Russo’s rank exam

Everyone followed the guild leader to the exam hall, even other adventurers began to follow when they saw Marcus leading a me and the Twin Horn party. They knew that something must be about to happen if the guild master himself is going, so by the time we made it to the room we had a crowd of some 50 people behind us adding on to the 20-30 people already in the exam hall.

Marcus walked up to a table that had 3 people sitting behind it with papers littering the desk, they seemed to be scoring sheets so I'm guessing the people were judges.

"Have this one be the next test." The girl sitting behind the desk seemed startled and flustered, but she took the paper and bowed quickly.

"Y-yes sir, Guild Master!" At that moment the fight in the field ended and the 3 judges consulted briefly before announcing.

"Jason Pollock C rank!" The guy seemed to be in his late 20s to mid 30s and looked happy at the rank, but that just confused me. My dad said he was a d rank, but this guy almost seems worse than me when I first started. I'm slowly starting to think that father may be stronger than either of us realizes.

"Next up, Russo! Dark Orange core, fire and wind augmenter! A rank Trevor Aster will be the examiner. Begin when ready." The girl who had received the paper from Marcus began calling out so I walked on to the field. I could hear the mumblings from the crowd, mostly astonished that I was a dark orange core even though I looked so young.

Even Trevor my examiner seemed to be looking down on me, but I accepted it. Father always said that if someone is looking down on you then that makes it easier to catch them off guard.

"Are you really a dark orange core kid?" He asked looking at dubiously, and I just stared back as I unsheathed the sword father had given me.

"Are you questioning the guild leader perhaps, Trevor?" Marcus called from the sideline and the man quickly straightened and shook his head.

"No, sir! Just making sure this kid didn't try to fool everyone and end up getting hurt." He tried explain, but Marcus' gaze grew grimmer.

"Maybe I need to get a new examiner, if you can't already see the skill that young Russo possesses." Trevor looked taken aback and began to look at me with renewed interest, but still ended up frowning.

"I'll take your word for ur guild master. Lets get this exam started." Another man at the sideline nodded at Trevor's words and held up a hand. Trevor drew a sword of his own and I could see him pour mana throughout his body. Though his efficiency made me frown, it wasn't near as good as mine or father's.

Even his stance made me hold back a shudder, everything was wrong. His shoulders weren't level, he seemed to favor one leg as if he had been injured there before. Father always said to never show your weaknesses if you can help it. I shrugged this off, it's good to analyze an opponent, but concluding it will be an easy fight would be breaking one of dad's rules.

So I took my stance, sword held firm yet lightly in my hands out in front of me. It was a bastard sword which basically meant it could be wielded one or 2 handed depending on the situation. It felt heavy in my hands as I hadn't gotten used to its weight without reinforcing myself with mana, but it's heaviness vanished as the mana spread through my body.

His eyes traces my body and he gave a nod to the referee and I did as well. The referee dropped his hand rapidly and called out.

"Fight!"

Trevor dashed forward as soon as the words left the man's mouth and I confirmed that he was dealing with an old injury in his left leg. He raised his sword for a standard slash, but i sidestepped to his left side. When he tried to stop his momentum I could see him grit his teeth in pain as he tried to pivot and push off his left leg to create distance.

He didn't get the chance though as my leg was already wrapping behind and caught him in back of his knee causing him to buckle forward since all his weight was on that left leg. I quickly went for a slash of my own while he was off balance but I guess his experience shown through as he rolled across the ground and up on to his right leg.

He was very obviously catering to his left leg which only barely touched the ground. If I had waited I would have broken another rule. Never quit fighting until your opponent concedes or is dead, and even when they concede keep your guard up. So I followed the momentum of my slash and closed the distance between us.

Our swords met, but my ferocity caught him off guard causing him to stumble back and growl in pain as he had to put weight on his left leg. I targeted it again, swapping between his right and left leg so he had to keep shifting his weight on to his bad leg to avoid my barrage of stabs.

Father always prioritized endurance over a quick end. If you can end it quick then do so, but don't go for the quick finish and then leave yourself defenseless if it doesn't work. And that's what I was doing, slowly chipping away and wearing down my opponent until finally he tripped.

His arms flailed briefly and I gripped by the collar with my sword pointed to his neck, but he didn't stop. He dropped his sword was slipped a dagger from his belt. My knee came up and hit his wrist that wielded the dagger but he didn't drop it so I had to release his collar.

Another rule, never get hit especially by arrows or knives, you never know if they're poisoned. Of course I didn't think an examiner would use a poisoned knife, but I wasn't one for breaking father's rules when they got me this far.

The sudden loss of support sent him back to the ground with his free arm catching him. He quickly rotated his legs and charged toward me, knife held in a standard grip as he began slashing at me with a renewed fury. His mana seemed to be heavily sent to his left leg to help with the weakness and pain.

That just left the rest of his body vulnerable though, wind magic formed around my blade and I brought it down with a vicious arc. He tried to deflect with his knife, but with less mana reinforcing it, it snapped and broke as it fell from his hands. He tried to back away but the wind that had coalesced around my blade left it and cut deep into his chest and sent him flying backwards.

His body rolled across the hard compact Earth until he slid to a stop and the referee yelled.

"Match end, Russo is the winner!" There was complete silence as everyone took in his words, but I was running to the downed examiner. I had expected him to reinforce himself from the strike, but he either panicked or couldn't tell the wind blade was coming.

"Hey, this guys needs a medic or a healer, ya know?!" I called as I applied pressure to the wound that stretched from his left shoulder to right side of his waist. Blood quickly began to spill out from the wound, thankfully a healer was kneeling beside me almost immediately after I called out.

"We'll take it from here." Another said as they rested a hand on my shoulder and nudged me out the way. I stood up and used a trick that I had come up with for getting rid of blood from my and father's hands when we would skin animals we had hunted. Wind and fire mana formed around my hands and the wind lifted the blood as the fire turned it to ash.

I turned around to see the rest of the room staring at me in astonishment and I just shrugged.

"Blood can get sticky if left for too long, so I took care of it. Is that so weird?" I asked with a tilt of my head and for some reason a couple of the Twin Horns looked at me with exasperation.

"Are you sure we gotta take this kid along? He thinks that's why we're surprised." Helen said as she held the bridge of her nose. A couple of the guys just had helpless smiles, but Jasmine was looking at me in slight wonder. I'm not sure why honestly, that battle was pretty easy it's not like I did anything crazy after all.

Dad probably could have defeated that guy in 2 seconds flat. Then a guy from the crowd with brown hair and glasses stepped forward to me with a strange look in his eyes.

"Russo, was it?" He asked as he stood before me and I nodded.

"Ya?"

"I'm Kaspian, Kaspian Bladeheart. Please you must tell me who taught you the way of the sword! He must be a true sword master if you're already this good at this age." He asked as his eyes seemed to dazzle in hope and I felt my pride for my father bubble up.

"Oh ya! I'm glad you could tell how great and powerful he is just by watching me! I can't even land a hit on my father, Stratton the Sword Saint is his name and don't forget it!" I regaled with a big grin on my face and fists against my hip. Kaspian's eyes seemed to sparkle even more.

"A sword Saint you say?! Is he famous? What rank is he?" Kaspian rapid fires and I rubbed the under side of my nose as I leaned in closer to him. He seemed to be only a couple years older than me, maybe 15 or 16 but we were nearly the same height.

"He was an S rank! THE S Rank Sword Saint Stratton!" His eyes formed swirls as he rocked slightly.

"So many (S's)." He muttered and I chuckled to myself.

"That's because of how cool and strong he is." I patted him on the chest and he nodded absently.

"Where do I go to find him? I must become his student!" He asked with fervor and I leaned away and took on a thoughtful look.

"Hmmm, I don't know if you're qualified. What a rank are you?" He seemed nervous, but straightened and spoke with as much confidence as he could muster.

"I'm a C rank!" I gazed at him closely and he began to shake from the pressure but didn't back down.

"Hmph, you pass. Though you better lose the nobleman look you got going on, or you won't last one day in Maybur City. It's a lot of field world and hunting, you might get your fancy clothes dirty." I teased, but he just nodded resolutely.

"I'll be sure to do so, now please excuse me I just make my way to Maybur City at once!" He said and hurried off and I felt pride for my father continue to bubble. People were begging to become his apprentice now, he would be getting the recognition he deserves.

I turned around to once again find the Twin Horns and even the guild leader looking at me in exasperation.

"What?" I asked innocently.

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Author's Note

Sorry, shorter chap than usual but I hope you enjoyed. Next chapter will probably be entirely Stratton's POV since I did all Russo's POV this time. Now Stratton will be training future guild leader Kaspian Bladeheart! And I'll be introducing all of the Twin Horns as they actually have another member that we never really see or hear about in the book.

See ya next time. Hope you enjoyed.