<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ccff99">Ayla blinked, gasping a little when he turned to the rest of the judges, admitting defeat. She froze for a moment as they dropped the opacity on the dome, revealing to Ayla the apparent crowd that had gathered. Behind her, she could see Drakus and a gaunt man grinning like a skeleton, realizing that her friend must have persuaded his master to come. And Ordenel was here, though that shouldn't have surprised her. There had to be at least thirty or forty people who had come out for this. For a moment she felt excited, pride welling up in her. They’d come out to see Tessa grind her former apprentice into the dirt, and instead she’d thoroughly kicked her ass. Grinning wickedly, Ayla and the clones bowed first to the left side, than the right side of the Arena, before the others finally vanished, revealing the young woman to be the one standing second from the left. She sighed, wiping her brow on her sleeve in an overly exaggerated way, dropping to the ground and sitting cross legged, waiting for the judges to return and give her a score.</span><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999">Tessa’s written out scores were one to three points lower than the others, though she was able to make good reasonings for all of them, but there wasn’t anything she could do about the final test. A perfect score on the highest earning portion. The girl wasn’t going to just pass, she was going to score damned near perfect across the board. Her reputation was on the line here, and she knew she had to make a stand at this point. </span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff4d4d">“I only have one major concern with all of this. The girl’s always been good at shadow magic” </span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999">she waved her hand dismissively,</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff4d4d"> “but many of the other portions of the test, she could easily practice those exact spells, or illusions a thousand times, drill them into her brain. In this case, given how quickly her new master brought her up from failing to… this point, that the fundamentals are lacking. You can teach someone to take a test, and than you can actually teach someone.” </span><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999"><br/>
She looked around at the others. Her history with the girl was a blemish, and she needed to be convincing. </span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff4d4d">“Her issue in the past has always been rapid burnout and control. As she’s failed before we have the right to request one final display, proof that she’s improved on such things. I want to see it before I’m ready to sign off on this. I want to see that he didn’t just spend the past three months drilling these exact scenarios into her, and that she’s actually learned and improved. After all, it's been a long time since Lucian Dreven had an apprentice. And we all know what happened to that poor gifted boy...”</span>