When Emery returned to the front hall to hand back his ring, he noticed, almost all of the other participants had returned as well. He then took a closer look at each of them and noticed around a dozen had returned with a sullen expression on their faces and slumped shoulders.
Before Emery could wonder what happened to them, they were told to leave the hall in a harsh tone, right after they handed their ring to the examiners.
Despite the calm and eagerness most had displayed before the start of the test, passing through the rank 2 examination was not as easy as they first thought. One of the artisans who collected the rings tried to calm down one of the failed apprentices, who was crying, "You can try again next month."
Even from this distance, Emery could see the despair of the failed exam wiped their previous confident expression clean.
