CH.630 S-rank Tests
Today we were doing something I didn’t quite expect.
For a while, I’ve been trying to get some of the adventurers’ guild’s guild masters together so that the other girls could show that they are worthy of being S-rank. But it has been a bit challenging as you need at least 5 guild masters approval for that, so I needed at least that many of them.
And they also needed people who can test the girls, which means we need S-rank adventurers. And while just one could in theory suffice, having a single person test that many people really isn’t a good idea, so ideally we needed like six to ten S-rankers. And that is as difficult as it sounds like.
Well it would be if I didn’t have hyper-sonic airships.
Sadly it still took some time to convince the necessary people to agree, but as I said, we eventually got everyone’s schedule to match. And now it was test day.
The tests would happen in the Hero’s countries colosseum, as it was a nice open space for things like that. And because Wendy was one of the judges, as well as a backup examiner if she would be needed for that.
As for who are being tested, well, out of my girls, Unika was the most interested in doing the test. She is honestly a big reason why I’ve been throwing around feelers for the possibility. And she had Einar and Eline also join her, as she wants all of the Card Beasts to be S-rank.
Alice and Lua are also both joining, because it should be quite easy for them. Wilma greed to join because she wanted to test her living weapons in real combat. And while Cailie wasn’t super onboard for the test, she still agreed to test herself, just because everyone else was.
No, Janina would not. Her scale copy would be coming with us, but she will just observe.
Naturally both Ria and Agunan are joining, and both should quite easily pass.
Lastly, all of my adventurer students are coming. I don’t think they will pass, but they should all get A-rank with the test, so that should be good. They might even get their party recognized as S-rank, even if none of them are individually S-rank. Their party name is Card Ventures, by the way.
I had sent some of the people with Card Summoner out, as they’d pick up both the guild masters, as well as the S-rankers.
The guild masters were from all over the place. Sadly Zayaan didn’t come, as he is basically a no name guild master, despite the increasing popularity of Alewatch. But we did get the GM who oversaw our A-rank exams, Hikari-chan. I mean Tera. Futerasu Hikari to be specific, but she goes by Tera. I just like the fact that elven names are Japanese sounding, even if they don’t actually speak Japanese. Some random reincarnated Japanese person must have started that.
If you don’t remember, she is the guild master of the Ruiso Capital’s guild. And along with her came an S-ranker, one whom I’ve had a match against. The cookie monster himself, Rudevik.
I personally picked the two of them up, so I got to hear some gossip from them. They didn’t have much to say, but they were able to tell me that the ex S-rank adventurer James, whom I’ve been calling the ‘drunken monster', had escaped from prison and had disappeared from the capital.
While he had been tossed into prison after the little ‘confrontation’ we had on the streets, mainly because he was still needed at the time, he kept causing more trouble after that and was eventually arrested with the help of Rudevik.
The reason they were willing to arrest James was actually the Card Beasts. They were capable of doing the jobs that would have required James or Rudevik, and were always a call away. So with them taking off some pressure from the guild, it was eventually decided that James would be imprisoned.
I really wish they would have called me. I think as I am now, I could have destroyed James with minimal effort and I would have loved to see the look on his face.
But now he had escaped prison and was on the run. I made sure all of my surveillance tech would have his image registered, so that if they spot him, they’ll alert me.
Tera even told me that she had written a letter recommending the Card Beasts be ranked up to S-rank, but as I’ve said, at least five of them are required for the rank up, thus the test today.
The trip to the Hero’s country didn’t take that long, and since I now have the pass that lets me through the barrier, I just flew the ship straight in and beamed us down to the docks. The others sadly couldn’t do that, as only I officially have the access pass, but they’ll just have to deal with having the bird-folk unit escort them down.
… what? Did you really think I wouldn't make copies of the access pass? Of course I did. Officially I didn’t, but you know how it goes.
Eventually we had all the necessary guild masters, as well as a handful of S-rank adventurers.
The guild masters were from the three capitals, as well as the home cities of some of the S-ranks who came here today. We actually had a total of seven plus one guild masters here, so more than enough. The plus one being Wendy.
As for the S-ranks, they were all people who had been with us in the Seaside Paradise dungeon during the fissure that happened there. So they’ll know some of our fighting styles and just how powerful we are.
After a quick speech by Wendy, the tests got on the way. The way they ran was quite funny. I would first pick one of ‘my people’ to fight and then Wendy would pick an opponent for them from the available S-ranks.
I decided to start with someone who is lower than level 200 just to make them lower their guard, so I asked if Wilma would be willing to go first. She was just a bit hesitant, as she really isn’t a big fighter, but agreed to start anyway.
She took four of the living weapons out of Storage, and I released their corresponding Mabuki from Tamer’s Paradise. You can’t have a living weapon in Storage, but if the Mabuki leaves the weapon, the Mabuki can go into Tamer’s Paradise and the weapon can go into Storage.
She picked her own eternal hammer, as well as the Star Chain, the Star Shield and the Star Spear. She kept her hammer in her hand while the three other weapons began to orbit around her.
For her opponent, Wendy picked the S-rank guardian from Narra Kingdom. He looked a bit intimidated by all of Wilma’s weapons, but still opposed her like he opposed the hydra in Seaside Paradise.
The fight between the two of them was a close back and forth. Wilma struggled with doing any damage to the guardian, as was to be expected, but at the same time, he really couldn’t attack Wilma either, as the Star Shield or the Star Chain would block or interrupt any attempts.
Eventually Wilma took a hold of Virgo and used the chain to bind up the guardian’s shield, using the opening to thrust Aries into his armor. The hit didn’t do all that much damage, but the match was still called as it was seen as a ‘decisive hit’. And the guild masters had seen what they needed to see. Wilma was worthy of the S-rank.
Next up from my side was Agunan. I wasn’t going to send him out yet, but Rudevik just walked into the arena and told me that he is having a rematch with the dragon.
I didn’t have anything against the idea, so I let Agunan go next.
The fight between the two of them was an absolute slugfest. Agunan was on fire while punching Rudevik and Rudevik had covered his entire body in rock and stone to protect himself from the fire.
While watching the two, Janina seemed quite interested in Rudevik and we got to talking about his skills. Janina realized that he had some sort of Strength multiplying skill, which I then theorized had something to do with cookies and the fact that he seems to ‘eat’ something in the middle of fights.
The fight between the dragon and the berserker eventually ended when the stones surrounding Rudevik got hot enough that they began to glow. He simply could not take it and surrendered.
Lua healed both of the combatants, as despite there being healers from the church present, she was much better and faster than all of them combined. She does have the Divine Lifesaver title which does make her healing magic 5 times as effective as the regular stuff, and she is over level 250.
And since Lua was already out there, she was going next. Her opponent was going to be the priest from Wendy’s party.
I honestly expected the two of them to have a fight, but it was a slaughter. Lua used Corrupted Healing on her opponent, taking him down to low HP near instantly and he surrendered. Most of the spectators were suspicious of what happened, but the priest explained that Lua used some sort of life drain on him which left him in no state to continue, so they accepted it and let him heal himself.
After that embarrassment, Wendy’s party was ready to redeem themselves, so Robin Grannar, the Sage of the party, challenged Alice. Alice naturally accepted and the two of them had their match.
And while it did last longer than Lua’s match, it was still so one sided. Alice used her unique-racial skill to take control of every spell Robin tried to use, turning them back on him. And it continued until Robin ran out of mana and had to surrender.
That led to one more match between my strongest and a member of Wendy’s party, as the archer from her party challenged Unika. … Yeah. It didn’t go well.
Stella manifested herself from Unika’s body and began relentlessly attacking the archer, while Unika gave her some covering fire with her bow. In no time at all, the archer was pinned under Stella’s paw and the two were declared the victors.
It was a big blow to the Hero’s party. Each of them had now lost a 1v1 against one of us. Well, technically my match against Wendy ended with no clear winner, but that was me when I wasn’t using my cards, and everyone knows how it would have ended if I had used them.
Next up was Cailie, just to calm things down a bit. Against her was an S-rank mage from Narra Kingdom. Cailie was afraid at first, but it turned out that the main attribute of the Narra Kingdom mage was Wind. And as a Wind Spirit, Cailie was nearly immune to Wind Magic.
So instead of a fight, it was kind of a showcase of both of their Wind Magics, which concluded with Cailie creating a new intermediate Wind Spirit which helped her defeat the mage.
For the last S-rank exams, Einar and Eline took to the field. They had asked for a two on two if possible, as they work better together. The guild masters agreed and sent out two more Narra Kingdom S-rankers, a guardian and a swordsman.
At first the fight was quite fair and it seemed like Einar and Eline might even lose, as they weren’t using their tamed or summonable monsters. But then both of them used Expanding Night to turn the arena into a dark environment where their Night based skills would be in full effect. It gave them the advantage they needed to subdue the more skilled S-rankers, and as the darkness receded, the two young cat-folk were the ones left standing.
What do you think?
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