Ash exhaled and glanced at the spot where Elara stood before.
She was gone.
He had walked away from the first person of his age that he had interacted with in this strange world and now she was somewhere in this hall filled with adults. He had no idea where exactly.
"Don't tell me you left her alone," Ray murmured, guessing Ash's thoughts by merely looking at him.
Ash looked into his brother's eyes and gave a smile. The type of smile which said a lot of things.
Ray sighed.
"So, why do you just stand here?" he asked after a pause. "Go and look for her."
"Right," Ash muttered. "Yes."
He turned and started moving towards the crowd.
"Everyone, please give your attention," someone called from the opposite end of the hall.
Ash froze. All conversations in the room instantly ceased. Everyone turned their faces and paid full attention to the speaker.
He felt their attention directed precisely at source of the voice, though he did not need any explanations to know whom it belonged to.
Draco was standing before the gathered nobility.
"Let us begin the affinity test," he announced after a pause.
Ash could immediately feel a chill running through his body.
He had expected this to happen. Since the first morning he had been thinking about what was about to occur, trying to spend all day not in this place, but now he was here, surrounded by people in the middle of his own birthday party.
And it seemed that there was nowhere else he could be now.
"Ash."
His father called his name. The look of his father was fixed on him, calm, and steady, expecting something specific from him.
"Come here."
Ash began moving.
As soon as he approached, the gathered nobles parted around him, leaving only one way for him to proceed.
He walked steadily and calmly, putting one foot in front of the other and not showing on his face anything that he might feel. When he reached the place near Draco, he stood before him, motionless.
Draco glanced down at him for a second.
"Bring the Tethrys," Draco said out loud.
A servant came forward with a small cushion, holding a translucent crystal pyramid on top of it.
He placed it very carefully on a small table located in the open spot in front of Ash. The servant behaved extremely carefully, treating the precious pyramid as if the whole future of his family rested on that one.
Ash looked at it.
He knew what the object was. He had read about it in the library. Comparing information from this world to that which he had learned during his childhood in another life helped him understand a lot of things.
One of them was this specific magic detection tool. If you touched it, it will show you what element you had. Most often it is presented as a crystal sphere or a stone in books and anime he used to read.
Here it was a pyramid made from a rare magic crystal, expensive enough that most noble households owned one as a matter of status as much as practical use.
The difference between the sphere and the pyramid was that the latter was more developed than the former one.
Not only did it show what magic the user has, it also evaluated the affinity quotient of the magic affinity. The strength and potential of what you carried. How far it could go if you developed it.
This thought bothered him all day long. Because he was afraid that what would appear now would be bad.
He already knew what he had, namely the Fire. He could be sure about this.
However, the problem was the affinity quotient of the magic he possessed. He had spent two years learning his fire magic in secrecy, doing it by himself with no help from a tutor or his father whom he saw so rarely.
There was only one possibility of comparing himself - Flamir's progress. Even as ten-year-old boy he had much higher skills because he had a teacher to develop it.
And this thought worried him.
He was even less confident about what it was going to say in front of every guest his father had just finished telling about his genius third son.
Draco laid his hand onto Ash's head.
"Ash," his father whispered. "Touch it."
The boy glanced once again at the Tethrys lying on the table before him.
It remained there, indifferent to his nervousness, to his father's words, and to how his results were going to affect the whole room full of nobles who attended his birthday ceremony.
Ash stepped forward.
Again.
The table was now close to him. And the Tethrys was there. He could see that the crystal seemed to have an unusual depth when observed from this distance.
And then he stepped again in front of it.
It became completely silent in the hall. Everyone who heard the announcement of the beginning of the test was now focused on him.
He raised his hand.
And held it above the crystal for a while.
After some time he lowered it and touched the Tethrys with the palm.