Asessment and a Test of Ability

After what seemed like a short wait that had felt like weeks, Yuri found himself in a strange chamber beneath the stairs of the guild, a glowing crystal panel lay before him. He took in a deep breath, thankful he had convinced Selvina to let him leave her office actually dressed (for all the good his attire was), and placed his hand on the crystal and just let out a slow breath as he did so. He had been told to gently hold his hand on the crystal for a minimum of 5 seconds but he kept it there for almost 12 seconds before removing his hand. He started seeing his info fill out the crystal.

It read as follows:

Name: Yuri Gawain Althaus

Age: 19 years and 3.42 months

Race: Alpharian (Awakening)

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 17

Perceptiveness: 18

Endurance: 32

Vitality: 45

Luck: 28

Sexiness: 22

Combat Proficiencies: One-handed swords, Spears, Staves, Unarmed, Wands, War Hammers, Improvised Weapons

Special Abilities: Variable Magic, Volition Regulating Reproduction, Fast Learning, Magical Aptitude 12, Magic Use 6, Charm Immunity, Illusion Immunity, Magic Resistance 14, Superior Enhancement, Sexual Attraction Aura (females only) (passive)

Elemental aptitude: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, Darkness, Plant, Space

Spells: Light Heal, Magic Arrow, Create Water, Enhance Ability, Flame Dome, Elemental Spear, Minor Item Box

Yuri blinked a bit, he noticed some things sounded like they came from a few very well-known RPGs but the rest was a bit new to him. Selvina was with him in the chamber, once again in her lingerie that was apparently good enough to be considered an outfit, and clapped her hands excitedly. Yuri had a bad feeling, so he looked at his patron with concern.

“It is exceedingly rare for someone to naturally have more than two combat proficiencies, and most people that naturally have access to spells only know 1 or 2 without training, and those are usually very narrow in their range of usability. Not to mention, most people have only one or two special abilities if they have them at all.”

“I guess I’m blessed in this world then,” said Yuri a little too casually, “still doesn’t mean I won’t work at trying to find a way back to the world I came from.”

“Understandable, but this also means you have far more options for what you’ll do during your combat assessment. I’ll go make the arrangements, the arena should be easy enough for you to find without me playing guide. Just ask the receptionist if you need to be pointed in the right direction.”

Yuri left the chamber under the stairs and stepped back into the common room. Unlike the last time he was in the common room for an extended period of time, which was the previous evening, there were dozens of women of various races, some a bit beast-like (much like the guild master), but no elves or dwarves in sight, it was like the two most common fantasy races didn’t exist in this world. Which to be fair, was probably the case. That all said, everyone was in erotic attire, fetishwear, super-thin swimsuits, or lingerie. Basically, Yuri saw women dressing slutty everywhere he looked, and not a milliliter of shame to be found.

There were a variety of builds and body structures found throughout the commons. The whole area was bustling with activity but Yuri was able to figure out where he needed to go with little effort. He was a bit worried about what his combat aptitude test would be like. He also noted that not only was everyone wearing noticeably erotic attire but they also had begun to watch him with vested interest almost as soon as they became aware of him.

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Within 20 minutes, Yuri found himself in a decently sized combat arena. He had opted to just go with what he had on him, and hopefully have an intuitive knowledge of how to make use of his spells. Looking around, Yuri saw the spectator seats were now packed to beyond capacity and quite a few of the women in the stands were actually trying to bypass the safety measures to just get in, Yuri had a feeling this had something to do with the only passive ability he had been made aware of.

His opponent, the woman on the other side of the arena, looked like she was also under the effect but at least had enough self-control to keep her composure for the time being. The woman that was his opponent seemed to be a mage of some kind, given how she was holding her staff in a more relaxed manner than if she were a warrior of some kind that trained in staff combat, and her attire seemed to be an erotic spin on a wizard’s robes, she was in what appeared to be a hooded bathrobe in the stylings of a wizard’s robe covered in constellations and arcane symbols (some of which overlapped with each other). To make matters more annoying, his opponent had clearly had a figure with salacious curves in addition to a clearly voluptuous bosom. Even though Yuri couldn’t see his opponent’s face.

Before he knew it, Yuri heard the sound of a bell to start the exam, his opponent wasted no time in raising her staff and sending a storm of clearly sharp spikes of ice his way. Thinking fast, Yuri created a half dome of fire between him and the **** of deadly ice but he didn’t stick around for long. Remembering some tricks from a few of the RPGs he played that used similar elemental systems, and maybe a few well-known manga and anime, Yuri clapped his hands together and summoned a small wall of arrows composed of light and sent them in the mage’s general direction. With that done, Yuri quickly crafted statues in his likeness from water, although it was clear his watery duplicates were not the real deal, while also creating four three-quarter domes and opting to hide behind the far left one while working on his next approach.

Yuri found his duplicates and multiple partial domes had indeed been a good call, forty seconds after getting into position, he heard the sound of his duplicates freezing and shattering rather quickly and the sound of one of the other domes getting turned to rubble. On the fly, Yuri used wind magic to create the auditory illusion he was now behind his opponent and coupled it with the creation of a half dome made of ice behind her. The sound of ice shattering was his cue as he came from his cover holding a spear made from water magic and was rapidly forming it into the form of a war hammer and came out swinging at his opponent, moments before it was set to impact his opponent, he changed the head to ice and crashed it into her. The impact sent the mage flying back a few feet, which was impressive when you considered he had his strength charted in the single digits.

His opponent made a gesture and the bathrobe was gone, disappeared as if it had never been in the arena at all, and he was now staring down a sexy woman with sexy librarian glasses around his age in a sling bikini with a Mediterranian complexion and EE-Cup sized bosom practically straining against the straps of her swimwear who was looking equal parts annoyed, amused, and apparently turned on. She made a gesture with her hand again and Yuri could feel the war hammer trying to reform itself to free itself from his grasp, he quickly shifted the weapon from water and ice into stone and crystal, which he quickly regretted due to the sudden shift in weight, and just dropped the magically crafted weapon with a loud and clear thud before summoning up a new wall of spears, these ones made of fire, and unleashed on his opponent.

She quickly raised a Wall of Ice, barely in time to stop the **** by spears made of fire. Only have the wall completely melt from the fiery projectiles almost as soon as it was hit by the wall of elemental projectiles. Just as she was preparing another spell a call rang out that the assessment’s allotted time had come to an end. Yuri and the young woman he had been fighting gave a visible, and audible, sigh of relief. With a wave of her hand, Yuri’s buxom former opponent was once again in her wizardly bathrobe.

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Five minutes after his bout, Yuri was once again alone in the Guild Master’s office with the guild master and she was congratulating him. Yuri had the feeling she wanted to do the horizontal tango again, he would firmly refuse when that moment came. He just had one thing on his mind, and was thankfully not sex, at the moment.

“So,” said Yuri, “when do I get my accessory that identifies me as an adventurer?”

“All the data we collected is on its way to the temple, they are the ones responsible for various Identification Cards. Only select priestesses are permitted to know the ritual that binds your ID Card to you.”

“But the one performing the ritual will probably want to have sex with me before that happens.”

“That’s not too surprising, natural males are a rarity in our world. Sure, mages and priestesses have spells to produce offspring, change your sexual anatomy for a short time, or even change your entire gender for a limited amount of time, but getting with a genuine male is always something special. Especially in your case, Alpharians are the rarest of the rare when it comes to the races of this world, their ability to basically impregnate any race regardless of any level of perceived compatibility makes them akin to the divine. Natural males, regardless of their actual race, are basically seen as sex gods at best and demigods at worst.”

“Great,” Yuri sarcastically exclaimed, “I’m in a world that’s basically in an ultimate male fantasy world and I’m not excited about the prospect of sex at every turn. Although to be fair, I have had a bit of a lower sex drive than most other guys I knew. I just want to get out there and face monsters.” Turning his attention back to Selvina, “how do you rank adventurers and monsters anyway? Is it some sort of alphabetized ranking system? A colored ranking system? A hierarchy of material and metals system?”

“Actually, we use a color-coded alphabetized ranking system. The lowest someone can be is a Green I adventurer, you’re basically a beginning novice at that level. But based on your performance in the combat aptitude test, we could probably put you in the Violet C ranking, mostly because your opponent was around that level and you fought with her on a pretty even footing. Granted, she usually sticks around to test new recruits more than go out on any missions or quests, she basically does the bare minimum required to keep her adventurer status active.”

“What happens if an adventurer goes inactive?”

“Regardless of their ranking when they stepped down from being an adventurer, they are required to go through what we call the Assessment Gauntlet, which means they are basically put in a series of tests that are at around the level of challenge they were when they stepped away from being an adventurer to see just how rusty they’ve gotten. Depending on the results of the test, they can even gain or lose a number of rankings before going back on active duty.”