The target, which had held its shape until just moments ago, was now shattered into powder. As I slowly lowered my staff, Wittmann, standing beside me, offered a faint smirk.
"Very well. Examinee Number One, you pass."
"Are you sure?"
"My eyes aren't blind to talent. If you understand, get back in line at once."
"Y-Yes, sir!"
Urged along, I returned to the others. Perhaps still reeling from the shock, the remaining examinees were murmuring amongst themselves in agitation.
"Attention, everyone. That concludes the third exam. The official list of passing candidates will be posted at the entrance to the Gery Proving Grounds tomorrow morning. Dismissed for today."
With the exam's conclusion announced, Wittmann strode briskly away. At first, I had wondered how things would turn out, but I'd managed to survive somehow. Now then, time to head back with the two of th—
"Hold on, what in the world is that staff?!"
"Whoa?!"
Elena, who had looked so composed until a moment ago, lunged at me with wide eyes. She grabbed for my staff, so I instinctively dodged. If she tried to wield it without knowing what she was doing, things could turn ugly fast.
"H-Hey, don't just grab at it!"
"Wh-Why are you dodging?! More importantly, what is this thing?!"
"Bauer, pulling a trick like that is practically cheating~"
Hermann was eyeing my staff with intense curiosity as well. Back home in the countryside, no one used magic except me, so I'd had no idea just how rare a Phantom Staff actually was. Judging by their reactions, it seemed you couldn't easily come across one even here in Ulm.
"It's a Phantom Staff. An advanced application of compression magic."
"Compression magic? What's that?"
"I showed you two already, didn't I? The flowers I gave you?"
...Ah!
Elena and Hermann exchanged glances, the memory instantly clicking. After the first stage exam, I had made red flowers for the two of them as thanks for looking out for me. What I'd used back then was compression magic.
"It was written on the very last pages of a grimoire. It said it was an exceedingly rare spell."
"That certainly wasn't in any of the preparatory school's reference books. Right, Hermann?"
"Yeah, I've never seen it either. It barely ever shows up on the first stage exam, anyway."
"Um... what exactly is a 'reference book'?"
"Ah, it's a guide compiling the spells most likely to appear on the exams. It lets you study efficiently."
"Reading whole treatises cover to cover just for an exam is exhausting....From our perspective, you're the bizarre one for reading nothing but ancient grimoires."
So learning from reference books that condensed the key points was more practical than wading through thick grimoires packed with vast amounts of lore. True, if the only goal was passing the exam, that made sense. But... shouldn't anyone aspiring to become a court mage want to master every piece of magic this world had to offer?
"Still, I was amazed when you pulverized that target, Bauer. That's a ridiculous amount of mana."
"Ah, well... that was thanks to this staff."
"The staff? What does a staff have to do with anything?"
Elena tilted her head in confusion. I could explain the underlying theory, but having her test it out herself might get the point across faster. Even if it was a little nerve-wracking.
"Elena, I'll lend it to you. Try firing a fire magic spell with it."
"Huh? Are you sure?"
When I handed over the Phantom Staff, Elena inspected it with intense fascination. I took her staff in return. As Elena raised the Phantom Staff and aimed across the open plain, I called out to her.
"Keep your mana output low, and don't raise the disruption index."
"A-All right..."
Under modern theory, magic was widely understood as a wave. Differences between spells stemmed from differences in their waveforms. The disruption index measured a waveform's complexity—a value that climbed higher whenever foreign magical elements blended into the mix.
"Here I go."
"Yeah, be careful."
"...Hah!"
With a dull thud, a streak of red light shot forth. Yet almost instantly, its trajectory warped, dissolving into thin air like melting ice. Elena stared in slack-jawed shock before whipping around to face me.
"Wha—wait, that's completely different from what happened with you!"
"Because the Phantom Staff is conjured through magic, it carries its own complex mana characteristics."
"Then isn't that basically the same as constantly suffering from the examiner's interference?"
"It's just as Hermann says. At first, I couldn't handle it properly either."
"Then why on earth would you use a staff like this in the first place...?"
"Could you give it back for a second?"
I traded her staff back to retrieve the Phantom Staff. As Elena said, it was undeniably unwieldy. Without plenty of practice, you couldn't even cast a basic fire spell properly. Even so, I had one clear reason for relying on it.
"Going back to what I said, it's thanks to this staff that I was able to destroy that target."
"What does that actually mean?"
"The Phantom Staff is essentially a double-edged sword. If you harness its natural mana characteristics, it becomes a devastating weapon."
"Meaning... you used the staff to amplify your own magic, Bauer?"
"Exactly. It can scatter and snuff out a spell like it just did for Elena, or—"
I leveled the staff toward the plain once more. Just as I had during the exam, I wove fire magic through the staff's structure—
"Hah!!"
"Wait, not again—!"
"Incredible..."
A massive plume of flame erupted in the distance, followed seconds later by a thunderous boom that shook my eardrums. Elena recoiled in shock, while Hermann watched the lingering smoke with open admiration.
"—you can reinforce your own mana output to an extreme degree. That's what a Phantom Staff does."
"Then the reason Examiner Wittmann's interference didn't affect you earlier was..."
"When the mana output is on a completely different order of magnitude, interference doesn't matter. To put it bluntly, I just brute-forced it."
"Good grief, I don't even know what to say anymore..."
Hermann gave a helpless shrug. If you mixed a cup of water into a cup of honey, it would dilute noticeably; add that same cup of water to a hundred cups of honey, however, and you'd hardly notice a difference. It was a far simpler, far more reliable method than tweaking disruption indices or calculating flight paths.
"Wait, Miss?"
"..."
Elena stood frozen, struck entirely dumb. She glared at me, her face tight with sheer mortification. As I wondered what was wrong, she finally spoke in a low, heavy voice.
"I have to thank you. I feel like I've finally woken up."
"What do you mean?"
"Being called a 'witch' since I was a child got to my head. But..."
Elena turned her gaze toward the other candidates trickling away from the proving grounds.
"...In the end, I only hit the target because I watched everyone else fail first. That wasn't a result I earned on my own merits."
"No, that's not—"
"You're different. Even if you'd gone first, you still would have obliterated that target with that staff."
"Well..."
"I used my own classmates as stepping stones. But you produced results purely on your own strength. It kills me to admit it, but my actual skill is..."
She really hated losing, I realized. Elena's magic had been nothing short of extraordinary out here today; none of the other candidates had come close to matching her. And yet, she still felt this burning frustration—and chose to bare it straight to my face.
"...I really respect you, Elena."
"Huh?"
"In the village where I grew up, no one used magic. I never had anyone to measure myself against, so I was able to study magic completely at my own pace."
"Y-Yeah..."
"You didn't have that luxury. You were thrown into constant competition, and that's how you forged the strength you have now."
"..."
"You're amazing, Elena. Truly."
Elena looked down, falling silent. Every word had come straight from my heart. Even after securing her place as the top talent in the preparatory school, she still refused to settle for second best. Unlike me, who had run away from inheriting the farm, Elena was charging straight into the fray.
"...Hermann, we're going to the school archives."
"Wait, what? Where is this coming from all of a sudden?"
"How am I supposed to just go home quietly after hearing that?! We're going to find a grimoire that explains the Phantom Staff!"
"Wait, right now?! Come on, Miss, please have some mercy for today—"
"Quiet! If you're a noble, follow me!"
Elena seized Hermann by the collar and dragged him off. It seemed she was dead set on mastering the Phantom Staff herself. Even after an exhausting exam... she really was unstoppable.
"Next time, I'm the one who's going to blow you away! Just you wait!"
"Sure, I'll be ready."
"That smug attitude is what infuriates me the most!"
"H-Hey, Miss, my neck...!"
"And you better tell me about that 'family collection' of yours soon, you hear me?!"
"I will! See you around!"
I waved goodbye as the two of them vanished beyond the proving grounds. I genuinely envied that competitive drive of hers. It made me feel like I needed to carry myself with that same resolve.
Still, my family's book collection, huh? Until I received a reply from back home, there wasn't much I could tell her... and it still hadn't arrived. I suppose all I could do was wait patiently.
Or so I thought. Just a few days later, my father, who was supposed to be back home in the countryside—showed up right in Ulm.