Entering the Exam with Summoning Element

People always say time flies when you stay busy. From Mo Fan's perspective, however, he felt as though he had trained through several lifetimes — the grinding monotony of cultivation had a way of stretching every passing hour into an eternity.

Those wuxia novels where a protagonist seals himself in seclusion for years and it supposedly blurs past in the blink of an eye? Lies. Every last word of it. Having lived through closed-door training himself, Mo Fan had very nearly gone stir-crazy, fighting the urge to break out and blow off steam more times than he could count. In the end, he'd always held firm.

This stretch of seclusion had driven a single truth deep into his bones: whether it was the vast ocean of knowledge or the boundless realm of magic, the road ahead was long, and the climb was steep.

Without perseverance, nothing would ever get done.

Whatever the case, Mo Fan had ground through that year of bitter cultivation.

"Come on, have a drumstick. Tomorrow's your retake — a prime chance to get into a good Magic Academy. Though with your Dual Elements talent, I imagine all the top schools are hoping to snag you." Mo Jiaxing had prepared a whole table of dishes and stood there beaming.

"I'm not planning to reveal my Dual Elements anymore," Mo Fan said.

After thinking it through carefully, he had decided to keep a low profile.

The four Intermediate-Level Mages from the Dongfang Clan and how they'd died under murky circumstances — that memory was still vivid. It had taught him that a solid foundation alone wasn't enough to keep you invincible. Keeping a few cards up his sleeve could only help.

Besides, advancing further in Fire and Lightning now meant completing his own Star Charts through sheer personal effort. A school probably couldn't do much for him there anyway.

"Then what element are you testing with?" Mo Jiaxing asked, baffled.

"Summoning Element."

"Since when did you awaken Summoning Element?" Mo Jiaxing stared at him blankly.

Xinxia blinked her wide eyes at Mo Fan as well.

Mo Fan's target was Pearl Academy — no question about that. But he intended to test with only one element: Summoning.

If he remembered correctly, reaching the 3rd level of Stardust by exam time was already considered remarkable — Mu Zhuoyun had even thrown a special banquet for that bastard Yu'ang over exactly that. Now, though Mo Fan had never actually used a Summoning skill in practice, he'd already researched Pearl Academy's admissions policies. If he declared Summoning Element as his primary element and his Summoning Stardust genuinely sat at the 3rd level, he could be admitted as a special exception.

Put plainly, it was like the bonus points awarded to ethnic minorities on the national college entrance exam.

Summoning Element had even lower awakening odds than Lightning — calling it a "minority" was an understatement. It was practically an endangered species.

Lightning might appear in roughly one in a thousand people, but the national exam pool numbered in the tens of thousands. For a prestige institution like Pearl Academy, Lightning alone wasn't all that impressive — they recruited across the entire country, already sifting for one exceptional candidate out of every ten thousand.

Pearl Academy offered special bonus consideration for exactly three elements: Curse Element from Black Magic, and Space Element and Summoning Element from Dimensional Magic.

Mo Fan had originally planned to apply with Shadow Element, which he'd cultivated more thoroughly. But Pearl Academy's standards were simply too high — even demonstrating Shadow Fade, the basic Shadow skill at the third Stardust level, wasn't enough to guarantee admission.

The Magic College Entrance Examination was its own crucible. Across the country, gifted prodigies, well-connected heirs, and tireless overachievers all threw themselves into the competition. At the university level, cultivation and skills were merely baseline requirements — what examiners truly wanted was something that made a candidate genuinely stand out.

Not that Mo Fan was short on remarkable qualities. So why Summoning specifically?

First, obviously, because it would give him far better material to work with when making his impression on the glittering stage of university life. Second — and this was what he'd actually told Mo Jiaxing and Xinxia — *"if Summoning Element already earns massive bonus points at Pearl Academy, why would I bother going to all that trouble with something else?"*

Where the Magic College Entrance Examination was the defining event of most people's lives, for Mo Fan it was just going through the motions.

He bypassed the standard examination format and opted for the interview route instead — something he was familiar with from his original world as well.

The interview took place on Pearl Academy's campus. Mo Fan had directly demonstrated his Summoning Element capabilities, and after the five examiners questioned him on some moderately in-depth magical theory, they proceeded to test his Stardust intensity.

"SSS — that meets our minimum threshold for admission." The professor in thick-rimmed glasses studied Mo Fan with careful attention. "However, the fact that you've never actually used a Summoning skill leaves us in something of a dilemma. Summoning techniques don't require extensive drilling in themselves, but the real difficulty lies in controlling a Summoned Beast."

Summoning Element mages were rare enough — the question was whether they should take this particular student.

His fundamentals were solid, but nothing leapt out. There was no chance of him breaking through to Intermediate Level in the near future.

Then again, the number of Summoning Element applicants they'd received this cycle was genuinely thin. At this rate they'd struggle to fill even a single dormitory room.

"Director Lu's department mentioned they have their eye on an Earth Element mage who excels across the board," said the examiner with the bow tie. "His use of Earth Wave is genuinely creative — he managed to generate a quicksand-like effect and successfully trapped a trial beast with it."

"So they can only take one of the two?" the professor in glasses said.

"That's right."

"Very well, Mo Fan. Since you've already achieved Control of seven Summoning Star Motes, let us see what creature your first summon actually produces. That result will determine whether we choose you or the Earth Element mage."

Mo Fan considered this and decided it was fair enough.

*It's the perfect excuse to finally try the Summoning Element's basic skill — Dimensional Summoning — for the first time.*

"We'll give you one week to prepare. Return to the trial arena after that — we'll have a teacher from the Summoning Department on hand for the evaluation. And since this is your first summon, I'd suggest looking into some supplementary tools beforehand. They improve your odds of calling forth a stronger creature, and we have no objection to their use." The professor in glasses offered the advice with evident goodwill.

"Understood. Thank you."

The moment Mo Fan stepped out of the interview hall, a peculiar expression settled over his face.

Truth be told, he knew virtually nothing about how Summoning Element actually worked in practice. That entire year had been consumed by fundamental cultivation.

If the old professor hadn't mentioned that supplementary tools were advisable for a first summon, he might have stumbled into it completely blind.

He had skimmed some general information on the subject.

The Summoning Element's basic skill, Dimensional Summoning, had the widest variance of any technique in existence — and to a real degree, it simply came down to luck.

Get lucky, and you could call forth a phenomenally powerful creature. Combat strength like that in the early stages would put even Lightning Element to shame.

Get unlucky, and you might summon some ridiculous, utterly useless creature — less intimidating than a pet dog.

Given that this particular summon would count as his admission trial, Mo Fan found himself genuinely eager to see what fate had in store.

As for the supplementary tools — he'd definitely need to track those down.

The Oriental Pearl Mage Tower was packed with Mages from all over the country representing every element imaginable. Surely someone there would be selling exactly what he needed…