Rex Draco, now named Ray, was standing in front of a large gate. Past it was a huge building surrounded by similar yet smaller buildings. They were all built in the same style, with weird geometrical shapes and a huge presence of large windows made of dark glass, not allowing anyone to watch what was inside.
Behind him was a large parking lot that was connected with a road that seemed to be full of traffic. Normally, he would feel slightly at loss, seeing so many different things after waking up from a three hundred-year-old nap. But due to the life that his soul lived, he was slightly familiar with certain terms and concepts.
Without much hesitation, Ray walked forward, approaching the operator of the gate that was standing nearby.
"Hello There! Are you here to apply to the entrance exams?"
"Hm? Ah! Yes, yes, I am."
"Do you have your ID?"
"Yes! Just a wait a second."
Ray reached in his pocket and took out his phone. As a dragon, clothes were never something he ever thought of. But now that he was using a human body, he was certain that using clothes was mandatory. He had opted by pieces of clothing more suited for exercise, he had tried the more formal ones, but they all make him feel restrained.
"Here you go."
"Thank you!" the gatekeeper took the phone, which had the Identification App open." It seems that everything is alright. You can go in now and good luck."
"Thank you."
Giving Ray his phone back, the gatekeeper operated his own and opened up the gate for Ray to enter.
*Clank* *Swing*
With loud metallic noises, the gate, which was the size of a building, started to open a small entrance meant for a single person. The gate seemed to be made of various pieces of metal that rearranged themselves depending on the type of opening that they were ordered to reveal.
"Okay, you can enter now, have a good day."
"Once again, thank you."
Ray walked in, his rhythm slows in order to look closely at his surroundings. The campus of the academy had a quite big park for the students to hang around outside of classes.
Right now, a few students were standing around, but they were small. Of course, that is only the case if one ignored the huge crowd that was close to a large circular building.
Ray approached, after all, that building was exactly where the entrance exams took place. In an instance, he tried to make an estimate of how many people were there. The answer? Around two hundred.
According to his research, the limit for acceptances was of fifty students every year. That translated to a 25% chance of being enrolled, or close to that.
Ray looked around the crowd, focusing his mana to his eyes. Receiving the magical power sent to them, his eyes changed, they began to shine brightly, and his pupils straightened becoming vertical like a lizard's or a cat's eyes.
Most of the crowd had lousy magical signatures. Even if he took into account the new average, he couldn't help but feel amazed on how delusional some people were. With such low levels of mana, the probability of them being accepted was very low.
However, treasures were always buried and therefore surrounded by dirt. Some individuals were, to put it simply, on a level leagues above.
Surrounded by several young men, fawning over her, was a young woman that stood with an elegance of a noble lady. Her hair was bright red and her eyes of a deep orange that seemed to carry powerful flames. She had ridiculous amounts of magical power. If compared to Ray, she would have around twenty times more mana, and the quality of it was only a few steps behind his.
Isolated, a young man with dark hair and eyes, with enormous eye bags, kept muttering something with a frightened expression while trembling. At first, there was nothing impressive about the young man. Below average mana and common aura, both in quantity and quality. And yet, deep, deep inside, seemingly locked up, something frightening was trembling as well, not of fear but of excitement. At least that was Ray's analysis.
Along with a group made out of both boys and girls, a beautiful girl stood at the center with a gentle smile. Her mana and aura were above average, for this era, but compared to other people, not that special. Her divine power, however, was off the charts. In terms of quantity, she had as much divine power as he had demonic power. And in quality, both were equal.
She was definitely someone to be cautious of.
Surrounded by a few dozens of fan girls, there was another young man. He had golden hair and bright blue eyes, both his hair and face were well treated and smooth, an arrogant smile plastered on his face. His mana was of the same level as the red haired woman, and his aura was off the charts as well. He was definitely a talent.
Suddenly, the young man noticed something, his smug look turned into a truly pleased one in an instant, and with a confident stride he approached a figure that had just arrived.
She had long golden hair, not blond, but golden, it truly reminded one of actual gold. Her eyes were also blue, but while the boy's eyes shone with a light that demanded attention, the girl's eyes shone with hidden threat. She was different from anyone there. Her mana was not above his, or above the other people Ray had took notice of. However, it felt special, unlike the mana of the other, hers was the only that surpassed his mana in quality.
'Who is she?'
The blond boy, with a bright smile, greeted the arriving woman.
"Oh! Hello there, Stelle! How are you doing?! It's great to see you!"
"Hm" she nodded absentminded.
"You still remember, right? When you promised to go with me to have dinner?"
"Hm?" she seemed to be unsure about that.
"You see, I found this wonderful restaurant that is underwater, we could see the fish while eating shrimp."
"Hm" she seemed intrigued by his words, or the food, it was hard to say.
"Unfortunately, they only serve single tables, so you will have to seat on my lap!"
*Sigh*
"Oof!"
After sighing, and realizing his intentions, she swiftly delivered a sucker punch and walked forward, leaving him on his knees.
Hiding his face from the crowd, he fought against a perverted smile that threatened to appear on his face. No one would ever know about that! Right?
'What is wrong with that guy?!'
Ray has never seen such thing before. While he was innocently curious about the young man's strange likes, he suddenly felt a gaze on himself.
Without any urgency, he turned around and faced the gaze that was directed at him. The owner was the girl that had delivered the sucker punch.
'Stelle was her name, I believe.'
She seemed to be oddly fixated in him, like she was seeing something that others weren't.
'Interesting. She was the only one who noticed anything wrong with me.'
She kept looking at Ray, who was waiting for her to do something, however, she just turned around and kept going her way.
'Weirdo.' he thought
"Attention Students! Please gather quickly! The details of the exams will be announced in a few minutes! Please cease any conversations and pay close attention, after all, the announcement will contain rules and objectives that cannot be forgotten during said exams! Come on! We don't have all day!"
A member of the staff screamed frantically, in a hurry to gather the attention of the young men and women that were present.
A moment of silence followed and all the people present started going to the appointed location.
It was a great semicircular conference hall with long tables formed in various arcs. The ones behind were positioned taller than the others, forming what seemed to be a staircase. Further down the hall was a podium where a stern looking man with a burn scar running from his neck to the left side of his face, he also had an easy to notice mustache.
As they enter, the participants of the exam slowly took a seat somewhere in the hall. Ray chose a seat around the middle of the hall. Some smart asses would believe that seating in the corners or the extremities of each table would be the best to gather information, however, being in the middle of the conflict was where the most info was thrown around.
Although it was requested to cease conversations, these young people were around 18 years of age, they just left their teen years, or didn't at all. Conversations were still present, although in a subdued tone. Naturally, for any being proficient in magic or aura, their senses were good enough to hear parts of their conversations.
Ray chose to do so, however, in a different light. Due to being forced to reunite his mind with his body, as well adapt his mind to a new body and brain, he was now capable of doing simultaneous tasks much faster.
Right now, he was hearing several different conversations at the same time, however none of them seemed to carry any info, besides some gossip that could be used later.
Still, he found conversations about something called movies very interesting.
'To think that fiction would evolve so much! I will have to check this "Internet" later.'