Ch 15

"Hello! My name is Andrew, and I'm the Guild Department Head of the lower level adventurers...what are your names?" Andrew asked kindly, though as a department head he should've known their names.

"Hello Mr. Andrew, I'm Alice." Alice replied.

"And I'm Adrian, nice to meet you, Mr. Andrew." Adrian replied politely.

"Mn. I heard of your progress on doing 26 quests in not even 2 days. You know, that's a new E rank record! The last record was 20 quests in 2 days." Andrew said.

"Thank you for the compliment." Alice and Adrian said at the same time.

"Ah. We're going off track. Let's get to the point now. My purpose here today is to test you, depending on your strength, you could rank up accordingly~~!" Andrew said, testing them, which the duo noticed.

"I have one question. What is the test?" Adrian said.

"It's of course...TO FIGHT ME!!!" Andrew shouted and beamed at Adrian since he was the only one in the lower half of the guild that didn't show any fear towards him, including the D rankers.

"What's the win condition Mr. Andrew, we know I can't win against you." Alice asked.

"Oh? So you think Adrian here is able to beat me?" Andrew asked, curious about Adrian's strength now.

"I don't think I would win, but a stalemate is possible…" Adrian replied.

"I see...but do you two accept the test though?" Andrew finally asked.

"Sure." Alice and Adrian both answered.

Andrew told them to follow him towards the training ground in the guild and told them to rest for a few minutes before taking the test. Adrian used this time to stretch and warm up his muscles while Alice tried to calm down. After around 5 minutes, Adrian was called down first to the arena.

"Are you ready, Adrian?" Andrew asked

"Yes I am, Mr. Andrew." Adrian replied.

As soon as they finished talking, they both dashed towards each other, first testing out their strength with their fists. Adrian wins the clash and pushes Andrew away, making everyone around except Alice surprised at his strength.

Adrian then dashed towards Andrew again, coating his hands in magic he launched another punch towards Andrew's punch, clashing and directly overpowering Andrew to the ground. Andrew, knowing that he lost in the strength part, began manifesting his weapons to fight Adrian instead.

Andrew got up and drew his weapon, which was a dark bow with no string and a white silver dagger. Making Adrian surprised at how strong he is when he was obviously supposed to be focused on speed, dexterity, and magic related attributes because of the weapons he used.

Adrian pulled out his two sword clones and immediately launched towards Andrew, doing a cross slash, forcing Andrew to dodge. Adrian had to also dodge the arrow that was fired at him whilst Andrew shot midair. Adrian didn't want him to use his bow so he tried closing the distance between the two of them by constantly rushing him. Finally starting to run out of stamina, Andrew staggered and Adrian then took the chance he got with Andrew and instantly slashed off his armor and drawing a red line on his chest, ending the match with Andrew on the ground, panting and smiling.

The 2 rounds both lasted a minute, but for Andrew, it felt like several dozen minutes, so he had a lot of fun. The worst part about his defeat was that in terms of technique Adrian didn't even have a month of experience on it, making it hard not to rely on pure stats to win the fight. Although it was quick, Adrian got to experience some else's technique, making it easier to comprehend his own style and its advantages and weaknesses.

Alice was in the corner, replaying the entire fight in her head, trying to comprehend the moves Andrew did and counter them. Adrian however, just walked back to his seat, so Alice stood up and went to the arena for her test. By the time Alice had arrived at the arena, Andrew had a smile plastered on his face, still wanting to fight her, knowing that she was weaker than her partner.

"Ready, Alice?" Andrew said as he raised his dagger, but no bow this time.

"I'm ready, Mr. Andrew." Alice replied seriously.

Alice used a shortsword for this test, making her even lighter and faster than before. Andrew found out that from her movements, she was much more skilled and experienced than Adrian, too bad she was more than a dozen times weaker than Adrian though. This time, Andrew was able to hold back and stall the fight into a stalemate while also trying to get Alice into the battle rhythm and slowly increasing his power output as she was getting more and more experienced to hold him off.

Because this time people were actually able to see the moves made, they got riled up seeing the intense fight between their head and the mysterious girl Alice. Adrian however, was attentively watching this match, wanting to absorb more information about battle techniques, stances, reactions, and other parts to understand what to do when a certain situation comes up.

Alice was clashing hard with Andrew, who was holding back quite a bit, so they had a long battle. Although it looked like Alice was winning from how aggressive she was, she was also losing much more energy than Andrew, slowly making it easier and easier to win the fight as time went on after the 30 minutes mark.

Knowing that she was losing, Alice began using her magic powers, then so did Andrew, beating her in a fight, though not too badly. Alice was panting as she fell on the ground, but before she could, Adrian stopped her from headbutting the platform. He carried her on his back, using his tail, so Alice quickly felt drowsy and fell asleep on his tail.

As he placed her back in her room, he came out and talked to Andrew for a little bit about a few matters.

"Mr. Andrew...is it possible if you could recommend any schools to go learn from?" Adrian asked politely.

"Hmmm...well for the both of you that both use magic swordsmanship. I would recommend Orutorth Academy, but the requirements are quite harsh though, trying to get into it…" Andrew said with his eyes closed.

"Ah! One more question, what was this test for again, since I don't remember completing 50 quests for a promotion quest." Adrian asked Andrew.

"Well. I've been given permission from the senior guild masters to promote you two personally as long as you reach my standards. You two definitely went beyond them, so...here you go." Andrew said as he gave a D rank Slate to Adrian and an E rank slate for Alice.

"Wait...why do I get a D rank? I only went on gathering and elimination missions, not any of the other ones." Adrian said, looking confused about his new rank.

"Hahahahaha! Don't worry Adi...you'll learn them sooner or later anyway." Andrew said, giving Adrian a thumbs up and a smile.

"Thanks for your belief in me...but please don't call me Adi." Adrian said, his eyes closing lazily.

"Nope! I'm going to call you Adi from now on! I'll leave you to do your own things now, bye!" Andrew said walking away to the stairs.

'Now it's gonna be more troublesome to keep ourselves hidden.' Adrian complained.

After a few hours, Alice woke up on her bed...hugging something soft and fuzzy. Then she realized it looked somewhat familiar and kept hugging the tail, but woke up knowing that she passed out during the test.

She saw Adrian smiling at her, happy to see she was fine and awake. He then took out some food and drinks and placed it on the table beside her so she could eat. After making sure she was fine and telling her about the test being a rank up test, Adrian left.

In his room, Adrian continues replaying the tests Andrew prepared for them. He started also trying to shape his killing intent, read more about the more complex part of the universal languages before a few system notifications popped up.

______________________________________________

[Dual Wielding Mastery Has Leveled Up x2!

[Language Leveled Up!

[Killing Intent Evolved Into Magic Pressure!

[More Evolution Paths Opened Up!

______________________________________________

'Hmmm...this is a surprise. Last minute upgrades I guess.' Adrian said looking at the last message.

Adrian said, continuing to cultivate in his room until morning, getting his usual [+10 All Stats, +50,000 Exp] message.

Seeing this, he opens his eyes as it was morning again. Because he got used to his new body quite quickly, he no longer gained any attribute points, so he only did some light stretches and walked out, knocking on Alice's door to see if she was still there.

Alice walks out and they walk to the receptionist to confirm their new ranks and walk to the quest board. They were able to go to the second quest board now since the duo were at least E rank adventurers. As they looked around, they saw a quest that caught both their attention.

There was an elimination quest about monsters with magic cores, which mostly caught Adrian's attention, but Alice knew what he was thinking and elbowed him.

"Ow...what was that for!?" Adrian complained

"You're much stronger than me, that didn't hurt…" Alice said, raising her eyebrow at Adrian.

"Alright fine, we can ask for more information first before seeing if we accept or decline...the...quest…" Adrian reluctantly said.

"Good boy." Alice said, patting his head and tail.

"Hmph!" Adrian was embarrassed having Alice mofu mofu him in front of everyone in the guildhall.

Tell asked around for people that have already tried the quest and failed, and some other receptionists in the guild and got some decent information about some of the monsters around the area, the surrounding environments, and such. Getting enough information, Alice agreed to take the quest, making Adrian jump up in joy like a little child before dragging her to where their quest was assigned.

Chapter 15 End