Chapter 869: The Guild's new Ranking
Several minutes later, the guild Yumina got Cain's papers ready. "Sorry for the wait," She bowed down as she handed him his guild card.
"Thank you," Cain took the card from her hand and looked at it.
Cain turned around and closed his eyes, ^The gate didn't seem to be damaged. It is a day's walk from here, but I should be able to reach in a second.^ He cracked his neck and walked through the guild's tavern, heading toward the door.
"Sir Cain! Please wait," The guild receptionist approached him, "You still have the reintegration test,"
"You serious?" He stared at her with an exhausted face. The adventurers sitting around who knew him started shaking. They knew how this would end.
"I heard the guild is doing some rehiring and renewing of its staff. Are you new?" Cain knows her, but he has this feeling she wasn't here when he started. He might know her from other people's memories around here. His mind instantly confirmed that he knew her from Mary's memories.
She came back here several days ago to check on the guild, and this girl is new.
"Let's go to the training hall," She said with a stern face. She can't be letting adventurers shake her around however they like. What kind of receptionist couldn't keep them in check?
"Fine," Cain sighed as he looked toward the training ground's door. The tester is new as well. An A-rank adventurer from the western city of Ashenberg.
"Please follow me, sir Cain," She said, turning around and walking toward the door with Cain behind her.
All the adventurers of the guild that remembered him rushed in to watch the fight, "Get him! Teach that new trainer a good lesson!" One shouted with a large smile on his face.
"Whip his ass as he whipped ours!"
"Don't hold back! Make him cry,"
The receptionist gasped as all the adventurers started cheering for Cain. Even the clueless trainer that was in the training ground teaching some newbie adventurers how to use the sword looked toward them with a weird stare. "What's going on?"
"Ignore them," The receptionist sighed, "Sir Almory, this Cain Lisworth, a returning adventurer that hasn't worked in a while. Do you mind reevaluating him for me? He should be an A-rank like you,"
He looked behind her back and saw Cain, his face instantly paled. ^Hold the fuck, those muscles look decently strong, but he has a ton of mana. Is he over level 40? I'm only level 39.^ He smiled, extending his hand toward Cain.
"Welcome back, Mister Cain. I hope we can work together in the future,"
Cain shook Almory's hand with a smile, "Me too. It's rare to see someone over level 20 around here. You're by far one of the strongest people I've seen since coming here,"
"That's an honor. I was getting bored with all the adventurers here barely getting over the level 20 wall. Do you mind if we took some quests together in the future?"
"I intend on going back home tonight, but I'll be back in a few days too as I have a workaround. We can take a quest or two then," Cain replied with a smile.
"I'll be waiting then," Almory laughed, so did Cain.
Yumina stared at them, "Almory, the test."
"Yeah! I know," He gasped, "But he's clearly strong. Not being able to take quest is probably due to some family issues,"
"You can say that. I did get married recently." Cain nodded.
"See?"
"That doesn't change the rules. If he didn't do any work for a long time, we need to re-evaluate his skills to make sure we don't give a rusty A-rank a difficult A-rank quest and have him killed." She explained, "It's for his own safety and survival."
"As you heard, we need to make sure all adventuers are up to the task." Almory looked at Cain.
"It's better this way, isn't it?" Cain looked around, "This place is full of new faces, and I heard the death toll dropped a lot, and the number of completed quests being on the rise. Those new rules make sure that adventurers are well informed, equipped, and in shape for the quests," He scratched his head, "Albeit for me, it's a bit of a bother,"
"You don't want to get tested?"
"I'm confident in my strength if nothing else," Cain replied.
^Confident in your strength? Morena sighed in his head. ^You're the entire world standing in front of a fly. That man and this whole city would evaporate if you weren't actively suppressing your divine essence.^
^It won't even be a fight,^ Lilia, who swam in Cain's thoughts, giggled. ^Imagin an ant talking to a great wyrm about testing his strength. That man and receptionist don't know who they are dealing with. Testing the overgod, they should be worshipping you,^
^I'll still play by the rules,^ Cain replied to them as he faced Almory on the training ground.
"What will it be? Magic or sword martial arts?" Cain asked with a grin, and Almory laughed, "That's my question. What do you use?"
"Both!" Cain lunged forward, swinging his fist at Almory's face.
Almory gasped, but he dodged the attack at the last second, "That was fast." He smiled, spinning around with a kick toward Cain's head.
With a smile on his face, Cain blocked Almory's kick with his forearm and swung him around, "You're quite fast,"
Almory clenched his muscles, swinging a kick at Cain's face without caring about being swung around like that.
Thud! Cain caught Almory's second kick and lifted him up from both legs, "I do have enough strength to do this,"
"And I can do this," Almory pointed a finger at Cain's forehead, charging a tiny firebolt, [Firebot]
BAM! As the firebolt laughed, Cain disappeared.
"Where did you go?" Almory gasped as he saw his attack miss even though it was from less than one foot away from Cain's face.
"That was a mist step," Cain said, standing behind Almory.
"I saw no mist,"
"You don't need that in the spell, with enough knowledge, anyone can modify it," Cain replied.
"You sure about that?" Almory turned around, but this time he pulled a tiny wand from his pocket and unsheathed his sword. He could cast spells without an arcane focus, but they were extremely weakened. "Get your weapons ready,"
Cain smiled as he charged forward with a fist, "Make me pull them," He punched toward Almory, forcing him to block with the sword.
The moment Cain's fist clashed with the bald, sparks gushed out as if it was metal hitting metal. ^How hard is his skin?^
He gasped and pointed at Cain's face with the wand, [Ice Spike]
Swosh! Cain dodged the spell by ducking down and kicking Almory in the guts, sending him rolling back. "Come on, I know you can move faster," Cain laughed.
For the coming five minutes, the adventurers watched a one-sided fight with Almory each time pulling more of his abilities and skills, only for Cain to deflect them with his bare hands and taunt him to use more. As expected, in the end, Almory fell exhausted and Cain was declared the winner.
"Just what are you?" Almory gasped.
"Just another adventurer," Cain looked at the receptionist with a smile, "I'll be going now, get everything ready by nightfall," He flew away.
Several minutes later, a letter came from the guild's management informing them about Cain. While omitting anything about his divinity rumors, they had a new classification.
S-rank is the usual thing, powerful adventurers that surpassed special.
SS-rank is a new addition that the guild made for individuals who stood out among the s-ranks due to extreme power or magic. Super special. This was reserved for those naturally gifted.
And then there was another one, the SSS-rank. Super special singularity, a rank that was made to distinguish Cain Lisworth from other individuals as their power wasn't something the guild could even comprehend let alone classify.
The entire guild went up in chaos as the new ranks were revealed to them, and the receptionist almost died upon knowing that Cain could've killed her, and her relatives who live a month away north at the same time with one sneeze.
****
A bit away, Cain finally landed where the gate should be and he looked around. "We're already a fair distance in the middle of nowhere." He was currently standing in a clear patch of land in the middle of a monster-infested forest. For several kilometers around him, there was nothing but A and S-rank monsters, even the mana in the air was so dense that it jammed all communication and spying magic.
No mortal ear or eye could save anyone that got lost here.
"As expected of the gate, even though it exists in an entirely different dimension, this place definitely reeks of its power," He smiled and Morena and Lilia came out of his body, looking around.
"It's a beautiful place," Lilia said with a nod.
"Even here monsters are clearly avoiding us," Morena sighed, "They all ran away the moment they sensed us," The area around them for an entire kilometer was clear of any signs of life, except bugs.
Cain waved his hand and set a spell, "It'll take a while to locate the exact dimension the gate is in,"
"How long," Morena asked.
"No much," Lilia was the one to answer, "I say an hour at most,"