Tarrus took a sharp breath in. It was as he feared. This woman, like most, was blind to the years of his soul, and the experience he had accumulated. He let his breath out, measured and controlled. This was within expectations. He could handle this. He drew himself up, even further, aligning his spine, lifting his chin, and elevating, ever so slightly, onto the tips of his toes. Purely for the intimidation factor of added height, mind, not because he needed more height, that would be absurd, he was the single most powerful and influential being in the world, he had all possible confidence in himself. He looked up, making eye contact. “Madam, I can understand your confusion, truly I can, but alas, I must beseech you to see beyond the physical. I possess within me a knowledge and experience of Abyssal creatures unparalleled by any being in existence. Should the Guild make itself of use to me, the benefits you will reap are beyond comprehension. I have years beyond mortal knowledge etched into the grain of my soul, and I can show my use.”
Silence followed this proclamation. Surely, the mortals were stunned by the revelation.
“Kid, like I said, we don’t let children join the guild, not without parental oversight.”
Not stunned then. Damnation.
The man stepped forward, clearing his throat. Tarrus knew what was next. This outcome had been a possibility from the start. He was prepared for what was next. However, he did not want it to come to this, of all things. He closed his eyes in resignation, bowing his head.
“We’re his parents! Tarry here was hopeful that you folks’d let him in on his own, but we figured it would be best to go with him, just in case.” The man- his father stood there beside him, hand on his shoulder, smiling at the receptionist.
The receptionist smiled back, but it was a strained smile- Tarrus narrowed his eyes, it IS a strained smile. This woman has no respect, if it weren’t for this child's body I have, she would be trembling in fear. He sighed slightly, deflating. Well, I did expect this might happen… I am a child right now…
He broke out of his thoughts as the receptionist spoke, “I see. Well, as his parents, you must have documentation signed and sealed by the record-keeping authority of the country you hail from, so- oh. You do.” She seemed somewhat nonplussed when his father produced the requested documentation, a rather plain looking form that had been enchanted to prove the identity of specific parties, and their blood relations to each other. Most commonly used by nobility to prove lineage, it was also a standard requirement for parents to be able to give their children permission to pursue dangerous careers.
She watched with growing shock as the enchanted seals on the form glowed, confirming their relations. “Huh. I didn’t think you were actually his parents. Wow. I think I need a moment to process that,” she said, almost in a daze.
His mother stepped up, frowning, “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t we be his parents?” She lightly grabbed his chin, gesturing to his face and pouting, “You don’t think we gave birth to this cutie? Is that it?”
The receptionist looked at her somewhat askance, “No, I - Hmm. I just think we, here, don’t really get many young adventurers, you know? Most new adventurers decide to start somewhere a little hmm, more accessible to beginners, right?” She hesitated a moment before leaning a bit closer, “You do know where we are, right?
The parents looked back with bright smiles and nods. “Yep! Waystation Gran, furthest settlement from the capital, nearest settlement to the ruins of Gran Rache, rated #37 out 50 honeymoon locations for adventurers!”
Tarrus could almost feel the room take a collective breath. The… room? He glanced back. Huh. Nearly all the gathered adventurers were paying attention to their exchange. Some were even trying to be subtle about it. He scoffed. Well, after all, it’s not every day that mortals like this get to witness history in the making.
The receptionist froze for a few seconds, glancing between the two parents, dazed. “Oh. Uh-huh. Yeah, you know what? Let’s just get you signed up, shall we? Let’s just do that instead.”
-=-<^>-=-
Evelyn was having a day. It wasn’t a good day, but nothing about it was particularly bad either. Just weird. And exhausting. She’d always hated working the reception desk, and that was when all she had to do was deal with people taking and finishing quests. She threw a glare at the person working the desk beside her. Kerrick, her party leader, had traded their desk work slot with another party. The bastard. Now she had to deal with this weird kid and his weird parents. She sighed. Maybe he’ll be some crazy powerful super genius and I can brag that I registered him? She glanced over at him, diligently filling out forms, his tongue sticking slightly out. Nah. The kid slid his now completed forms over. She sighed. Alright, let’s get this over with.
“So, Tarrus, legal name Tarrance,” she noted a slight blush at that. Ah, ammunition. “Parents Mark and Astrid Tabass from Scalis.” She continued scanning the document, “Mhmm, mhmm… Well, this all looks good. We don’t really need a whole lot of information for registering, to be honest, but we will need to test your capabilities to see what kind of work you will be cleared for. There will be three tests: knowledge, physical prowess, and magical aptitude. The others need a bit of set up, so we can start with the physical test.” She leaned over the desk a bit, and started scanning the overly curious crowd. Many of them quickly looked away, as if these louts are busy. Let’s make them work for the show, shall we? After a quick scan, she locked eyes with a perfect target, who realized what was going a second to late. “Hey Alfred! Come over here!”
The man she called out shifted, “Oh, uh, hey Evie, I don’t know, I think I’m busy right now?” He tried to make eye contact with his nearby friends, “Right guys? We were about to go do… That thing, right? Guys?”
One of his companions, a woman dressed in light leathers turned toward him, an expression of mock confusion on her face, “Oh, I’m sorry, have we met before? I think you have me confused with someone else, dear.”
The man stared at her for a moment in betrayal before sighing. “Yeah, okay…” he grumbled, making his way over to the desk.
-=-<^>-=-
Tarrus watched the man approach, dressed largely in leather armor with occasional metal plates augmenting some sections. Not an uncommon look for a number of the adventurers he’d seen so far, but the man also sported some of the thickest, wickedest looking metal gauntlets he’d ever seen.
Evie, the receptionist, smiled victoriously at the man. “Alfred, would you be so kind as to administer our newest recruits physical test while I set everything up for the magic and knowledge tests? Seeing as you're free right now.”
Alfred nodded, “Mhmm, yep, I can do that.” He turned to Tarrus, jerking his hand toward the door, “If you’ll follow me, we can go ahead and get this done at the training ground.”
Tarrus nodded, tempering his excitement. While he didn’t expect to perform well on the physical test, thanks to the limitations of his current form, he had a hard time containing his excitement over just what this test represented. For centuries, his soul had floated in between worlds, waiting for a suitable vessel to be reborn into. After his successful reincarnation he had had to wait thirteen years before he could even begin his grand plans, locked into a physical form that lacked all the power he had grown accustomed to, stewing over the knowledge he knew could be acted on.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
While he expected his lowest performance today would be in the physical trials, he was sure he’d make a good showing. With the mysterious inability to access his magic that he’d experienced so far, he’d trained his body from the beginning to be capable of grand feats. He grinned, glancing at Alfred. “Adventurer Alfred, I warn you now that I will hold nothing back in this exchange.”
Alfred glanced back, grunting, “Mhmm.”
-=-<^>-=-
Ten minutes later, Tarrus staggered back through the doors of the reception building, battered and bruised. Alfred wandered in behind him, with a bemused expression on his face. Tarrus’ parents rushed over. “Oh my! Are you alright Tarry? You look like you took a beating!”
“I… I may have overestimated… how much mana has… affected my body,” he said between wheezing breaths. Back in my day, there was hardly any ambient mana. I seriously overestimated how much absorbing mana from birth boosted my physique. He glanced over at Alfred, resident torturer of newbies, and how much mana a grown adventurer would have stuffed into their bodies. In a few decades I’ll be able to do things in this life that would have needed a dose of enhancement magic before. Something to look forward to, I guess.
Having finished checking him over for injuries, his parents turned to Alfred. “Well, how did he do? Our little Tarry has been training so hard to get in the guild. Did he pass?”
Alfred shifted a little uncomfortably under the hopeful gaze of the parents. “Well… That is- Uh…”
“It’s more of a comprehensive test,” Evie said, walking up from behind the desk. “We can’t really say if he passed or failed until everything is done. Besides, it’s almost impossible to fail. The guild always needs more people. If he can show he’s capable of doing work anywhere, we’ll put him to work.” She glanced down at him somewhat coldly, “Though of course, some people only consider being cleared for fighting in Domains to be ‘passing’ the exam. Is that the case with you?”
He didn’t answer. Luckily, he didn’t need to. His parents glanced at each other and smirked, “Oh, we know. We were just messing with Alfred here. Who expects a thirteen year old to beat an adult? That’s crazy!” They laughed at Alfred’s indignant expression. Luckily, they didn’t comment on Tarrus’ blushing.
Evie lightened up at that. “Hey, Alf! They’ve already figured out your place here! I think they’ll fit right in.” She ignored Alfred’s put-upon expression and continued, “I still need to set up the magic test, but you can take the knowledge test while I’m doing that. Follow me into the back room,” she said, gesturing.
As they made their way into the back, Tarrus couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement and trepidation. The magic test was a key part of his plans. These tests were conducted with precision crafted magic items, which often took the form of large, faceted gems. Very closely related in nature and form to identification crystals, they were essentially hyper-specialized versions, built to identify one thing: the natural magical potential and state of a person. General purpose identification crystals generally lacked the power to piece together information about the magical nature of things, serving more as a lens through which one could identify enchantments, and these crystals made up for that lack of power with specialization. They were a necessity for registering new adventurers, and so it had long been required that every branch of the guild had one.
And, they can reveal issues or blockages in one’s magic. He thought back to his previous life, and the greatest working of magic he’d ever done; resurrection magic. Of course, the cost of the spell was enormous, to be able to bundle up my soul and all my magic and send it off into the future, to be reborn, but I never expected my past life’s magic would be large enough to block my mana passageways in this life. That said, he chuckled dryly, I wasn’t able to test the spell much. He had plans for the next iteration, but he suspected it would be quite some time until he’d be able to use spells. He would need to repair any damage to his mana passageways first, afterall.
Fairly soon, he had been escorted to the back room, where they kept the specialized identification crystal. It was a sizable chunk of stone, easily as large as his head, twisting ever so slightly in the air. The stone was an octahedron, with 8 sides, like two pyramids welded together by their bases. It floated loosely in the air, spinning on an axis that wasn’t quite vertical, the bottom and top corners capped in a silvery, rune covered metal. It shed a faint green light out across the room from its similarly colored surface, though the light was largely drowned out by the light from the standard mana-torches.
The receptionist, Evie, turned toward him. “Ok, you go ahead and sit there,” she said, pointing at the least paper-covered desk in the room, “I already left the test there, so just go ahead and work through that and tell me when you’re done. And remember! It’s totally okay if you don’t know anything on the test. Even adventurers have trouble with some of these questions.”
Nodding, he sat at the desk and picked up the pen left for him. He’d been a bit too confident with the last test, and it wouldn’t do to underestimate the rest. Well, this one at least. The magic test was more of a formality, not that the guild knew that. He quickly scanned the front of the exam: “Examination on Comprehensive Knowledge of the Abyss; Creatures, Domains, and Strategies.” Once upon a time, he had been the only source of knowledge on the Abyss. He didn’t expect there to be much new information, but it had been a while, and the Abyss was not an entirely static realm.
Breathing in, he steeled himself. Let’s get this over with.
-=-<^>-=-
Nothing was new. Nothing. In all the time he’d been gone, there was, from what he could glean off of this test, absolutely no new information on Abyssals or the Abyss. More than that, there were creatures and regions of the Abyss that weren’t mentioned at all. Tarrus looked at the completed test in front of him, frowning. Was it possible that no one in this age had actually been in the Abyss? Or was that kind of information considered too advanced for this kind of examination? The test raised more questions in him than he answered in it.
Well, at least I redeemed myself after that last exam. That was an infuriating miscalculation on my part. He glanced over at the crystal in the room. One more to go.
“Miss Evelyn, I have finished this portion of the exam. I believe you’ll find my work to be flawless,” he said, handing her the examination.
She blinked at him. “What? Already? It hasn’t even been 30 minutes…” She began flipping through the test, “Huh, I guess you did answer everything… Well, I’ll check through your answers later,” she said, putting the test to the side and giving him a measuring glance. “For now, we can go ahead and move onto the last and, I’m sure, most exciting part of the test.” She smiled fondly, “I remember when I was just a kid, getting my magic tested. It felt like the world was about to open up with all kinds of new possibilities. Would I be one of those legendary adventurers one day, throwing around world-shaking magic with one hand while slicing down foes with a relic in the other hand? Typical kid-dreams.” She turned to him, a serious expression returning, “However it goes, just know that magic is a tool. It’s good for some specific uses, but there are almost always non-magical ways to approach any problem. Not everyone can do magic, and that’s fine.”
He scoffed. “Magic has changed the face of the world many times over. Powerful magic users can tear through the fabric of reality to create portals around the world, or even to other dimensions. I’d like to see a brute do the same through force of arms. Hah! That would be a sight,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling.
Evie looked at him with thin lips, scathingly. “I see. Well, let’s just get you tested then, shall we?”
“Yes. Let’s get this done with.” They both moved to stand on either side of the crystal, hovering above a thin, rune scripted ring of metal. The receptionist had spent some time arranging additional components around the base, calibrating the crystal for this specific use.
She gestured at a particular accessory component, a U-shaped piece with a flat bottom, tapering up into two thin rods. “Grab the handles and the crystal can measure you.”
Tarrus moved to comply, his heart beginning to beat just a little bit harder. It had been some time since he had been able to use magic, and he was looking forward to finding the blockage and removing it. He grabbed the metal handles, absently noting the cool sensation against his hands as he stared into the depths of the slowly spinning green gem.
Evie activated the device, and it began to glow stronger, mana from the crystal pulling into the enchantments pressed into the metal caps on either end of it, lighting runes in a sequence, a sequence mirrored by runes attached to the handles he was holding. As the process continued, he felt a faint pulse of mana trickle through him, sent in through the left handle, traveling through his body and exiting into the right handle. He watched, rapt, as the pulse of green energy traveled back through the runes in a reverse of the earlier sequence, dimming the runes as it went. Slowly, it returned back to the crystal it came from. In the gem, the mass of mana swirled, lazily spreading through the interior of the gem like a mist. Tarrus gazed deep into the mist, unconsciously leaning forward as he did so, his hands tightening on the handles.
The swirling mist flashed, and he gasped. The mist had been replaced by almost crystalline, geometric formations. Then he frowned. “How… do you read this? Does it form specific patterns you can reference to understand the results, or…”
“Uh, no.” She grabbed a thick crystal tablet from beside her. “We use this.” She reached up, tapping the tablet against the identification crystal, and both flared with the same light again, before dying down. This time Evie gasped. The formation in the crystal was gone, and now there was information displayed on the tablet in her hands. She was looking at this information with shock in her eyes. “I’ve never seen this before.”
Growling, his impatience boiling over, Tarrus reached out for the tablet. “Hand it here, woman! I must see!” He grabbed it, quickly flipping it to scan for the key information, looking for his magic potential, looking to see a number that would change the world, looking for- Oh.
“I didn’t think it was possible to have magic power rated in decimals!”
Tarrus Tabass Magic Potential: 0.8