It was a rainy late-winter day, yet huge square was filled with people. To Cao Long and Ming Li there were people as far as the eye could see. Cao was taller than most of his countrymen, but he still couldn't see the end of the mass of people. Right at the middle of the square, all the magicians who would pledge their loyalty to the state were standing, with him being one of them. The rest of the people, the masses, were just that, masses, though Cao didn't see it that way. There had been an order to come and watch the ceremony, the government wanted to use the footage as propaganda. And Tiaman Square filled with people who could cast magic would be excellent magic; no matter that it was just the few in the middle who had the skill.

"And so I pledge to serve the state until my last breath, defend the spirit of the revolution with my last heart-beat, never to fail." Cao hear coming out of his mouth. He had lived in a small village most of his life, with all these people saying the same as he did, he felt like a robot doing what he was told, but it was a magnificent feeling. Or was it? There were more pledges made, but they came out of his mouth instinctively, and if they wouldn't come, no one would notice anyway.

"Congratulations, you are now a part of the Peoples Magicians Guild. You will be follow me to the compound." the man in the front shouted out. Cao didn't start walking; he was instead pulled forward by the mass of people. There was no worry for him being crushed, he had casted a shield of air around him when he noticed the risk for being crushed here. Looking to his left Ming Li also had space around here, suggesting she had made something similar. He couldn't see her weaves, nor she his, but he supposed it was something about the gender. It was hard to understand, but he felt as he had known once why it did so, but the feeling went off as soon as he felt it. Didn't matter.

The walk to the compound was long, very long in fact. Beijing was a big city and the compound was quite a walk from the city too. They could have used cars but the propaganda value of them walking seemed to great to miss. Happy and smiling people stood all around them, several waving from the windows too. But finally they reached there.

The compound was the least it could be called, it was a city. Or it might have been a city once, now it was almost empty. After all it had only been eight days since the wave, few people had arrived so far, maybe twenty thousand so far, Cao figured later at night when he was in his simple bed, but not now however.

As he reached the gate to the compound, after a long, very long, queue, a military officer with a questionnaire paper of some sort met him. The man spoke up with an absent voice "Please state your name, sex, age, citizen-number and former position." and as Cao answered the mans questions, he received some form of ID with his name and number on it, and was allowed to go into the compound. His ID-tag also held what room he would sleep in, and as it was already late, he was forced to go and sleep almost at once, before he could find Ming.

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