Qualifications
I walked into a white room, not knowing what to expect. A table sat in the center with two chairs on opposite ends of it. A tall man stood near the back wall, his back facing towards me
"Have a seat," he began. "It says here your name is Darius Elric, and you've been an avid magic player for the past five years"
"That's right," I said as I slid out the chair and sat down. "Ever since I started playing, I've always wanted to design magic cards. It just seems like an amazing dream job!"
"Well that's why we started this program, to have young minds work alongside us, to have a fresh, new outlook on Magic. I'm Blake by the way," he said as he sat in the chair across from me.
"Hello Francis"
"Well enough chit-chat, let's begin the test."
"Wait a minute, the what? The website didn't mention a qualification test!"
"It wasn't supposed to. We didn't want people worrying about preparing for a test that you can't prepare for."
"What's the test?"
"You'll see," he said with a smile. He laid out three pictures in front of me and pointed to them from right to left. "Mikokoro, Naya, Nephalia. Imagine yourself at each of these places. First, Mikokoro"
I was very nervous and excited, yet I tried to calm down and visualize Mikokoro. If I remember correctly, he means Mikokoro, Center of the Sea; a card from the Kamigawa block. It produced colorless mana and tapped to draw everyone cards. I imagined I was standing on a rock, not too far off its coast, a light mist had set in, yet I could still see Mikokoro and all its grandeur rising above the mist. While in its presence I felt an indescribable feeling of wisdom, like I was learning great knowledge. Just then, a voice interrupted my thoughts.
"Good, now imagine Naya."
Naya was part of the rather recent block, Shards of Alara. Imagining Naya was more difficult, as Naya was a fifth of Alara. I finally settled on the edge of a cliff, watching the ever expanding forests of Naya. I basked in the light of its sun, heard the voices of nature, and felt an overwhelming exhilaration from its wild mana.
"You're almost done. Finally, Nephalia."
I had never heard of Nephalia before. Was it part of the upcoming set? Well it didn't matter now, so I studied the picture more carefully, a dark sky, a tainted landmass bordered by the sea with a few visible graves in the distance. I put myself at the edge of one of the cliffs, the raging sea below me. As I stared into the black ocean I felt as if I could see my fears and desires reflecting from the dark abyss. My mind felt heavy, but it felt different from earlier if felt as if the brain in my head weighed a ton, my sanity started to wither.
"Enough! The test is over, you pass," he said as he got up and walked to the door behind me.
"That's it? What was the test for?" I turned to him in confusion
"It tests to see if you're qualified, and also as a way to thin out the applications."
"Well it was actually pretty easy up until the end there," I said while getting up and following him out the door and into a hallway. "I can't imagine you thin out too many applications with this, so how many have actually passed?"
"Ten."
"Out of?"
"Ten."
"Oh ," I said with disappointment
"Thousand."
"Oh," I said nonchalantly. "Wait ten out of ten… Holy Crap! Only ten people passed?"
"You're number ten"
"How do you even go through that many, and what qualifies you to pass?"
"We have plenty of recruiters besides myself, as for your second question, you'll just have to wait and find out, Planeswalker."
"Planeswalker? What do you mean, Planeswalker?"
"You'll see," he said as he opened a door on the right and walked in.