Chapter 97
“Use few arrows and give your best.” Youth brought out a black bow and arrows from a column and handed them out to Dudian while encouraging him.
Dudian reached over and grabbed the bow. It was slightly lighter than the original hunter bow. But it would be still very heavy for the most scavengers. He took out the arrow from the quiver and pulled the string. He aimed at the distant target.
The target was 30 meters away. Sharp arrow sped away away and hit the target. But it didn’t hit the heart but deviated almost half the way.
“Very good. Have you practiced before? “Youth looked at him as he was surprised.
Dudian nodded: “A few days.”
“A few days … …” Youth whispered and nodded slightly. He handed out a black strap: “You should cover your eyes. Let’s see how you hit blindly.”
Dudian nodded. He grabbed the bow after being blindfolded. He mentally searched for the location of the previous target’s position. Although he could use the sense of smell to help him easily find the target but he avoided doing so. He wanted to know what he was capable of. Was his talent as an archer good enough?
Whoosh!
An arrow rapidly shot past and nailed to the target.
Dudian took off the strap and saw that the arrow had nailed to a similar location as his previous shot. The deviation was not significant.
“It seems that you have quite the talent as an archer.” There was a trace of smile on youth’s face as he spoke.: “Although your constitution is over the top but it is extremely rare to get such results after few days of practice. You should give good efforts maybe you will be the second hunter to reach the silver level as an archer.”
“Did a hunter reach silver level in archery in the consortium?” asked Dudian.
“Well, there are total of eight hunters who are silver level in the consortium. Two knights, three warriors, two scouts and one archer.” Youth continued: “There are few who choose to be an archer. Mainly because of poor combat capability. If there is no help to containt the prey it is very difficult of archers to hunt. Most of them are too dependent on the team. Therefore its rare for an archer to move up. You gotta have excellent skills.”
“Archer’s have poor individual combat capability?” Dudian could not help but glance at him. His choice was based and fancied because in his perspective the archers had the most individual preferences while hunting. So their combat cababilities had to be the best?!
However, he’d agree that archery skills was hard to amass.
After all, the warriors and knights often fought with monsters in the front so their abilities upgraded very fast. But the archer’s were supporting form the back. ‘Practice makes perfect’ didn’t apply to them much like the other professions.
“Let’s try your talents with other professions.” Youth came up with Dudian to the second area. There were few wooden puppets in here. All kinds of different weapons were placed next to a shelf. There were swords, iron whips, hammers and other weapons of different length. Except the spears. The spears were the exclusive symbol of the Knights.
“Attack the wooden puppets with different weapons until you break them. And find one which is suitable for you.” Youth laughed.
Dudian nodded. He picked up the sword, came towards the wooden puppet and began to hack it.
He felt awkward and uncomfortable as he continued to hack it many times.
Dudian immediately knew that the sword was not suitable for him so he replaced it with the dagger.
Relative to the sword, dagger was smooth. But he put it down to change the weapon as there was no force behind the dagger. It would tire him down.
He tried other weapons. Iron whip, hammer, swords… One by one Dudian tried all of them. Ultimately he felt that the dagger and swords were more comfortable to be used by him rather than the other weapons. The youth also graded his performance and came to the same conclusion after the evaluation.
“Your warrior talent is also good but your archer talen is still better. Let’s look at your knight talent.” Youth said.
Knights were totally different from the knights of military. Although the fighting were similar but the knights of the hunter headquarters were more important as they fought outside the giant wall. They would undergo a rigorous examination and will be awarder the Order of the Knight. They are purely focused on combat outside the giant wall.
Dudian sat on a dummy horse and held a spear. It was constantly waving and he felt very awkward.
Youth looked and shook his head. He took Dudian for the last test.
Scout’s main ability was to hide and escape on time. There was a cage which had swords and spears in it. It was shaking and making all the weapons inside to move. There were no particular rules and everything depended on person’s reaction speed to determine if he was up to the job.
“Put on this,” the youth handed a heavy armor suit to Dudian.
Dudian immediately put on the armor.
He went into the cage. He was encircled by the swords and spears. The cage began to shake.
Dudian quickly dodged as his eyes swept around to check the motion of the weapons. There was a silver light caught on his eye so he quickly bent to dodge the stab. Everything was based on his instictive reactions to the surrounding situation.
Nevertheless, there were two or three times that he was stabbed. But there was the protection of the black armor which resulted in no injuries.
Soon, the test ended.
Youth opened the cage: “Geez! I did not think you have such a sensitive skills. Although your consitition have been modified because of the magic marks but to have such a good reaction is awesome. You should switch to be a scout. Because of your latent talen you can be a silver hunter very early on. In so many years of my experience, you are totally in top three of the scout talents that consortium was able to grab. No, top two!”
Dudian did not expect to get this evaluation. He was in joy but it was not enough to change his mind.: “I still like to be an archer. I would want to kill the enemy from 1000 meters away.”
“This … … okay.” Youth sighed in regret. He didn’t insist as it was only a simple test. People could show some talents but it was not entirely accurate. Many people were not good at first but would improve later on. He had seen many examples such as that. Moreover, the key to everything was the interest shown by the hunter towards the occupation. That’s why consortium didn’t mandatorily choose the occupation and let the hunters do the choice optionally.
“Although your archery and scouting talents are high but do not be complacent. Next, you will be trained by the consortium and will be given a year to become a true hunter. ” Youth earnestly said: “Your training time will be only one-third of the other trainee hunters but you have magic marks and all aspects of your physical condition have been enhanced. After a year, consortium will send you over the giant wall to hone you in actual combat, if you aren’t good enough by then.”
“However, you are more aware about the dangers of the world outside the giant wall than other trainees. So give good efforts. If you are lazy today, tomorrow you will be dead.”
Dudian faced the youth and nodded: “I know.”
“Well, let’s go to the hunter training field. ” said the youth.