The six soon to be adventurers along with Arthur and Elijah walked through the front door to the adventurers guild. The sounds of other adventurers calling out for mages with specific abilities as they tried to form a party for either a quest or dungeon dive filled the air. As they walked veteran adventurers looked at them with frustration, as there were too many adventures as it was. Many of the younger generations were overconfident and arrogant, and took on more difficult quests than they should with larger groups than normal. This had resulted in the veterans who needed the money from these to take on even more dangerous quests to make the same money. The younger adventurers and other mages that were there were applying to become adventurers just saw them as more competition.

"So Claire, do we just go to the counter and tell them we're here to see your uncle, or are we supposed to meet him here somewhere?" Arthur asked, not liking the looks they were getting and wanting to leave as soon as possible.

"Just follow me," Claire replied as she took the lead.

She led them past all the applicants sitting on benches waiting to be called up, and straight to a hallway guarded by two armor clad men with spears. As they approached the guards moved their spears to block the hall, but Claire had already pulled out a paper and held it out to one of the guards as they arrived. The guard took the paper and studied it for a few seconds and moved his spear.

"My apologies Ms. Bladeheart, you and your party may proceed," the guard stated as he stood back at attention along with the other guard.

"Thank you," Claire replied, and continued down the hallway. She lead the group down the hallway making several turns along the way until she came to a set of frosted glass double doors. Claire knocked, but didn't wait for a response as she opened the door. "Hello Uncle," Claire announced as she walked in.

"Hello Claire," Kaspian greeted as he stood up from his desk. He walked over to Claire, with a warm smile and gave her a gentle hug before looking to the rest of the group. Even though Kaspian still looked as clean cut as normal, he was dressed much more casual, wearing a pair of black boots and pants with a green button down shirt with his sleeves rolled up. "I welcome all of you, and I'm truly excited to be sponsoring so many skilled young mages." Kaspian's eyes then landed solely on Arthur. "And it is a pleasure to see you again Arthur Leywin."

"I'm sorry sir, but I believe you have mistaken me with someone else. I fairly certain that we've never met," Arthur replied politely.

"Not as Arthur Leywin, but as the masked swordsman Note," Kaspian replied with a sense of pride.

Arthur's eyes quickly shifted to Claire who quickly shook her head.

"Claire did not reveal your identity to me," Kaspian stated as he saw Arthur's eyes shift. "It was fairly easy for me to come to that conclusion on my own after I had a piece of crucial information."

"And what was that?" Arthur asked.

"When giving me the names of everyone who would be applying to become adventurers she told me you were already one. From my investigation to learn Note's identity I had already learned that Arthur Leywin was not an adventurer. After that it was easy to put all the pieces together," Kaspian explained.

"I see. So what do you plan to do with that information?" Arthur asked as his eyes narrowed.

"Give you the opportunity to move up to AA class," Kaspian replied with a smile.

"Wait what? I don't have enough merit points for that!" Arthur replied in shock.

"As Note you didn't, but after I learned your identity I decided to call in several favors to fully understand who you were. The incidents you dealt with while a student at Xyrus Academy are being counted and the merits earned give you more than enough for the exam," Kaspian explained.

"Thank you, but there will be a lot of questions. It'll be bad enough when I show my A class card, but to have an AA card? You won't be able to get away without an explanation to any of your superiors," Arthur replied with concern.

"Those superiors already agreed to this. There are three guild leaders that can be trusted with your identity. They had actually wanted to just give you the AA rank, but I told them you would want to earn it," said Kaspian.

"Thank you, I would. I'm curious though, why are they even willing to do this for me?" Arthur asked.

"Two of those members have grandchildren that attend the Xyrus Academy, while the third his daughter is a professor there. Because of you, their families are safe, so I believe this is how they wish to show their gratitude," Kaspian answered. He then pulled his reaper off of his desk. "And I show you my gratitude by being one of the AA adventurers to administer your exam.

Everyone was shocked and felt nervous for Arthur, until they saw his face. Arthur's body shook and his lips curved into a smile, he was excited to be going up against such a powerful opponent, and knew the other adventurer was no doubt going to be on the same level as Kaspian. "Thank you, I look forward to it."

"Good, but your friends will go first. AA and S rank exams are held last, closer to noon, as the field has been known to have been severely damaged from these exams to a point that repairs are required before the next mock duel," Kaspian informed them.

Immediately following the meeting they left Kaspian's office and made their way to the arena used for the mock battles. The mock battles hadn't started yet, and the examiners were gathering. There appeared to be three conjurors and three augmenters, along with several medics and an emitter sitting on a bench. Normally only one conjuror and one augmenter were needed per day due to how short the battles usually were, but due to the group, more were made available so the examiners could remain strong for each battle.

As they started to walk to the seats the eight of them stopped and looked back to the entrance as they felt a sudden pressure coming from that direction. Walking in was a man with shoulder length brushed back blonde hair in his thirties, he was about the same height as Arthur's father, but not as muscular. He was wearing a fitted black sweater and blue pants with black boots, and on his arms were a pair of gauntlets similar to Arthur's father's. These however were of a higher quality than Rey's, this man's gauntlets were made of a polished black steel, and instead of stopping over his knuckles, the metal continued down his fingers down to his next set of knuckles.

Arthur was curious as to how powerful this man that gave off such a pressure was and decided to check his core. Surprisingly Arthur could effortlessly see this man was at the dark silver stage. The only reason Arthur could see why someone wouldn't even try to conceal their core strength was either they wanted to show it off. The man then looked up to the group, sensing someone checking his core, and locked eyes on Arthur. They finally had a clear look at the man's face, he had a long chiseled face, with three claw marks scarring the left side of his face going from his hairline down, over his eye, and down to the corner of his mouth. He had no discernable facial expression, but his eyes held a thousand yard stare that bore right into Arthur. Arthur gulped as he nodded his head to the man, who then nodded back before turning around and heading to a bench for the examiners.

"Who was that?" Curtis asked no one in particular.

"I think he's one of the examiners," Claire guessed.

"I wouldn't want to face him," Elijah replied.

"He's my other opponent," Arthur replied, a smile curving onto his face.

All eyes were now directed to Arthur with shocked expressions.

"What do you mean other opponent? I thought Claire's uncle was your opponent?" Feyrith asked.

"To move up from A to AA you need to last ten minutes against two AA ranked adventurers," Arthur replied as he continued walking to a row of seats.

"Ok that makes sense. If you can last that long against two of them then you should be on their level," Curtis commented.

"Yeah but those two have to be on the stronger end of AA class, why can't Arthur just go up against two guys in the middle?" Lilia asked with a worried tone as they sat down.

"I agree, those two are like monsters compared to normal mages," Kathyln replied.

"Actually it kind of makes sense for Arthur to go up against those two, seeing as he's pretty much a monster himself," Tess teased, earning a good laugh from the rest of the group. Even Kathyln gave a half smile, which for her might as well have been her busting out laughing.

Several minutes passed and a few more applicants entered the arena, along with a young man wearing a gray robe holding a clipboard.

"We will now begin the mock battles. First up, Lilia Helstea," the young man announced.

"Well here I go," Lilia said as she stood up. "Wish me luck."

Lilia proceeded down the stairs to the field, as the conjurer examiners appeared to be looking at a piece of paper with Lilia's information and trying to decide who would be evaluating her. By the time Lilia's feet hit the field though, the conjurers had made up their minds and two of them began walking to the benches. Arthur quickly recognized the woman Lilia would be up against as the same one that was evaluating the conjurers the day he was evaluated.

The battle quickly began with Lilia establishing her defense, which was three small tornadoes circling around her. The examiner raised an eyebrow, as even though this was a known method of defense, it was a fairly high tier spell that one wouldn't expect from a mage with a solid red core. None the less the examiner proceeded to point her staff at Lilia sending a sand storm right at her. Quickly Lilia brought her staff in, and the tornados followed suit, forming a tighter circle around her that quickly took in the dust that was intended to blind her. Once enough of the dust was sucked up Lilia pointed her staff as she spoke an incantation, and sent one of the tornados right for the examiner. She didn't move, but instead tapped her staff on the ground and a stone pillar shot out of the ground right under the tornado, dispersing it and causing the dust to fly out, hiding her from view. Not liking not being able to see her opponent, Lilia quickly sent a gust of wind to blow the dust away. With the dust now gone Lilia could see the examiner was now also gone, leaving only a hole where she once stood.

Out of everyone in her party, Lilia had the biggest advantage after school let out, because she was living with three skilled mages. Every day the four of them would spar against one another, although it was mostly to help Lilia as she was the weakest one. Tess being skilled with wind magic worked with Lilia on developing and understanding wind magic, and taught her a few spells. While Arthur and Elijah had a great deal of practical experience in combat, they worked with her to develop her own battle strategy and battle instincts. Right now Lilia was reminded of one of her spars with Elijah, where he also disappeared into a hole.

Lilia quickly crouched down as she called out a spell, and then jumped up as the wind from her spell propelled her at least twenty feet into the air. A second after Lilia left the ground the examiner emerged to see Lilia missing, and the other two tornados closing in on her. Yet again she created stone pillars to get rid of the tornados. Once she realized Lilia wasn't on the ground she looked up. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she saw Lilia descending, her staff pointed above her head with a condensed spinning circular blade of wind at the top of her staff. Lilia was sweating and breathing heavily, this was by far her most powerful attack, and the most taxing on her, and it wasn't helping matters that she was also using wind magic to stabilize herself and slow her dissent. She then swung her staff forward and launched her attack. The examiner quickly raised yet another pillar to block. The blade struck the pillar, cutting halfway through it before it dissipated. Lilia landed hard on the ground, stumbling back a few steps before regaining her footing.

Lilia was breathing heavily, sweat pouring down her face, but the match hadn't been called yet. In preparation for the next attack she began coalescing wind magic at her staff as she prepared her next spell. Lilia has pushed herself near her limits, at best she could cast one, maybe two simple wind blade spells before her mana was completely exhausted.

Lilia knew she was the weakest in her party, and she didn't want to be the one to hold them back. She had initially chosen to become a battle mage to prove herself to Arthur, so one day she could stand by his side. Her parents had wanted her to be a scholar mage, many of her fellow students told her she was no good as a battle mage, even several of her teachers told her she would be better suited as a scholar mage. But she refused to listen to them all, because at the end of the day, despite what she and Arthur felt towards one another, she wanted to be a battle mage. Now knowing that Arthur doesn't love her, Lilia now couldn't keep lying to herself and saying she was doing this to prove herself to him. No, she was doing this for herself, to prove to everyone that she could stand tall as a battle mage, that she deserved to be one.

Lilia saw her examiner step out from behind the stone pillar she had created, and examined the damage Lilia had caused to the pillar. Lilia had needed that break to catch her breath, but now it was time to continue. She was about to finish her spell when suddenly....

"Release," the examiner called out.

Lilia breathed a sigh of relief as she canceled her spell.

"Your mana pool is average, however you know several higher tier spells and show excellent control, not to mention you appear to have very good battle instincts. But you also need to know your limits. If this was a real battle you would be dead soon, your mana consumption isn't good for a long term battle. All things considered, B rank," the examiner reported.

A huge smile formed on Lilia's face as her friends cheered for her placement, something she knew she wouldn't have been able to achieve without their help. As Lilia walked back up to her friends Curtis was called up, and as they were about to pass each other she wished him luck, and he congratulated and praised Lilia for how well she did. As Curtis gave his praise he did so with a smile that caused Lilia's face to blush bright red. Lilia took her seat next to Kathyln, behind Arthur and Tess, and received a little more praise before Curtis' evaluation began. Lilia knew that she had only barely achieved B rank, but in the end all that mattered right now was that she placed, but now she would have to prove that she deserved her rank, not to her friends, but to herself.

One by one everyone in the party was evaluated and ranked, with everyone making it into B class. Although there was a dispute between the examiners when it came to Kathyln and Tess, as several of the evaluators believed they should have been placed in A class. They argued due to Kathyln being a deviant and Tess with her plant magic, as both were pretty rare and they both showed a great deal of skill. As they argued among themselves after Kathyln's match, the man Arthur was supposed to battle against along with Kaspian came to settle the dispute. He had been sitting alone on the bench reading a graphic novel, which he hid with another book in front of it, paying little attention to any of the mock battles. However once the arguing started he began to have trouble focusing on his reading. As a result he walked over as he released some of his killing intent to get there attention, then told them no one as young as her should ever be just placed in anything higher than B class. They immediately agreed, gave Kathyln her rank, and proceeded with the next match. Then when the situation happened again with Tess, all the man did was release some killing intent, and they gave the same rank to Tess.

The battles progressed, and Arthur and his group were starting to get bored. It had been over an hour since they all finished their examinations, and now other adventurers were being tested as they waited for Arthur's battle. The other examinees battles were a little entertaining at first, by either being humorous by someone acting like they had some good skills, or by someone showing some good skills and putting up a good fight.

Currently there was an evaluation with the examinee using a war hammer, not very well. The hammer was clearly far too heavy for the examinee and the examiner was effortlessly dodging every move with an annoyed expression. However something happened that finally happened that got Arthur excited, Kaspian had just walked out and was making his way to his partner. The current match ended and the examinee was ranked.

"This concludes all new adventurer ranking battles. New adventures are asked to please enter the great hall to receive your class cards. I ask that the adventurer that will be testing for AA class to please wait here for your exam," the young man with the clip board announced.

Arthur and his party remained seated as the rest of the new adventures left the arena. Several were looking over at Arthur's party as they left, wondering who it was that would be moving up in rank, but figured it had to be the owner of the world lion sitting behind them. Arthur didn't know where Kaspian got the idea that he wouldn't want an audience for his exam, but he was happy for this turn of events.