2 Broader perspectives

A mass of people all stood together in the hall, about a hundred people give or take. Everyone is here for one sole purpose, to become a hunter.

Vancrest was more of a school than it was a city even though it was big enough to be one the only reason anyone would come here would be to become a hunter or to ask for the assistance of one. It was usually quiet all day every day in Vancrest, counting out the occasional disturbances made by daemons. But today, today was something else.

The hunter exams took place once every two years, with each hunter that successfully enrolls starting at Rank D having to work their way up, which in most cases takes about five to six years for someone to reach the S-rank. Though there have been multiple instances of an entire batch of hunters dying before any one of them reaches that rank.

Daemon hunting was more than an occupation for most clans, it was a way of life. Starting decades ago the eternal war between hunters and daemons had preceded to this date and families have trained their children to fight and the children have done the same. Each clan sends their best disciple to Vancrest every two years for the exam in hopes that they would be the one to finally bring an end to their dreaded companions that have roamed the earth for centuries, but with that being said. Daemon hunting was a source of income most people who came to Vancrest wanted, the risk was the same as the reward so you couldn't blame anyone who came for the profit and not some grand ideal.

Emirus Halterglaide walked in through the door and the room became quiet, a room filled with two hundred students with each one listening to his announcement with a hundred and ten percent focus. "Does anyone want to quit?" Emirus said while looking at each of the faces in the hall. another disappointing batch. "Nobody. Once the exam starts you will not be able to back out, this is your last chance.

Still no-one.

"I admire your confidence." He almost laughed at his own statement but held his composure. He made a hand gesture to signal the alarm but immediately he did the door opened. Someone walked in and even though remarkably faint. He had the mana of a daemon. Emirus instinctively rolled the cuffs of his shirt and was about to unleash an act.

"My name is Igor Dragonstead, Student of Liric Titanfall."

Emirus paused. He wasn't fully aware of the mission but wasn't the reason Liric had been gone for the past week to kill a humanoid daemon that roamed Galestadine. Why was he here?

"Where's Liric?" He asked the child before he walked deeper into the hall.

"Oh, He said the S-rank hunter Roman wanted to see him."

The crowd murmured, everyone whispering to themselves immediately after they heard the name Titanfall. Slowly but surely the dim noises in the hall elevated from being just murmurs to full-on conversations.

"All students are prohibited from making noise in the hall if you break that rule. I personally will see to it that you are properly dismissed." He shook his head as if saying "Peasants". "Gladius"

"Yes sir," Gladius answered, and as she saw Emirus wave his arm she nodded. "At once sir."

"I'll be watching you from the sky-tree." Emirus walked out the door. "And even though I don't need to say this, your job is to NOT get eaten by the daemons." He let out a chuckle that only he heard.

"We start in five, get yourselves acquainted and ready your acts."

Igor walked through the crowd of people, he could smell mana to an extent. An ability he figured out on Nox was special to only a select few and as he walked through the crowd he could perceive everyone's mana, some less than average and some bypassing the average line like it never existed. He noticed this slightly late, but everyone seemed on edge, he had more or less felt this way the first time he took the hunter exams but this wasn't the smell of the nervous. It was the smell of the horrified.

He walked towards the wall, for now he would just observe and listen to see if he could more or less grasp the situation without asking someone. He leaned on the flat surface still observing the faces in the crowd, some nervous, some calm and collected, readying their acts for the exam. He noticed something unusual, there were about four people in this hall with mana levels rivaling A-rank hunters. Of course even with mana levels exceeding B-rank hunters there is no chance of anyone here actually defeating one in combat, that was the truth about the world. Having a vast mana pocket might give you an edge but it doesn't necessarily mean you would get a win over someone with more experience but with less mana.

"HI!" Someone said as he slammed his back on the same wall Igor leaned against, panting like a cheetah that exhausted its burst chasing its prey. "I'm.... SVEN. SVEN IANBRIS, But you can call me TRAPMASTER.... WHO ARE YOU?"

Surprised Igor didn't say a word, he knew a nod wouldn't suffice so he took in a breath and introduced himself.

"You seem strong, were you trained by Liric?" Sven asked as he finally caught his breath. "I heard he's one of the strongest hunters, so strong he has enough mana to unleash an act sixty-four spell.

"Act sixty-four!" Igor shouted as he recalled Liric sealing the daemon he fought in ice, despite being able to smell mana Igor had no idea Liric had that much. Well, these would be good questions for later. "Can I ask you something?"

"SHOOT!" Sven replied.

"What's the first exam? Why's everyone.... on edge."

"Probably because most of them will die." Igor looked at Sven as he talked, for a second his dark eyes went blank. "Vancrest is the only nation among the four that does its first exam like this, they put two hundred students in a box with daemons that number half of them."

Igor didn't say anything. He just primed his ears and listened.

"Of course, talentless people can still pass the exam. Since you have to survive for twenty-four hours you can easily hide or run away from daemons." Sven looked at the sky tree, it was more or less a box that floated in the sky. Some say it's an after-effect of Liric's act sixty-four spell whilst others say it is a gift from Alto, but never the less no one except the S-rank hunters had ever stepped foot in the sky-tree.

People leaned toward the first suspicion of the sky tree being Liric's doing because it was made of ice but since Liric didn't have an affinity for wind nothing could explain why it could float in the sky for what seemed to be forever.

"So what are the chances of us surviving the first exam." Igor clasped his hands together.

"You have a sword. Do you know how to use it?" Sven asked him.

Igor nodded.

"Then there's a twenty percent chance."

"Not good odds."

"Everyone else more or less has five." Sven looked at him with a smile on his face. "Those seem like good odds now?"

An alarm blared from all sides of the hall and everyone readied themselves, "Shoot!" Sven said as stood upright and Igor did the same.

"Good luck students, I wish you safe passage into Alto's home." not that you should want to go there. Gladius shouted as she pulled a lever that unlocked a giant door behind the students.

Everyone turned seeing what looked like a desert. It looked exactly like one would picture it, scorching sun, lots of dust, and daemons dragging their feet through waves of sand that went on for miles. If Igor didn't know that a desert couldn't exist inside Vancrest he would have believed that this extension of support magic that projected a real-life duplication of the Sahara was in fact genuine

"Your timer starts now. Just do what we told you and remember you just have to survive for twenty-four hours."

Everyone ran through the huge iron gates unleashing their weapons trying to survive for the duration of the time limit. Sven grabbed Igor's arm and pulled him into the desert. Beaming as he sped through the threshold.