Entrance exam

"You want to learn skills from all six classes… you understand that you would be in a different class for all 6 days of class…? And that you would need to practice not only the skills taught the day you attemd that class but also the ones from the days you miss…? With only one day of rest… its nearly impossible… and even if you break them up to different segments, choosing to master three of them at once then the next batch, even choosing to match the pairs and do two at a time, would take years… each class has 10 years of progression here as a base standard, some people manage to pick it up quickly and finish a year or two early, others take a few more years on the back end… that would be 60 years of training to accomplish… and you want to do it… you understand you will be too old by the time you are done to truely experience life…?"

"Yes… i understand where you are coming from, but i know i can do it. Ive survived on my own for the last few weeks, knowing nothing about anything and here i am."

"What do you mean few weeks… your… what… 25? What do you mean few weeks… what did you do before that?"

Her question stunned me… i was unsure how to respond… technichally i was only maybe a month old as far as this world was concerned. As far as total life experience i was indeed 25, infact my birthday wasnt too long ago either… but should i tell this strange woman im from a different reality?

"I… i don't know… i just remember waking in some random field… nearby was a dungeon where i began fighting for my life trying to find things to use to survive a little easier…"

"I see… strange… you've no memory at all of when you were a child… that means… no… never mind… ok. We shall conduct your intial test then to determine your capabilities of each class to determine your initial stage of learning. Follow me."

She turned and opened the doors to the academy. Inside was a large open floor, spanning the entire width of the towers diameter. The cieling was maybe 20 feet above us. In the center were pillars to support the weight of the tower. Around the outside if the wall were 4 staircases built out from the walls to go up to the next floor as well as down below.

The scaled lady lead kleek and i to the center of the room where there was a circular desk, 20 feet in diameter, the center of which houses a hole that lead underneath. There were half a dozen people in black robes doing paper work there, two of which were currently assisting people from a line, all of which had some sort of adventuring gear on, presumeably other people waiting to enroll in the academy. We approached one of the clerks on the side who had gold trim at his cuffs and neck.

"Master Sypherius, this is the one weve been watching. He also wishes to enroll for each class…" the once slightly noisy room wemt dead silent as everyone in the room turned to look.

Master Sypherius looked up from his paperwork and eyed me up and down. "Wheres the dragon…"

I was shocked he knew about it. Though they did say they had been watching me… wait… did they watch me even when we stopped at the river… no… probably not right…?

"Uhh… its…" i mentally glanced at my status menu watching as mine and my dragons XP slowly went up from being in a lower level dungeon nearby. I had sent it off after we departed the lake to work on combat experience because even though it had a good level and stats, that would mean nothing if it met someone at the same ability level. "Its currently outside the city gaining combat experience…"

"Summon it."

"What…? It will take a while before it can get here…"

He flipped open what seemed to me like a random packet and on it was an image of me with one phrase below the image…

System present.

"We know. Or at least the upper eschelons know about your unique ability. We know you can send the dragon to an idle plane of exsistence and bring it forth to your location even if its in another realm. Summon. Your. Dragon."

They knew i had a system… he even said it was unique… i guess that answers my curiosity as to weather other people had one or not. At least not everyone.

Doing as he said i unsommoned the dragon and saw its health begin recovering, of which it had a lot. Knowing my recovery rate when resting was about 10 HP per hour of relaxation and 20 when asleep, if the dragon shared that same rate and being unsommoned counted as sleep then that meant it had at least 5x the health i did… its health probably scaled differently than mine but sadly all i had was a simple red bar for its health, and blue for its mana… curiously it didnt have a stamina bar at all… did nothing have stamina here? Or was stamina based solely on a combination of like dexterity and strength and had no effect except from ability to do things repetitively…

I summoned the dragon and it appeared to the right of us, away from most everything. There it stood quietly waiting for a command from me.

"Good its still healthy and hasnt suffered any negative effects from not having had a propper meal." Master sypherius snapped his fingers and someone in yellow robes approached. "This is our master summoner who cares for the beastial companions of all members of the academy when they are not training and you will not have the aid of the dragon during your trials. He will feed your dragon a propper meal, a freshly slaughtered cow so that it can grow smoothly. With it being so freshly hatched and this large yet not having had a propper meal… lets just say your lucky… dragons are a hard companion to keep loyal regardless of what abilities you have as they are very… needy… now… as for who will be in charge of your testing, you will have the challenges explained to you by your guide here, mage Sylvian. She will guide you below where due to your… circumstances grand masters Warkin, Paludus, Archus, Ragnar, Magnus, and Giovanti, the founders of the academy as well as the creators of the classes over 10,000 years ago will judge your aptitude and weather you will enroll in each of the classes they preside over. Before you ask yes, they are over 10,000 years old. Yes they are human. No they are not unkillable. They are gods. They broke their mortal chains of binding, freeing themselves of mortality." He waved his hand. "And now that i may speak freely as we are speaking your native language, they have reached a certain level as you understand. What level i know not as they do not have a system like you however i presume the first mortal chain may be broken at level 100, the last being 200. It is one every 20 levels for a total of 6. Each one will do something different for you and is unique to you. The chains to my understanding will act as a sort of 'level cap' halting your growth until you manage to break it. And now back to our language…" waving his hand again i now noticed the others near by looking confused as if we spoke a different language. "With private matters covered you shall go below to the training grounds. There you will wait for your turn to be tested and you will remain to watch your potential future classmates here and those already awaiting instruction below during their tests. You will be last to go as we start with single classers first then move onto the multiclassers. If their are students who have already been here for some time and they wish to retest to add another class to their schedule they will be frontloaded when they arrive. If you pass your test you will be instructed on all the rules of the academy, how you can get time off and everything else you will need to know. You are dismissed."

Master sypherius returned to the paper work he was filling out and i saw that to my eyes the paper was blank, meaning some sort of magical implementation was in place to keep private information private.

The lady who lead me here, sylvian started to walk towards the nearest stair case as the summoner lead my dragon away with my permission amd i followed sylvian. After walking down three stories of stairs, the first two being the archives, indicated by signs above the doors that were locked, we arrived at a training arena. Around the exterior wall was a stadium style seating arangement and in the center was a large field. At 8 different points splitting the arena into perfect pieces were stone gateways, made of sones stacked carefully in a thin arch. Only one stone atop the other, how it stood i could not fathom without magic. In the center was a red symbol in the shape of the letter S with two dots between the ends of the letter.

[i will work on the design and post it in the discord. If you havent joined, the link is in vol 0, just hit contents and goto the begining.]

Slyvian took a seat by one of the archways and as i followed i noticed a shimmering effect forming a dome over the arena.

"Is that some form of magical shield around the arena or what…?"

"Its a magical barrier. It draws power from magic gems. Some are from various caves and others are from incredibly powerful monsters. The evolutionary monsters that is. They are not common, though not rare. They have certain areas they are found and they have several tiers if you will. Instead of mana for the elemental magic they use a denser, more chaotic energy. We call it Benthar, the crystals being called unimaginably Benthar Crystals. Though they have a unique property of even after death of their host, the continue to store and recharge the energy in them, though the stonger the crystal, the longer it takes to recharge, some of them taking decades or longer. Now please settle down and don't talk anymore. Its rude to those trying to mentally prepare for their challenges."

I didnt know how to respond so i just sat there quietly mext to kleek as we awaited the rest of the test takers to come down.

After a couple hours the last person came down and master Sypherius followed shortly after, bowing to the grand masters who i didnt notice were behind me at the top sitting in 6 unique stone chairs each designed differently and given the basic knowledge about class names i quickly figured out who was in charge of which classes… ironically their classes were similar to their names and that made it a lot easier to figure out.

Warkin the warrior

Paludus the paladin

Archus the archer

Ragnar the ranger

Magnus the mage

Giovanti the geomancer

The test began, and after the first 5 went by seemingly smoothly, 7 older students came down, two in red robes, one in golden, one in light green, one in black, another in blue and the last in grey came down the stairs and began waiting to retest.

Leaning over to sylvian i asked her in a queit whisper, "what do the robe colors mean?"

She glanced at me clearly angry before quickly answering, "in oder of how they are liked up red gold green black blue grey, warrior, paladin, archer, ranger, mage, geomancer. They are testing to multiclass into their sister classes to learn two classes that work together. Now quiet before we get in trouble."

I returned my attention to the testing again as i watched more closely at the requirements for each test.

The warriors test seemed to involve a test of raw power when swinging a weapon.

The paladin seemed to go off being able to protect someone from an assailant.

The archery test was accuracy with a bow.

The ranger test was being able to sneak around an unaware target.

The mage test was testing your spell casting abilities.

Lastly the geomancer test looked to see your elemental capabilities. Before which the testers placed their hands upon an orb which glowed different colors, prusumeably their elemental alignments as the colors seemed to match the elemental spells the cast and abilities they used.

After watching for hours of all the other test takers doing only one class test they moved onto the two class testers, who had to do a combination of the tests at the same time.

Once they were finished it was time for the three class takers… but no one was called as the arena was reset. It was a smooth surface now and there were no flora put in place, fake buildings made or anything. It was plain. With all the other tests they had some sort of set up to match the tests they took, allowing for some measure of similarity to a real situation.

The previous master who was calling out the rounds, a man in red robes with gold trim around the edges of his sleeves, legs, and neck, the 6 founders stood up.

"With all the normal tests out of the way, there is only one potential student this century attempting to take the test for 3 or more classes. Will this person please step into the ring." They spoke in unison as the slowly walked down into the arena.

I slowly stood and entered through the gate with slyvian. There she waved her hand and a table appeared. On it was a bow, a quiver of arrows, a sword, a shield, a dagger, and what looked like spell books.

"Read through the spell books and don the weapons how you see fit. Your test will start in 20 minutes." She stated as she stood there watching me. I slowly put the bow and quicer on my back, using the straps provided to secure them. The sword i put on my left hip to draw with my right hand. The dagger into my boot. Lastly i strapped the shield to my left hand. All of this i managed to accomplish in 2 minutes and began thumbing through the books. There was a flames spell, amd based on the systems description would allow me to turn my hands into flame throwers, a force spell, allowing for pulling or pushing forces. And lastly a dark spell… its name was simply darkness. The system had no explanation for it but after inspecting the nodes for the various spells and using my knowledge from the frost spells nodes i guessed how they all worked, though none of the runes on the nodes of the darkness spell shared any resemblence to the ice spell let alone the sheer number of them. There were at least 1,000 different nodes. Well one node shared a rune and that was a power node to amplify spell power. I slowly let my mana flow into the spell, not guiding it or activating it, just expeirmenting with what i could do, letting my mana "feel" each node.

After a while i started to understand. At least i hope i did. Looking to sylvian i nodded that i was ready.

"You still have 5 minutes left. Prepare yourself mentally. After the test is over you will conduct the elemental power assesment."

For the next 5 minutes i used my expeirement with my mana on the spell on my body. Having done that with the spell i noticed the mana flowed through my arms from somewhere in my body, and i attempted to replicate the flowing of my mana, but rather than into a spells node network, i focused on flowing it through my body. To help me concentrate i closed my eyes. As i began to control it, it felt like water was flowing through my body, originating from my heart, the more i focused the more i could feel my heart as the source, acting like a well of sorts. I could feel the warmth my mana provided, almost as if it was made of fire, yet it didnt seem to light up my body, instead it felt like my body was shrouded in shadow. I could aslo feel raw power, the power to kill… and i felt the power to control the weight of my body. The more i focused the less my body seemed to weigh. When i finally opened my eyes i saw giovanti nodding his head.

"He has passed my test. I sense the elemental abilities within him, and i can feel his control. He need not show me more."

I glanced at slyvian who had sweat beading on her forhead as if she had ran a marathon. Her face looking pale as if she had just been struggling with incredible weight. She nodded her head slowly in response to the gamdmaster and bowed her head shakily.

"Permission… to wait… outside… the arena…."

"Granted. We did not expect this level of pressure from him, and you are still growing yourself. You may wait outside, we shall personally test him. We have diabled audio transmissions through the barrier, so there is and will be no sounds for the onlookers during this test. Please inform them."

She bowed again and unsteadily walked back through the gate where she sat on the bench. I saw her lips move but heard nothing.

Turning back to the grandmasters i asked, "what now…?"

Magnus spoke up next, "show us what you can do. You shall protect palus from the rest of us, we will test your abilities in each class at different points. Its up to you to switch between the classes fluidly, that is if you truly are a tradesman…."

"Whats that supposed to mean…?"

Warkin answered "throughout history since the dawn of civilization and language, every individual going by the name tradesman has been a jack of all trades. That was their class, the were profiecient in each of the major and minor classes, requiring at least a master of each class as a foe during a fight to have any sort of struggle… here you only have 6 due to your lack of experience with the bow and spells, as well as stealth as you have yet to really hide yourself, though you have detected hidden enemies before. So protect palus from us and you shall have your 6 classes, as it stands you have suceeded in one."

And with that i noticed someone behind me. I swiftly spun and kicked sending ragnar flying backwords. I rushed the grand masters as palus began moving away. I let the mana flow throughout my body. Laser focus absorbed my mind for once. Time seemed to slow as i moved, i let the mana flow through my body, making me lighter and everything around me heavier coincidentally. I saw the ground crack slightly as i prepared the darkness spell. Using the information i aquired i followed a path of over 200 nodes and let the spell go. Showows crept out from around me, turning the ground from the grey stone into a black voide which began to spread up onto the barrier and soon enveloped the entire arena. Looking at the grandmasters squinted faces i could tell they saw darkness, but to me it was as if nothing really happened aside from the floor and walls becoming black, everything remained perfectly visible. But that was when the grandmaster began to feal fear. The shadows began to grow arms and hands, reaching out amd grasping at their bodies from all around. Magnus had no issue as he cast a few utility spells like wards, a light spell, and ability enhancements. Using light based spells he started to chip away at the darkness around him fairly quickly. Now was my chance, i slipped in and went to hit him on the head with my fist but ragnar materialized in front of me blocking my blow. I opened my hand, palm towards his face as i let loose the flames spell, burning his face, or at least i thought i did till i noticed the barrier around him, close to his skin maybe a 1/8 of an inch above it. I intensified the flames and saw the barrier start to crack under the heat and constant aplication, but before i could break it, warkin swiftly kicked my side as archus shot an arrow to the spot i would land. As i flew through the air i pulled the bow off my back and notched an arrow, drawing it back and letting it fly, it knocked archus's off course before i rolled as j hit the ground, springing back to my feet. Glancing at palus i saw ragnar begin to reach out to touch him, i loosed another arrow, this one piercing his hand. So far i felt great. 2 for 2 on bowmanship in my opinion was great. The power of my spells was their and my stealth detection was on point. I took a direct hit and was able to recover, there wasnt much else i could do to showcase my potential. I unsheathed the sword and charged at warkin, swinging it down hard and fast. He barely managed to block being distracted by some of the shadow hands grasping at him. Upon contact both our weapons shattered where i then landed a solid punch to his chest, causing hime to buckle over.

With that palus then stopped moving and massively overpowered my darkness spell with a light spell of his own and i noticed that the slight injuries i had caused each if the grandmasters quickly faded.

Together they spoke in unison after nodding at each other. "You have completed your trial. While you did not face us at full power, but that of when we were begining to discover our mortal binds, you have proven you have incredible power behind you. Your ability to switch between combat styles needs work, but you have shown you are a tradesman. You have been granted your entrance and enrollment in all the classes, do not let your studies falter or we will be forced to restrict how many you take at once."

I felt the raw power in their voices this time. Before during the fight it felt like i was foghting stronger people, but this now dwarfed my abilities. I felt small and insignificant. Like an ant compared to a solar system… thats when i noticed the elemental gem before me. It was perfectly round and smooth.

"Place your hand on the crystal… reveal your elemental affinites…" giovanti spoke.

Doing as he said i placed my hand upon it, feeling a tug at my mana, it was slowly pulled from my body into the sphere as it began to glow. Inside i could see in more detail what elements it was showing. Outside the barrier it looked like colors, but inside the barrier, in the sphere i saw the red for fire being a real flame circling the equater of the sphere. I saw the black cloud settling at the bottom as a dark void. Above the darkness in the perfect center of the sphere i saw a dark gray rippling effect, almost like gravitational forces, pulling the flames into it almost, before pressing it back against the edge, and repeating this process. Obove all this though, a purple like fog began to descend onto it all, as it did the flames began to die down, burning out, the gravity forces having less and less effect as the fog over powered it u til the entire sphere glowed bright purple. Then it too looked like it was decaying. Fearing i broke it i pulled my hand back and watch the sphere return to normal… i looked to the grandmasters wondering what just happened…

*A/N this chapter was long i know. Thats for two reasons, one this chapter i had a fair but planned for the test, and two i felt bad about having such a long time inbetween these latest two chapters and the previous ones, so to make up for it i wanted to extend this chapter a bit more than intentionally planned as well as split it into two. Originally when i first started writing the story i planed on doing the test and results of everything into one chapter, but i will be doing the elemental results in the next chapter as well as introduction of some of his classmates, i will also chamge up my initial plan of him changing classes which i will explain in the next chapter. My current plan is to have the next 10 ish chapters be the end of volume 1 (i hope to end it at chapter 30 on the dot if able. and a strong introduction into the first major enemy orginization, as well as to develop the coneection between kleek and jack. Also yes… now that i have stated who his heritige is with the tradesman his name being jack tradesman is a tweak of the phrase jack of all trades… i know, not supper unique but its what i wanted and its how i like it personally… if you do have name suggestions though as far as other people he will interact with feel free to tell me in the discord server.

A few questions you might have for what i plan for this book…

How many volumes will there be??? Quite a few i hope.

with vol 1 being the intro, vol 2 will be his first major conflict.

Vol 3 i have planned to be a journey to somewhere else.

Vol 4 will be a return to the academy for reasons i shall leave alone for now.

This is my current plan for the immediate future and this is what i have planned out in more details than

"jack goes here kills guy, gets ability" and is more like "jacks going to travel to a mountain range to the north, there he will find dwaves. They send him into their mines to deal with an infestation of monsters, there he finds an evolved monster and kills it, (2nd evo or 3rd, depends on how much XP he earns by then.)"

Though thats an example.

How am i writing this and planning it? Im planning it a lot like when i run dnd sessions. Before i start i get a general idea of what i want it to be about, ie who is the main character, who are some of the major powers in the world? Then i plan out minor details, like city names, a semi set up economy getting prices for region specific materials, like gems and ores are cheeper in the mountains vs the plains, in this world magic fruits can be found all over the world but only specific types grow in certain enviorments etc. Aside from that things like combat and "diplomacy" aka him talking to people is all a dice roll.

How will the story end? When will it end? All ima say is i will reroll 100 nat 1's before the dice get to go as is. So far im at 17… if you want me to notify via either an authers not at the end of the chapter or at the time of the nat 1 i can indeed do something along the lines of indicating it at the end of the paragraph like this (17/100)

Hope you enjoyed and i shall begin work on the next chapter.