“Nice to see you too Mira,” Andar said sarcastically while pushing the glowing map aside.

It would be foolish to regard this girl as someone who was just pretty without any depth. Anyone who had that assumption would be very wrong, Andar had never seen anyone who was more driven at this age.

He could not help but tease her. The reason she barged into his room and went straight to the point was that she did not want to waste any single time on extraneous affairs and Andar was the only one she deemed worthy enough to collaborate with and take the time to get to know him better.

Like Andar, she was also born with great talent and a Spirit Body, but her grade of talent and Spirit Body could never be as ridiculous as his own. She had a grade six White Rank talent, and a grade five Purple Spirit Body, and in comparison, Andar had an unranked grade talent that surpassed the Supreme grade which was colored black, and also an unranked grade Spirit Body.

Talents like Mira were supposed to be closer to the peak of the Mage World, with all the top geniuses having similar ranked talent. Of course, Andar did not tell her his true rank he only gave his rank as something beyond her own, her curiosity about his true rank however made her closer to him.

Andar did not much if she got close, this was the sort of companionship he hoped to build and gather to his side. Unlike his main body whose path was isolated, being so far above every known creation, he had to use a different path to achieve his goals here.

They had been inside this Castle for a week, and as Andar would soon learn, there were a total of 107 castles, each of them holding 330 candidates for the Trials. So every given year, there would always be 35,310 candidates for the Trials.

Andar had used this time here to forge closer relationships with all the candidates, most of them were not much older than fourteen, and although he knew in this world, age was not the main factor for maturity, he still managed to bring everyone as close to him as possible, he and Mira becoming a sort of leader to the group.

All of this was necessary in order to achieve the best results in the Trial Grounds.

To understand how the Trials worked it is necessary to know about Training Manuals which was also called Meditation Arts.

The gigantic hand Andar had seen below was not just for special effect to awe the candidate, it served a much more crucial purpose for it was a library, and the clouds that spewed from the severed wrist were the books containing the Meditation Arts they needed.

The clouds they rested upon had various levels, and the composition of the cloud kept changing the closer you got to the hand.

When the castle gates were opened and all 35,310 candidates were released, most would settle on top of the clouds and pick their Training Manuals, which Andar came to learn was also called Meditation Art.

Engraved in every inch of the clouds were thousands of Meditation Arts, but this was just the first level of the library. You could choose to push deeper into the cloud to find more elaborate Meditation Art, but there were three problems you would encounter when attempting to do so.

The first was that the cloud grew denser as you got lower, with the clouds nearer to the head being denser than metal, penetrating it came with the risk of death, as many candidates overestimated their abilities and grew tired only to be crushed to mush by the increased weight.

With its increased density came a more reduced area of coverage, which led to the second concern.

If the top of the cloud spread for thousands of miles, as you go lower, the range would continue to shrink until it was less than fifty feet across at the wrist, so if you wanted elaborate Meditation Arts you had to be quick, else there would be no more space.

Once a candidate began accepting a Meditation Art, that area would be closed off, and the opportunity lost for any other candidate, so it was a matter of speed, getting a choice position earlier was the only option, as you would not be able to interfere once the impaction process has begun.

Generally, it was known that the best Meditation Art got more intricate and if you were not talented enough, it would be a waste to learn it, as you would be stuck as an Acolyte even if you collected a Legacy Grade Meditation technique and you had poor talents.

Yet this fact did not dissuade many candidates from fighting for more intricate Meditation Art, not just because of the increased powers it would bring and other special effects, but it was also the only method to climb to the supreme height of the Mage World and become an Archmage.

The third reason was inevitable human interference. Everyone wanted the best for themselves, and every candidate gathered here was a talent in their own right, most had been selected from a pool of thousands, and among that large population, they were the only ones talented enough to be chosen. This would inevitably lead to a feeling of elitism.

No candidate here wanted to select the lowest form of Meditation Art, all of them would want to go deeper into the clouds until they reached their limits, and so they would try to muscle their way through the clouds, and with the time constraint in place to get the best positions, the struggle could devolve to a bloody affair.

Most castles come together to fight against other candidates from other castles and secure more beneficial positions, these battles could be bloodless, but not every time, because the nature of men was treacherous and some candidates had heavy hands with loose morals. 𝐞𝗼𝘃𝐞𝐥．𝗰𝐨𝗺

Andar would be able to sway the rest of the candidates in his castle under his banner using his charisma and talent, but he did not, for it would serve no purpose to him, it would only delay his advancement.

He could also deceive the candidates and use them as cannon fodder to advance deeper into the cloud, but the qualities of the candidates were too poor, as they were still mortals, even if some of them had high talents.

Yet he still drew them close to him, as he wanted them to succeed, and if he could achieve that with little pain on his part, he would do so, and if they owed him a favor for giving them this opportunity, all the better.