I stood in front of the Adventurer’s Guild, the morning sun already warming the stone walls, and sighed deeply.
Then looked back at my companions.
Scarlet stood with her arms crossed, her expression caught sowhere between a scowl and resignation. She clearly didn’t want to be here but understood we needed legitimate cover and money.
Tessa practically vibrated with barely concealed excitent, her eyes bright, a smile tugging at her lips despite her obvious attempts to look serious and professional.
I rubbed my temples.
"We’re not going on a picnic, Tessa."
"I know!"
"This is serious."
"I know," she repeated, more seriously this ti. "I’m not stupid, Jin. I understand what we’re doing here."
Do you though?
But there was no backing out now. She’d insisted on registering, and arguing with her once she’d made up her mind was like arguing with a particularly stubborn wall.
"Fine. Let’s go."
I pushed open the guild doors.
The interior was just as busy as last evening, maybe more so, with morning being pri ti for adventurers to collect missions before heading out. The noise level was considerable, the sll of breakfast and ale mixing with leather and steel.
We navigated through the crowd toward the reception desk.
The sa woman from yesterday was there, she glanced up as we approached, recognition flickering in her eyes.
"Back for registration?"
"Yes. All three of us."
Her eyebrows rose slightly but she pulled out forms without comnt, clearly used to parties registering together.
"Nas?"
"Jin Raith."
"Sara Thorne." Scarlet’s voice was carefully neutral, using the fake surna we’d agreed on.
"Tessa Halvar." Tessa smiled brightly at the receptionist.
The woman made notes, asked basic questions, ages, any prior guild affiliations, ergency contacts, which we all gave Oakre’s general location for that one.
Then she collected sixty copper total, twenty per person.
And I tried not to wince at how that completely emptied my personal funds.
We’re committed now. This has to work.
She handed us each a partially filled form and pointed to a door at the back of the hall.
"Instructor Zerys is handling assessnts this morning. Through that door, down the hall, third room on the right. He’ll evaluate you and assign initial ranks."
"Thank you."
We headed through the indicated door, down a hallway that was considerably quieter than the main hall, and found the third door on the right.
I knocked.
"Co in!" A gruff voice called from inside.
We entered.
The room was clearly designed for evaluations, large open space, training dummies positioned around the periter, weapon racks on the walls, practice mats on the floor. Windows high up provided natural light.
A man sat at a desk in the corner, maybe mid-forties, scarred face. His eyes were sharp, assessing us the mont we walked in.
"New registrations?" He stood. "I’m Zerys. Guild combat instructor and assessnt coordinator."
I handed him my form.
He scanned it quickly, then looked up at .
"Warrior class? Sword?"
"Yes."
He moved to one of the weapon racks and pulled down a practice sword and tossed it to .
I caught it easily, tested the weight.
"See that dummy?" He pointed to one of the practice targets. "Hit it with full force. Show what you can do."
I looked at the dummy.
I need a higher rank. Higher rank ans better missions, which ans more money, which ans we can actually function as a traveling group instead of constantly scrambling.
So let’s make an impression.
I activated my debug vision, made the edits quickly.
Then I lunged forward, the enhanced ground giving explosive acceleration.
The practice sword ca around in a diagonal slash, my whole body behind the strike.
At the mont of impact, I made one final edit, transferred all that enhanced mass to the striking edge in a concentrated burst.
CRACK!
The sound echoed through the training room.
The dummy rocked backward on its base, a deep gouge carved into its reinforced surface considerably deeper than a practice sword should be able to make.
I stepped back, breathing slightly heavier than necessary to sell the exertion.
Zerys was staring at the dummy, then at , then back at the dummy.
"Not bad." His voice carried genuine respect.
"Not bad at all. You’ve got proper training. And the power behind it..." He whistled low. "You’re definitely not a beginner."
He moved to his desk, pulled out a blank guild card, and started filling it in with quick, efficient movents and then handed the card.
I looked at it, simple design, my na, the guild emblem, and a prominent "D" stamped in the rank section.
D-Rank. Not bad. Enough to actually make money.
Zerys turned his attention to Scarlet.
"Your turn, Sara."
Scarlet moved forward, her expression neutral, and selected a practice knife from the weapons rack.
Tested its balance and nodded once.
Zerys gestured to a different dummy.
"Sa test. Show what you’ve got."
Scarlet didn’t hesitate.
She moved like water, fluid, precise, no wasted motion. The knife flashed three tis in rapid succession, each strike hitting a vital point on the dummy with professional accuracy.
Then she stepped in close, used the dummy’s own weight against it in a grappling move, and killed it with a final strike to where a throat would be.
The whole sequence took maybe two seconds.
Zerys was grinning when she stepped back.
"You’ve killed before." It wasn’t a question.
Scarlet didn’t answer, just t his eyes steadily.
"You two are better than most rookies I see in a month."
He filled in her card and handed it over.
Scarlet glanced at it, saw the C rank designation, and allowed herself a small smirk before tucking it away.
She outranks ?
Then Zerys turned to Tessa.
"Now your turn, Miss Halvar."
Tessa stepped forward, and I noticed her hands were fidgeting slightly, the nervous energy she got when she wasn’t sure what was about to happen but was determined to face it anyway.
"Um. I should ntion... I’m not really a fighter." She said it directly, eting Zerys’s eyes. "I don’t use weapons. I can’t heal. I’m probably not going to impress you with combat stuff."
Zerys studied her for a mont, then nodded.
"Support evaluation then. What can you do?"
"I’m good with plants," Tessa said, her confidence returning when talking about sothing familiar.
"I can identify pretty much anything that grows within a day’s walk of my village. I know which ones are edible, which are poisonous, which have dicinal uses. I can cook. Like, actually cook, not just heat things until they’re less raw."
She shot a pointed look at that.
"And I can manage supplies, figure out how much food a group needs, that sort of thing."
"Practical skills," Zerys acknowledged. "Those are valuable for expeditions. But they’re fairly common."
He pulled out what looked like a collection of dried plant samples.
"Let’s test your knowledge. Identify these and tell their uses."
Tessa moved closer, examining the samples with focused attention.
She picked up the first one, rubbed it between her fingers, sniffed it.
"Silverleaf. Anti-inflammatory, good for treating minor wounds and reducing fever. You make it into a tea or poultice."
She set it down and moved to the next.
"Bloodroot. Poisonous if ingested directly, but in very small controlled doses it can be used to induce vomiting in case of other poisonings. Dangerous... you need to know what you’re doing."
Next one.
Then next.
She went through the entire collection, around fifteen samples, identifying each one correctly and explaining its properties with the easy confidence of soone who’d been working with plants her entire life.
Zerys looked impressed.
"Perfect identification." He made notes on her form. "What about mana? Can you use it at all?"
Tessa hesitated, her expression becoming uncertain.
"I... yes? But not for anything useful in combat."
"Show anyway."
She bit her lip, clearly uncomfortable, but held out her hand.
A faint glow appeared around her fingers, soft, warm, barely visible in the bright room.
Then she touched one of the dried plant samples.
The glow transferred to the plant.
And suddenly I could see it. The plant’s structure beca visible, transparent, like an x-ray showing its internal composition.
I could see where moisture remained in the fibers, where cell walls had broken down during the drying process, where trace minerals were concentrated.
The vision faded after a few seconds.
Tessa pulled her hand back, looking embarrassed.
"It’s... not very useful. I an, it helps identify things more accurately and understand their properties better, but it doesn’t help in fights or heal injuries or anything actually important for adventuring."
Zerys was staring at her.
"Material Analysis," he repeated slowly.
"Yes?"
"Can you do it on multiple items? Simultaneously?"
"Um. I haven’t tried more than one at a ti, but probably?"
Zerys moved quickly to a storage cabinet and pulled out several more samples.
"Try these. All at once if you can."
Tessa looked overwheld but held out both hands.
The glow appeared again, stronger this ti.
She touched all the samples, and I watched as her eyes went distant, like she was processing an enormous amount of information all at once.
After maybe ten seconds, she pulled back, breathing slightly harder.
"The plants are standard varieties, nothing special. The monster hide is from a Dire Wolf, maybe two weeks dead, properly preserved. The crystal is..."
She frowned.
"It’s a mana crystal but there’s sothing weird about the internal structure. Like sothing that altered its natural formation."
Zerys picked up the crystal, examining it.
"This ca from one of the new dungeons near Thornwood. The analysis teams couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it." He looked at Tessa with new respect. "You just identified in ten seconds what took them three days of testing to partially determine."
Tessa blinked. "I... did?"
"Material Analysis is rare. Very rare. And the level of detail you’re showing, being able to identify corruption in magical items..." He was already pulling out a guild card.
"That’s very high-level support ability."
He filled in the card with decisive strokes.
Handed it to Tessa.
She looked at it.
Her mouth fell open.
"B-Rank?!"
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