After hearing that the next test was a test of real combat, Damion could not help but feel a bit excited. Damion had, on more than one occasion, begged Ms. Teft to let him have a taste of real combat. While Ferocious Beasts were not common in their Green Zone, they did wander in fairly often and it was not uncommon to hear the various guilds about the city talking about what creature they had slain this week.
Remembering Ms. Teft’s advice on their way to the Adventurer Association for the testing that he needed to remain calm, Damion took several deep breaths, letting each out slowly. The effort of forcing himself to be still calmed his nerves and helped clear his mind. After another moment Damion moved on to the next room.
The final room was larger than the first two, at least three times the size. In the middle of the room was what Damion assumed was a Ferocious Beast, chained to a post. The monster appeared to be some sort of feline that resembled a leopard. Except, this creature had a line of quills running along its spine and was at least one and a half meters tall at its front shoulders.
“The restraint on the beast will be released in 10… 9…” the clerk’s voice rang over the intercom.
Damion quickly readied his sword. A moment later the collar on the beast’s neck clicked open and fell to the ground. It did not take the monster more than a few seconds to realize it was free and rushed towards what it no doubt considered food, Damion.
The beast did not seem concerned that Damion had a weapon as it rushed at him, gaining speed as it charged. The beast leapt towards Damion when it was about three meters away which gave Damion ample time to sidestep and slash his sword across the beast’s side.
The beast growled at the hit, but did not howl in pain as Damion sword glanced across its hide. Damion quickly realized why. While he had made a clean hit, his sword did not penetrate the creature’s hide, so all the beast felt was a slap on its side.
Seeing the Ferocious Beast unharmed after his strike, Damion realized his mistake. He had not channeled his mana into the sword. On its own, the sword was not strong enough to break the creature’s hide. Damion needed to channel his mana into the blade before he could hurt the Ferocious Beast.
Damion took a quick couple of steps back from the beast and began to channel his mana. Either the creature recognized to some degree what Damion was doing or it just wanted to eat Damion as quickly as possible, whichever was the case, the Ferocious Beast darted at Damion again, not giving him significant time to channel his mana.
This time the beast did not leap at Damion, instead it swiped at Damion with its front paws, each of which sported long sharp claws. Damion batted the creatures claws aside while still trying to channel his mana.
Ideally, channeling mana into an artifact took only a second of concentration, but right now, Damion’s attention was split between his sword and the Ferocious Beast that was trying to turn him into lunch. This led Damion to the conclusion that he really needed to get better at channeling his mana. Here, in the test room, Damion had no doubt Ms. Teft could save him. But out in the wild on a real mission, Damion would need to be able to handle himself and so far, he was failing.
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After a few failed attempts at disemboweling Damion with its claws, the Ferocious Beast retreated a few steps and began circling Damion. Knowing the beast was looking for the best opportunity to strike, Damion turned as the beast circled, keeping his eyes locked on the beast’s.
The reprieve from the Ferocious Beast constantly swiping at him with its claws gave Damion the time he needed to channel his mana into his sword. The sword quickly began to glow, and the beast narrowed its eyes looking from the weapon back to Damion’s eyes before it leapt at Damion.
This time Damion did not sidestep, instead he held his blade firmly in front of him. When the Ferocious Beast’s body collided with his, Damion was knocked flat on his back. The jump had sent the Ferocious Beast straight at Damion’s sword, but this time the blade did not deflect off the beast’s hide. Damion’s sword pierced the Ferocious Beast’s flesh, and the momentum of the beast forced it to impale itself on Damion’s sword.
Damion rolled the beast to the side and slid out from under the creature’s corpse and pulled his sword out of the Ferocious Beast’s chest. After making sure the beast was dead, Damion checked himself for injuries and found that he was unharmed, despite his shirt being drenched in blood from the Ferocious Beast. Before Damion could come up with a plan to clean his shirt before going home the door to the room opened and the clerk and Ms. Teft stepped inside.
“Not bad. Not bad at all,” the clerk said as she checked Damion for injuries. “I just need to verify the quality of your artifact and then I can give you your final score.”
Damion handed his sword over to the clerk, who, once holding it, frowned and then looked to Ms. Teft for an explanation.
“This is just a normal sword that has a glyph engraved to allow mana to be channeled into it without it breaking.”
“Yes, I couldn’t give him a real artifact to use until he was worthy of one,” Ms. Teft answered as if it was obvious.
Damion however was confused. From what the clerk said, his sword was just that, an ordinary sword. Normally artifacts, even the lowest quality of them, are made from special metals and are enchanted with spells during and after their forging to strengthen them and to allow magic to better pass through them. An ordinary sword would typically just break if mana is channeled into it, because ordinary iron or steel could not handle the magic, the metals would just fall apart.
“But if this is just an ordinary sword it means that it is harder to channel magic into it. And there is no way a normal steel sword like this could pierce the flesh of a quill leopard.”
“Of course it couldn’t. Don’t you remember his first strike, it had no mana channeled and it was just like slapping the beast with the flat of the blade,” Ms. Teft remarked.
“But without a proper weapon, how could you expect your student to succeed?” the clerk countered.
“Didn’t he succeed?” Ms. Teft smirked. “Besides if he used an artifact you would deduct points from his score based on the quality of that artifact. Using a normal sword that has a simple enchantment to allow mana channeling however should give him bonus points.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” the clerk said more to herself than to Ms. Teft. “He won’t have any points deducted for the quality of his artifact, but I can’t give him any bonus points. There simply isn’t any way for me to calculate it, I don’t think anyone else has ever done what he just did.”
“Fine. Fine. What is the boy’s score then?”