We all walk over to the door as the knocking gets louder.

I reach forward and open it to see a low-level waiter holding the golden exit card that's on the back of the door. He looks us over for a moment before speaking.

"Ray, Emrie, Natalie, right this way. Stage 1 of the exams will now begin. I wish you the best of luck."

He slips the golden card into a small black box similar to the one I put my ID into when I first met one of the guards outside of this compound when I arrived.

It disappears inside, and he turns to the black door at the back of the hall to scan a wristband in the scanner at the door.

Unlike yesterday, when all of us tried ours, the door clicks open and a bright white room shows itself within.

We walk out into the hall, and when peering in the opposite direction, I can see the gold and silver doors wide open with countless other men and women in tuxedos greeting dozens of hunters at their doors.

Everyone is escorted to the end of the hall and through the black door into the mana-shielded white room.

It's enormous.

The room stretches out over 300 meters in every direction, and inside, there are small cubicles separated by another layer of extremely dense mana shielding.

A strong silver door with a screen displaying a number is on every cube.

The attendants escort each of us to the cube with our numbers on them.

Ember is assigned to the cube right next to mine, and Natalie's is next to his.

However, once we walk inside, and the silver door clicks shut, the outside world completely disappears from my senses.

To see through these walls, I'd need to use mana control with precision that rivals a level 1500 monster.

While it is very possible, I feel heavy surveillance auras in this room and decide it's best not to let out any suspicious mana radiation of my own if I don't have to.

A few minutes go by in the silence of the tiny white cube, as I assume all of the other applicants are brought into the room and escorted into their cubes as well.

Then, a voice echoes through the small space while a pure white table and chair come out of the floor as if they're made of liquid mana.

"Your written exam now begins. You have 3 hours to complete this test. If the timer runs out and you have not filled in all of the answers, this will be accepted as your final score. You may not leave this room until the testing is complete."

The liquid mana consolidates, then a digital screen becomes visible on the center of the table.

I walk over and have a seat and look down at the screen.

It has [02:59:51] counting down, along with all the details about the hunter's ID they have in their system.

I look down at the first question on the test, and I raise an eyebrow.

[After Expending 0.1% of your total mana control in a single training session, what is the optimal rest time and procedure that should be taken before another serious session of this intensity commences?]

There's an empty blank space beneath the question, and as soon as my eyes finish scanning the text, a thin white pen made of the same material as the chair and table materializes out from the desk.

I grab it and think to myself while I look at the [Back][Skip][Next] options beneath the text.

I try to picture what most of the applicants here possess in total mana control to visualize what kind of training I did back then.

The average strong hunter here has between 100-300 million total MCP.

So, the amount of mana being used during training wouldn't be more than 100-300k MP in a single session.

From my own experience, it feels as if the data is not very solid to compare. I have regeneration skills, a teammate with an instant fatigue curing ability that lets me train endlessly, and too many unique scenarios to count.

My mind races trying to come up with an answer here.

I'm unsure if a day is too long or too short. The same goes for a week or even a month.

I decide to skip it and come back.

[What is the maximum Level Monster a team of 5 level 500 Association Hunter's should attempt to subjugate?]

I scratch my head and think about this one too for a moment, but skip it and move on to the next one.

[What is the hierarchy of command in the Association Between the ranks of Elite to Regional Director?]

I skip again as I have no knowledge of this topic either.

[Skip]

[Skip]

[Skip]

Over and over, I skip through niche questions that want descriptive and direct answers about topics I'd really only know if I were trained classically by members of the higher-ups in the Association.

There are a few about why and how dungeon breaks form that I manage to get lucky on, along with identifying what kind of item drops fall from certain kinds of monsters. However, these questions hardly make up more than 20% of the total.

I continue to skip through the questions I have no idea about and make it to the 100th question where at the bottom of the page it reads [Finish].

Over half of the time is leftover on the counter while I spam the back button and start filling in answers to the questions I left blank.

The knowledge I have about the inner workings of the Association is very minimal. That's about 30% of the test questions. I'm able to logically deduce certain answers, but others are just niche knowledge that can't be learned.

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A solid portion of the test, over 10%, actually deals with the average cost of magical goods; I ace this section without a problem.

However, the remaining 40% is filled with questions asking about random scenarios like the average level that hunters should fight up to when in teams, or an explanation of why fire types should never challenge water or ice types of similar strength.

I can fudge answers that seem to be correct, but it all seems far too rigid, like they want me to recite an answer that a teacher has given me.

From my actual battle experience in countless fights against the odds, I've found that many of these scenarios can be flipped right on their head.

While it may be the safest way to train recruits on a massive scale, this kind of brainwashing to play it safe and not push the limits of each hunter's individual understanding of their abilities irks me quite a bit.

It's like they're making mindless rule following soldiers that all think the same.

These ideas bleed through into my answers quite a bit on some of the scenarios that are asked about.

They give the freedom to write abstract answers, so that's exactly what I give, explaining how it is very dependent on what skills each teammate has and their base stats as well.

Just because a monster may be higher level than the hunter, or even have a massive mana control advantage; sometimes the hunter has a better understanding of the landscape and can use the dungeon mass to their advantage. Other times they may have a speed or agility edge and can wear the monster out.

Many hunters create unique styles and even have high-grade gear that outclasses high-grade monsters too.

As I really get into answering these final skipped questions, I lose myself in the fun of it, and basically write [It Depends] just in a much longer thought-out way on almost half of the questions in this exam.

If an experienced hunter were to read through my answers, they really are far better explanations to these scenarios than any of the boring exact technical answers I know the screen in front of me wants me to write down.

Once I sit back and finish the final one, the timer on the top of the screen reads out [00:13:42]

I click [Finish] and let out a sigh.

"Well... either they accept these answers, or I have a lot of catching up to do on the physical exams..."

I chuckle to myself, then sit in silence as the counter falls down to 0 and the screen disappears.

There's a light dinging sound, and the chair beneath me and table before me start to dissolve and fall back into the floor while the silver door behind me clicks open, and I'm greeted by a new attendant in a black tuxedo.

"Right this way."

I walk out the door and follow him to see dozens of other applicants following their guides through the rows of white cubes.

Some look happy, others stressed, and some don't show any emotion at all.

Many look down at their wristbands, and this prompts me to do the same.

I watch the [26] on the face of it change into a [59].

My eyes scan around the room more, and I see Ember's number read [40]. When I see Natalie's band read [7], I get the feeling that a high number isn't exactly a good thing... It appears my long winded answers weren't appreciated by a machine.

We're all led to the back of the room, away from the back door we entered through.

I manage to get in line next to Ember, and he nudges me with a grin.

"Should have studied more, don't ya think?"

I roll my eyes and comment back.

"Hey, you didn't do too hot yourself."

Both of us are smiling and joking about it, while Natalie looks back at us with a confused stare.

"What's up with you two? I thought you were capable hunters!"

She even looks annoyed, like she's wasted her time and energy investing in us, but I couldn't care less if she's upset.

There's nothing I could do about it. Plus, the physical exams are where we'll shine.

Nat tries to get in another word, but one of the guides motions for her to be quiet while the door at the back of the room opens up with a click and a wave of mana-dense air comes out.

We're all led into the room, and the door closes behind us.

The ceiling is higher, the walls stretch out even further, and I can hardly believe how massive this mana-shielded room is. It's easily 5 times as large as the last one, with shielding around the walls that is higher grade than even what was salvaged from the Valor city towers.

I can feel there is a divider in the center of the room that has been artificially placed there to block off the other side. It's made of high B-Grade shielding at best, meaning they're probably going to tear it down after this exam is over. I can feel the presence of a few proctors on the other side of this wall and various kinds of magical gear that must be used for the physical exams.

It must have cost a fortune to make this place.

The guides separate us into two groups. In one group, everyone with wristbands that show 30 or below is situated. In the other, where Ember and I stand, there are 36 of us that have numbers above 30. The highest I can see is a large tank with advanced earth magic and an extreme strength skill from the Maya Region with a [66] on his wrist.

I murmur to Ember.

"See, I didn't do the worst."

There are others in the crowd that whisper to themselves, when all of the attendants that brought us here step away from us.

A single man's voice rings out above everyone else.

"Good Morning, Hunters. I hope you all had a good rest and managed to test your luck and make it this far already. There were only 10 of you that had to be sent home during the pretrials. 66 remain, and we'll hopefully all be seeing you in the final round."

The speaker steps forward, and I recognize his face.

It's that same wind user that was over level 900 with the golden collar I met at the gate of this entire fortress.

He speaks again while hovering in the air on a gust of wind and looking at all of us with the vast white empty room behind him.

"Your tests have been graded automatically by our in-house machine to get your basic results for stage 1. It has 99% accuracy, but further grading of the raw answers will be looked over by our staff to make sure nothing was missed while you continue to stage 2."

He smiles and turns his body to the low-quality mana shielding at the back of the room with a single door in it.

"Now, if you have perception sharp enough, you know that behind this wall is where the basic physical exam will take place."

He pauses while everyone listens carefully.

"I want everyone in group A, applicants numbered 1 to 30, to line up single file in front of the door. Those of you in group B, 31 and over, may stay here and talk amongst yourselves. Once group A is finished and has moved on, we'll set up the tests again for you."

His tone and even facial expression toward us in the second group is dismissive and looks like he can't be bothered to even look like he cares.

His attention shifts to the rest of group A.

All of the Apex Region's 12 recruits are in this group, even the ones that were dragged away from the counter during the pre-trials at the roulette table. In addition to the two outliers, Trax and Callum, that I can feel radiating mana control from here, there are 3 others that are over level 700 in their group that come in close second to these two.

Many from the Vice and Veridian regions are in this top 30 too. I see the two water guards from Vice City at spot 16 and 17, then the last person I recognize before they all walk away from us to the back of the room is that blond man from the Silca Region. He's managed to slip in at spot 29.

Here, back in group B, many people begin to socialize and ask each other about the questions on the test to see what they got right or wrong.

The only person I recognize is the Talton Region woman.

Everyone else doesn't stand out much to me.

However, 4 men in black robes with considerable high mana control do stand out, as I haven't seen them at all before during the game rooms even.

Two of them wear heavy hoods that make shadows over their faces while the other two just straight up wear black masks.

Their wristbands show that they're from the Phantom Region. This is the first time I've heard of or seen anyone from this place, and they sure do dress the part to match their name.

I let out a sigh and watch the line of the top 30 slowly begin to move.

It appears as though they're being tested individually, one by one. Each test takes over 10 minutes, so we're going to be here for a while.

I decide to just sit down on the mana shield floor and wait. Ember sits down next to me and does the same.

Then, an unexpected guest comes and sits next to me on the opposite side.

It's the woman from the Talton Region carrying the spear and wearing the armor I upgraded for her by hand just a few days ago, but she has no idea it was me.

She speaks up while sitting down and putting out a hand with a [65] on the wristband, and I shake it.

"My name is Marcie, by the way. Looks like they don't teach that nonsense that was on the test from wherever you're from in the Bedrock Region either."

I smirk and respond.

"Yeah, I guess not."

I look down at her watch, then continue to introduce myself and ask a question.

"I'm Ray by the way. I've never met anyone from the Talton Region before. What brings you all the way out here for the exams?"