"Unusable?" Lucien stepped forward, his eyes became more sharp, voice cold.
"Aurora. Don't be fooled by the friendly attitude I've portrayed earlier, if you think I will let go of a statement like this."
"This spell is named [Starlight of Lucien], one of my proudest works. To incorporate it into an examination for you, I have carefully enhanced all of its attributes, even changing some of the fundamentals."
"Even though only two hours were given, I am certain, no mistakes have been made."
"Professor D'Aramont." Aurora met his gaze head on.
"Could I take your statement as affirmation to my understanding of your spell?"
"Yes, but you haven't answered in full." Lucien replied in a grave tone.
"I want you to answer why you deemed my spell unusable, if it was a trickery in hope to last more impressions, I'm afraid we would take it as nothing but offense."
"Catalytic Strings."
"I'm sorry?"
"Your spell structure is missing catalytic Strings." Aurora explained calmly.
"Because you've made great renovation on its effects, the time for the spell to perform has now increased substantially. Without the addition of more catalytic Strings, the starlight could take hours to come down, making it impractical in most cases."
"Wrong." Lucien pointed at the star shaped Strings on the structure.
"These are catalytic Strings for this spell, each carefully implemented to reduce the activation resonance required, hence increasing its rate."
"What do you have to say?"
The air paused, voices came silent.
Just as Lucien was about to conclude this debate, Aurora spoke.
"Professor D'Aramont, you are clever."
"These Strings are only disguised as catalytic Strings, if one looks closely, they could see these Strings are forming tiny, near unnoticeable bonds with other Strings."
"I refuse to believe a Prelude rank String Master has such an observation technique." Lucien said, unimpressed.
"I am taking your statement as a hunch, with no concrete evidence."
"Really?" Aurora smiled.
"Then why don't we make a bet, professor? I guarantee if you had used this spell right now, the Starlight won't come until tomorrow morning."
The moment after he said that, Renna burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! He got you good, Lucien!"
"Not only does your spell sucks, your acting sure is no better." Professor Laurent yawned.
"You've crossed the line, ladies. I thought we agreed to not interrupt each other's test." Lucien signed, then smiled at Aurora.
"But nonetheless, this young man would never have fallen to my intimidation."
"Your spell mastery is magnificent, I feel like I am in no position to say 'Congratulations'. But, I do want you to know that you have my vote."
"It is my honor to receive such a compliment from you, Professor D'Aramont." Aurora offered a slight bow.
"As much as I want to continue discussing the craft behind this spell, I believe there are two more problems waiting for me to pass."
"How arrogant." Professor Laurent stood up, and walked towards the young man.
"You have the ambition to answer all three problems, while only needing two to pass the bar?"
"You could say I'm more optimistic, Professor." Aurora nodded.
"Very well." She reached her hands out, lowering the young man's head until their eyes met.
"My instruction is also simple: try to escape the dream realm."
"Goodbye."
***
"We did it, my friend, we did it!"
Kael laughed, as he laid comfortably on a hay bale bed in a vast wheat field.
"We are now angels, Angels! Only a step closer to God!"
"You seem awfully excited…" Aurora sat beside him, feeling the chill breeze of dusk.
"Of course!" Kael stretched his arms.
"We had just defeated a fallen Angel and his army! Why don't you take a guess, how many humans have performed such a feat in the long river of history?"
"Spolier alert: the answer is never!"
"Aren't you even worried about what's coming next?" Aurora signed.
"He was a general who served under another Deity, I'm sure the latter now wants our head on a stick to be used as toilet plungers…"
"You're worrying too much." Kael laughed.
"If those evil Gods could still interfere with this world, they would've done so already. Their time is finally coming to an end, when we become God, all wars will end, and we will foster a new order of harmony!"
"Let's hope we don't die on the way there…" Aurora closed his eyes, and laid down beside Kael.
The two became silent, immersed into the peace they fought hard for.
"My friend." Kael suddenly broke the silence.
"You do realise this is in the dream realm, right?"
His words, as if it had contained magic, had shattered something within Aurora.
"Thanks for that." He said as he opened his eyes again, and turned to face his friend.
"I'm actually from the future; a woman wanted to test my ability, so she sent me into this place."
"If you didn't break the control just then, I would've still been trapped."
"Really?" Kael's eyes were shining with excitement.
"You're Aurora from the future? How far? Am I still alive at that time? Did the song I wrote become popular? What food do they have? Did you have food before coming? Are you hungry? How are my students? How are you? Did you marry her? Did you teach me the Dark Strings? Did humans go to the star? Are there flying horse carriages? Did I cry again? Did we fulfil our dream of drinking booze by the sea?..."
"And…" He paused.
"Are we still friends…?"
"I cannot reveal too much, since the dream realm is just the past." Aurora smiled.
"You better keep quiet about this from the old me, but yes, yes we are, we will always be friends."
"Thank God!" Kael exhaled deeply.
"I was so worried!"
"Why?" Aurora fell into confusion.
"Aren't you the wielder of the Strings of Fate? Couldn't you have just looked into the future if you were so curious?"
"I've always been doing that, my friend." Kael replied.
"But, I never once looked into the future involving us."
"I wanted everything that we experienced and will experience to be mysteries, so that when we shared the memories together, I could enjoy it as much as you would, if not even more!"
"WHAT?!" Aurora got up, his face was still written in shock.
"You never looked into the future where I'm involved? Isn't that like the majority, since we're always together?"
"That—That is such a waste! I can't believe you're wasting your divine Instrument like that! So all the times when you were so confident right before a battle, it wasn't because you knew the outcome?!"
"Hahaha!" Kael laughed with tears.
"Of course not! A part of me had always been nervous going into battle, I was only confident simply because you were there by my side."
"AHHHHH, I cannot believe you!" Aurora roared.
"I'm leaving this place before you give me a heart attack!"
"Is that so?" Kael asked softly.
"Do you want me to send you out?"
"..." Aurora paused, then laid back down again.
"Maybe I'll stay a little longer."
***
"It's been 30 minutes already, you should let him out." Lucien sat next to Aurora, who was sleeping on a sofa.
"Why?" Laurent's lips curved.
"Didn't you have high expectations for this boy?"
"You may be dissatisfied with me, but may I ask you to not transfer this anger onto an innocent of this matter?" Lucien's expression became gloomy.
"Everyone knows you're one of the best in dream spells, even String Masters of your rank have a hard time to deal with it, let alone a boy who only progressed to stage I."
"Madam Renna." He turned to the little girl who was sleeping on a giant macaron cushion.
"I demand a retrial."
"Huh, eh?" Renna woke up from her nap.
"Oh, a retrial you say? That won't be necessary, he is waking up soon."
'What—'
Before the thought had even finished inside their head, the boy had slowly opened his eyes.
'Impossible!' Professor Laurent froze in place, unbelieved by what she was seeing.
'I may have toned it down a bit because he was still Prelude rank, but it was still a powerful spell!'
'Even if he did manage to escape, it would've at least taken hours!'
'Only 30 minutes…? Just who is he?'
"Professor Laurent." Aurora smiled when he saw her.
"Do I have your vote?"
"You better tell me how you pulled it off later…" She murmured, then exhaled deeply.
"Yeah… you've got my vote."
"Congrats then, I guess you've got the job."
"Isn't that right, Madam Renna—"
When they turned to the headmaster, they saw the girl was standing, and crying.
Tears as big as beans streamed down her face, and her nose was running too.
"Not fair! Not fair!" She cried.
"I've put so much work on my question, and we didn't even get to it!"
"Waaaahhh, WAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
"No, no! Madam!" Aurora hurriedly stood up.
"I would love to attempt your question! In fact, if I don't get at least half correct, I will not apply for this job any more!"
"Is that so?" Renna's tears stopped as if she had closed a tap, and began to jump up and down.
"Aurora will try my question ~ Aurora will try my question ~"
'I guess it's all to make an impression…' Aurora smiled as he got handed a piece of paper.
'After the questions from the two professors, what's the worst that could happen…'
'Eh?'
He read through every line, going back to each to see if he had missed anything.
His hands began to tremble, and the other two professors instantly noticed his weird behaviour.
"What's wrong?" Lucien came over, just for Aurora to slowly turn to him.
"I… I can't do this…"
He then looked at Renna, who still was wearing the same smile.
"Madam… could I take back what I've said…?"