? Where is mine?"
"You have room 1-100, while me and the other heirs seem to be in room 1-001. According to the map, they should be on the same floor."
"Alright, let's go together then."
Caecus just answered, as they both walked out of the cafeteria.
On their way, they walked past multiple students, all of them in groups.
"Do you know how big the academy is? I mean, alone the area for the first years is huge." Caecus asked the bigger boy.
"Yeah, I'm not too sure… uh, let's say each year has fewer and fewer students.
The first years have around five thousand students alone on average, the second years three thousand, and the third years one thousand…
Well, to explain it better, only one thousand students of every generation are allowed to graduate.
According to that, housing for the first years should be the biggest."
"Oh, good to know. What's your estimate though?"
"Well, the dorms for the first years are two square kilometers.
So the academy should be around five?
I mean, they have other areas too, like the forest and other things.
The campus must be as big as a small city, around thirty square kilometers?"
"What?! That's absolutely huge!"
"Yeah…"
Titus just answered, seeming unimpressed.
They reached the entrance, where the way split up at first, and Caecus had to touch the sign when he first entered the academy.
The other way seemed to lead to the main academy area.
Following the path, Caecus noticed a few birds flying over them, and that there was a lot of greenery.
"There really is a lot of nature here, right?" he asked Titus.
"Yes, I noticed that too. Maybe the principal likes it or something."
After walking for a while, they reached another gate, and Caecus felt a huge building not too far away from him.
"That's the first year's building." Titus just said, eyeing the castle-like building up and down.
"How tall is that thing?!" Caecus kept getting surprised by everything here.
"Yeah, uh, I think three hundred meters? They have to have a lot of classrooms, and big ones at that too…"
"This is more like a castle than a school building." Caecus wasn't able to sense the entire building, but he noticed that it had towers and other things.
"Yeah, it resembles a gothic fortress…"
They walked through the gates, and Caecus noticed that a stone pavement was laid out on the ground.
The -clack- of the soles of their shoes stepping on the ground sounded through the air.
After a little bit of walking, they reached a staircase, and at the end of it there was a huge door, which was open.
"Seems like that's the entrance." Titus just said and walked in, Caecus following closely.
A few students were already walking through the huge hallways.
There were eight elevators next to each other, with two huge stairways going upwards left and right from the elevators and curving around them until they reached the new floor.
Titus and Caecus walked towards the elevator, called one by pressing a button that produced a -click- sound, and entered it when it opened.
There were many different buttons, but this time they didn't have the numbers protruding from them, but just engraved on them very petitely, so the blind boy struggled sensing what exactly was written on them.
He just waited for Titus to press, and that he did.
When he pressed the button leading to a new floor, the elevator started humming and pulled them upwards.
When they arrived, the doors opened, and they were in a big hallway again.
"It really is beautiful here, huh?" Titus said.
Caecus just nodded in response, acting like he knew what it looked like.
After a little bit of walking, there was a sign and a big door.
"That's your classroom. I think that's where your exams will take place."
'Gosh, I'm lucky we walked past mine first. If Titus had gone to his first, I would have struggled to find mine.'
"Okay, thank you. Good luck with the exams, Titus!" Caecus said and balled his hand up into a fist while smiling.
Titus reciprocated the fist bump, and the size of Caecus' fist against his must have looked funny, because he chuckled a little.
"Good luck to you as well." Titus patted the blind boy's shoulder and left to continue searching for his own classroom.
Caecus pulled the door open and stepped inside.
He was immediately greeted by a guard who checked all of the things he brought.
The guard was around one hundred eighty-two centimeters tall, and seemed to be one of the mundane.
"What's your name?"
"Caecus Caelum."
"Please lift your hands, I'll be patting your clothes."
All Caecus had brought with him was a ruler, a pencil, a pen, an eraser, and a two-liter bottle of water.
When the guard let him pass, Caecus' echolocation sensed the room.
It was huge, the classroom wasn't really a classroom and more of a lecture hall, a very big lecture hall.
'There are like two hundred seats around here!'
The seats were built upwards like a staircase, and Caecus chose a seat right down at the front.
'This way, if the teacher writes something on the whiteboard, I can sense her movements with my echolocation and keep up.'
Caecus sat down, and the seats were very comfortable, much to his liking.
He placed all of his materials on the table, and waited until the exams commenced.
More and more students filled the hall, and a few got their materials taken, due to attempting to cheat.
Every time, the guard would look at their identification, make sure that the name they told him was correct, and then deduct points right away.
When the hall was filled, a teacher entered, asked the guard to check if anyone was missing, and then stood in front of all of them.
He was clearly high-ranked, and when his soul essence leaked out, it was clear that he had reached the manifestation stage.
The sheer amount of soul essence that leaked out showed that he had to be a rank six at the very least.
Rank six, one rank past metamorphosis, which would happen at rank five.
Caecus clearly felt how well-built the professor was too, with extremely dense bones and muscles, which were only achievable through metamorphosis.
He was one hundred ninety centimeters tall, average for the corpora, and had a small goatee.
The blind boy could sense a bald head, which seemed to be very smooth.
'Does he put some kind of cream on it? My echolocation doesn't seem to sense one impurity on his head, it's like perfectly round and smooth. I'm sure it has to be shiny.'
The first stage of the manifestation stage was aura.
Caecus had only sensed his father's aura, and that was the only time he was able to perceive colors.
Everyone's aura had a specific color to it that could be felt, not seen.
His father had the color yellow as his aura color, which made yellow the only color that Caecus knew what it looked like by actual experience and not only by definition.
For example, he knew that purple was a mixture of red and blue and darker hued, but that was basically it.
These definitions didn't give him any actual ability to imagine the colors, since he didn't even know what blue and red looked like.
The color of the professor's aura was red, which he clearly figured out by the students saying things like "Red aura?"
The color of your aura was tied to your soul, and said a lot about you.
For example, blue could mean that you are a calm melancholic person, but it could also mean that you are as uncontrollable as the sea.
The definition of your color differs for every person.
'That's what red looks like?'
The teacher interrupted Caecus' thoughts.
"All students, listen up. I am Marcus Fortis. Since there are other teachers from my corpus here, just call me Mr. Marcus. I'll be the one supervising the written exam. I'm able to sense your movements, and see everything. If you just dare to attempt to cheat, you'll be thrown out of the academy in an instant. That's it. I'll be handing out the papers now."
Caecus grabbed a small napkin with a lavender smell on it, and he felt his concentration increasing when he brought it to his nose.
Slowly, the papers were handed out to everyone, and when every exam taker had them, the teacher talked again.
"Since everyone has everything they need now, let the exams begin!"
Caecus turned the paper around and looked at the questions.
'This is easy! I'm lucky I studied for it!'
There were at least twenty pages of papers, some of which had theoretical questions that you had to answer.
…
"Finally done…" Caecus was the first to finish in his group.
He quickly revised all of his answers, corrected some grammar mistakes he made, and left his seat, handing over his exam to the teacher.
"You're done already?" the teacher eyed him up and down, then just shrugged and took the paper.
'Hopefully I did well.'