Disclaimer: Still don't own anything.
Before we start. I understand that some of you might have been confused by some of the parts of the previous chapter, specifically the magician registration part. Hopefully this chapter clears the doubt.
"Hello, children. My name is Mitsui Haruto. As some of you are already aware, I am in charge of testing whether any of you have an aptitude for magic or not." Tatsuya's entire school was currently gathered on the school grounds. They were addressed by a reasonably good-looking man with chestnut brown hair.
Three months had passed since the end of WWIII and a lot of things had changed in Japan. The Government of Japan introduced a new Bill in the Parliament named The National Magic Development and Support Act. In an unprecedented move, the bill had passed both houses of the parliament without a single member objecting.
Tatsuya was of the opinion that it was a good thing for the magic community in the long run. The major points in the Act included compulsory registration for every magician at or above the age of eighteen in the nation with the newly formed National Magic Association which was a statutory body independent of the Japanese Government. The entirety of the Ten Master Clans had supported the bill which meant that the enforceability of this particular rule was easy. Although the information wasn't made public, Tatsuya was aware after snooping around a bit, that the National Magic Association was not truly an independent body.
The wording in the Act stated that the Government would have twenty percent voting power in the administration while the remaining eighty percent would be divided equally among the Clans that were part of the Ten Master Clans at the time of voting. The required threshold for passing changes was sixty percent minimum which meant that it would be hard to pass unpopular changes.
The second major change in the Act was what caught his eye the most. The country announced the opening of nine Magic High Schools affiliated to the National Magic University, three years from now. The official explanation for the three-year gap was that the country wanted to maximize the number of magicians and to accomplish that, those with magical aptitude must be found and given training from the civilian populace as well. For that purpose, every junior high school in the nation was provided with a low-spec testing machine that could measure a person's sensitivity to Psion waves and to an extent, potential to learn magic. (The provision of such devices to middle schools was put on hold until the first batch of Magic High applicants could be analyzed to identify the potential of the program).
Due to the fact that there was a clear lack of magically gifted personnel in the nation to be able to provide attention to every single school on a personal level, one magician was assigned to a grand total of one hundred schools per person. (There were a little over nine thousand junior high schools across Japan. Nine hundred magicians had been hired by the government for this purpose.) Currently, it was Tatsuya's school's turn to conduct the tests.
The order of testing was based on the class. The third-years, who would be passing out from junior high this year would be at the most disadvantage due to the fact that they would not have enough time in school to develop their magic skills even if they had the aptitude for it. In the case where a third-year student showed sufficient aptitude for magic, they could continue in a regular high school and still apply to the Magic University as long as they attended special classes for such students. The same applied to the second-years as well. Tatsuya and his peers would be the first generation of students to actually attend the Magic High School Entrance exam.
"For the remainder of today, I will call each individual separately to the office room in order to test your aptitude for magic. Please mentally prepare yourself. Although the test itself isn't difficult, the state of mind can affect the end result." Haruto, who he identified as an immediate relative of Honoka, explained.
Due to the ongoing proceedings and the excitement of the student body, there were no classes for the day. As a first-year, Tatsuya was well aware of the fact that his class would be one of the last to be called. He waited the entire day patiently in the classroom as several of his classmates darted in and out of the classroom out of sheer excitement and nervousness.
It was almost the evening when Tatsuya's class had been called. They lined up in the order of the roll number and moved to the outside of the staff room which had been transformed into a testing center for the day.
Due to the fact that his name started with T in the English Alphabet which was used universally for the purpose of data entry, Tatsuya was the last person in the line. He watched as one by one his classmates entered the room and returned a few minutes afterward. Most of them looked dejected while some came out with a clear look of joy in their face. According to his own estimates, only three out of the thirty students in his class, barring himself, had the potential to use magic. It wasn't a particularly high or low number since the average number of magicians was ten percent of the overall population.
"Next is number 30, Shiba Tatsuya." Haruto's voice called. Tatsuya walked into the room.
"Please be seated." Haruto motioned towards an old-fashioned chair that was near the testing device. As Tatsuya sat down, a middle-aged woman who looked like a nurse approached him and hooked up four wires to his arms, undoubtedly to take his measurements.
"Now Shiba-kun, I need you to place your hand on the device and concentrate. You see that small device, right? I want you to imagine that it is moving." The testing device that Haruto was operating was the same one that was used during Tatsuya's time at First High, even if it was a bit too old. It accepted the psion flow from a magician and created a Magic Sequence and an Activation Sequence that accelerated a small box-shaped device.
Using his Elemental Sight, Tatsuya could vividly see the device taking in a tiny amount of his psion as the spell was slowly (at least for him) created. The entire process took over a second since the device itself was severely lacking in terms of performance.
"Good, that means you have the ability to use magic. We will contact your parents shortly and decide on your next course of action." Haruto said, as Tatsuya simply nodded slightly before walking out of the office. All of his classmates had left and the only ones there were the students of 1-D.
Roughly Two and a half Years Later.
"Tatsuya, did you take everything you need? You did not forget your ID Card or your Hall Ticket, right?" Shiba Mayuri was frantically asking her son who was currently about to leave for his entrance exams.
"Dear, it's Tatsuya that you are talking about. There is no way he will ever make such a simple mistake." Tatsumi reassured his wife. "Good luck son." He added.
"That's right." Mayuri calmed down. "Make us proud Tatsuya." She wished him.
Almost three years had passed since Tatsuya had taken the aptitude test for magic. Three days after that, he was visited by an official from the National Magic Association who informed his parents about the opportunities and benefits of being a magician. He was informed that they would open a magic club in the school for every student who had passed the test and wished to become a magician.
The club was mainly focused on preparing the students for the Magic University entrance exams. They had been supplied materials from the Magical University on the basics of magic. The University even conducted practical camps for improving magic skills at regular intervals. Tatsuya even served as the president of the club in both of his senior years on account of his outstanding performance in club activities.
The three years had been eventful for Tatsuya. He had spent most of it developing new and improved CADS as well as developing new spells for personal use. Tatsuya had come to the realization that the fact that he had been able to find a working Induction Stone from a garbage dump was nothing more than a freak accident. He had scanned junkyards across the entirety of Japan since and couldn't find one. This resulted in him going across the world to hunt for opportunities to find some. He had eventually found a few in the form of Anti-magic organizations that had some magicians in their fold. Nobody minded if some of these people disappeared and their CADs were gone as well were also largely ignored. It may or may not have given his alter ego some unwanted infamy but that was neither here nor there.
The Entrance exams to the National Magic High School were divided into two sections, much like in his previous life. However, in his time, each of the Nine Schools gave different weightage to Theoretical and Practical Exam results depending on the school. For example, First High gave a sixty-five percent weightage to Practical Results while Fourth High gave the same to Theoretical exam results.
However, such a disparity was not implemented yet and so both the Theory exams and Practical Exams carried the same weight. Tatsuya had applied for First High since it was the closest to home but the exams were the same everywhere.
The Theory portion of the exam focused on assessing the examinee's knowledge of five different subjects- Basic Magic Theory, Magic Engineering Theory, Magic Fundamentals, Modern Magic History, and Fundamental Issues and Problems of Modern Magic. Coincidentally, Tatsuya's actions in Dahan were a part of the curriculum for Magic History.
The Practical portion was much simpler. Although each applicant was tested on the basis of five different categories, it was still one single exam.
Tatsuya was currently on the way to the practical exams. The theory exams had been completed the previous day and he could say without a doubt that he had aced every single one of them.
It took him about fifteen minutes to reach the exam center. Since his number was a little while from being called, he had a little leeway in terms of time. He sat in one of the seats that had been allocated to the candidates.
"Hey, mind if we sit near you?" Five minutes had passed when Tatsuya heard the voice of one of the few people in this world that he had no idea how to deal with.
Tatsuya's relationship with Yotsuba Maya in his previous life was extremely complicated, to say the least. The Yotsuba Matriarch was one of the driving forces behind his inhumane lifestyle when he was young but at the same time, she was also one of the very few people in the clan that felt no hostility towards him. Before Okinawa, even Miyuki was openly hostile to him which made his aunt somewhat of an anomaly in his eyes.
Tatsuya could say with the utmost guarantee that he was the person who interacted with Maya the most in his timeline. After all, Maya rarely ever spoke to someone more than necessary and no one except Hayama would even want to spend a single moment more than necessary with her. Tatsuya on the other hand was able to kill her since he was seven and this meant that he did not fear her in the slightest. Therefore, they spent a lot of time together going on missions. Hell, Tatsuya could even recall having competitions with her where they would compare who could kill the most people in a given time frame. Maya almost always lost those competitions but she didn't seem to care.
However, the young girl standing in front of him was not that Maya. He could see that she would become every bit as beautiful as his aunt had been in the future, but she lacked the insanity that defined Yotsuba Maya in his eyes, a fruit of his efforts for sure.
"Well?" her question brought him back from his thoughts.
"Sure." It wasn't like he owned this place anyway. She could sit anywhere she wanted to. Tatsuya could see that there were a lot of free seats nearby so he couldn't understand why she would choose to sit near him.
As she sat down, Tatsuya's eyes landed on someone who had been standing near Maya the whole time. Someone, who in another timeline, had been his own mother.
Tatsuya's relationship with Yotsuba Miya was purely a professional one. He could not recall any instance in his life when he had treated her as his mother or she had treated him as her son. For Tatsuya, Miya was his mistress who just so happened to have given birth to him. However, the girl standing in front of him would never be that woman. The fact that Maya was safe meant that Miya would never have to overuse her Magic which created the frail woman he knew.
"My name is Yotsuba Maya, this is my sister Yotsuba Miya. Nice to meet you." Maya cheerfully introduced themselves while Miya gave a slight nod in acknowledgment.
"I am Shiba Tatsuya." Tatsuya returned the courtesy.
Due to Maya's curious nature, Tatsuya was all but forced to chat with her while answering some random questions. Miya chipped in periodically to keep her sister in check.
"Next applicant, number 666, Yotsuba Maya." Tatsuya heard the examiner announcing. The twins excused themselves and left while Tatsuya was left emotionally drained
Shortly afterward, he heard sounds of surprise coming from the testing hall. The twins came out after a while. They said goodbye to him before leaving which meant that he was once again alone.
"Next Applicant, Number 986, Shiba Tatsuya." He heard the official call his name.
The Practical Exam was relatively simple. All he had to do was use the provided CAD to build a Magic Sequence and an Activation Sequence within the specified timeframe in order to complete a simple two-step process of accelerating and decelerating the testing device. However, he could see a lot of things wrong with this.
Tatsuya considered his secondary magic calculation area that belonged to the original body to be an above-average A-ranked one. However, this was based on the standards for magicians of his time. With the help of modern CADs, his MCA could have pulled this spell off in less than 300 milliseconds. However, the CAD available for the test was capped at 800 milliseconds and couldn't be decreased unless he used Flash Cast. Therefore, when his examination portal showed the results as 800 milliseconds, Tatsuya sighed a little. He was then allowed to leave. The results would arrive in the next month
The Yotsuba Main House.
"Welcome back. How did it go?" Genzou and Yasuyo greeted their daughters who just arrived.
"It was great. The CAD was a bit old so I could only get 800ms but so did Nee-chan. By the way, Papa, I have a serious question for you." Maya said.
"What is it?" Genzou asked.
"When did you cheat on Mama?" Maya asked innocently.
"What?!" Genzou nearly shouted. "I didn't cheat on her." He explained.
"Then how do you explain this?" Maya asked as she whipped out her communication device and showed a picture in it to her parents. In the picture, there was a boy who looked exactly like Genzou but with blue eyes.
The Yotsuba patriarch spent the rest of the day convincing his wife that he didn't cheat on her.
Hello. It's been like three days since I uploaded the last chapter. I may or may not have gotten addicted to a stupid game and forgot to write.
Anyways, hope you liked the chapter. The time skip means that the story will enter Tatsuya's highschool life where the majority of the story will take place. The things Tatsuya did in the gap will be explained in little bits in future chapters.
PS:Its midnight here and I need to sleep so sorry if there is any big issues.