After they exited the testing arena they went directly for the counter, and the guild master said to the girl that previously accompanied Raia and the captain to prepare a high silver badge for Raia, then she left for the bar of the guild where she could get a drink quickly and then return to work.
After Raia received her badge, she got the standard explanation from the girl about what adventurers did, how they did it and their rank.
“Adventurers are the largest armed force of the kingdom, and what is widely considered to be its military if we compare it to the times before the Monsters came.
To the world adventurers exterminate monsters at the border and inside our territory, rarely but it's not widely known, we explore dungeons, they take quests which are requests put up from the public, the nobles or even the kingdom with a reward varying from money to artefacts to even noble statuses some rare times.
There are 9 ranks of adventurers starting from the bottom there is: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Ruby, Adamantine, Orichalcum, Mithril and finally Kor, they take the names of the materials in the scale for magical conductivity.
Each of these ranks is further divided into 3 divisions: low division, normal division and high division.
For example, in your case you are now high silver, the next rank would be gold in low division or in simpler terms low gold, then would come gold then high gold and so on for every rank apart from Kor which is singular, there rankings are formed and every 5 years, a tournament is held where the rankings are updated.
The badge you have,”￡” is inscribed with a magic formula that the gods gifted us, it manages to track the progress of the quests you took and the time you have left if there is a time limit.
Also it gives you an interface like the one from the status menu.
In this case you just have to think of the word “quests” like you do for “status” when you want to see your status menu.”
Raia did just that and an interface appeared. “Now quests are to be manually accepted from a paper copy, and you can only have 4 maximum at the same time.
Would you like to accept your first quest today?”
Now the captain interceded,
“Yes please, she will take a frontline quest for the duration of 1 and a half years, and if possible 3 quests for the most popular monsters in the region she is going to be in, thanks.”
“Yes, wait a minute I am going to check if there is a region appropriate for her level that has 3 active monster quests.”
She went in the back for a few minutes, to search the archives where all the information about the frontline various guild run zones were located, when she returned she had a not so happy face.
“Well, I found what you are asking for but I wouldn't recommend it.”
“Why, I have not done adventuring work in many many years so I am not informed about the situation as it is.”
“Well first, I would like to explain how the frontline works.
The frontline is the first line of defence against the relentless tide of monsters that want to destroy anything and everything, and it is divided in various zones that are each controlled by a guild, this guilds are different from the adventurers guilds, because they are owned and controlled by either a very powerful adventurers or a noble.
Now the reason I wouldn't recommend the zone in question is the guild that is defending it.
Their name is “Bloodlust” and are guided by a very famous and infamous Kor level adventurer, a blood mage to be exact, and his way of handling things isn't liked by many.
He run things differently, instead of stationing half the forces on the wall and sending half to scout and kill monsters, he personally pick a strong monster, kills it, and attract tides of monster with its blood no one says anything because they do their job perfectly and are extremely strong, but the mortality rates for newbies that go to that front is extremely high.
There is also another problem with their methods: people often find themselves fighting stronger monsters because even the ones from the deeper regions come out.”
“Well then she'll take that, it will be good training for her. Fighting stronger opponents will teach her how to stall time or retreat effectively without leaving openings, as for dying, I see it really unlikely.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Now, could you tell me what monsters the quests are for?”
“Yes, the first one is for a Ray.
This is a fish like monster that floats in the air and has a long recurved tooth, which it uses to stab people only to then go higher and drop them from high altitudes.
The second one is the Phantom Yoru, which is a spectral eye capable of teleportation and magic rays.
It is extremely weak against antimagic.
The third and last one, is the most prominent monster in that front and is the Blood Seeker, it is an extremely small worm like creature that can scent blood from kilometers away and can mutate based on the type of blood it absorb.”
“Well than Raia, please accept the quests so that we can go home and start preparing your luggage”
Raia did and a message appeared,
You have accepted a quest, open the interface to see the details. X4.
While they went back to the castle Raia opened her quests interface.
While she went over the quests with the captain they finally arrived at the palace where, she with the help of her mother and her aunt prepared her luggage.
She would depart in a few days, and arrive at the frontline in two weeks if everything went according to plan.
She should be able to return about 4 and a half months before the start of the school year, in time for the start of the tests to determine her school and status.
The next few days passed in a blur.
All the training didn't help with her mother's peace of mind; she was still obviously worried about the whole frontline adventurer thing.
A lot of convincing, and a lot of reassuring later she finally got around the idea of her daughter going to such a dangerous place.
She still didn't like it but at least she wasn't going to hold her in a bear hug to not let her depart.
When she finally did depart, she was in a carriage with a bunch of other young adventurers, most of them were a little older than her and keeping to themselves.
But, there was one guy who was pretty suspicious, he was a practitioner of illusion magic based of the mana he was emitting but the strangest thing was that he was actively using his magic on some of the adventurers.
No one seemed to notice apart from her and that was concerning, either he was really good at hiding his traces or the others were just that bad at noticing them.
Another thing was that she was one of those kids he was trying to use his magic on, but she while making sure to hide it, she activated {Antimagic Aura} and canceled the effects.
After that she started practicing [Mana Manipulation] while keeping an eye on the guy, after a few hours of travelling the carriage stopped on the side of the road, it was time to make lunch.
Everyone had to prepare their own food, Raia did so without much trouble.
The only thing she had to ask help for was starting the fire since she didn't have fire magic but it was normal, she prepared herself food and returned to the carriage to wait for everyone to have finished.
In the meantime she continued practicing by removing as much mana as possible from a cubic meter of space and then putting in as much as possible and slowly, she was getting better.
Time to purely practice was difficult to find, but at this rate in a few years she should arrive at level 8 and learn the last two requirements to max it out.
The carriage returned on the road to continue its journey about half an hour later.
Like Mira and Olaf said, to not get caught doing mana manipulation exercises by other people her age she was exercising at the very edge of her perception radius. Radius that was obviously bigger than that of the other people in the carriage judging by the fact that none of them seemed to notice what the illusion guy was doing, and the fact that neither he noticed her magic armor.
[Mana Manipulation] has reached level 5.
“Fucking finally, it's been a year since my last level up with this skill.”
Raia said, a second later she realised she said it out loud and sheepishly she apologised.
“I'm sorry I didn't mean to say it out loud.”
She was embarrassed to say the least, but apparently no one cared enough to say anything, so she dutifully returned to practicing.
When she did she found a big surprise, tanks to the level up she was able to expel and add a lot more mana to the cubic meter of space she was working on, she felt like she was near the amount necessary to attain the 2 conditions levels.
She wasn't any closer to arrive at level 8, since she still needed the last repeated use level, and she had a hunch she probably wouldn't get it until the end of the mission at the frontline or even after that.
The day continued fine, there was nothing of relevance till evening where everyone had to plant their own tent and make their own dinner like before and apart from starting the fire Raia again did everything on her own.
The guard tasked of accompanying the children to their assigned frontline was a pretty good adventurer, as a high diamond badge he was able to pick up the smallest signs both magicals and not and a curious thing he noticed was a girl with a blind fold, she definitely was the strongest of the bunch even if her badge didn't say that.
By the way she moved, and the fact that he was able to pick up on someone training mana manipulation that stopped the exact moment she said she leveled up.
By the proficiency she had right now she was probably level 4 or 5, which was sincerely frightening at her age.
Another thing he noticed was a boy using illusion magic on some of the other kids, including the girl with the blindfold, and apart for himself and the girl, no one seemed to notice.
The girl protected herself with her {Antimagic Aura} and is now keeping an eye on the boy like himself.
“Ok kids, we will now decide a rotation for the night watch.
There are ten of you and we will sleep 8 hours, from 22 to 6:00, each one of you will take a 1 hour watch there will be 2 times where 2 people will take the same hour.
The rotation will be the same every day for the next two weeks or so, anyone want to form groups?”
A boy and a girl who seemed siblings raised their hands and said,
“We would like to form a group.”
“Good we have the first group, anyone wants to form the second?
No one, ok then you two will form the other group.”
He said pointing toward Raia and the boy with illusion magic.
“To decide who will take which turn we will draw lots, the number you get is the number of the turn you take, if for example you get 4 it's the 4th turn.
