Chapter 27 - Cause and Effect
The Magician Rank Promotion Qualification Evaluation—or Magic Promotion Test for short—was a large-scale test hosted by the Seven Luminaries Mage Association quarterly.
The minimum assessment level was the Basic Magician rank. So long as a magician passed the assessment, they would be recognized as a member of the orthodox school of magic by the Seven Luminaries Mage Association. They would then receive a monthly salary corresponding to their mage rank, as well as the right to sell and purchase items through the association. They could also participate in large-scale crusades, explorations, or escort missions.
For commoner magicians without connections in high places, the benefits the association offered were the best available.
There were three ways to participate in the Magic Promotion Test.
The first method was through a recommendation certificate from a magic academy recognized by the Seven Luminaries Mage Association. So long as one showed the special magical certificate to the association, one could participate in the Magic Promotion Test. This was the easiest way to join the test.
However, although magic academies started springing up like bamboo shoots after rain 20 years ago, there were only 137 magic academies recognized by the association thus far. Moreover, these recognized magic academies were divided into three grades: lower, middle, and upper. The lower-grade magic academies could recommend only ten people for each test, while middle-grade academies could recommend 20 people, and upper-grade academies could recommend 50 people. This was why most Apprentice Magicians aimed to join upper-grade magic academies.
As for the second method, that was through a preliminary test conducted in the Seven Luminaries Mage Association's various branches. This was a method the association devised for itinerant magicians that did not originate from a magic academy.
The preliminary test was divided into two segments: written and practical. Most itinerant magicians would often score well in the practical test due to their bountiful experience. However, as the comprehensiveness of their basic knowledge was lacking compared to that of academy magicians, they generally had difficulty passing the written test. This was also why many itinerant magicians didn't possess a mage ranking emblem despite having great strength.
As for the third method, it was through completing an extremely difficult or meritorious achievement. Either that or having a rare talent. For individuals that met one of these criteria, they could submit an application to one of the association's branches. After getting their achievements or talents assessed, they could then participate in the Magic Promotion Test.
However, the third method was the most difficult to use. So far, the number of magicians that had successfully gained the association's recognition and participated in the test through this method could be counted on the fingers of two hands.
In the case of Shaq Missandia, he had joined the Basic Magician test via a recommendation certificate from a magic academy.
After easily passing the written test, he was now in the middle of his practical test.
However, it was impossible for the association to capture a large number of monsters to test its examinees. The cost of creating magical puppets was also hefty; no way would the association waste its precious resources on a bunch of Basic Magicians. Hence, the association had devised a special way to conduct the practical test for Basic Magicians.
The monsters in this world had specific hunting levels. For the Basic Magicians' practical test, examinees were required to defeat monsters at Level 10 or above. Due to this reason, the monsters used for the examinees' promotion were labeled as gatekeepers. So long as a magician could defeat one of these gatekeepers, then they would enter a higher-level world!
The purpose of having examinees go out into the wilderness to find their own monsters to defeat was to test the examinees' ability to track down enemies. There was one instance where a few wealthy examinees had taken a shortcut by purchasing monsters from a taming shop. Surprisingly, though, not only did the association not reprimand these examinees, but it had even praised them for their creativity.
Eventually, though, this opportunistic trick was also recorded as a violation in the rulebook.
Every examinee had varying talents. Even those cultivating in the same element would have a variety of paths they could focus on. Hence, it was important for examinees to choose their opponents carefully so that they could maximize their advantage. In addition, as the test had a time limit, examinees were compelled to decide as soon as possible. The combination of these two factors served to test the examinees' judgment and decision-making.
One thing worth mentioning was that although hunting levels would objectively indicate a monster's strength, this indicator wasn't absolute. In fact, there had been instances where Basic Magician examinees had relied on a terrain advantage to defeat monsters above Level 20.
Meanwhile, after the examinees had located their targets, the final step they needed to take was to activate a magic recording device and record their fight with their gatekeeper. They then had to submit the recording to the association for evaluation.
The target Shaq had selected for himself was a frost saberwolf. Although he had attacked the target once, it had managed to escape him, and he ended up chasing it all the way to Rockdoor Mountain.
The frost saberwolf was an evolved form of the ice saberwolf. Normally, the Level 11 Frost Saberwolves served as the pack leader of Level 9 Ice Saberwolves.
However, every ice saberwolf pack would have only one leader. Hence, whenever an ice saberwolf in the pack evolved, the original leader would attack it, and the loser of the fight would have to leave the pack in disgrace, becoming an outcast.
When Shaq first discovered his target, the frost saberwolf was already heavily injured from the leader's battle, and its strength had fallen significantly. This was also the reason he had dared to attack it.
However, he soon lost track of the frost saberwolf and had no choice but to search for other targets in anguish.
Yet, as luck would have it, he discovered something that greatly interested him while dining in the tavern of a small village at the foot of Rockdoor Mountain.
It was a commoner girl wearing a plain service dress. To be precise, what caught his attention was the object hanging by the girl's waist.
Although the blond girl had wrapped the object with a piece of homespun, it couldn't stop the object's mana fluctuations from leaking out.
From this, Shaq concluded that the object was a magic item!
Moreover, judging from the mana fluctuations the object caused, it should be something even more precious than his teacher's treasure, a staff capable of strengthening wind magic to a certain degree!
Only, how did a lowly commoner come into possession of a magic item?
Although Shaq highly coveted the girl's magic item, he was no fool. On the contrary, his good brain allowed him to secure for himself a recommendation certificate despite fierce competition—even if the Fenillary Magic Academy he attended was only a lower-grade magic academy, obtaining a recommendation certificate still hadn't been easy.
Hence, Shaq had "unintentionally" revealed his identity as a noble and a magician. And through this revelation, he had managed to dig out some information from the girl.
The girl had a teacher.
Whether her teacher was an itinerant magician or an academy magician who was currently traveling, the fact that this teacher was so generous to his student, who had just become an Apprentice Magician, meant that he wasn't an existence that should be offended casually.
Due to this reason, no matter how much Shaq coveted the girl's magic item, he didn't try to steal it.
Afterward, Shaq had left the village. Just as he thought things were hopeless, however, he had run into a few deserters fleeing from the battlefield in Miebig Plain in the west. A plan immediately took possession of his heart.
He would use money and strength to coerce those deserters into pretending to be tax officials and collect taxes from the village. As the spring harvest time had yet to arrive, the village shouldn't be able to pay the tax. That way, the deserters could legitimately demand items as compensation. And so long as they got their hands on the girl's magic item, everything else would be of little importance.
Moreover, even if his plan failed and the girl's teacher found out about this matter, he could simply pack up and leave. Once he returned to his academy, the other party wouldn't be able to prosecute him without any concrete evidence. And in the event his plan was a success, after he killed the deserters and destroyed their corpses, nobody would know he was the mastermind all along.
Shaq would've never expected that Zwei had already discovered his actions. Moreover, because Zwei had enjoyed plenty of films and novels in his previous world, he could easily guess the entire sequence of events.