Feeling the warmth of the sun enter her room through her window, Rin awoke with a satisfied yawn.

Being quite tired from the day before, she seemed to have slept past noon.

‘Hmm, what to do today?' she thought and jumped out of the bed.

Walking over to the windowsill, she opened the windows and sighed when the cool breeze hit her face. The sun was in full view as not a single cloud was in sight.

Her view of the city from the 49th floor was astonishing. Just looking at the clear skies filled her with excitement. Streets filled with bustling crowds and colorful stores were just waiting to be explored.

"Maybe I should explore the city," she murmured with the thought of running atop the rooftops.

But she quickly scratched the idea when her stomach suddenly grumbled. There was always the option of eating the mana cores, but after eating them for almost a week. It was starting to get gross.

Quickly making the bed, she grabbed her keys and left the room, locking the door behind her.

Rin made sure to remember her room number and made her way to the elevator.

Inside the elevator, she was met with the woman who had healed her arm just the day before. Meeting the healer's eyes, Rin respectfully nodded while the woman smiled kindly in return.

She looked at the buttons on the wall of the elevator but didn't understand the markings written on them.

‘How do I use this...’ Rin thought.

Noticing that Rin was having a little bit of trouble, the healer walked next to her and pressed a button on the panel.

Just a half minute later, the elevator arrived at the ground floor and the doors opened to reveal a crowded main hall.

Walking out of the elevator, the healer motioned for Rin to follow her and led the girl to a lounging area.

Rin sat down and simply stared at random people in the hall as the healer pulled out an orb. It was the same orb that she had seen in the level 64 swordsman's hands.

The brown-haired woman spoke a couple of words into the orb before another woman walked up to the pair a couple minutes later.

‘Oh, it's her again,’ Rin thought, glancing at the elven ranger.

The ranger and the healer exchanged quick greetings before the ranger turned to Rin with a smile.

Leaving the two alone, the healer walked away into the crowd. Sitting down next to Rin, the elf opened her mouth to speak.

“Merial,” the elf said, pointing towards herself.

The ranger then pointed towards Rin, gesturing for her to speak.

“Rin,” she replied with her name.

Rin heard the ranger say her name a couple of times before the elf smiled once again.

The elf continued to exchange words with the girl before she reached forward, aiming for Rin's hand.

Rin’s instincts immediately kicked in, she drew the short-sword and jumped backwards.

Getting into a battle-ready stance, her gaze turned icy as the area around her started to decrease in temperature. Frost started to spread towards the elf from the white-haired girl’s feet.

If one were to look downwards, they would see the girl's ice slowly wrapping itself around the elf's ankles.

Hearing the commotion, the guild’s employees rushed to the two and separated the two.

Merial looked towards Rin with an apologetic look, but Rin only scowled in response.

'What's her problem...' Rin thought.

The elf definitely had good intentions and was in the process of helping her learn the language. But Rin didn't have the slightest clue on why the elf tried to grab her.

While Rin was forcefully being sat down in a chair, the elf was conversing with one of the guild’s employees.

Slightly irritated, Rin watched them talk, soaking in their speech before an employee tapped her on the shoulder.

Looking behind her, Rin heard the employee say a couple of words. But when she didn't respond, the employee pulled out a metal card and pointed at it.

'Must be the I.D. card.' she thought and shook her head.

The employee frowned before looking over to the other employee who was currently finishing up his conversation with the ranger.

The first one said a couple of words and held the card up into the air.

Soon, Rin found herself in an elevator with the elf and the two employees. She didn't know what was going on, but they didn't seem to have any bad intentions.

Rin watched as the employee pressed a button on the elevator, but this time, the elevator began moving underground.

She could feel the elf's apologetic gaze on her but didn't bother to spare her a glance. First, she needed answers on why the elf had decided to lunge at her in the first place.

As a dinging noise ran through the air, the elevator doors opened. Stepping out of the elevator, Rin found herself in a massive space. The room was filled with the sounds of combat as spells and attacks were being thrown around.

Weapons and equipment were hung up on racks next to the walls while the ceiling was about thirty meters above them. Covered in bright luminescent crystals that brought light to the area.

However, Rin didn’t get much time to examine the area before she was led towards an office section of the room.

 

****

 

Jamie sat at his desk sighing, looking at the large number of documents on his desk.

“Why’d I choose this job...” he muttered.

He filtered through the files, mindlessly sorting through them as he reminisced about the past. Jamie had quit being an adventurer after an incident and had become a combat instructor.

His job would be to train new adventurers and test them to see if they were fit to go out into the outside world. Normally, he enjoyed the job but the new adventurers who he had tested today lacked in every way possible. They were young, and most notably naïve.

He looked back to just an hour earlier. There was this one teenage boy, a fire mage who had stuck in his mind.

Jamie remembered how the boy had walked in, all confident without assessing anything about the environment or his opponent. And the moment the test had begun, the boy had spent all of his mana in a single frontal attack that Jamie easily dodged. Ending the spar right there and then.

Rubbing his temples, he did his best to ignore his thoughts and focus on his work.

Knock... Knock...

Hearing a knock at the door, Jamie put down his pen and walked to the door to see who it was.

“Who is it?” he called out.

“It’s me, Barnes. Some kid doesn’t have her card and we need you to test her out,” came a voice from behind the door.

Hearing their words, Jamie groaned and looked back to his desk filled with papers. He already had so much work on his hands, and he didn’t want to deal with another inexperienced adventurer wannabe.

Quickly running over to his desk, he grabbed his files and began to place them in their respective locations before he heard another series of impatient knocks at the door.

“Give me a minute, I'll be right out!” Jamie shouted, starting to grow a little frustrated.

Finishing up, he wore a scowl on his face as he headed towards the door.

“What kind of punk are they going to send me now...” he muttered.

Upon opening the door to his office, he saw a group of four people, each with a different expression on their face.

There was Barnes who he had heard knocking at the door earlier along with another employee from the guild. A white-haired girl he had never seen before that looked to be bored. And finally, a certain blond elven ranger that he was quite familiar with.

“Jamie! Where have you been!” the ranger jumped forward and pulled the man into a hug.

The man was taken aback, but he was quite happy to see the elf.

“It’s been a while Merial,” Jamie chuckled and wrapped his arms around the elf, patting her on the back.

“It has. But what are you doing here?” Merial asked.

“What am I doing here?” he echoed, turning back to look into his office, “Well this... this is my job now.”

“Huh... I can’t believe you out of all the people would quit for a job,” she muttered, pulling back from his embrace and looking at him straight in the eye, “Really?”

Jamie sighed in agreement, “Really. But enough about me, what are YOU doing here?”

“Me well...” Merial averted her gaze, “I may have gotten into a bit of trouble.”

Jamie chuckled at her words. “What happened this time?”

“Nothing too much, but I just have to watch over her for today,” she replied, turning to the white-haired girl who looked at them with a frown.

[Mage – lvl 20]

“So that’s the brat I’m testing today,” he murmured, looking at the girl.

Hearing his words, the elf crossed her arms and glared at the man, “She’s not a brat and she’s actually pretty strong.”

Looking back at the girl, he couldn’t understand why Merial had called her strong as he didn’t feel any threatening pressure.

“Alright, let’s make it quick...” Jamie sighed, wanting to get it over with quickly to finish the rest of his work.

Jamie led the girl towards a square in the sparring area which was around 100x100 in size as the two employees left the group alone.

The girl stood around fifteen meters away from him and stared him down without any trace of fear in her eyes.

‘Interesting,’ Jamie thought. But he wasn't convinced with just that, he would have to see her capabilities for himself.

Looking over to Merial, he gave her a thumbs up as she started to count down.

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

“Go!” Merial shouted as she watched anxiously.

On her command, the white-haired girl’s aura exploded outwards as the floor started to freeze over with ice towards Jamie.

He responded by activating a skill that caused his body to glow with a faint red light, enhancing his physical prowess.

Tracing his eyes over the ice, he jumped back when the ice almost reached him, surprised at the speed.

The girl, however, did not stop there. Just a few seconds later, she sent lances and daggers flying towards Jamie who dodged the projectiles in turn.

However, he soon felt a sudden sense of danger above himself. Quickly flicking his gaze upwards, he saw a massive spear hurtling down towards his head. Immediately, he pulled out a pole made from a blue metal and smashed the ice spear to pieces.

Facing the girl, a small smile appeared on his face. The embers of a fiery passion were rekindling within him.

 

****

 

Rin frowned when she saw the brown-haired man shatter her attack to splinters with his pole. She didn’t expect the attack hit, but she didn’t think that it wouldn’t do anything at all.

What she had wanted to achieve was at least to create an opening for another attack.

The man was fast, and her ranged attacks weren’t doing much. But she still wanted to test the waters just to see if the man had anything else up his sleeve.

She continued to send her projectiles towards the man at a pace where her mana was constantly topped off. But he blew apart her ice with ease, spinning his pole around defensively.

[Fighter – lvl 40]

The difference in levels may be huge but Rin didn’t want to go down without a fight.

Rin took a step forward, spreading her ice further out towards the man who stomped on the ground, causing the ice on the floor to shatter.

What he didn’t seem to see was the dagger flying directly at the back of his head. But at the very last second, he tilted his head to the side and flashed a grin as the projectile flew past him.

“Not bad,” Rin smiled. The fight was just getting fun, and maybe she would be able to use her new sword in this battle.

Wasting no time, the man sprinted towards Rin and swung his pole in a wide horizontal arc.

Her eyes were barely able to follow the trajectory of the pole as she jumped backwards, sending a dagger towards his face in the process.

The man ducked under her attack and sweeped his pole towards her legs.

Rin retaliated by jumping up and roundhouse kicked at his face causing him to bend backwards.

While the man was leaned back, her ice was spreading to his legs. Slowly freezing them before he simply shrugged the ice off. Her stats obviously inferior to the level 40 fighter.

Jumping forward, he swung his pole at the girl who was still falling from the air.

Rin widened her eyes before a loud clang rang out in the training hall. At the last moment she had unsheathed the Fang of Boreas, bringing it up to parry the pole as she was sent flying backwards.

Twisting her body, she landed on her feet and readied her blade as the man raised a single brow.

Rin infused her mana into the sword as the blade lit up with a blue sheen. While the air around the blade crackled as the cold clashed with the oxygen in the air.

Grinning, she lifted her sword above her head and created seven intermediate magic circles above her. Swinging her arm down, the magic circles launched seven lances towards the man.

The test instructor narrowed his eyes before he charged forward, making his goal to meet Rin’s attack and send her flying.

He smashed apart her ice with his pole and dodged in a zig zag pattern avoiding the ice that flew over his body as he ran towards Rin.

Rin watched as the man quickly approached her and instead of dodging, she met his swing with her sword.

As the force behind his pole was far greater than what she was able to produce. Rin angled her blade downwards, driving the force of the pole away from her and into the ground.

Strengthening his grip on the pole, the man swung around and aimed at her head with a kick.

She tilted her head back to avoid his kick, but the man had not let down the pressure.

With the momentum from the kick, he picked up his pole and spun around, aiming at her neck with the weapon.

Rin was forced to handspring backwards, but the man didn't stop his relent.

He ran at her with his pole and the two started to trade blows. But with every attack Rin was pushed backwards while the man’s attacks were only growing stronger.

Feeling her arms start to grow numb, she knew that she didn’t have much time left.

Rin continued to trade blows with the man until she was backed against the wall of the room. At this point, the glow around the man’s body was almost blinding. But she was still able to sense his attack.

It was coming from straight above and would definitely smash her skull to pieces.

Time seemed to slow as she stared at the man’s face. He had a bloodthirsty grin on his face, but it wavered when he realized what he was about to do.

Rin faced the pole that was quickly oncoming towards her head and steeled her mind. The moment she felt the cool touch of the pole touch her forehead. She activated her Frost-Blink skill and teleported behind the man’s head.

*BOOM!!

The pole smashed into the ground causing dust to rise into the air. While Rin held her blade against the man’s neck, drawing blood that quickly froze due to the effect of her sword.

Hearing the clatter of the pole dropping to the floor, Rin recognized that the man had conceded defeat and stored her blade back into her inventory.

She stared at the man with an unsure expression, she knew that if he had known about her blink skill, she most likely would’ve died.

“Phew,” she sighed, still feeling the touch of the pole on her forehead.