one year later.....
john was seating alone in a corner of the examination room, the other participant would stare at him with strange expression from time to time, after all anyone would since this young man had reached the 3rd circle by 18 should be famous, only a few geniuses were able to form their 3rd circle by 18. yet no one had ever heard about john before. (they all thought that john was 18)
john on the other hand didn't care about their unless chatter, he had changed a lot in the last years after all. the most notable change was that he had grown much taller than before, he still had a child's face with the same black hair and pink eyes, but he overall looked much mature, he was no longer a shy kid who needed friends.
this change was caused by a betrayal that happened some months ago, john was still somewhat recovering from it.
"the day has finally arrived... but now i have a bigger problem, how am i supposed to hide that i actually have 4 circles not 3?"...curse that ice magic..i am not even going to use it anywhere so what's the point of being powerful?"
john could have never even thought about such a situation before, where one day he has to worry about having too much power instead of too less.
"it would be too troublesome if they find out i have 4 circles at 16, but i don't really have a way to hide it, damn it! let just forget out it, what's the worst that can happen anyway"
After that john name was called out for the first test,
The first test was rather simple; the participant had to just place their hand on a glowing white ball which will tell the no. of circles the participant had.
john entered the room and saw a examiner seating in front of him. "hmm the examiner is at least a 6th circle, no point in trying to hide my circle than... he probably sensed my circle already"
what john thought was true. the examiner, a young man named ragas in his early thirties was a famous mage known for his skills and it was another fact that the more no. of circles a mage had, the more sensitive they were to mana. john was a pure exception through.
john carefully placed his hands on the white magical ball and it turned purple indicating that john had 4 circles, the examiner unexpectedly only gave john a small nod and asked him to processed to the next room, indicating he had passed the first exam...
john moved to the next room feeling slightly relieved that the examiner had not made a fuss about him. he noticed that the no. of participant were almost half compared to before, all much older than him.
" i wonder why people even came to the examination when they had not even reached the 3rd circle"
next was the written examination which john was the most worried about, he always understood things easily, but his long-term memory was not so good and truthfully john had not even paid much attention to the theory, only studying what was absolutely necessary for him. now it had come back to bite him in the end.
"hopefully the written exam would be as easy as they say"
after an hour of wating for everyone to give the first exam, john was finally led to the next exam room. he was assigned a random seat which just happened to be between two girls. "ah why does this always happen, even in school my roll no comes between two girls, I swear I don't need this kind of luck"
the exam started soon after, the exam was thankfully really easy and filled with basic question which john mostly knew.
"Why was the exam so unnecessary long?" john thought while submitting his paper. he than went straight home. the 3rd and also final exam was goona have a week later, after all checking the answer sheet of thousands of participants took time.
now john had a week time to figure out the problem he had been ignoring...
"i don't know if i should be happy or sad," john said in pure annoyance.
on the result day , they would also written down the no. of magical circles next to their names and if people were to see it, not everybody would ignore it like the examiner did.
thankfully the magic association was really strict with their information and even a 9th circle mage won't be able to get someone's information easily so john could probably lie about his age and put some makeup on his baby face. sounded troublesome but better than being caught.
now john just had to order the makeup online...
"well no point in thinking about it, i rather absorb some of my cuties warm particles"
in the last year john had really grown to like the ice particles because they made him feel warm whenever he absorbed him. he even succeeded in trying to absorb them while moving (after a lots of efforts) so that they could keep him warm when he was outside home.
he had just erased the fact that these particles were "ice particles" and just used them as warmer all the time which was the reason why he had broken through 4th circle so early and easily,
.....
in the other part of the city the 6th class mage ragas was thinking to himself about the mysterious young boy which had came to the examination today, ragas was quite sure either the boy was using some kind of magic tool to make himself look young or he just naturally looked younger than other people, that young boy had to be at least 20....