~Progress: 540/5.000 goblins defeated~
A full week had now passed since Yasuo started looking for portals in the night, and he has successfully cleared five out of five F-rank portals so far.
After having completed the first portal at the beginning of the week, Yasuo had gained a lot of practical experience and had no problems clearing the other four portals.
In these five portals, Yasuo had encountered almost every type of goblin that could be found in F-rank portals. The most goblins he encountered were unarmed goblins, but Yasuo also encountered armed goblins, fighter goblins, archer goblins and even a mage goblin.
Having fought all of these goblins, Yasuo had become confident about clearing F-rank portals and could now even fight groups of five goblins at a time without much of a problem.
But unfortunately, Yasuo ran into a problem.
Clearing the F-rank portals wasn't the problem Yasuo had, rather it was the rate at which he was clearing the portals. In a full week Yasuo had only managed to clear five portals.
Because he could only go out at night to avoid the awakener association, Yasuo only had time to clear one portal a day even if he had enough stamina left for another one.
This wasn't the only problem though. As the week progressed, more and more people of the awakener association were patrolling through the forest, looking for new portals to register. Because of this Yasuo wasn't even able to clear a single portal the last two days.
This time wasn't spent doing nothing, but at the rate that Yasuo was clearing portals, it would take at least ten weeks for him to complete the requirement of defeating 5.000 goblins to evolve the dagger of evolution.
However, on Sunday while Yasuo was training his proficiency in rune drawing while watching television, he heard something that could solve the problem.
"There has been an increase in portal spawning rates. The awakener association has been tightening their watch and have worked as hard as they could this past week, but we have come to a point that more portals are spawning than we can manage. Therefore, this is an announcement to the people of the whole country: For this week, all awakeners can register anonymously. I know that there are awakeners out there that haven't registered for whatever reason they had, but in this time of threat, we need you. So please register and fight for our country this week. Thank you."
Having heard this, a flame lit in Yasuo's eyes as the perfect opportunity had come to speed up his progress. This was a way where he could officially register as an awakened without people finding out he was sixteen years old and could legally go into portals during the day.
'I can't believe this. With this I can now clear multiple portals a day, without even having to sneak around' Yasuo thought full of joy.
As Yasuo was still cautious about registering as an awakener, he made some preparations.
"Let's go buy a mask that will cover my whole face."
Having gone to a few stores to look for a mask, Yasuo finally found the perfect one. A grey facemask that covered his whole face and which he could still perfectly see out of. With this Yasuo was confident that no one would be able to tell who he was or even how old he was.
Still feeling nervous about this whole anonymous registering, Yasuo waited in his room the whole day while reading posts people made about this. Nothing negative or suspicious was said in these posts, so Yasuo had become assured about the legitimacy of the situation.
But while Yasuo was feeling nervous and reading posts, it had already became night and it was too late to register that day. Yasuo felt sad about this, but there was nothing that he could do.
Not being able to wait for long, Yasuo had set his alarm as early as possible so he could arrive at the National Awakener Bureau as soon as it opened.
Full of thrill, Yasuo had a hard time falling asleep.
*Beep Beep Beep*
After only a few hours of shut-eye, the alarm clock went off. Despite not having slept for long, Yasuo seemed full of energy as he hurried out of bed, grabbing his mask and heading towards the National Awakener Bureau as quickly as he could.
Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the building. Having arrived a few minutes early, the doors were still closed. With his mask on, Yasuo stood in front of the door, waiting for it to open.
These few minutes went by slowly, but when they eventually did, and the doors opened, Yasuo was the first person to go inside.
Quickly going to the desk to register as an awakened, Yasuo was first in line and could step up immediately.
"Hello, I came to register as an awakened anonymously."
The lady behind the desk chuckled. "Sir, if you want to register anonymously, you have to enter through the back of the building."
Feeling embarrassed about this, Yasuo quickly left without saying anything.
Running to the back of the building, Yasuo sees a sign above a door saying anonymous registration. Swiftly going there, Yasuo enters, but this time he wasn't the first one to arrive.
Two people were standing in front of him in line. For some reason they gave off a weird vibe, but Yasuo stood behind them anyway.
Luckily it didn't take long for him to be called up and he entered a small room.
"Welcome, you can take a seat there and I will help you anonymously register as an awakener." Said the lady with a professional smile.
"Oh yes, thank you." Said Yasuo, not really knowing what to expect.
Once the formalities were completed, the lady began to explain a few things. "Although this is an anonymous registration, you do have to show us that you are capable enough to become an awakener so that you don't die or cause your teammates to die, do you understand?"
"Yes." Said Yasuo as he was taken aback by the cold expression that the lady suddenly showed.
"Okay, good." The lady said, who looked professional and polite once again, like she was testing me just then.
"There are two options to determine your capabilities. The first one is you showing me your class, skills and stat points through your status window. The second one is a practical test. Which one do you want?" Asked the lady politely, looking at Yasuo like there was only one right option.
Yasuo began thinking, not having expected to have to prove himself. 'I can't show her my class. If she sees that, she will think it is a non-combat class or even worse, report me for having a special class.' Yasuo thought, assuming the worst.
"I will choose the second option, the practical test."
Hearing that, the lady smiled for the first time since entering the room with Yasuo as if she wanted him to choose that option.
"Good, follow me to the testing room." The lady said, who looked excited for some reason.
Having arrived at the testing room, Yasuo looked surprised. It was an all-white room, which was bigger than he expected and with some advanced looking tech inside of it.
While admiring the room, the lady started explaining the first test.
"The first test will test your strength. For this you have to hit this device on the red circle as hard as you can. I don't care what method you use as long as that is your strongest attack." The lady said, looking serious but full of anticipation.
"Okay." Yasuo said, while preparing his strongest attack.
'I think the [active: stab] is my strongest hitting skill, so I will use that.'
Looking at the lady, Yasuo was thinking about how he could summon his dagger without her noticing. Putting his arm behind his back, trying to make it look like he was grabbing it from his pocket, he summoned the dagger.
"I will start now."
Taking the dagger from behind his back, Yasuo puts his left leg forward. Taking a deep breath in, Yasuo closed his eyes and concentrated.
Having mentally prepared himself, he opened his eyes and explosively lunges forward [stab], hitting the device right in the centre of the circle as hard as he possibly could.
Yasuo's attack didn't even leave a scratch on the device unlike on his dagger, which lost a point of durability.
The device displayed a score of 120. Not knowing if this was good or bad, Yasuo looked at the lady to gauge her reaction.
She looked surprised for some reason, so Yasuo thought that he got a good score. But unbeknownst to him, she was surprised at something else. Carefully having inspected Yasuo before he came into the room, she was surprised at the fact that Yasuo grabbed a dagger from behind his back.
The only explanation that she came up with is that Yasuo had concealed his weapon from her, which she was surprised about as she is normally very perceptive. Thinking that she must have overlooked it by accident, she moved on to explaining the second test.
"The next test will determine your practical combat ability. This test will be conducted with the help of augmented reality, so there is no need to worry about any injuries. For this test you can pick the monster you want to fight on your own."
Yasuo had only fought goblins so far. Thinking about this, he thought that fighting a goblin wouldn't be enough to qualify him for registration, but he also didn't want to fight a different monster he had never fought before….
"I will choose to fight six goblins."