Walking into the Mercenary Guild the first thing I see is a large group of mercenaries looking at a board that stretches along one side of the room, on the massive board are papers so densely packed on the board some even overlap each other. Every once in a while one of the mercenaries would grab a paper off the wall and go to the other side of the room that is lined with a counter with employees of the guild running back and forth from mercenary to mercenary, handling the paperwork.

  I walk up to the counter and grab the attention of one of the employees.

  “Excuse me, I need to register”

  The employee, a woman who looks to be in her early twenties wearing the guild uniform, a white shirt, green vest and simple brown pants, walks up to the counter where I am and happily starts helping me with the process.

  “Easy enough, you'll just need to fill this out and then well check your practical skills, if you cant read or write let me know and i can assist you with filling it out”

  She says as she grabs a paper from under the counter and places it next to an ink and quill on the counter.

  “I can read and write” I answer and grab the quill, dipping it into the ink

  “Good, once you fill that out meet me down on that end and well go out to the testing area in the back” she says before pointing to the end of the counter next to a door in the back of the building

  I begin filling out the application while she moves on to help other mercenaries. The application is pretty straight forward. Just asking basic questions like name, age, weapon of choice and if im joining a party or mercenary company. It only takes me a few minutes before I head over to the back counter and wait for her to finish helping a mercenary. Once she finishes she heads over to me and picks up the application.

  “All done? Perfect, lets go to the back ”

  She says as she skims through the application then motions for me to go through the door to the testing area, once we get outside i see its pretty much just a huge dirt lot in the back surrounded by walls and sectioned off into areas for different tests. She explains the practical tests' purpose is so that people with no skills don't get themselves killed.

  “Right this way, the test is split into 4 parts, strength, speed, weapon proficiency and combat proficiency. Let's start off with the strength test ”

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  I follow her over to a corner where there are five stones carved into spheres, each lined up by size with the one in the last position being more than four times the size of the first one.

  “The only thing you need to do to pass is pick up this first stone but please try to pick up as many as possible as the results affect the rank we start you off at, now if you would please”

  She says as she gestures to the first stone and I nod my head before walking up to the first stone. Since I don't want to draw too much attention to myself and expose myself as a mage to the nobles I decide to use just my physical body without any enhancement magic, besides, according to Nox the mana rotating in my body should have strengthened it at a fundamental level naturally.

  I crouch down and put my forearms under either side of the stone ball that is about a foot wide and grab the ball tightly before lifting it up so that I'm in a standing position again. I was surprised by how easy it was, I knew I'd be able to pick it up even before becoming a mage but it would have taken a lot more effort. Moving on to the second stone which was an extra half foot wider I repeated the same motions, just with a little more strain before being able to lift it into the standing position. The third stone I had some difficulty with, it was a full two and a half feet wide and by the time I managed to bring it up to the standing position my legs and arms were trembling.

  ‘Is this my limit without magic?’ I think to myself as I look over to the fourth and fifth stones, each being three and a half and four and a half feet wide respectively. I wonder if i could even pick up that last one with enhancement spells, i dispel the thought knowing i already decided not to use any enhancement. Turning toward the employee I sigh.

  “Thats my limit, I won't be able to pick up the other two”

  “Alrighty, you did better than most already anyway, I've never seen any newcomer pick up the fifth one. The speed test is next, you’ll just need to run from that line to the one on the other end of the area while I time you”

  She says as she gestures to a line on the ground against the closest wall and again to the other side of the dirt lot. It seems easy enough so I just place my foot against the wall and crouch down.

  “Ready…Set…Go!” she yells as she starts a watch she pulled out of her pocket

  As soon as she says go i kick off the back wall running forward full speed, its only about 50 meters so i clear it pretty quickly

  “Wow! Nine seconds! I think that may be a new test record!” she says and judging by her reaction i think most people do worse in this test than the strength test. I curse myself for going all out, even if I didn't use any enhancement. I laugh awkwardly and try to play it off.

  “I grew up as a hunter so speed is kind of a tool of the trade”

  “You still did very well! Anyway lets move on to the weapon test, If i remember correctly you wrote that you use a bow and knives right?”

  She asks as she gestures to the other side where there are targets lined up with bows and arrow quivers.