Chapter 94: Rank Up Exam

And with that, it’s been three days since. Now that Urania and I have some free time, since Adan is practicing magic with her dear beloved father, we came to the guild to take our rank up quests. It’s not like I feel as if he took Adan from me or anything. Nope. Definitely not. I’m just giving her some time with her barely at home dad. I’m not lonely at all.

「We’ve been awaiting your arrival, “Little Faeries”. The preparations are done, so please head to the underground combat area.」

I’m told that the contents of the rank up exam depend on the examiner’s present at the moment. The examiners are chosen from adventurers that had a lot of contribution to the guild and are Rank A and above, and the exams can range from getting an important item from a dungeon, completing a subjugation request, and these sorts of things.

And this time, since we’re heading to a combat area, the Rank Up Exam is probably a mock battle with the examiner, if not some other people chosen by the said examiner. This seems to be ‌common too, so they’d get creative and use dulled swords or make the examinees move with a weapon they rarely use.

All the information relating to this is something I’ve heard from the members of “Grim” and “Fyne” before I left Motsi. Incidentally, they were given a gathering type exam, and they were pretty much in tears as they told us about their hardships during the exam. They said that their exam was to pick up a herb growing only in the deep parts of a dungeon, but if they made even a simple mistake with their harvesting methods, the herb would then release a pungent scent that would attract the monsters all around them. Naturally, since they’re deep inside the dungeon, the monsters summoned there are tough, and since there’re many of them, it was pretty much a nightmare.

While this was playing in the back of my mind as I was following the receptionist lady, it seems like we’ve just reached our destination. The lady knocked on the door before speaking to the people inside.

「I have brought along Miss Lily and Miss Urania of “Little Faeries”.」 「Ahh, good work. Have them come in.」

The lady opened the door for us and urged us to enter the room. The combat area was ‌cramped compared to the Iglesio Manor training room, but it’s still pretty wide. There should be enough space to jump around the place.

「So you two are Motsi’s promising “Little”, eh? I’m Tien, I’ll be acting as your examiner today.」 「Nice meeting you, I’m Lily of “Little”. The person next to me is-」 「Urania.」

Tien is a beastkin that looks like a rhinoceros1 standing on its hind legs. I guess he’s the type that doesn’t transform but is strong to begin with. His appearance and the enormous hammer hanging from his waist is a perfect display of that said strength.

「It’s a bit sudden, but let’s start the exam. The exam itself is simple, we’ll have a mock battle.」 「A two on one? Not to be conceited or anything, but we’re ‌strong, you know?」 「Ahh, don’t misunderstand. The one I’ll be fighting is your dog ear-kin lady there. Urania, was it? Only her. As for you, Sorceress Lily, we’ve arranged a special examiner for you.」 「A special examiner?」

As he said so, the individual Tein called was a white-haired, round-eared, slightly hunched man with a kind-looking smile. It’s ‌one of the twelve sages, Ces.

「Well, young Lily. Are you ready now?」 「As always.2” Couldn’t you have told me about this earlier?」 「It would’ve been boring if I did, don’t you think? As I told you back then, I want to see your strength with my own eyes, see!」

As Ces finished speaking, the ground simultaneously shook. I quickly used “Levitation” to escape from the tremors under my feet. As I glanced below me, there was a wall that practically split the combat area into two, and several walls were almost taller than Tien scattered around the place. Just with one magic from Ces, the place turned into something resembling a snow fort or an airsoft gamesite.

「Haha, amazing!」 「That was a ‌nimble move for a snap judgment. Still, are you sure you want to stay in the air?」 「Oh, crap!」

While he was talking, Ces’ finger pointed to my direction. His magic power swells and the high-speed magic “Flame Arrow” was released towards me. It’s a magic that shoots a flame in the shape of an arrow, and since it’s faster than “Burn”, it’s frequently used in combat. It’s somewhat of a specialty of Arisa’s, but since I think ‌“Burn” is good enough as long as I just control it well, I don’t use it much.

To avoid this speedy magic, I dispelled “Levitation”. I ‌fell to the ground, but I cushioned the impact by rolling and hid behind one of the earthen walls. Though since it was originally Ces’ wall, I made sure to cast “Protect” on it to increase its durability.

「Oh? You rewrote my magic quite quick.」 「That much is too easy, you know? “Cut”!」 「Oooh, that seems like it’ll hurt. “Cut”」

Our magics collide midair and offset each other. Immediately after that, we exchanged several shots of magic, but both of us are only using simple stuff to test the waters, so none of them were decisive blows.

「I see. It looks like your foundations are ‌solid.」 「Haha, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten any advice for magic.」 「Hm? You don’t have a teacher?」 「None at all.」 「I see, so then…… Allow me to teach you what a proper fight between sorcerers looks like.」 「Proper?」

His magic power swelled up, and his hair ruffled up and transformed into an imposing mane. I see, he normally hides his real strength, and this is his true form then. His appearance reminds me of a certain monkey beastkin that powers up every time they’re close to death.

「Well come and get me now!」 「Your entire personality just damn changed!? “Burn”!」

For now, I shot another test “Burn”, not any different from earlier, but since he calls it a real fight, I must see what makes it different.

「Naive!」 「HaAh!?」

Before my “Burn” even reached him, it disappeared. It’s almost like that time I fought Est, but it doesn’t seem like it vanished because the magic power was dispersed in the air.

「Is this your first time seeing this? This is an absolutely indispensable technique in sorcery combat, the Magic Shell.」 「Magic Shell?」

According to Ces, battles between sorcerers are ‌intense, and most times, especially when both of them are powerful, one, if not both of them, would end up dying. And so the declining population of sorcerers thought 「Our offensive power has gone as far as it can go. From now on, we must think about the defensive side of things.」 and came up with this Magic Shell.

The theory is ‌simple. To defend against magic, smack magic with pure magic power to cut its control. Naturally, this shield itself requires a high level of magic power control. However, it gives the benefit of decreasing the user’s overall magic power consumption and the people that can’t use it would be greatly disadvantaged in a battle against another sorcerer.

「Here, it’s my turn to attack!」 「Tsk! Like this-!?」

While I tried to copy it, I couldn’t completely erase the magic that came flying to me. Since then we’ve exchanged tens to hundreds of magic against each other, but Ces completely blocks my magic with the Magic Shell. On the other hand, I eat several of his attacks and I have my hands full trying to offset them so they don’t reach me.

Naturally, since I couldn’t make a functional Magic Shell, I ran out of magic power first and tasted my first ever utter defeat in this world.3