Kan looked at Lariel with his dark hair covering a bit of his dark blue eyes, he wore his hair down to make it easier to look at others without being noticed. Lariel was the only one besides him that managed to manipulate magic, and as far as Kan was concerned, he had stolen his thunder. Kan had always been weak, but when his parents had died in an assault on their home, he had resigned himself to grow strong so that he could protect the ones he liked.

But then came the orphanage. His parents didn't have any money stored, they were both bakers, so he needed to become better. Luckily, just before the money ran out and he was thrown to the street, he had developed the ability to perform magic. He was now under contract, and he wanted to gain as much money as possible so that he could leave this place as soon as possible.

And when he thought he would be the best due to magic, Lariel and Ivan stole his place. They were already the best due to the weapons, but then Lariel increased the distance by being able to use magic, and Ivan changed from a two-handed sword style to a one-handed-sword and shield style, also boosting his performance.

And now they were going to do the test at the guild to determine in which party they would stay. They were ten in total, and since they were beginners, they would be separated into two teams of five. Since he and Lariel were the only two mages, they would probably not be placed in the same party. And since Lariel was so good, Ivan would probably be in the same party as Kan, which was good in its own way, he could still be the most valuable party member due to his magic and earn the lion's share of the rewards. The brown-haired, brown-eyed teenager was more of a tank than an attacker that slew the enemies. He just took the brunt of the force for the others to kill.

While strolling through the city he looked around. It wasn't that big of a city. It was not the capital by any means, this city only had around ten thousand inhabitants, while the capital had over twenty times that number or even more. When the nearby dungeon appeared people started coming here and forming their business, creating a town, and then increasing the size to a small city. Now, the economy was booming due to the dungeon. It was, after all, thought to be an endless dungeon, but it would probably never be proved because the difficulty increased exponentially after the three-hundredth-floor, and the only party capable of doing that, the Knights of Herlos, were keeping the demon race at bay on the other side of the sea.

Many shops could be seen, taverns, armor and weaponsmiths, enchanters, runesmiths, auction houses, inns, and many more. The streets were made of cobblestone, clean cobblestone to be exact. There was really no poor person in this city, and there was no litter on the floor. Magic made it easier to clean it all, and the possibility of becoming rich while adventuring caused the poor to either die or accomplish their dream.

The building they were aiming for was a little bit different: the Guild. Founded long ago by a group of people seeking danger and thrills, it had since expanded into a worldwide non-political organization. Now, the Guild encouraged exploration and delving of the dungeons below. Experts in the Guild's employ worked to identify the strongest of the strong through complicated ranks and challenging missions.

Their future lay there, at the Guild. Kan had every intention of surpassing the common stop point, Gold rank and earning Diamond rank. Then Kan would stand among the best of them; the elite of the elite that put even kings on their toes.

They would probably start as Bronze rank and then improving to Steel, Silver, and maybe Gold, that's where people usually stagnated, but you could continue to Platinum, White Gold, Diamond, Emerald, Ruby, Red Diamond, Red Magic Diamond, and the last rank Enchanted Green Myrthil.

Kan just wanted to reach Diamond or Emerald in his lifetime, that's where you were truly respected and powerful.

His dream was getting closer and closer as they saw the guild building.

It was a three-story building. It was bigger than their orphanage, with a giant double wooden door at the front, and with brick roofs. Whitestone made the walls of the building, making it shine when the sun rays connect with the durable stone, and windows could be seen in its length, allowing the light to enter the building and illuminate its insides.

As they approached they saw a woman waiting there. She was dressed like an assistant. Her outfit consisted of a forest-green dress and clear glasses that rested on the bridge of her nose, giving her an intellectual look. The dress looked more like one of a maid, which was very likely also part of her job. Her hair was blonde, truly combining with her blue eyes and her long backward pointy ears to make her look striking. She was an elf.

Kan knew that from the classes they had at the orphanage. They came from a nearby kingdom and lived peacefully with nature in their homes. Seeing one here was not unusual since they were kind of close to the border.

When they finally arrived at the entrance, she gave a wide smile to the ten kids there and started speaking. To Kan, her voice sounded like a melody. Probably just an orating skill.

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"Welcome everyone to The Guild," she started. "My name is Elanor and I am one of the workers here. I also go by the title of 'Assistant Manager'. My job is to interact with the adventurers, process their selected quests, improving their ranks, or even just serving the tables."

Kan was surprised. He expected a natural welcoming, instead, he got a mechanical speech. It was very easy to notice that this was rehearsed time and time again so that the perfect tone could be achieved. Kan expected more.

"As you probably know, you are here to perform the adaptability test to join the guild. You only need to do this because you are not yet of age. If you already surpassed your sixteen birthday you would be able to join with no test made, but unfortunately, you can't yet," she continued. "I am here to guide you to the test grounds but to also tell you some little rules."

She then looked around at each individual before continuing.

"Due to the nature of the test and the possibility to cheat, your memory will be erased of any memory of said test after you perform it. This is to avoid any possibility of information about the test procedures being leaked to the outside world and enabling the option of cheating your way into The Guild."

Here she made a pause so that her words could sink into all of the kids. And they did. At least they did in Kan. He was instantly interested in the part of erasing memory, after all, it was probably magic, which he didn't have much knowledge of. He had had a couple of lessons with a mage Steel adventurer, along with Lariel and he knew only a couple of things.

"There is no need for any incantations, all you need is to be able to manipulate mana, or as we, the mages, call it, create a construct out of mana. You do that by using the Mana Manipulation skill to shape mana into a specific position with specific patterns. The more you practice, the higher the skill level, the easier it is to create mana constructs, and the quicker you can do that. By studying these constructs, you can create your own variation of spells. If you get yourself familiar with a spell, that spell can originate into a skill," the adventurer had said. Kan himself had one of those skills.

The adventurer had then proceeded to show the construct of creating a small fire above his palm. Due to his ability to see the mana, Kan managed to observe the creation of the construct, the mana gathering around and forming in the specific pattern that the mage wanted.

The mage then added another layer to that construct, which made the fire become a condensed fireball. Then another layer, and with a swift movement of his hand, the ball moved forward as a fireball. After flying for two meters it dissipated.

The adventurer mentioned that if you were the one that created the spell, to disable it, you only needed to will it. The mana construct would dissipate instantly. If you weren't the owner of the spell, you had to fight against the owner for the ownership of the spell, and then will it to disappear. Another method but extremely more difficult according to him was to just deconstruct the construct. If you were good enough with your mana manipulation ability you could just destroy the enemy spell by taking layer after layer off of it. Although if it was a skill, the layers would be harder to destroy because they were sturdier.

If the mage that created the spell was good enough he would probably create one or two protective layers around the spell, so that would just complicate things more. Apparently, Silver rank adventurers that used magic all protected their spells with some type of layer, and most already had it as a skill, or their spell already had that function imbued in the skill.

Kan had been so immersed in that show that only at the end did he noticed that Lariel was completely distracted, looking out the window. Good... he had thought at the time. I will beat you to a pulp with this. You should have focused more you idiot. With this, you will never catch me in the use of magic.

The mage then proceeded to show multiple types of constructs, ice, rock, wind. All used the same constructs to condense and to throw. At the initial demonstration Lariel had been focused, but quickly dismissed it and resumed looking outside. Kan could only think of the many ways that he would defeat him in combat.

He had been so wrong.

In the next match, Kan had thrown everything at Lariel to the point that his mental strain accumulated enough that a headache started to form. But Lariel just dissipated all spells. Every single one of them. All vanished when getting to a certain distance to him. And it wasn't the simplest method of taking control of the spell. No. He took it out layer by layer but did it so quickly that it seemed instant. In the end, Lariel threw a piece of rock that looked like a cylinder but had a sharp point of the side that would impact him. He apparently called it Rock Bullet. When Kan saw the bullet coming, he tried to contest its ownership but found a mental steel wall protecting it. He then went for the deconstruction of the layers, and the number of protective layers left him baffled. They weren't that powerful, but there were so many of them. Usually, two or three sturdy layers were enough, but no, Lariel had an absurd amount of layers.

Kan tried to take them down. Layer after layer after layer they crumbled beneath him, in the time that took the spell to finally reach Kan, he gained a new skill and leveled it up to 19. Basic Mana Deconstruction Level 19. But he wasn't fast enough, and the bullet hit him in the forehead, knocking him down. Also giving him another skill, and gaining one level in it. Basic Earth Resistance Level 2.

When he had woken up, he had only one thing in mind. How the hell Lariel had managed to fit so many layers in such a small construct. Usually, layers needed space between each other so that they didn't interfere with one another, and so, the bigger the spell and the more protection it had, the bigger the construct. But Lariel's spell was so tiny that it seemed like all the layers were so close to each other that they aligned and didn't interfere with one another. As far as Kan was concerned, he cheated with some kind of Mana Compression skill. He had then trained sooo much that his Mana Manipulation dropped the 'Basic' prefix and became his highest skill. But still, he could not rival Lariel in terms of manipulating Mana. Either Lariel was cheating, or skill levels were not all there was.

But this was not the moment to dwell in those thoughts, Kan thought. The Guild worker was urging them to come in. And so they did.

It was time to take the test.