"Whatever do you mean?" Blinking her eyes innocently, Natalia refused to admit her actions. Looking her complete shamelessness, Greyson felt his eyes twitching. Alright, he lost. Her skin was just THAT thick.

Continuing to run around in the forest, Greyson soon came across his chance. Lucius actually was the one who found this for him. The kitten had run off to who knows where at one point, but when he came back, he brought wonderful news with him. He had found a Lyra family. Lyra were fierce beasts that were extremely protective of their own. Remembering Greyson's predicament, Lucius had lured the mother Lyra in his direction so that Natalia would kill her and become the target of the rest of the family. During this time, Greyson could slip off and run away. Eyes lighting up, Greyson felt like he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. However, soon the happiness turned to conflict.

"What level are the rest of the Lyra at? Lyra are highly coveted magic beasts because of their intelligence and high level bloodline. Won't leaving her like this put her in danger?"

"All of their levels are around your level or below, so while she might have a tough time. No immediate danger should come to her." Lucius knew that Greyson was still worried, so he tried to reassure him. Keeping silent, Greyson decided to just go with it. He could see the beautiful white horse-like creature that approached. Knowing the moment had come, he started to attack the Lyra. Feeling the threat, the mother reacted with summoning an ice wall. Unfazed, Greyson shot out fire arrows breaking apart the wall and then restrained the beast with the shadows. Preparing to take the final cut with Genesis, just as he expected, Natalia shot in with a sudden wind blade that cut down the Lyra before him. Letting at a tragic wail upon its demise, the loud hoof beats started to echo in the direction of Greyson and Natalia.

Grinning that the plan was working, he laughed before waving goodbye to Natalia. Whose response was confusion until she could finally see the approaching stampede of Lyra. Fading into the shadow, Greyson quickly escaped as far away as possible.

"Hey! Wai..." Seeing that the target of her amusement had run off just ditching her, Natalia stomped her feet in frustration before glaring at the Lyra that had surrounded her.

"It's all your fault!"

Thus, began the tragedy of the poor used Lyra...

...

Once confident that Natalia would not be able to follow him, Greyson was like a fish in water while hunting in the forest. After escaping, he took advantage of the second day to get enough magic cores to pass the first stage. Of course, he didn't stop there and continued harvesting cores to sell later. Reminded of his times at Black Hollow Forest, Greyson continued running around almost losing track of the time. By the time the third day had rolled around, Greyson was reminded by Lucius and started to head back to the direction of the starting point.

"Grey, watch out!" Lucius suddenly sent out a mental warning.

Reacting out of pure instinct, Greyson drew Genesis when he finally felt the incoming threat. A loud clang rang out as sword made contact with the hidden dagger. Noticing the path of the dagger was aimed towards his heart, Greyson could feel the chill of death run down his spine. However, after this momentary shock came unbridled anger. Who was trying to kill him?! Sending out a blast of wind, the trees within a 5 meter radius were cut down. A black figure hidden in one of the trees spat blood before being sent flying. Reflexes kicking in, though, he flipped in mid-air and landed on his feet. Greyson burst off into the figures direction, while the attacker decided to run away after his surprise attack had failed.

"Stop!" Greyson snarled angrily. Waving his arm, the shadows surrounding the figure jumped up and tried to secure the person in place. To his surprise, the figure fazed right through the shadows as if they had no effect. A dark element magician? Without thinking further, Greyson instead used the familiar Water Cage spell. Glittering a pretty blue, Greyson summoned the snow from the ground which melted to water and enveloped the fleeing attacker. Caught in the water ball, the figure pulled out a dark and cold looking dagger and the dark element around it sliced right through the water. His spell broken so violently, Greyson held his chest as he could feel the blood flow up after the rebound from his magic. Becoming even more determined, he drew Genesis as the sword glowed green with his eyes. Slashing down, a violent wind blade followed his sword's cut and flew towards the still running figure. The threat of the wind slash upon him, the dark magician held up his dagger and produced a sheen black shield, however, it was cracked underneath the pressure of Greyson's Wind Blade. The remnants of Greyson's spell managed to hit the person and left a long cut across the man's torso.

Coughing up blood, the figure could no longer run. Catching up to the attacker finally, Greyson could look closely at his features. The boy was around his age if not a little older with dark brown hair and red eyes. Although debilitated, the boy continued glaring at Greyson with enmity.

"Who are you? Why would you target me? It's one thing to attack me but it's another to try to kill me. Didn't you hear what the Head Examiner had said about killing other contestants?"

Hearing my words, the boy just sneered without any remorse.

"I saw Natalia following some disgusting thing around and felt that you were growing too arrogant, not knowing your place. Why she would fall to such a situation where she would interact with you is also beyond me."

"Just for that?" Greyson felt like pounding his chest and stomping his foot at the immense misunderstanding that had taken place. Take her then! It's not like Greyson wanted her around. Getting arrogant? I was practically begging that great personage to stop taking out her wrath on me.

"Well, I could care less about your reasons, however, attacking me like that means you must pay up. I obviously can't kill you. So I'll just beat you up until I am satisfied." Itching to vent all his frustration and anger that had built up, Greyson realized the best punching bag had delivered himself on a silver plate. Cracking his fists, he began approaching.

Finally the boy showed fear as he backed away while still holding his bleeding chest.

"Wait! You wouldn't dare touch me! I am Tille Absinthe, the second son of the main branch of the Absinthe family. If you lay a hand on me, my older brother and sister will be the first to never let you go!"

"Absinthe?" Greyson paused his steps, slightly surprised.

"Hmph, what scared now? Yes! Now if you just hand over your beast cores I will let this matter go." Regaining his confidence, Tille starting to arrogantly make his own demands.

Narrowing his eyes, Greyson continued to observe the boy in front him.

"Hm? Really? I can't help but recall reading that the Absinthe twins have been raised as assassins since young and are extremely heartless and hold no particular feelings of familial love towards anyone except between themselves." Secretly glad he had read the first couple of reports on the families before he started skipping those sections, Greyson used his knowledge to call the boy's bluff. After the words were spoken, the boy's expression blanched. Knowing that he hit the nail on the head, Greyson no longer had any reservations.

Smirking evilly, he slowly approached the shivering injured boy. Screams of pain and harsh sounds of beating rang out in the forest.

Reaching around the boys body, Greyson had found his spatial pouch. Lucius used his spatial magic to help Greyson out and soon all of the boy's beast cores were now part of Greyson's collection.

"Wow, so many... Maybe I should have just stolen from the other contestants. I wouldn't have to go through any work running around looking for the right level beasts." Before long he burst out laughing over his gains and left the poor young master passed out on the forest floor.

...

The morning of the fourth day had finally rolled around and the three days of time were over. Greyson quickly made his way to queue in line to hand in the correct amount of beast cores. All the children back to the entrance of the Faded Mist Woods. Only about half of the kids passed the exam while the other half had looked to fail their exam. Some made protests saying they would have passed if they could have met enough beasts of their level, however, they had no luck. It was not fair for the academy to eliminate them based on their luck instead of their strength. However, the Head Examiner had no sympathy.

"Luck is a part of strength. If you have no luck, then you may never reach the magister level no matter how hard you try." Not even trying to comfort them, he spat those two lines before walking away and no longer listening to the complaining children. Among the failed group was a familiar face who glared at him with murderous intent abound. The hate reflected in his eyes was equivalent to the hate for the murderer of his family. Apparently Tille did not have enough time to recover and hunt for beast cores to pass the exam. Shaking his head, Greyson was not sure whether he regretted beating up Tille. Maybe he should have just let him off with the cut on his chest? After thinking about it, though, the guilt was gone. If Lucius had not warned him and his reflexes were not fast enough, that dagger could have stabbed his heart and killed him. He only caused the kid to fail the exam. That was nothing compared to murdering him.

"Those who have failed, know that there will be no change in this result. You may leave." Waving his hand in dismissal, the Head Examiner had the teachers to force them to leave. Tille continued glaring at Greyson until Greyson finally decided to look over at him. Once he looked over, he saw the other boy mouth words of threat. Reading his lips, Greyson understood.

"You. Will. Pay. For. This."

Although the Absinthe family was powerful, Greyson just shrugged. Tille was not very powerful or talented compared to the family's standards, so he did not believe that the retribution he was threatened with would come. No longer paying attention to the boy, Greyson turned his attention back to the Head Examiner who was making the announcement for the second stage of the exam.

"Congratulations on passing the first stage. Not many of you will probably be up to par for the second stage, so I would not be too excited." Like a bucket of cold water, his words pretty much drowned out any feelings of pride and happiness for passing the first stage.

"The second stage is as I explained before. All of you will demonstrate your skill level in your secondary occupation. You will all be transported back to the academy and there you will see different stations testing different occupations. If you have more than one secondary occupation, you can test for all of them, however, it is not required. It also might hurt your chances as well. We do not look towards the fact that you know how to do a lot of things, only towards the skill level. If you have more than one occupation however are incompetent in them all then that just shows you are fickle and do not have the correct attitude. At the same time, if you are equally magnificent in your multiple occupations it will prove your talent towards the academy teachers." After explaining this, he disappeared once again and all of the testers were split into groups and ushered into a teleportation circle again.

"Lu, should I not test in all of them then?"

"I'm not sure. I think you should test all of them. Your talent and skill level in all of them is noteworthy in my opinion."

"You think?...Well I'll first test for the blacksmith occupation and take a look at the other tests to try to see if I am up to par."