Novaris: Adventure in the Shattered Fang Continent

Novaris. Quattur. 905. AGC.

Nodel. Last Quarter 🌗. Day 23.

The guild was a giant tree—not even close to the size of the tree at the city's center, but definitely larger than any other building Tesilim had seen around the city so far. The tree buzzed with adventurers coming in and out. And at some point, the noise of the city had been replaced with the more soothing sounds of nature, just like in the parks.

A nice breeze also blew, and Tesilim could hear the creaks of the massive branches as they swayed along with the chirping birds and the joyful noise of adventurers laughing.

Walking up to the tree, they entered it through a gateway made of its massive roots and came into an ample open space inside the trunk. The inside was illuminated by hanging fruits that radiated soothing light and matched that of the shining sun outside. As they entered, no one paid any attention to them as they weren’t much of a sight compared to the number of people within the guild lobby.

The lobby of the guild was a nice hang-out spot, and chairs were growing out of the grass-filled ground, which somehow stayed alive even with the constant traffic. Though the chairs were made of roots, they had comfortable-looking cushions that many adventurers sat on while relaxing with some drink or another. Also filling up the lobby space were tables that grew out of the ground and a few counters that were run like taverns and constantly dished out food and drinks to paying adventurers.

The lobby was split into two parts. Half of the circular trunk was taken up by the hangout spot where all the adventurers rested. The other half was taken up by two areas. One was a giant staircase that led upwards into the rest of the tree, and the second was a bunch of small cubicles.

Each cubicle had a counter and chairs, along with someone behind said counter. Naturally, adventurers stood in lines waiting to be called to a cubicle. Tesilim just smiled at seeing that even this new magical world couldn’t escape waiting to fill out paperwork.

Looking around the giant tree lobby, with its many adventurers seemingly having a good time, Tesilim smiled before taking a deep breath and looking at his two companions for guidance.

Tesilim wasn’t sure why he expected anything else, but they also just joined the lines of adventurers and waited to be called to a cubicle.

Having nothing better to do, Tesilim kept looking around and saw more of the lobby's details, like the many weapons and paintings hanging on the tree wall. The paintings depicted adventurers Tesilim assumed had accomplished great enough deeds to be put there. They also showed fierce monsters, the most captivating being a dragon whose skin was sturdy-looking wood bark and had massive wing-like tree branches.

In terms of people and creatures, well, there was nothing new he hadn’t seen in the city. There were the half-treant people, some green-scaled dragonkin he had accidentally confused with lizard folk who looked similar but couldn’t breathe poison. Instead, that subspecies of beast folk were great at swimming and had great regeneration when it came to regrowing limbs. There were also elves, dwarfs, gnomes, and pretty much all the usual fantasy creatures he had learned of on Earth. However, there were larger varieties of elves and dwarfs compared to gnomes.

Elves came in every color of the rainbow, whereas dwarfs often had earthy, rocky, or tree-like features like stony or bark-like skin. However, for elves, there were more silver-haired or green-haired elves with all shades of blue to purple for the silver-haired ones with the green-haired ones often having a bit of green shade to their skins. Tesilim was definitely going to look into that. He was curious about the whole elf diversity thing.

Losing himself in staring at all the new things, Tesilim finally came to as he was pushed towards one of the cubicles. Behind the cubicle counter was a friendly-looking elven woman with deep brown hair, eyes, and light skin. She wore a simple white blouse with what Tesilim assumed then realized was the guild's symbol. The symbol was a shield with a six-pointed star on it, except two of the points were sword points, with their opposites being two sword hilts.

Anyway, on the counter was a little plaque that read Penny, which had to be the woman's name, who greeted them with a cheery voice as they approached.

“Hello, how can I help you all!?”

Lili spoke up, and she pointed at Tesilim. “We just want to get him signed up with the guild.”

Tesilim just waved a bit awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, Penny took charge and motioned him forward as she pulled out some papers and an orb.

“Alright, sir?” Tesilim, getting the hint, answered with his name, “Tesilim,” and she continued. “Sir, Tesilim, I just need you to fill out this information here,” she pointed at the papers and placed what had to be a pen on the counter.

“Then, when you finish that, we will check your rank with this orb here,” she pointed at the orb. Finally, we will test you for your combat effectiveness and finish up the process with your very own badge.” She finished and motioned for Tesilim to start filling out the papers.

The papers were rather straightforward. They asked for his name, race, birth date, and any other affiliations, such as gods or patrons. He had to sign his name, stating that he was fine with being put through a screening process, including scanning to see if he was some sort of aberration and whether he was telling the truth about certain things. Naturally, he agreed, as he was 99.9% sure he wasn’t an aberration or had much of anything to hide.

After completing the paperwork, he was instructed to place his hand on the crystal orb and infuse it with some of his normal mana, which he did. As he infused the mana into the orb, it glowed a bronze color with small splotches of green, and the lady smiled at him.

“What does that mean?” Tesilim asked.

“That means you're in Low D Rank. As you progress the rank, it will turn greener and greener until it's fully green, which states you are High D Rank. Then, as you progress further, it will slowly turn silver, showing you are moving into C Rank.” Penny explained, and Lili followed by placing her hand on the orb, which then glowed green with some decent splotches of silver.

“Ah, okay! What next?” Tesilim answered happily.

“Next, we are going to test your combat capability. Please follow me,” she replied, motioning to the side of the counter where a swaying door was.

Following Penny into the guild's backrooms, they eventually came to a sizeable room with a bit of a buzz. There, Penny told them to wait a bit as she would get his combat partner.

A little bit later, Penny returned to the room with a fellow elf with flowing green hair and skin slightly tinged green. Of course, he also had green eyes and wore the standard guild clothing: a white long-sleeve top, basic-looking leather pants, and shoes.

“This right here is Tom. He is a Mid C Ranker and will be testing your combat capabilities.” Penny said while motioning at the green elf.

Tom naturally had the slender body of an elf and a rather average voice. “Nice to meet you,” he nodded at Tesilim before heading towards the center of the room and continuing, “Come at me whenever you are ready.”

Tesilim looked over at Lili as he held his katana. She smiled and said, “Don’t use that.” before motioning Tesilim forward. Hearing that made Tesilim a bit sad, but he still understood why, as it might just kill the green-haired elf.

Tesilim’s katana had three moves: the lightning bolt, lightning slash, and nothing personal, which Lili told him not to use. Still, Tesilim had been working on his combat abilities and was ready to have some fun.

First, he initiated his body enhancement and felt his body grow in power as he walked towards one side of the simple square arena. Then he took out his katana and pointed it at Tom, who stood there in a rather classical martial arts stand with both feet apart. One hand extended forward, palms out, while the other was bent in an L-shaped manner and close to the body, with the palm facing up.

Lili had told him that he must strike hard and fast when facing humanoids. So, that was the plan.

With the katana pointing at the elf, lightning already flowing through it, Tesilim activated the lightning bolt and willed it to use a quarter of the item's mana.

There was a slight buildup before the large bolt of lightning left the katana flying straight at Tom, who sidestepped it, allowing it to hit the back wall, slightly singeing it.

However, just as Tom sidestepped, Tesilim grabbed the katana with both hands and, infusing his will into the words of power he had practiced with, said, “I am Speed,” before he poured even more mana into his enhancement and rushed forward at top speed raising the weapon and unleashing a lightning slash straight at Tom. Tesilim used half of the remaining mana, which sent a slash of crackling lightning at the elf, who had just sidestepped the lightning bolt. The elf then rolled forward, dodging the slash, which was what Tesilim wanted as he unleashed another Lightning Slash at the rolling elf.

The lightning hit the elf that time, making him stumble a bit, but the C Ranker hadn’t taken much damage that Tesilim could see except for his singed shirt. Still, Tesilim rushed with the intent to at least cut the guy's arm off.

Sadly, that's when Tesilim felt a rush of power from the elf in front of him as Tom activated his own enhancement. Then with a “Fuck”, Tesilim was staring at the ceiling as he felt his feet give under him and, seconds after, smacked into the floor as his katana was ripped from his hand.

A blink later, Tesilim saw the green-haired elf smiling down at him with a hand outstretched. Tesilim smiled back and took the hand, getting lifted up like he weighed nothing.

“Good job!” Said the green elf as he smacked Tesilim’s back.

“What? I barely touched you?” Tesilim asked confused.

“Yeah, but I am a C Ranker. You have decent skills for someone your rank, and that item of yours packs a good punch. You should be able to take down some monsters just fine.” Tom replied as he nodded at Penny.

“So, do I pass?” Tesilim asked Penny, who answered with a simple “Yes.”

Afterward, his two companions congratulated him and returned to the cubicle. There, he got a small green and bronze badge with the guild symbol on the front and a simple D stamped behind it. Well, there were two badges, and he infused both with some of his mana and dripped a bit of blood on them.

Apparently, the badges were to help track him in case he ever went missing and would also let the guild know if he died. Knowing that made Tesilim feel a bit better, but not really, as it clearly meant the death rate had to be fairly high, and he doubted he would get a second chance at life.

Finally, the badge was how he would prove who he said he was when on guild business and how he would get all the benefits the guild gave.