St Chaos Healer

Ch 49 - Unexpected Farewell

"The blessing ritual has ended and I am very pleased to see that we have gained more candidates than the previous year. Your growth is tantamount to the growth of this nation itself. As the head mage of the ascension ceremony, I want to give my thanks to everyone present here."

The old head mage, Sigurd was standing on the central broken stage amidst the debris. There was dead silence as all listened attentively to his speech.

He continued,
"Now that the blessing ritual is over we should move on to the next phase. The candidates who already managed to reach the tier 1 stage, congratulations, you guys will be allotted a seat in one of the government-funded mage schools after the end of the ascension ceremony. You guys have a bright future ahead, just keep on working hard like this as ever." He then turned his eyes toward the rest of the candidates.

"As for those who failed to reach the 1st tier," he gave out a sigh, "Well you did a good job surviving until now. But don't lose hope, keep working hard and one day you might reach the 1st tier stage as well. When you do, the door for mage schools will always be open to you. Until then, I wish you luck in your future endeavors."

What the-
They just dropped the bombshell here. That's it?

Suddenly there was a gust of gloomy air surrounding the amphitheater candidates.
Everyone had their eyes wide open as if they just can't believe the words that they just heard.

The 0-tier candidates were in between a state of shock and surprise.
They still can't believe what the head mage just announced.

"Oi, Oi, what the hell did he just say"
"Good~ Good luck? What does that even mean?"
"Huh? This must be some kind of a joke. I thought we were done with the elimination rounds back on the ceremony train."
"Hey! You can't do this to us! If you train a little we might be able to produce mana orbs in no time."
"This isn't fair, I should deserve this mage seat as well."

The 0-tier candidates were definitely unsatisfied with these sudden verdicts laid by the head mage. They all started complaining, each of them voicing their complaints.

The amphitheater soon turned into a noisy flea market in an instant. Only the 1st tier and 2nd tier mages remained silent watching the chaos.

The frustrations of 0-tier mages were valid as we were not notified that there will be yet another elimination process. I mean there's no written rule but almost everyone that had cleared the ceremony train trials would get a seat in mage school. This has been happening for a long time even if you were to be a 0-tier mage, you would still be allotted a seat.

This rule must have been added quite recently.

If there was such a rule my mother would have warned of it beforehand.

"I guess this is it for me," said Tracker as he let out a sigh, "Well this sucks,"

I felt a little bad for Tracker.
I pondered some thoughtful words to console him but I then just decided to shut up.
I am not very good at this sentimental bullshit.

The head mage Sigurd stood silently on the stage bearing the full grunt of the displeased candidates. He was standing there with an emotionless face like a parent watching their little kids throwing a tantrum for not buying them candy.

After a few minutes, Sigurd raised his staff and tapped it on the floor,
"Stop whining, this won't resolve anything. The number of candidates with mana core has been rising a lot compared to the 100 years before. We hardly have seats and work power to allot each of you seats and to every one of you. Hence the ceremony organizers have rejected the entry of 0-tier mages. This was the rule in effect for the last 5 years."