Chapter 102 - She Found The Key

Celia could feel the disapproving look of the instructor who had just taken her vial tub, and she wondered why, did he think she wanted to show off by finishing so quickly, or seeing his look of disdain he probably simply thought that she had no place in this category ... Well she didn't care about it, he will see soon enough by himself that she truly belong here, the most important was now that she was done with the trial she could focus to find the key to decode the scrolls that she had found with the purple and red papers.

She sat down on the table legs crossed and she closed her eyes to focus better on it.

What Celia didn't know was that she had caught the head instructor's eye, he had started staring at her out of curiosity, indeed what did a level six mage do with the level ten mages, there must have been an error he thought first.

Then he had seen her dissolve the magic herb level twelve as if it was something easy to do and he had watched her surrounded her powder with a force field. Fifteen minutes later she had held out her vial tub to an instructor.

He was disappointed that she had used a force field because he couldn't see what she was doing inside, but this little one was indeed very promissive. She had done all this without a cauldron, which had never been seen in this competition, he was eager to test the purity of her powder and see if his instincts had not wrong him, for that he needed to wait until the end of the trial.

...…

Liam in the bleachers saw that Celia after returning her vial tub was now sitting on the table in meditation position.

Only, Celia had not put her hands to form a triangle like she usually did, he asked Anaya : "What is she doing ? Do you know what your wife is up to ?"

Anaya chuckled : "You have seen her face when the head instructor announced that the duration of the trial was one hour, my wife must surely be trying to decode her old scrolls, she has the impression that it is the key that will allow her to go and look for her children, so as soon as she has a moment of freedom she concentrates on it."

Liam simply replied : "I see, I hope she won't be too disappointed if she doesn't find what she's looking for in those old scrolls once she will have decode them."

Alec said : "Don't worry about her, this is Celia we're talking about, have you ever seen her mope ?"

Anaya replied : "Of course not ! She will just find another way to achieve her goal ... Hey ! That is weird, what is she doing now ? Has she finally found the key to decode it ?"

......

Celia after closing her eyes brought up in her mind the first coded page that she had found while studying the old scrolls, it was a list of numerous numbers and after showing it to everyone, even to the magic beasts, no one had been able to know what it was.

Celia concentrated and she was turning the scroll in one side and then to the other side, it had always helped her see things from a different perspective and that when she realized something big.

She couldn't be wrong, the 0 sometimes was different, it was rounder O the difference was barely visible but now that she had seen it, she could see it all over the scroll.

Between two O, there was a serie of numbers which seemed coherent and which looked strangely alike, Celia opened her eyes and took out from her magic bag a blank parchment and something to write on it.

Celia began to write the series of numbers for this scroll, 010011000, 020010999, 020020998, 020030997, 030010996 ...

She felt that someone was touching her arm, she jumped in fright and looked at the participant who was right next to her, he motioned for her to look at the head instructor, and it was then that she realized that the hourglass was completely empty, the trial was finally over, she quickly wrote a note on the parchment and sent it flying to Anaya with her spiritual energy.

She heard astonished exclamations coming from everyone whether participants or spectators, Anaya received the parchment and after looking quickly at what was written on it, Celia saw a big smile appearing on her face and she smiled back at her, then she returned her attention to the stage where the head instructor and examiners were and she saw that they were all looking at her with a frown on their face.

Celia was puzzled by their reaction, what was that ? Had they never seen anyone send an object with spiritual energy ?

She finally chose to apologizes and bow down her head to do it properly, the head instructor coughed a few times then he said : "Well, for those who haven't returned their magic herb powder on time you can leave now."

Celia saw with astonishment that a good ten participants leave immediately, then she heard the instructor say that he was going to check their vial tub ten by ten, they had to come over when their number was called and they would all receive a card where their points will be awarded on it.

If Celia had known that ahead of time she would have moved into the first rows, why did she have to go to the back instead, she looked at her number and sighed helplessly, she was number 195, that was such a bad luck.

In the first fifty participants, nine were eliminated because their level of purity was less than 75 percent, and so far no participant had exceeded 90 percent of purity.

Luckily the checking process passed rather smouthly, the magic herb powders were controlled in ten different devices so it all happened very quickly, the head instructor sometimes gave some praises and sometimes gave some words of encouragement.

When her row was about to be called, there had already been sixty-three participants eliminated, and only four level ten mages had managed to exceed 90 percent purity, the best rate being 93 percent.

When their numbers were called, Celia walked to the stage and saw that it was the chief instructor himself who was going to control her powder.

She could feel the curiosity in his eyes and there wasn't a hint of disdain like she could see in most of the other instructors, she smiled at him and he winked at her to reassure her she supposed, he then put her powder in the machine to check it out. Celia did not really need to be reassured, it was rather him who was going to receive a big shock.