Chapter 23:

Volume 2, Chapter 3, Exam

Don't Worry, We Have the Best Supporter in Our Team


The exam the group had to go through takes four days. That was the norm of Adventurer Academy, specifically for Alice’s class, as they had to learn everything outside of their vocation.

Three weeks of self-study was enough to cover every subject of their semester. The exam was scheduled in such a way that they could develop a discipline of “There was no such thing as over-prepared.”

The group exchanged glances and looked at Aiden. They were worried about him more than themselves. However, with the exam was about to start, they entered the classroom and hoped for the best.

Aiden walked further ahead, toward the next room. A room where Aiden could provide his answers to his examiners verbally. He took a deep breath and opened the door. The room was similar to the training rooms from their dorm: soundproofing materials on every side of the room. The room was five metres by five metres with four metres height. There were two chairs in the room—

Rustle

A sudden movement came from his left. Until now, Aiden couldn’t sense or detect anyone in this room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Even though Aiden arrived early by ten minutes, he still had to apologize since an examiner was waiting for him in the venue.

“That is fine, Aiden. Please, have a seat.”

“Is that you, Stacia?”

Like Nora’s social standing, Stacia was a legendary assassin class adventurer with the title of “Azuline Phantom.”

From what Aiden had gathered from Jayce, Stacia had the ability to camouflage every part of her except for her pair of azure eyes with darkness. Even though her blue eyes gave her position away, the enemies couldn’t land a hit on her. It was as if she didn’t have a physical body, to begin with.

Stacia usually instilled fear and despair into her targets to a point where she could reach their blind spot and land a killing blow. Everything was done to strike her opponent down in one hit. Surprisingly, Stacia took the role of their Herbalism lecturer to them.

She had taken an interest in Aiden because of his circumstances and took him as an apprentice by beating him in a battle. When Aiden and his friends met Stacia for the first time, they thought she was a student.

But that wasn’t the case. Stacia told them her actual age to clear the misunderstanding they had on her. Her exact age was sixty, and she looked like an eighteen-year-old girl.

Alice and Irene were struck in awe by her beauty. She looked like a doll. Irene did ask what her secret was, but Stacia wasn’t sure about it.

Age wasn’t the problem. Not that Aiden was into Stacia. The main issue was that he couldn’t perceive the outline of her body. Which means he couldn’t detect her presence unless Stacia chooses to reveal herself.

“Yes. Please take a seat. We can talk for a bit before the exam begins.” Stacia gestured toward the chair that was positioned about two metres away in front of her.

Strange… Stacia hadn’t moved a single muscle, and her breathing was calm. That distraction wasn’t enough for Aiden to ignore a thin wire linked to the chair he was about to sit on.

Too easy.

A dagger appeared in his hand, and he crouched down. He took a deep breath and positioned his knife to the string. A slight touch to the trigger with the blade creates a vibration, tracing the medium back into the floor underneath the chair.

He knew they are currently on the second floor of the Academy. Judging from the steps he had taken earlier, between floor levels and from top to bottom, it comprised wood, acoustic insulations, cement and acoustic insulations.

After processing everything he had gathered in this situation, that led to one question: is the string a diversion? The line was placed vertically still. Aiden could hear the slightest movement from the string, not enough to trigger whatever lies below the floor. In addition to that, Stacia’s breathing seemed to be extremely quiet.

We’re surrounded by traps.

Remaining in a crouch position, he activated his blade gauntlets to cut the string, then dashed past Stacia toward the wall behind her. He planted his feet to the wall and kicked off.

There were no structural changes to the walls, floors and ceiling, but he could hear the arrows launched from the walls as if they were fired out of nowhere. Every single one of them was aiming for Stacia, his master and an invigilator for his exam.

This was probably the first part of this exam: Protect Stacia. He assumed his stance in midair.

“Assassin skill: Twin Crescent Moon.”

He swung his right arm in a wide arc, hard enough to direct his momentum up in the air. He then used his legs and another blade to strike the remaining arrows. After landing in front of Stacia, he stood up, brushing the specks of dust off his shoulders.

“Not bad. Thought you might fail that one.”

“The way you say it sounds like you want to die. Unless you want me to do the honour to put you to an endless sleep?”

“Ahahahahaha. With your strength, you won’t be able to land a hit on me.” She crossed her slender legs with a smug on her face.

He dashed toward her. His cold steel was a hairbreadth away from kissing her neck. However, Stacia didn’t even do so much as a flinch from this.

“What are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to land a hit on me?”

“Tch.”

He knew she was provoking him to damage her mana shield and fail him on the spot.

“Awwww. What’s wrong? Are you going to let that one slide?” said Stacia as she covered her mouth with her hand. But that didn’t hide the twisted smile from Aiden’s hearing.

He retracted his blade and turned around, making his way back to the chair and sit down. Once he took a seat, Stacia cleared her throat. A piece of paper appeared in her hand.

Here we go.

After the oral exam, Aiden stood up and left the room. Judging by the temperature, if he had to guess, it was 5:30 PM. Summer was approaching at this point.

Even with the temperature rise, Jayce’s runes had provided thermal comfort at the small cost of his mana.

“Aiden.”

He turned around. Stacia stood a few metres away from him.

“There will be a training session on the day after your last day of the exam.”

Hearing that, Aiden laughed menacingly. “I’m going to defeat you this time.”

“Oh, ho. You better do your best because you can’t catch up with me,” laughed Stacia, holding a malachite dagger decorated with silver linings at the sides with leather handles onto his neck. “I look forward to training.”

That made his hair stood on their ends. He couldn’t hear her movements at this range. Azuline Phantom’s skill remained unknown to most of the adventurers, including himself.

“I-I look forward to it, master.”

“How nice of you to listen to your master. Good luck with your exams,” She stored her dagger back to her magic gloves and resumed walking down the hall.

Aiden placed a hand to his neck where the dagger had touched. Strange, the mana shield at that spot didn’t even dissipate. That means…

“That was a fake!” He stomped his feet to the ground.

Meanwhile, Stacia was hiding in the shadow, outside of Aiden’s hearing range, laughing at his reaction.

____________________

Before the young adventurers realized it, four days flew by.

“Congratulations, everyone!” said Nora as she clapped her hands together.

On the last day of their final exam, Nora had invited them to her place to celebrate their hard work. This time, they ordered takeout from restaurants under Nora’s tab.

It wasn’t difficult to order takeout from home. This could be done by summoning familiars or messenger birds to deliver their orders to the designated restaurants. Depending on their requests, the restaurants will either let the customer’s familiars or have their workers and familiars do the delivery.

Nora had summoned a few of her familiars, including Snow, her feline familiar, to deliver a list of written orders to their designated restaurants.

“Thank you for inviting us to your place to celebrate,” said Alice, thanking her on behalf of the guild.

The others gave their thanks in turn.

“Your welcome. While we’re waiting for the food, I would like to discuss something with everyone.”

The young adventurers turned their attention toward Nora.

“As you all know, you have a one-month holiday. That is why I’m asking a favour from all of you here.”

“What kind of favour?” asked Alice, placing her cup of tea back to the saucer.

“I need help tracking an elder gryphon that has been causing trouble to travelling merchants and villagers who are delivering supplies to the mountain villagers. This is a B-rank quest, and the rewards will be distributed to your party evenly.”

““An elder gryphon?””

Irene and Aiden asked the same question simultaneously.

The group had learned this from their Bestiary class. Elder gryphons were rare these days. It was more of a title bestowed upon gryphons that mastered the art of magic and could transfer them to anyone.

“Nora, you’re an S-rank adventurer, but why do you need our help in this particular quest? I’m sure other adventurers are more capable than us. You can summon spirits to search it for you,” said Jayce.

“Yes, I can do that. However…” Nora averted her eyes away from his cold gaze.

“However?” repeated Jayce. His eyes narrowed at her hesitation.

Jayce had taken Nora’s quests sometimes. In most cases, he almost got himself killed by rare monsters and unknown herbs. Even if he had prepared for the worst, there were problems that even he couldn’t avoid.

“My spirits weren’t able to track it down precisely. I had informed Lucius about this a few days ago. He recommended your guild.”

“We’re still D-class adventurers. Are we allowed to take a B-rank quest?”

“I have asked HQ for special consideration for this quest, and they have given their permission for this quest. Anyway, be sure to prepare everything you need for three weeks of camping.”

“Did you just—?”

“Foods here, nyan!”

They heard Snow’s calling, and they went down to get the food. The said dishes were starters and main courses. The desserts were about to arrive at their doorstep according to Nora’s spirit, so they decided to wait until everything was ready.

“Jayce, you should get some sleep.” Alice noticed Jayce’s rubbing his eyes more frequently.

For the past three weeks, he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. He had to tutor everyone and spent some time developing a new rune for Aiden.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

Alice sometimes wondered whether her expression gave away her thoughts, but it could be Jayce’s Instinct came into play. Deep down, she thought the role of the guild’s strategist meant for Jayce because of his passive skill: Instinct. Maybe his passive skill was incomplete due to the nature of his magic circuits.

“How strong is an elder gryphon?”

Aiden brought the question to the table, sounding eager to fight against it.

“It’s a B-rank quest. We’re going to have a difficult time dealing with it,” replied Alice.

“Aiden, are you seriously thinking about fighting against the elder gryphon by yourself?” sighed Irene.

“Yes—Owww!”

She swung a fist at Aiden’s head.

“You couldn’t even detect long-range magic!”

Irene crossed her arms, holding back her tears from the pain in her hand.

The two began arguing with each other about an elder gryphon. Alice smiled wryly, and Jayce casually drank a glass of water, watching their friends going at each other’s throat.

“What do you think?”

“Isn’t that supposed to be my question?” chuckled Alice.

“To be fair, you are the guild’s strategist.”

“You know when to present a challenge to me, huh?”

“Every experience can be gained from challenges and situations. Not through the imagination alone.”

Alice placed a finger to her chin and thought about it carefully, drawing out a list of risks and benefits of partaking in this quest. Jayce’s instinct, Irene’s keen eyesight and Aiden’s sharp sense of hearing. Thinking about it, the team’s skillset did go well together for this quest. She opened her eyes and looked at Jayce in the eyes, and nodded.

“We will discuss this at another time.”

“Understood. We will continue to discuss this later.”

The group had pumpkin soup, radish salads, grilled steak with rosemary and mint sauce, and mixed vegetables for the main course meal. As for desserts, strawberry cheesecake and fruit tarts glazed with honey.

“Well. What are you waiting for? Dig in!”

They thanked Nora for the dishes and began.

The pumpkin soup was smooth and savoury; it left a sweet aftertaste. Alice could feel her taste bud became clear and sharper for some reason. As expected from a restaurant selected by Nora. Although radish salads served raw and cold, they gave Alice warmth.

The steak didn’t require much effort for her to cut it. It was cooked medium-rare and perfect! The moment she ate a small cut of steak, it melted almost immediately. Umami assaulted her taste bud along with the herb and sauce to make it more intense and pleasant.

The mixed vegetables could counteract the heaviness of the steak with a punch of their own through texture and bitterness.

This dish might go well with mushrooms, but it could hinder other ingredients, thought Alice.

The sweet strawberries' sweetness and the quality of the cheese and cookie crumbs were in a different league from what Alice had in mind. Alice could tell the cheese took the many days to create—no, months of labour to reach its peak flavour.

Judging by the presentation, she could tell that the execution to utilize the cheese, strawberries and the bread crumbs to create such a dish gave her the impression that the pâtissier was careful with their ingredients and skills.

The fruit tarts’ main hero was the honey itself as it harmonized the fruits and pastries together and brought a whole new flavour. The crusts were crunchy from the outside and fluffy from the inside. But how did they make such a crust for a tart…?

They used croissant pastry as a crust?!

Alice had tasted many desserts in the past, but no one had ever created a tart like this. She asked Nora about it, but all she got was, “It’s a secret.” Nora might know these ingredients' location and made custom requests to restaurants or pâtissier by providing the acquired elements.

Once Alice and Nora had their fill, Alice poured tea into their cups. Aiden, Irene, and Snow were enjoying the rest of their meals.

“Any idea why Jayce stopped from the main course meal?” asked Nora, who sat beside Alice.

“He barely eats sweets. Sorry for ordering too many desserts for all of us.”

“No, no, it’s okay. It was my fault for not asking before ordering,” Nora waved her hands to brush off her apologies. She didn’t mind about this. After all…

“But still…” Alice lowered her head.

“No buts… On the bright side, you can bring them back to your place anyway. You’re still young, so eat to your heart’s content, but only in moderation.”

Nora was happy that they enjoyed the food, including the desserts that were base on her recipes.

Alice gave a wryly smile to her response, thinking there was nowhere to get around her. Outside the Academy, Nora was more of a friend and less of a teacher to her.

“Speaking of gryphons, do you want to try summoning a familiar?”

“Huh?”

Nora’s sudden question surprised Alice. She hadn’t taught the young adventurers on the topic at hand. She mercilessly gave a ludicrous amount of assignments to the group regarding the nature of elemental magic. So Summoning spell is new to them.

Monsters or spirits became your familiar if they accepted you as their master and formed a contract. There were some cases where familiars didn’t need to create a contract, and they were called Bondless.

Listening to Nora’s short lessons further, Alice found out that Bondless familiars placed their complete trusts toward their masters. At the same time, these familiars could leave their masters if they ever breached their contract. Snow was a Bondless familiar.

“Let’s start with an initiate type summoning spell. Most spellcasters have at least one Initiate type familiar. Noir was Jayce’s Initiate type familiar.”

Alice stood up and pushed her seat to the dining table to make some space for the summoning. Nora told her a spell of this calibre didn’t require a large area. Following her instructions, Alice began her incantation. Mana was coursing through her body. Then a magic circle appeared in front of her.

“Open Summoning Gate! As your master, hear my call!”

Everything went smoothly until the magic circle acted strangely. It expanded and compressed in size until it shattered and melted into the air. She dropped down to her knees. Her breathing became ragged, experiencing mana deficiency.

Nora crouched next to Alice and gave her a mana potion. She was surprised by this development.

“Snow,” called Nora.

“No sign of it.”

That was all Nora needed to confirm the result.

“This is new. I have never seen someone experience this after a perfect incantation. What do you think, Snow?” said Nora.

Nora and Snow turned their attention to Jayce, who was still asleep, thinking he might have the answer to this.

“Snow, could you cast ice magic on him?” asked Nora.

“Sure.”

Snow flew at Jayce and began her spell quietly.

“!”

When a small piece of ice was in position, Jayce’s left hand suddenly grabbed Snow’s throat. He wasn’t strangling her. Just enough to keep her stationary. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times before looking at his left.

“Oh, it’s you. Sorry about that. Is there something you need from me?”

Beads of sweat form around Snow’s temple, thinking: I could have died from this! She sensed a millisecond of bloodlust from Jayce just now. What made it worst was that he wasn’t conscious at that moment.

Calming down, she told Jayce everything about Alice’s summoning magic session.

“Alice doesn’t have an Initiate type familiar.”

Not having an Initiate type familiar was an extremely rare case. It wasn’t something that was part of the adventurers’ knowledge. Although the Capital Headquarter did hold records of specific individuals experiencing a similar issue such as this, the list of names couldn’t even fill a quarter of a page.

“That means she has to search for a familiar to form a contract then,” said Nora, who seemed to be disappointed.

“Yeah…”

Alice got herself up after recovering a decent amount of mana, thanks to Nora’s potion.

“Jayce, could you summon Noir?”

She wanted to see the difference between his summoning and her attempt. In all honesty, she was using that as an excuse to play with Noir. The last time she saw Noir was a few weeks ago during their exploration quests with Aiden and Irene.

With ease, Jayce summoned Noir just like how he had done during their quest for the Moon Village.

“…Jayce. Is that really Noir?”

“Yes. This is Noir.”

“But he’s—”

“I know.”

Noir was now a puppy. Alice picked up Noir without thinking. Noir seemed to be sleepy, just like how weary Jayce was. Just looking at Noir was enough to soothe her heart from its cuteness. Instead of bothering it too much, she placed it back on the table.

“That’s what happens when you don’t give your familiar enough mana,” said Nora while crossing her arms.

“How’s it going, Noir?” asked Snow.

Noir responded to Snow with a yawn and went back to sleep.

“Guess he isn’t interested in a conversation.” Snow landed next to Noir.

Alice could sense mana flowing from Snow toward Noir. She petted Noir in the head gently.

“Jayce, what was your first encounter with Noir like?”

“He tried to kill me by placing his blade close to my throat.”

He replied with a straight face.

“But it all went well after I restrained Noir for a few hours to calm him down.”

“Do all familiars try to kill their masters?!”

“Not always. There are some gentle familiars. Although they are weak, they are good at providing defence and support for their masters.”

“I see.”

“Well, it’s getting late now. It’s time for you guys to head home.”

“We should help you clean…”

Before Alice and the others could offer their assistance, Nora snapped her fingers. The empty plates began to gather together and headed toward the kitchen across the corridor.

“I can handle this.”