Leon's voice resounded through the arena.
He let go of the blind woman he caught and looked towards Tage, as he pointed to himself, the blind woman, the pugilist, and the elf.
"There's only four of us left. Why hasn't the test ended yet?"
Tage thought to himself.
'Seem's someone had the brains to realize something was wrong and even managed to stop the fighting and chaos. Impressive."
While Leon had realized something seemed off, Ensis was the first one to point it out to him
-2 minutes ago-
As the pugilist and the spear collided, Ensis sent his thoughts to Leon.
「Leon something is off.」
Leon responded to Ensis as he watched the two contestants fight.
'What's wrong Ensis?'
「Don't you feel like something is off?」
'Well not that you mention it, something does feel a bit off.'
「The test should have ended. There are only four of you left.」
Leon looked around and counted. He saw the two women fighting it out in the center of the stage and the Elf preparing to fire an arrow.
'You are right. Why hasn't the test ended?'
「I have a slight suspicion, please stab me deep into the ground and stall for time.」
Leon nodded and stuck Ensis into the ground and went to catch the flying spear woman as she hurdled towards him.
-Present-
Tage stood up looking at Leon, in a bit of interest seeing as he was the first to notice something was off.
"While at surface value, it may seem like there are only four of you left. However, I can confirm there are still five people participating in the Tier Test."
While everyone left looked around in confusion counting each other, Ensis reported back to Leon.
「After hearing the proctor and using my weak scan, I believe someone has ducked the responsibility of fighting. I believe they are somewhere in the ground, near the middle of the stage. I can't pinpoint exactly, since the ground is quite dense and hard to sense through, but it is within the inner part of the arena in front of you. I have a plan.」
Leon took the initiative after hearing Ensis's plan and grabbed his sword. He used his dash skill to close the distance between himself at the edge of the stage and the pugilist who still remained in the middle of the stage.
-8 Mana for Skill Lvl. 3 Dash
When he reached within slashing distance of the girl, his eyes gave off a white aura as wind enveloped Ensis and Leon swung just a bit off target at the pugilist.
-12 Mana for Skill Lvl. 1 Wind Slash
The sword did not actually reach close to his target, but as soon as he finished the arc. A curved blade of wind rocketed to the shoulder of the Pugilist. Out of instinct, she dodged the strike that sent danger signals to her brain, and instead a bright neon yellow glow emitted from her tight gauntlet.
She lunged at Leon aiming for a counter punch to his gut. The fast response would decommission any unprepared or surprised foe.
However Leon was neither unprepared nor a foe, he actually smiled as he saw the power emitted from the fist.
'Tch, I have to waste such a strong punch instead of meeting it head-on. Truly a shame.'
As soon as the fist neared Leon's body, he used his hands and grabbed the pugilist's arm, and redirected the strike towards the ground as he moved backward to dodge.
*THUNK*
The floor of the stage where the fist landed, shattered and split apart like a giant knife had diced it, leaving a huge crater that covered most of the middle of the stage. Leon aimed for this exact moment. The Pugilist could not entirely absorb her own impact and had been launched slightly mid-air, leaving her exposed.
Like water taking the shape of a bowl, wind surrounded Ensis once again, only to disperse to the very tip of the sword like the graphite of a pencil.
-12 Mana for Skill Lvl. 1 Wind Slash
Leon started his two-handed swing.
"YOUR MINE!"
Ensis arced so fast it seemed like the sword was attempting to cut the air surrounding it. Once again a large crescent-shaped appeared from the sword, which consumed all the wind that once surrounded the blade. The Pugilist put up her arms, as she tried to survive the powerful attack. She braced for the worst and instinctively closed her eyes.
Much to her surprise, the strike she expected never came. She looked over to where it went and found that the slash never traveled up and actually had launched itself down into the crater. The slash itself created a decent explosion, which eventually caused a storm of dust to surround the stage and a single scream could be heard reverberating throughout the arena.
When the dust settled, the Pugilist had fallen back to the ground without a scratch except for the impact of falling. However a small puddle of blood had accumulated at the bottom of the crater, the blood flowed from a person who had been hiding inside the stage floor, which the crater had exposed. Leon's strike had actually slashed open the right shoulder of the man hiding on the floor, who had passed out.
The remaining contestants had a surprised look on their faces and even the blind woman somehow sensed the man and looked intrigued.
Tage stood up and clapped with a slight face of surprise.
'I didn't think they would sense him and defeat him. Even I barely managed to sense the leech of human hiding from the violence in the ground.'
After a slight silence, Tage finally spoke.
"Congratulations on passing the Tier Exam. You will soon be official E Tier adventurers. Your approval will reach your respective Guilds in a few hours. I must go get the healers, please excuse me."
Tage left the arena, sprinting to get a healer.
Leon went over to the Pugilist who still sat on the ground and held out a hand.
"Sorry for provoking you. I just wasn't sure if I had time to convince you, since I have no clue if he could move underground or not. I am Leon, from The Chosen guild which is in Verin."
The Pugilist looked at the hand in surprise and after some thought decided to take it, which she used to prop herself up.
"I am Tecia, from the Pugilist Guild and also from Verin."
A blind woman who had just plucked a slim, black spear out of the ground walked over.
"Since it seems we are all doing introductions, I am Tomoe from the Wanderer Guild here in Verin."
They started to exchange greetings until a shadow appeared behind Tomoe and startled everyone except Tomoe.
"Greetings, I am Arwin, from the Alium Guild."
While everyone started to greet each other including Leon, he took a mental note of everyone's guilds. They came from unique guilds which were all within the top 10 guilds of Verin.
The Pugilist Guild was the lowest-ranked out of the four of them since they only had members that were of the Pugilist class. While Tomoe's and Arwin's guilds both were closely the same rank, however, they did have distinct, unique differences.
The Wanderer Guild had no official main city, but rather had various branches located in almost every city. They had an influence in almost every part of the kingdom, but their biggest branch was in the capital which is where most of their power was stationed. The branch in Verin wasn't the biggest but still held a decent standing within the Wanderer Guild itself.
The Alium Guild was a guild, where most non-human adventurers decided to sign up. This was why their rank was so high due to the various species that make up the Alium's ranks. The Alium guild is also situated in other countries, but their unique management structure made it hard for them to really be one cohesive guild. Therefore, a person was recognized by the country he affiliated with and not just the Alium Guild. This made it so even though the Alium guild was powerful, in Partha it was quite small compared to its branches in other countries.
All these factors made it so none of their guilds could compare to Leon's in Verin, this eventually led Tecia to ask Leon a single question that lingered on everyone's minds, but no one had the gall to speak but Tecia.
"Hey Leon, how are you a part of The Chosen?"