Then When I arrived the next day it was the day for the test. Supposedly then ran them every weeks due to the high number of applicants. From what I had heard people from all over Sinmar came to the Capital's only guild in order to apply before going to guilds in their more local area. after all the test was only held in the capital.
I entered the building and it was virtually impossible to walk around in. The lower floor and most likely the upper floors were packet tightly with people. Everyone was squashed against one another like a complete corona virus nightmare. It was particularly uncomfortable as half of the people were dressed in rock hard steel armours, some had weird fantasyesque style over functionality spiky parts and a variety of odd styles that just didn't seem as practical as your typical steel armour set.
The mass of people were all waiting for the testing session to start, as they didn't know where they would be taken to do it, that was until a tall slender man with a monocle and dressed in a strange robe slightly roman toga style, walked down the stairs.
"Alright everybody here for the adventurers exam follow me."
He then walked seemingly effortlessly through the crown of people. It was hard to tell if he was pushing them out of the way or they were simply just trying as hard as possible to avoid him. He then left the building and the stampede began. Nobody could afford to lose track of him so they had to swarm and get out as fast as possible. I was almost swept up in the crowd without even having to attempt to follow them. I was washed out and onto the street where they became slightly more sparse and continued down the streets.
After a good 10 minutes of walking around the streets we left the city into the Rapero Plains. At this point following him was easy as we could spread out over a much larger area and still see him. We walked and walked and it continued for a huge amount of time. We were walking for a good couple of hours before coming to a stop. A couple of people had given up after the first hour of walking. Obviously I wouldn't as I had become used to walking for a good 8 hours everyday for almost a week straight in order to get places.
"The testing sight is another 12 hours walk from here so if you're unwilling to walk that distance then you can return to the city now, however you will not be awarded any rank. Not even of an E class." There was outrage by many individuals, it seemed that the more heavily armoured individuals and those with the flashy, heavy impractical armour were the main ones complaining. After all we had only been walking for 2 hours. I could have done that easily in my previous life. So now with a decent speed stat and having had significant practice 2 hours was nothing. I had become used to taking in the featureless flat grasslands as entertainment. Often you could see a lizard or a funny shaped rock. That would make the trip.
We continued the walk with a few more people giving up. We had lost very few people as they knew it was the only way to become an adventurer, and many of these people had dedicated their lives in readying themselves to become adventurers. So out of the probably 100 adventurers only 7 had left overall. Maybe there were a few more to begin with or a few less but I imagines it was 7 or so percent of them that had left.
We reached the end of the 14 hours walk only losing 4 more people. As despite a 14 hour walk being a truly arduous task for even the fittest of people wearing heavy armour, they were determined enough to keep on going. They'd rather be an E rank adventurer than not have any rank at all after all.
Then once we arrived it was an area of clearly artificially planted trees. The area was still dry and the grass was still yellow along with the flat otherwise treeless landscape. In other words, the trees definitely weren't naturally growing there, at least they had not been naturally planted their by the wind or whatever. The sun started to set over the horizon just as we had arrived and right there nested amongst the trees was a campsite.
There was a count of people we were asked for our names and let do whatever until the actual trials that would start the next day.
There were people from all over the country at the camp and of every shape and size. There were large small fat, muscular, skinny, men, women, everyone really. But most of them had a relatively similar appearance. The general Sinmar appearance, with black hair Brown skin and green eyes. I would have also fit this description if not for my grey hair. And for that reason people came up to me and started the conversation with...
"Where are you from?"
"Pelia"
"Oh and where's that. It sounds exotic"
"Unhueco"
"Oh right."
"Do I not look Sinmarian to you?"
"I mean, you do but your hair threw me off. I've never seem somebody from Sinmar not have black hair. It doesn't look like old age greys. You're far to young for that too"
"Umm... Thanks?"
"I'm Conalcol by the way. Nice to meet you" H held out his hand for me to shake it.
"Amelia" I take his hand and shake it
"Ow fuming Jaguar crisis the messiah. You have an extremily strong handshake"
"Um thanks?"
"Are you a warrior or something?"
"No. I'm a destruction mage"
"That's quite the grip strength for a mage. Especially one so young"
"Um thanks?"
"I'm Conalcol by the way"
"You already said that"
"What did I haha weird"
"Are you ok?"
"Yeah... Why wouldn't I be" he seemed nervous for some reason
"I don't know"
"Well you're good at things aren't you"
"Um thanks?" That guy seemed quite weird to me so I decided to head towards the larger mass of people. The 2 largest men were having a wresting match against one another to find out who was the strongest person there. They were much taller than me, Judging from the heights of people around me they were probably about 200cm (6'7) tall each and were built like tanks. I obviously couldn't judge off my own height as I didn't have the slightest clue how tall I was probably not very tall, as after all I was still a young girl physically, perhaps around 150 something cm tall. Although it wasn't clear as I wasn't really sure of how the heights of the individuals would be relative to the average heights of people from the Modern day UK.
I entered the larger clump of people who were sat around the campfire.
And a few of us talked. Although I didn't input much as after all I didn't have many real stories to tell them due to my lack of life experience in that world. I was probably one of the oldest if not the oldest individual there literally speaking. But physically I was the opposite.
Eventually I simply went to be in a tent. I went to be early to ensure I would wake up before we had to be awoken. As I didn't want anybody looking inside my sleeping bag and simply just seeing a monada in it, I didn't want to have to kiss the opportunity away so soon. The grinding the job would allow me to do would have been insane.
So I awoke before the rack of dawn which was fortunate as they woke us up basically right as it was rising. At that point I had already been wandering around the camp. The air was chilly and the grass wet as it had rained over night. It was the first time I had seen rain since arriving I had hardly even seen clouds and now the whole place was soaking wet and the air was clammy.
The man entered the tents and woke people up. There were also a few more qualified adventurers that turned up and also helped in waking people up. Everyone had slept heavily due to the heavy exercise and late night from the previous day, I had only managed to wake myself earlier from the stress of being found out. I had had a fairly on and off sleep the entire night and hen I started to see light trying to peak over the horizon was when I decided to actually get up.
Then we were all gathered into the centre of the camp before given our instruction.
"We're going to split you up into the Superclasses"
"The what?" Shouted one person on the far side of the group
"Superclasses are the groups of classes. For example warriors would include Every kind of warrior or mages every kind of mage"
"Humph idiot" Grunted another much closer to me
Then a very large man stepping into the centre of the group and started to speak.
"Alright so all mages will follow Hombremagico over here and all all warriors will follow Mujerferroz he gestured towards a fierce looking woman. All individuals that have healing classes will follow Santadedios here without following the relevant Superclass. All tanks will follow Quefuerte which is me and rangers will follow Nosoyunelfo over there ." He said pointing lastly at Nosyunelfo which was the man who had originally taken us to the sight the previous day.
I followed Hombremagico into a small opening in the artificially planted trees. The area was perfectly circular and the ground was a complete mess. It was cracked, charred, rough, full of pits and everything in between. It had clearly bee through hell. The first thing that happened was that Hombremagico lines the 7 of us into a row. There weren't many of us at all, and most of them were looking at me slightly funny due to my aura, of course. Then Hombremagico started speaking.
"Ignore the aura it's a spell that Amelia uses, it gives her a monster aura. Can you turn it off though?"
I had been about to tell him that I didn't know how to but then I thought of something. Perhaps I could simple ask the guide to hide it or turn it off. After all I didn't know I could transform forms until I was told by the guide.
"Deactivate my aura"
"IMPOSSIBLE, WOULD YOU RATHER I MASK THE AURA"
"yes"
"MASKING, USING MANA AT A RATE OF 0.01% PER SECOND TO MASK MONSTRUOUS AURA"
"ok is that better?"
"Yes, thankyou. This will make it easier to spot the monsters, as after all a powerful aura like your mimic will make it hard to see the weaker auras of nearby monsters... Ok so the first thing you will all do is track down the small monsters lurking around this site. I have planted 6 skeleton mage skulls around the area. The 6 of you that manage to find the skull will gain 1 rank from where I have set you all which is below the E rank. I will have 6 tests overall. If you pass all 6 you will be awarded A rank, if you pass 5 then B rank, 4 C rank etc. down until if you pass only 2 you get E rank. If you only pass 1 or fail them all I will not award you the qualification, and you won't be able to complete the test this time around... Now go!"