When they got to the town's square, the three teens went inside the guild hall, but Alice stayed outside. She was amazed by the architecture of this building. Even by modern Earth's standards, it was nothing to scoff at. It stuck out like a sore thumb—in the best possible way, being way taller than any other building around it. The blue paint on its walls was contrasted by sculpted marble pillars and detailed decorations. There was a thick wooden sign hanging in front of the entrance. It said 'Adventurer's guild' in bold letters.
"Are you coming, Alice?" Recently awoken Bella called out to her. "We already filled your paperwork out for you." She waved a piece of paper with the registration for the exam on it.
"Oh, thank you so much." Alice quickly ran towards them. "So when is the date? I hope it won't take more than a month." She remembered that time it took her two months to sign up for a doctor's appointment back on Earth.
The three teens looked at each other confused, then started to giggle.
"It's going to start very soon," Lucas gave her a pat on the back. "So go there and come back with a worthy rank to join our group!"
"Don't you dare fail!" Bella waved, gave her the filled registration form, and waved at her with a warm smile.
"No matter how much you try, you will never get on the level of Damian, the great fire mage!" He struck a very fancy pose while saying this.
Their words of encouragement and Damian's... whatever it was, made her feel pumped up and ready for the exam.
On her way to the examination grounds, she stared around, looking at the insides of the guild hall. There was a tavern selling meals with a discount based on your adventurer's rank. A hotel offering cheap rooms for guild members who needed them. And the most important part, the heart of the guild, a quest board. There were posters with quests, each one with its respective difficulty and reward written on the bottom. The sounds of adventurers arguing over who should take the most lucrative job made the atmosphere inside the building a complete contrast to how it looked from outside.
It took close to four minutes of walking to get to the other side. There stood wooden doors towering over Alice; she had no clue if she was supposed to open them or wait for someone to call out for her.
CRASH!
A body flew through the window next to her. Shattering the glass and leaving a hole in the wall on the other side of the corridor.
""A male voice could be heard coming from outside. "Next!"
Alice pushed through the door and could see a line of judges with their notebooks out writing everything down; in the middle of the arena stood a fit man wearing a blue military uniform and a long robe. He had a light stubble and short hair. There were dark circles around his eyes, and he was a bit hunched over. He had a sheath on his left thigh with a sword inside it.
"Miss Alice. You will spar with the examiner until we deem we have seen enough or the battle ends." The oldest of the judges, a woman with wrinkles and white hair, explained the rules.
"Go stand there, girl." The examiner scoffed at the sight of a teenager. "Don't think I will go easy on you just because you are a child." He took out a canteen full of alcohol and chugged the whole thing down.
Alice could feel the strength difference between them. She knew that there was no way she would win even if she had one hundred chances. She instantly stood in a defensive position, ready to take on any of his attacks and block them.
The judges were already writing everything down; even though the fight didn't even start, she was already being graded, which just put more pressure on her.
"Please start." One of the judges signaled the beginning of the fight.
The man instantly lunged towards her with his fists out. She thought that she would be able to block a few hits, but the first one that he threw almost put her arms out of commission. She could feel the bones creaking hard, trying to stay together as she screamed in pain.
The examiner threw another punch, but she dodged it by jumping back. She continued dodging them in this fashion; if she was late by even a second on each dodge, the fight would have ended instantly. But the amount of space she could dodge to got smaller and smaller with each step. She had to make out a plan.
She conjured gloves made out of earth around her arms to maybe withstand his attacks. Her options were limited as the skill difference was way too high.
He smiled and decided to test it out, throwing a strong right hook that shook the air around them, almost shattering her makeshift armor in one punch.
Alice didn't give up and filled up the holes before another attack came, barely keeping them intact during his fury of punches. It was a test of endurance that she was failing miserably.
"At this rate you will fail, you know?" The examiner mocked her. His punches got faster and stronger, almost like he was just getting warmed up.
She knew that, but she had to do it this way; she just wasn't strong enough to fight him head-on.
Her eyes changed from fear to raging confidence as she deflected another one of his throws, making him take a step back.
"Who are you to decide that?" Alice threw her hearth gloves away and cast a spell she had been sneakily conjuring all this time. The sound of rocks flying filled the air.
The examiner looked up for the first time in this fight, finally seeing the barrage of earth bolts she had prepared during their fight, all of them flying towards him at once.
He smirked. "That was impressive. You pass. The sound of his sword being unsheathed could be heard as he slashed through the air. Throwing all the bolts away and ending the fight. "Go to the judges for your assessment." The smile on his face was still there as he went inside the hall. Lost deep in thought.
Alice's breath was very heavy. She felt like the fight was way too close for this exam.
"Miss Alice," the main judge took out a small piece of silver from her pocket. "You have proven yourself worthy of getting the C-rank today." She put it around Alice's neck. "Congratulations." All the judges clapped for her.
She bowed out of respect and thanked them before leaving; the body of the previous person taking the exam was already taken, probably to the infirmary.
Alice went to the quest board where the rest of her friends were.
"Did you pass?" The trio instantly jumped on her when they saw her come back.
"Yes, I did, although it was very difficult." Alice explained to them her entire fight and how much stronger her examiner was compared to Lucas.
"And which rank did you get?" Damian stared at her, his eyes trembling a bit. "I bet it's lower than my amazing D-rank, but I won't mind hearing it." He treated it like rivalry.
"I'm also quite curious. The two of us are C-ranks, so you are probably in the C-rank as well." Bella pointed to herself and Lucas.
"Even if you are below that, we will gladly take you to our group!" Lucas was as supportive as ever.
A smug smile formed on her face after she had heard this.
"Well... I don't know..." She acted very shy, trying to make them think her rank was lower than theirs. "You are all so much better than me." She put her head down and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear so." He patted her back, but inside he was jumping from excitement.
"I'm C-rank," Alice said abruptly, taking the three of them by surprise. Grinning mischievously, happy that they fell for it.
"Wat?" Damian's face went blank; he couldn't process this kind of information that quickly.
"Thank god, we won't have any trouble with C-rank quests then," Bella sighed, then smiled warmly. "Congrats, Alice."
"You never cease to amaze us, Alice!" Lucas hugged her tightly while laughing loudly.
They went to the quest board, getting lost in the crowd of adventurers and barely finding a quest that they wanted to do.
"So goblin extermination, huh?" Bella looked at the poster they had snatched; it was all yellow, like it had been hung up there for ages. "It's only a D-rank quest, though," she sighed. "Not like we can pick anything else since our average rank isn't high enough to do C-ranks.
"Well. I don't mind doing a lower one since it's my first time." Alice scratched the back of her head. "But why does Damian only have a D-rank? Isn't he as skilled as us?" She was very curious about his grading.
"This dumbass refuses to use anything other than fire and loses enough points to be knocked down one rank each time. His lack of rent also doesn't help." She sighed while whispering that to Alice's ear.
"Well." Lucas took the poster and went towards the clerk, accepting the quest. "We will get enough experience with this to maybe accept better ones next time."
The clerk had to double-check that they had such a quest on their board. It turned out that it was put up there over five years ago.
They ignored it and headed out towards the glean creature encampment.
[Good luck on your quest, sweetie~]