The interior was huge, and it looked more like a tavern rather than an academy. There was a bar counter at one side of the room, supplying beverages to the occupants, while tables littered around the room. Several of the tables were occupied by rough-looking men. All of them were NPCs, he was the only player inside the room.
Jack looked around the room, he was at a loss as to where to find this Gruff guy. As he was looking around awkwardly, a female warrior in thick battle armor approached.
“You lost, kid?” She asked.
“I was told to look for Gruff? I am here to apply for Warrior class,” Jack answered.
“New blood?” The woman gave him a playful smile.
“Come with me,” she said as she waved for Jack to follow her. She took Jack past the tables with rough-looking men who send him several crude remarks.
“Lovely bunch, aren’t they?” The woman said to Jack.
Jack did not comment.
They went to an opening at the far side corner, beyond it was a smaller room with a cupboard with drawers and a work desk filled up with stacks of paper. It looked like an office. Behind the work desk was a muscular man with a hard face covered by mustache. He was scribbling on a paper when the woman warrior and Jack entered.
“Boss, we got a new one who is interested to be a Warrior,” the woman said to the man behind the desk, who stopped writing after hearing it.
“It had been a while,” the man said as he put down his writing utensil and lifted his head up to look at Jack.
“An outworlder?” He said with a frown.
“Is there a problem?” Jack asked nervously, worry that his status as an outworlder might complicate matters.
“No, not a problem,” the man said. His expression changed to a wide grin. Jack was confused by the fickle display. The man then turned to the woman, “you know what to do.”
The woman chuckled and went through a door at the opposite wall from where they came in. The man stood up and came over to Jack. He offered his hand for a shake. Jack gave him his.
“You look like a strong man, as befitting of a warrior-soon-to-be,” the man said as they shook hands. “I am Gruff. I will be the one processing your application. Come, have a seat.”
He moved a wooden chair which was at one side of the wall to the side of his working desk. Jack sat on the chair as offered. Gruff then went back to his work chair and took out a different set of paper.
“This is just some formality for administration, I’ll just ask you a few questions to collect your data,” he said.
“All right,” Jack replied.
Gruff started by asking his name, his class, his level, then went on to his age, height, and so on. This tedious paperwork started to feel much like real life. Did he seriously have to go through this in order to change his class? After what seemed to be unending QA sessions, the questioning paused when the female warrior who took him here came back into the room. Gruff looked at her, who nodded. His mustache twitched as if he was smirking, Jack couldn’t be sure due to his thick mustache.
“All right, we are done with the administration,” he said to Jack. “We can now proceed to the testing session.”
“test?” Jack was surprised.
“Yes, a test,” Gruff said. “You don’t think you only need to fill up some paperwork in order to become a Warrior, do you? You will need to pass a test.”
Peniel didn’t mention a test. He asked her in his mind, ‘Peniel, is this true?’ In which she replied, “yes. Good luck.”
Jack was speechless. The Fairy still liked to give information in half.
“All right. What should I do in the test?”
“Simple,” Gruff said with a smile. “You just need to survive.”
Jack was perturbed. The test was something dangerous?
“Come,” Gruff gestured for him to follow as he went into the room that the woman came out from.
Jack went in and saw it to be a much larger room, almost the size of the tavern-like foyer which he passed when he entered the Academy. However, the shape of the room was unusual as it was wide at the side where they stood, but it got narrower if they went further to the other side. The space seemed to be trapezoid-shaped.
The floor ahead of them to the opposite smaller side was divided into three sections differentiated by colors. The closest to where they were standing had blue color flooring. If they walked further, the flooring’s color changed to green. The furthest section had red color, and beyond the red color flooring was a platform. On the platform was a large statue depicting a warrior in complete armor.
There were multiple wooden puppets lining along the colorful floors of the room, each puppet was holding a weapon. Jack had no doubt that this test would be involving these seemingly immobile and harmless puppets.
“So, what should I do here?” Jack asked.
Gruff chuckled, “you just need to make your way to the other side, and then kneel under that statue there.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Gruff confirmed.
“And I supposed those puppets around the room will just stay quiet?”
“What do you think?”
Jack was depressed, this fellow here seemed to be enjoying it. “Their weapons seemed to be real? Will they stop if my HP was almost out?”
“Normally yes,” Gruff replied. “But for outworlders, no.”
“What? Why?” Jack was bewildered.
“Because your kinds will come back to life. The least we can do is take out one of your levels. If you don’t have any sense of danger, then what’s the point of the test? A Warrior is someone who braves through dangers and can still laugh about it!”
At this point, the female warrior that had taken Jack to see Gruff, came into the room, followed by some rough-looking men who were previously hanging out at the tavern-like foyer. They lined up at the back in silence as if waiting for something to happen.
“You can start at any time now,” Gruff said as he saw that Jack was still not moving.
“What are they here for?” Jack referred to the rough-looking men who had just entered.
“They are just here for the show,” the female warrior answered. Those men started grinning and whispering among themselves.
“Show?” Jack asked.
“Don’t mind them,” Gruff said. “It had been some time since someone applied for Warrior class, and they are just bored. Go ahead now!”
“Yes, we don’t have all day, boy. The sun is about to set soon. Let’s get the show started!” One of the rough-looking men at the back said.
“Quiet, will you!” Gruff reprimanded the guy.
Jack stepped to the edge of the blue floor. He turned to Gruff and asked, “what’s the condition for failure?”
“If you got killed,” Gruff answered. “And if you come back to this side without reaching that statue there.”
“Can I retry again if I fail?”
“Of course… After one week passes.”
One week? It was enough time for Jack to increase several levels. Unless he purposefully not did anything to level up, but it would be the same waste. In other words, he could not afford to fail here. He took out his long black sword.
‘Any advice you can give me for this test?’ He asked Peniel.
“Don’t die,” she answered.
‘Figures,’ Jack said as he stepped onto the blue floor.
