Valerie was deposited on the same line as all the other strange magic users, making her the weakest in the line as the only one without a source. Something that the others could definitely sense, and causing them to laugh and whisper amongst themselves.

She had been placed in front of the same training dummy that the challenging student had scored his wonderful 55 score on, making it as fair of a match as possible.

Still not entirely sure if she was supposed to be winning and showing off, or humbly losing to make these people feel better, as well as not at all sure about how strong she was when it came to... whatever it was that these machines were measuring. Valerie made the smart decision of starting off simple.

If they were going to cast simple spells, then so would she.

Breathing out slowly, she took a moment to centre herself before lifting her hands. The surrounding students chuckled amongst themselves more as she made her movements, but that quickly stopped as Valerie began to cast.

Her hands seemed to grow a dozen more fingers as they moved like a blur, perfectly carrying out the hand signs that she had practised dozens of times in Dawd to be able to use it in battle.

In less than a second, a golf ball sized firebolt was being launched from her hands. Wide eyes tracked it through the air, where it struck the dummy in the forehead and erupted into a small explosion just big enough to engulf its head.

The holographic numbers appeared above the dummy’s smoking head, whirring upwards like casino slots, until they finally landed on Valerie’s score of 68.

’Damn, so close.’ She joked in her mind, before flinching and freezing in anxiety. She glanced around her at the shocked expressions of all the students, and especially at the man who had dragged her here.

His brow was creased into a deep frown that, even behind his sunglasses, Valerie could tell was disappointment and annoyance.

’Crap... Was that too much? How was I supposed to know it was going to be that strong! I’ve never seen this before in my life! If I knew that, I would have silent cast it and throttled it more to slip under his score.’

She thought to herself, already starting to channel her mana so that she could protect herself against the assassins incoming blade, to punish her for her insolence.

"What do you call that? That was pathetic! You can do better than that."

’Huh?’

Valerie stopped preparing herself, and whipped her head towards the irritated man, along with all of the other students. She was just as confused as they were, more so even, although for different reasons.

"Do you think that you could hide your abilities and coast along? Well too bad, remember how you got here. We’ve seen your little training sessions, we know exactly what you are capable of and it is much better than that.

So give us a proper demonstration of your abilities, Miss Ashcroft. Now." The man demanded, his voice stern and sounding like a disappointed father. That made it sting even more.

"Fine." Valerie spat back, causing the ’star student’ to whip his head towards her with disbelief plastered across his face. He just couldn’t process that this stranger had come into their sacred place and had shown him up.

It would be fine if she was a new recruit or a member of one of the predigious families. But she was no-one. Literally, a nobody that had been brought her for god knows what reason. She didn’t even have a proper cultivation for gods sake!

So how?! How did she score better than him, who had trained years to get to this level. How was this nobody better than him and what the hell did the Senior mean when he said that she had more. More?! 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

His mind reeled with these questions, as he stared at Valerie with wide, crazy eyes, making sure that he caught every second of her next demonstration.

His breath caught in his throat as he saw her raise her hand again, just a singular hand, and point it towards the training dummy. He could feel the mana moving in her body, as she literally breathed it in from the air surrounding her.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a source. They did, and they were naturally giving out enough mana to make up for it. She was leeching off of them, using their natural excess to fuel her spell.

It flowed up her arm, gradually changing elements before the fire infused mana flowed out of her fingers and started to gather into a ball. It was a ball much smaller than before, the size of a marble. But it contained so much more power than the golf ball, and all of that power was being condensed down.

What was more impressive, and most startling to him, was that she was doing so without a single word uttered. A feat that he thought only the elders and some of the Seniors were able to do.

The marble of fire launched, whizzing through the air like a bullet until it struck the dummy straight in the chest, and exploded again. Orange light filled the air and a deafening, thunderous boom echoed out.

A wall of air rushed past them, whipping their clothes through the air and shoving their hair from their face, as they could feel the heat of that explosion from here. It wasn’t just them that felt it.

It was loud enough and powerful enough to catch the attention of the students on the other side of the courtyard, those who were practising body cultivation and physical magic. It threw some of them to the ground whilst others recoiled in fear, thinking that they were being attacked.

The explosion was so large that it triggered not just the dummy that Valerie had initially struck, but all of the others in the line. Dozens of holographic numbers appeared, whirring rapidly as they counted upwards in sync.

The dummies on the ends and furthest from the explosion displayed 20, and the number only grew the closer to the centre they got.

The ones next to Valerie’s target proudly declared the number 74 above their heads, a number that so many of these students would have been over the moon to get with a direct hit. Yet this stranger managed to get it with just a shockwave.

The Star students eyes dragged themselves away from that number that easily beat his own score, and the previous score of the girl, as he finally looked at the number displayed in the middle.

His eyes trembled, and he dropped to his knees as his mind couldn’t handle what he was seeing.

Hanging above the middle training dummy, in a dazzling gold font, was the number 159.