World of Laws and Magic

The dean's office had a waiting room equipped with several rows of chairs and a receptionist's desk. A black woman seemingly in her mid thirties wearing a well fitted pants suit who also had straight black hair that reached down to her shoulders sat behind the desk. Ray turned to face the group and told them with a stern expression to take a seat; the chairs were made of plastic, positioned side by side with every two rows positioned closely facing opposite directions. All ten of us sat in a chair belong to the first two rows. Ray Menzes spoke to the receptionist:

"My name is Ray Menzes of the enforcement office. I'm here to escort the first years with the top ranks to see the dean. We're expected so please notify the dean."

The receptionist nodded, picked up her phone and made a call. After speaking to the person on the other end of the call for about a minute, she ended the call and said:

"Mr. Menzes, please follow me to see the dean Xavier Gecko."

The receptionist and Ray walked towards a door near to the far left corner of the room. Nick was facing that direction and now that the receptionist had left her desk to lead Ray to the dean, Nick had a clear view of her; she had a very athletic but curvy body. Nick had never paid much attention to women, probably because of his harsh upbringing and constant studying but as he looked at the receptionist walking to the door, he thought:

(She's got a nice looking ass.)

Nick had mixed feelings about the thought that he had because he didn't normally have any opinion of women no matter how they looked but after thinking a bit, he just silently shook his head.

(Of course I'm having these thoughts, I'm almost 20 years old and I am still a virgin, not to mention that scene with Don and that woman on the first day is still fresh in my mind. Never mind all that, magic is more important than women right now.)

Both the receptionist and Ray went through the door. This door had the name Xavier Gecko carved into a gold plate that was attached to the door. While they were gone some of the students began to speak, one in particular, a white haired, white young man addressed the group:

"I was a somewhat surprised when they teleported me into a building that was different from the one that I did the exam in but it looks like that was all to get the ten of us in the same place. I was assigned to exam venue number 5 in the beginning."

A short woman with pink rimmed glasses and curly brown hair spoke next:

"I started off in building number 3. They must have teleported all the students to one place after the exams ended. What buildings did the rest of you start off in?"

Most of the ten spoke excluding Nick and another young man that had a shaved head and a constant frown on his face. Nick actually seemed to be the the only person here that started off in exam building 1, the rest of the students starting off in one of the other 4 buildings.

Nick took notice of what the other students were saying immediately.

(Come to think of it, the exam venue hall did seem more filled with people than it was originally, I didn't notice immediately because of my lack of interaction with the other students. In the future I have to find some way of picking up on subtle information like this. It's not good to be clueless in this academy....I'll think of something later but for now I should pay closer attention to how this academy does things. It seems that among certain buildings, persons can be teleported from one building to another. Considering the fact that we walked all the way here, this building most likely can't be teleported into. Space magic seems very convenient, I wonder if that is what I should specialize in?)

The young man with the shaved head and frown suddenly spoke:

"Can't you donkeys shut up? We're not here to make friends so just mind your own business and wait for that suit wearing bastard to get back here."

The rest of the students frowned upon hearing this but no one responded to him, instead they all went back to minding their own business. Nick looked at the situation and was a little irked by he young man's tone but since his remark wasn't directed at him personally he wasn't planning to say anything.

Ray and the receptionist came out of the Dean's room in a few minutes. Nick had his eyes on the receptionist rather than on Ray and feeling his stare, the receptionist returned one of her own. Nick got flustered and turned away. The receptionist returned to her desk and ignored Ray's group. Ray Menzes spoke:

"One by one according to your rank, you will each go inside that room to speak with dean Gecko. Rank 1, Daryl Smith, go into the dean's room."

The young man with the shaved head stood up and made his way into the dean's room. The rest of the student's patiently waited for their turn. While occasionally stealing glances at the receptionist, Nick thought:

(That bald guy is rank 1. What is the criteria that determines our ranks? I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I get the breakdown of how I was graded like what Menzes had mentioned.)

Twenty minutes later Daryl emerged from the dean's room and quietly took a seat in the third row. He still had a frown on his face but less so than before.

"Rank 2, Mary Thomas, enter the dean's room."

A woman that looked the youngest of the group stood up. She looked like a teenage girl that still had baby fat on her face, she had long black hair that reached to her knees and she seemed to be of Indian descent. She made her way into the deans room and was in there for about 25 minutes before coming back to sit where she had been before.

"Rank 3, Jerry Taylor, enter the dean's room."

A black young man with low cut hair wearing a pair of jeans and a hoodie stood up and made his way into the dean's office.

(This is taking a long time. I should invest in a pair of headphones to use in times like this. I'm bored out of my mind and I think I'm staring at the receptionist too much, the others are starting to notice.)

Some of the other student's noticed Nick's constant glances at the receptionist. Most said nothing but the short girl with curly brown hair winked at Nick and gave him a thumbs up.

(What the hell does that even mean?)

Nick ignored her and after fifteen minutes, Jerry returned to his seat.

"Rank 4, Nick Capitol, enter the dean's office."

Nick got up and made his way into the dean's room. The deans room had a red carpet with gold symbols scattered all over it, the walls were paneled with wood that had designs that looked like scenes from action films with men fighting monsters and the like. When Nick looked up he saw a strange white light that made it impossible to see the ceiling. Behind a wooden desk on a slightly raised platform sat a man with a shaved head and drooping ears wearing a gold colored robe. He looked at Nick with a calm smile and spoke as soon as Nick was a couple feet from his desk.

"Nick Capitol, out of all the ten students brought here you are the most 'special', do you know why?"

Nick didn't like the way that dean Gecko had said the word special but he answered the question anyway.

"Is it because I'm brown, juicy and jacked?"

Nick had heard that in an interview of a business man on TV when he was younger and decided to use it now since the dean had asked such a cryptic question. The dean squinted his eyes and spoke:

"Hmph, no. It's because you managed to get such a good ranking on a magic related exam even though you do not have a mindscape. The children that came here with you are definitely wondering why that is, in fact, the previous three students asked about your situation in passing. I told them nothing though."

Nick shrugged his shoulders. 

(Those students didn't have to ask the dean. I would have told them the answer myself. I would have said, "It's because of these nuts.") 

(Ha, ha.)

Nick chuckled internally but had a serious face when speaking with the dean.

"Dean Gecko, this is what I most wanted to ask you about. Why did I receive such a high ranking in the exam, I don't think I did anything special? The reason I probably won was because my opponent was somewhat retarded and all I did was use magic scrolls which are inferior in power to an Apprentice Magician's spells."

The dean seemed amused.

"While it is true that magic scrolls aren't usually very strong but that mostly depends on the Magician that made the scroll and the type of spell placed on the scroll. Give me one of your scrolls...don't worry as long as you are a student of this academy your creations are protected from being stolen by anyone, especially the staff."

Nick didn't know whether he should believe the dean's words or not but the fact of the matter is that the dean definitely knows what happened in Nick's match anyway and the power of a Regular Magician is not something Nick could resist so he decided to hand over one of his scrolls to the dean.

The dean spent a minute looking at the contents of the scroll and gave it back to Nick.

"As I suspected. I was sent a recording of your match and the academy's recordings also carry the details of the magic used by the students including the nature of the magic and the intensity of the magic energy at every moment. Do you know that the enforcement office could not identify the nature of the magic coming from your scrolls?"

Nick was puzzled.

"How could that be, my scrolls have simple spells written in Valteese on them?"

The dean looked at Nick, even more amused.

"You may not have noticed but a certain portion of your spell is in fact not written in Valteese."

Nick became even more puzzled when he heard that and took out one of his scrolls to take a look.

(What is this old man saying? If it's not written in Valteese then how could the spell work?)

"Look closely, the clues are subtle."

Nick started reading through his scroll and when he finished he read it again and again until he found the supposed anomaly.

(There is actually something wrong with two of the paragraphs in my spell. I didn't notice until the dean pointed out that something was wrong with the Valteese but some of the symbols look similar to Valteese but aren't really Valteese. How did this happen? Hmmmm....I guess I made so much corrections to my initial scrolls that at some point I stopped paying attention to how I wrote the symbols and paid more attention to the magic energy that was being attracted to the scroll. I didn't feel anything change about the magic energy other than the concentration but that's probably because I don't have a mindscape yet....)

It was as if Nick was struck by lightning, he came to a realization.

(So that's what going on, Valteese is a very precise language and the symbols used in the construction of laws for spells have to be written or carved correctly for the correct effects to be created. Some of the symbols in my laws are actually incorrect but the spell still worked. If that is the case...then did I actually luck into creating an altered version of Valteese that works? I created my own language for writing laws!)

Nick eyes opened wide at the realization. With wide opened eyes he looked at the dean's smiling face.

"Ha, ha, so you've realized. Congratulations are in order. Whether by luck or by fate, you've done something that most Magicians never do. You've created completely original laws and yes I do mean completely original. Because Valteese is such a precise language, if it is changed even slightly, it is no longer Valteese which also means that the nature of your spell as a whole, in magical terms, is completely different than what you probably envisioned."

Nick took a deep breath and remembered all the days that he spent studying, all the sneers and ridicule he got for his focus and dedication to something that most people found boring, all the times he heard, "He doesn't have any sense.". Right now, Nick truly felt that it was all worth it for this moment.