After hearing many jokes and mutterings from his colleagues saying, 'applying for the toughest job doesn't make you tough,' they were escorted to the written examination room where another man stood in pristine robes with several badges across his chest the biggest one on his chest reading "guild master".
"Good morning everyone I am Boro Idnia, and I am the Guild Master of the Adventurers of Idnia, I am also a member of his Majesty's court as we are the only guild in this country." this man exudes confidence his perfectly trimmed grey beard showing power despite his age.
"As you all know Idnia is the smallest of all the Human nations and thus we do not need many hunters, we are surrounded by strong and friendly nations who keep us mostly safe, this is very good for the nation but bad for you guys because only a few of you will be selected to come with us to the capital. Best of luck!!"
Soon everyone was seated, and the papers were distributed. Ranjha was happy to see his paper as he had prepared well.
Question 1: Name the countries surrounding our nation of Idnia.
easy, Kindom of Massa in the east, Empire of Dapi in south and Lonar in the west.
question 2: What are the 4 major races in this world?
there are 4 main Races Humans, Dark elves, Light elves, and Dwarves
question 3: what is mana?
Mana is the soul energy held in us by our Chakras.
.
.
.
'
Ranjha went on answering all these difficult questions without a hitch and confidently gave back his paper after an hour.
The Guild master stood up again and and clicked his fingers a quill sprang into action checking the papers.
"This will take time and thus you all are requested to continue to the mana test."
while walking Ruhi walked up to him " kinda hard, wasn't it?"
" Nah it was super easy already told you didn't I, I am going to ace this exam"
" Ya ya whatever next is your bane get ready"
He readied himself because mana test was hard for him. Mana was tested in amount, Low, below average, average, above average, high and very high. For his class he needed at least above average if he scores well in other two then it would be possible.
One after the other the students were asked to touch the orb in the hands of a real mage,
"Look Ruhi a real mage in his real enchanted gear"
"Look at the orb it was fine when Rohan touched it and they called it average, but Sara made it glow and was found to be high, do you realize how Rare that is, it's like one in ten thousand and in our village with population of just a 700, she is gonna be a star."
Sara was a short red haired shy girl, I did not expect the girl who rarely talked to people in school to be a super magician, when I become strong, I will pick her for my team as a secondary magician after all even when they need less magic, more would only make her a great one wouldn't it.
As time passed most students were being recorded at low or below average, this was making Ranjha tense, yet he would never let anyone know what was in his head, and after all he truly believed in the power of will power, in all the stories of great heroes will power was enough to truly awaken the power inside them and thus he believed will happen with him.
"Just wait for it to glow in my chance, its gonna light up the whole city"
Soon it was Ruhi's turn who also made it glow a bit and was given an above average rating, but she wanted to be a warrior, so she didn't care that much.
Now it was time for me, I walked up to the orb still amazed by the Mage's gear.
"Place your hand on the globe", I followed
" Now try to imagine energy flow out of you if you want specifics in your imaging try to imagine blue energy" he did as he was told.
"Kid are you doing it because i don't see anything yet "
Yet he was concentrating hard, he was trying to imagine blue flames popping-out of his fingers, yet nothing was happening.
"I am doing it; I am doing it" he clenches his jaw, closes his eye and concentrates harder and feels something flow out of him almost giving him relief.
"OK, there is a bit here, I see the energy flow and though dim the glow exists, grade below average"
"WHAT!! please check again "
"It's on the border of low I don't want to check again and give you low so get back in line and leave me alone"
He hadn't realized it yet but he had been holding that orb for like 10 mins more than anyone in the room some kids started murmuring that if they had longer they would get a better grade too, not knowing that the orb has nothing to do with time but instantaneous release of mana.
This saddened Ranjha quite a bit, he was already feeling tired and lethargic without sleep and proper food, he was running solely on excitement this made that go away too. As he dragged himself back to the line Ruhi said.
"don't worry you can be one of those warriors who enchant their swords and all so technically still an attacking Magician you can do that much even with low mana sometimes"
this cheered him a bit but not nearly enough. upon the end of the mana test they were escorted outside where they needed to do a 5 km run and then an obstacle course. it was simple and it was explained by this big guy carrying a huge shield, probably bigger than an orc.
Everyone were asked to stand on the the starting line,
"Run at 1"said the big guy,
"Rea...dy!! One...." he shouted many students shot past immediately, still dazed from the last test's results Ranjha took 5-6 seconds to realize what had happened and started running 10 seconds late.
Even after all this he ran his heart out and caught up to the front at around the 4 km mark, but his effort was in vain as soon he realized that all the running and exhaustion were catching up to him and he started to lose pace.
Rohan and Ruhi were running at the top closely followed by Sara, but the two at the top started running faster turns out they were saving energy till now, when all was said and done he finally reached the obstacle course.
The obstacle course was divided in two parts strength and agility, where the agility section had a lot of high walls and deep trenches with rope courses and tree climbing. the strength course was almost exclusively heavy doors . As for the leaders of each course had not changed, Rohan was leading the strength round easily pushing open doors taller than many houses, and also having strength left over to close them behind him so other people cant take an advantage. On the other side Ruhi's brown colored head could be seen bobbing up and down at the top of the agility course followed closely by a red ball ball which most probably was Sara.
Upon seeing all this the very tired Ranjha came up with an ingenious plan. He went up to the first climbing course in the agility section and flicked and pulled the rope, and with a round and a thud the whole rope came down in a sequence, the he took his new shoes off to tie it at the end of the rope to give weight and headed for the strength section. as soon as he reached the first door he spun his rope around and threw it over the first door, his shoes at the end went over the door on the other side and got stuck on the hinges, he climbed the now secure rope to the top and saw in front of him what looked like the staircase of death, the height increased each door and the distance between them was above 2 meters(~7 feet), Ranjha braced himself to make eight consecutive 2 meter ascending jumps, he knew he can't stop once he starts as the momentum was the only thing carrying him to the next. He starts jumping,
One...
two...
three...( am I slowly going diagnol a bit)
four... "nah"
Five... "this is great" he shouts as he crosses most of the participants on both sides.
six
seven (why am I at the edge)
unable to stop himself he makes the earth jump towards nothing losing all directional control to momentum yet as he crosses the door he throws the shoe rope which is not high enough and goes under the threshold between the open gates.
(wait open gates??)
as he sees down Rohan crossing the line and slamming the door shut on his falling shoes stopping him mid air and pulling him back to hit the door face first like a yo-yo,
Thump!! a huge noise of him hitting a 4 storied door still holding onto the rope, he quickly regained his senses and climbed down before anyone else opens the door, to finish still fourth after Ruhi, Rohan and Sara in that order.
Soon other students started finishing, another student running behind him apparently saw his trick and tried to copy but fell on the third door and broke his jaw making him realize how close he was to dying after almost falling from a much taller door.
The kid was taken to the guild infirmary and once the total time was up those still left were asked to abandon, and everybody else was asked to gather up.
"Wow!! All of you guys were amazing...; ooh who am I kidding only one of you guys was at max average, others were just shit. we will be giving the result in 30 mins so go back to the Lobby and wait."
At this Rohan was smiling like an idiot as he had done the nine door challenge in record time and no matter how he was Ranjha was also amazed at his strength, yet the examiner was looked at Ranjha as he finished that sentence, which confused him a little as he thought he might be accused of cheating.
He went and sat on the Sofa in the Lobby hoping for a miracle, Ruhi saw him and said, "Cool suicide attempt, pity it failed." she smiled and left.
Ranjha and her had been a friends since they were 5 but why was she so soo annoying.
Soon Rohan walked over "Here is the man with the plan, so are you gonna pledge allegiance to me for saving your life back there. You know after I become a great adventurer and earn a lot of money I would need a butler, don't worry I will pay well even if you cheat a bit after all we have known each other since childhood" he said with that weird smile on his face that will creep out a goblin.
"Fuck off Rohan!!"
He left laughing almost in a cackle after a few mentions of how me wanting to be an attack mage with no magic was equivalent to a horse trying to fly with the pegasi
Some time passed and finally all three of them came out with a paper in Sir Boro's hand.
"We have selected 4 of you, 2 of you got your preferred class while 2 didn't"
'Please select me I do not care about the class now,' thought Ranjha.
"First is Rohan, you are selected in the tank class as requested,""Yesssss"
"Next is an honor to announce only the third ever person to get Attacking Magician as a class from this village of Sath, it is..." Ranjha's heart stopped for a sec,
"Sara...!!!" "Yay!" came a small sound from the back and Ranjha was sad again.
"Sara you wanted to be a warrior class but you have immense magical talent, yet if you still want to change a formal plea can be given to me with a good enough reason and your class would be changed but I would advice you not to do so"
Looking at that smile on her face she wasn't going to change.
"Next is a warrior, Ruhi!!" "Told ya!!"
"And finally, after a lot of debate of yeses and Nos its Ranjha as Secondary mage"
"WHAT!!, no anything but that'
"Sorry that's the best we can do, you were mainly selected because you are the first one to clear our written test at 100%"
"B..b.b... but I can give a plea and all later right" If this was it, his job on the party was clear now, give everyone small buffs as they take all the glory of killing.
"No, first and most importantly you don't have enough magic to be an attacking mage, and second is your little stunt in the final round"
Ranjha braced himself for a scolding.
"That was a magnificent move, you applied your brains and decided to take a middle route that no one knew existed, setting up traps and choosing the right buffs requires that kind of out of the box thinking and that's the reason you were selected."
"Okay..." after hearing all this he felt a bit better after all he did just ask to be an adventurer irrespective of the class. yet the more he thought about it the weirder it felt, never fully clearing the doubt out.
"So, to all the selected students, congratulations...'"
"We look forward to see you tomorrow morning as we leave for your training at the capital of Hilda"
After this the Guild members left the room and everybody stormed Sara, some were also excited to talk to Rohan as being a Tank was a great honor as well, the only one who walked up to Ranjha was Ruhi,
"So, congratulations we passed" she said with her usual eerie smile,
"Ya congrats, but..." before he could finish anything she was also being stormed with people who were done talking to Sara, he saw the scene of new heroes being born and didn't feel like a part of it, so he decide to walk home alone.
As he walked home, he had mixed feelings, he was gonna achieve his dream to be a hunter but as a secondary magician was it even worth it. He entered his house meekly, he was deep in thought thinking what to do when he heard a voice,
"It's alright kiddo, I have prepared cake for you, so what if you didn't get selected, we will figure something else out for you" this was his mother,
" Go wash-up and get to the table, your dinner is ready"
He was so lost he had not yet smelt the tasty food or heard the first line properly; it was only when he got to the table he saw written on top of the the beautiful cake.
"Congratulations
"not" Adventurer"
He realized what his mood must had made his mother think, that "not" was so hurriedly done, it made him smile. he went ahead and swiped it with his finger and tasted the cake.
"Hey!! " shouted his mother,
"Mom I got selected you don't need to worry, after all you have a super son."
"Then why are you sad..." she suddenly realized knowing her son and said "so not an attacking magician huh?"
She said standing over him as he sat at the table. she went around and grabbed the chair in front of him and sat down.
"Well congratulations idiot do you even realize how hard it is to get selected in our country,it is almost impossible to be an adventurer out here plus from this small town, you should be proud, what did you get by the way?"
"Secondary magician " he said almost embarrassed now.
"That's not bad, it's still magic plus you would get to read and learn the most plus you will be away from the killing and that will surely help this lonely mother sleep better"
"Ya but I won't look awesome killing the baddies",
"Killing is not aim, protecting is, these adventurers have to kill just to protect people and your job is to give them help, buffs and protect them. You are more important than any hero that kills to protect, because your job is to protect him."
Hearing this lifted Ranja's spirits he was feeling much more relieved and felt even a bit confident and happy.
" I am still gonna be the greatest Adventurer!!" he shouted at the end and dug into the cake.