“So you’re the [Dragonkin] I’ve been hearing about,” the tester said, Roge barely paying attention as he looked up at the creature. He always had a bit of trouble with the tall races, being not used to seeing people over seven feet. This lady looked like a large hippo, though her outfit made her look professional somehow, with it being a nice black suit. The only part that didn’t exactly match was her boots, which looked more like work boots than anything.

  “Mr. Youngston?”

  “Oh! Sorry…” he said contritely, feeling his scales heat up as he refocused. “I just… still not used to the height differences…”

  “Right,” she said as she looked over a book she’d placed on the table she was interviewing him at. “Lost your memories a few weeks back. Honestly, if you weren’t going to sign up with Sean’s group, we’d have said no right away.”

  “That makes sense,” he replied, earning a surprised look from her. “I have no common sense. So I’d be in danger every time I go out.”

  The tester gave him an assessing look at that, glancing over to Harold who was writing down Roge’s current character sheet. “Well. Very sensible. My name’s Leta Ponce, and I’ll be your tester. First order of business is food. I see here your intelligence is high for your level, but your strength is lacking. This would mean that, while you can carry a bigger variety of things, your inventory still fills up rather quickly. Do you have any other powers that can assist with that?”

  “Of course,” Roge replied, grabbing the apples and oranges he’d harvested earlier that day. “I have a farm that is tied to my inventory. I only currently have these two fruits, but if I get more, my party won’t go hungry at least.”

  After a confirming nod from the priest, Leta nodded and wrote the response down. “Very useful. While we’re on the topic, what kinds of materials does your farm produce right now?”

  “Mostly crafting materials. I have the basic alchemical bomb plants in there, and the other plants I’ve used to make magic items.” He pulled out one of each of the bombs he had in stock, watching the league tester look each of them over.

  The interview went on for a good bit there, Roge displaying his fog breath and tarot cards to show that he could assist with making water. Shelter was no issue, as the card and his ability to summon his trees from his hoard was good enough for it. Leta even noted that his large inventory size could also be used for tents, reminding him to not solely rely on the magic items for things.

  “Now that the basics are out of the way, we move on to lockpicking and other mundane treasure finding tasks.” Leta pulled a rather ornate looking chest out of her inventory, placing it on the desk and giving Roge a smile. “I know not a lot of people have learned the skill-“

  “Done!” Roge cheered, the lid of the box smoothly lifting open. He had to explain his [Spacial Magic] at that, and how he could use it to move objects. Over the past week, he’d even found out that he could faintly feel whatever he was manipulating, so the latch on the inside of the box was easy to find and manipulate.

  That was when Leta looked directly at the written out portions Harold had for Roge’s [Status], her face showing surprise briefly before becoming professional after she was done. “So from your [Artificer] class, I assume you’ve made useful magic items?”

  Roge quickly laid out all of his wands, even including the lighter he and Hops had made to show their synergy. After a while of looking them over, Leta asked if he had anything stronger, which was when he showed off his bonded wand.

  “I can make the effect go up to rank eight,” he commented, showing off the painting portion of the wand. He then showed all of the recipes he had, mainly to show the healing and cure potions he could make that his party members could use without [Mana Manipulation].

  Next was scouting, which Roge didn’t really have anything for. He showed off his grappling vines to show he could easily get to high places, “but I feel like a scout needs movement and sneaking techniques, which are not my forte.”

  “No one is good at everything, Roge, you’re doing fine,” Leta replied, picking up the boost, healing, and blight wands. “And I see here that you have the next two categories down of healing and buffing/debuffing. Only two more to go.” For some reason she shook her head in exasperation at that, confusing the dragon. “Follow me,” she ordered, standing up and leading Roge out the side door, where a training yard was available.

  Roge immediately pulled out his wand at the figure standing in the yard, the reddish-brown hobgoblin still looking like he wanted to punch Roge in the face. “Why…?” he asked, remembering the comment the adventurer had made on his first trip to the league.

  “Oh, Quinn volunteered for the physical part of the test,” Leta stated, earning her a frown from the dragon.

  “I’m not sure-“

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Quinn growled out striding forward as Leta moved off to the side. As soon as she was out of range, the hobgoblin rushed forward with incredible speed, Roge’s habitual actions being the only thing that saved him from failing immediately.

  As he’d done with Sean dozens of times, he pushed slightly on his opponent with his [Spacial Magic], not only slowing him down but also pushing the dragon back a few steps. They’d tested, and found out that if he couldn’t outright stop an attack, he could at least transfer some of the momentum to himself. In practice, it looked more like Quinn hit a wall connected to Roge and pushed the dragon back with it. It gave Roge just enough time to get into his fighting stance, holding his wand back to make sure it wasn’t a target for weapons.

  The first punch whiffed entirely as Roge transported as far as he could, which was two meters behind the hobgoblin. Due to his momentum, Quinn continued to move forwards, utterly confused as to where Roge went.

  ‘Well, since this is the defense/offense hybrid test, let’s test some things out.’ He swapped the [Inscribe] ability in his wand for [Frost Fire], even using almost all of his [Flame] and [Icing] coins to make it as strong as possible. This made it easy to get one point of mana in about a second, Roge spitting the rather large ball of freezing fire at his opponent. Not even waiting to see it hit, as it quickly left his manipulation range, Roge took a few steps back, pushing himself against the ground with his telekinesis.

  Looking back up, though, he could see that he’d not done as much damage as the thought, a bit of frost showing on Quinn’s armor. Dashing forward, the hobgoblin got another face full of magic before Roge once again teleported, this time to the side as Quinn whipped to look directly behind him.

  “Over here!” Roge cried, having used the second or two Quinn looked around to charge up a two mana frost fire ball. His taunt wasn’t actually a rookie mistake, as Quinn was still in his manipulation range. The ball hit him right in the face as the hobgoblin turned towards the dragon, causing the adventurer to scream out as his face froze over.

  Expecting the fight to be over by that point, Roge was surprised when Quinn dashed right at him, hitting Roge directly in the stomach with a hard hit. The dragon felt something tearing in his stomach, even as he tried to teleport out. Surprisingly, it still worked during the attack, either that or Quinn was about to attack again. Either way, Roge crashed hard into a nearby wall, coughing up blood as he heard the stone crack. He only had a moment to transfer his wand over to healing, noting it was laying on the ground nearby, before Quinn came in again, forcing the dragon to teleport.

  Falling to the ground back where his enemy had punched him, Rob grabbed his wand with his telekinesis, teleporting away once more as he healed himself. Doing two bits of magic was hard, but he pulled it off as he ‘dodged’ two more attacks as his body healed up. Once it didn’t feel like he’d fall to the ground, he swapped to his flaming spark wand, blasting out a hit of the hot electricity with no modifiers. This made the hit on Quinn very painful, the hobgoblin jerking as the electricity stunned him.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Roge had intentionally used his healing buff to lower the pain of his frost fire, wanting Quinn to not realize how much he was being cooled down. Now with the sudden temperature jump and the stunning effect of the electricity, Roge could have kept going until he died if he wanted. After a few seconds, he let Quinn flop to the ground, keeping the adventurer alive for the most part. He’d proven his point, and if he killed Quinn, Roge would have been in trouble rather than passing his test.

  “That’s… how did…” Leta mumbled, watching Roge as he healed himself back up to full. “Was that your dodging skill?”

  “Yeah, it uses up a lot of mana,” Roge commented, moving over to start healing his opponent. “Ten for each one until I can go further than ten meters. Then it’s one mana per meter.”

  “That’s insane. I’ve never seen anyone with a skill that just… instantly moves them somewhere else.”

  “Told you he was special,” Harold murmured, holding out his book for Lena to see. “The skill is only at rank three by the way.”

  “Rank five now,” Roge grumbled, looking over his gains with a shocked face.

  “I gained seven skill ranks, one ability rank, and one level…” Roge muttered, earning a shocked look from Leta and a concerned one from Harold.

  “Which means he was trying to kill you,” the priest stated, looking over and giving the still unconscious hobgoblin a dark look. “Training doesn’t give those numbers, especially a two rank increase to a skill.”

  “I… I get that much from just defeating a foe who’s trying to kill me?” Roge asked, dumbly looking at his popups again before dismissing them. “What do I get for killing someone?”

  “The same actually,” Leta said, taking a deep breath and letting her professionalism come back.

  “That’s good to know. Incapacitating is better than killing,” Roge commented, feeling tempted to look over his gains, but wanting to do it elsewhere as Quinn started waking up.

  ~~~

  The finalizing of Roge’s test had to wait over an hour, as Quinn had been questioned about what he was thinking during the test. As a very scary man in a black cloak asked the high-looking hobgoblin questions, Roge tried to ignore them and look over his upgrades, feeling a grin come to his face at them.

  Roge grinned at the upgrades he received with his rank ups, immediately pulling out his wand and saving the rank eight healing ability to its slot. Now, instead of concentrating on what he wanted within his hoard, it was massively easier to swap to the healing wand. Just a hint that he wanted healing, and it just naturally swapped over. He obviously couldn’t test out any of the other effects, but he was still happy nonetheless. He hadn’t even known that if mana went back into his range, he couldn’t control it. Now it was a non-issue for him.

  “You okay Roge?” Harold asked, the dragon looking at the drow with a huge smile on his face.

  “Got three skills to the next threshold.” Roge showed the screens so the priest could write all of them down, taking a deep breath as the magic settled inside of him. “I’m just glad he wasn’t very skilled. Going after me like that over and over just let me continue to heal.”

  “His lowest level is six Roge,” Leta interjected, causing the dragon to look up in surprise. “His max is nine, though we may not let him go out on missions to teach him a lesson after that.”

  “But… did I just especially counter him?”

  “You counter a lot of things,” Harold said, looking up from his book with a small grin on his face. “Being able to dodge that many times, and that far away, makes your ranged style so much better for you. The only time it wouldn’t work well is if you’re fighting a group, but even then, you’d still be able to get high ground if you have some around. The only weakness you have is either someone faster than you, can outlast your mana, or group around you where you can’t teleport up.”

  “And those scenarios are why you have your team.” Leta gave him a grin at that, the hippo woman counting out on her fingers. “Marge can handle the agile foes. Sean can keep groups off of you, and Hops can assist with attacks to help you last longer.”

  “I’m… not the strongest person in my party,” Roge mumbled, earning him a chuckle from both people.

  “No. But you specialize where it’s important and generalize everywhere else,” Harold stated, putting a hand on Roge’s shoulder. “I’m really excited to see how well you do in a few years. You’re going to be a monster. In a good sense.”

  They both left him alone at that, Roge thankful that they seemed to notice that he was a bit overwhelmed. He needed time, especially since he was going to be getting his test results soon. He wasn’t expecting to pass with flying colors, but he wanted to see where he could improve.