Chapter 51: Safe And Sound

"Karl, Dana, it is good to see you back in one piece. The mages said that they were monitoring your vital signs, and you weren't heavily injured, but we got the message that the town was overrun after we sent you. Tell me, what happened after you got there?" Sergeant Rita demanded the moment that they were far enough from the helicopter to speak somewhat normally. "We found a pack of wild boars on the edge of town, so we hunted them and packed them up for meat, then we went to take care of the Goblins that were around town and the group that they left on patrol. That part was easy, as it was almost all Common Grade monsters. We had Hawk clear the ones he found looting in the town, and then we went to the government building to see if they had left us a message or something. It's not like we're sent anywhere at random, so they should have known that we were coming. But we didn't find anything, so we assumed the mission wasn't over, and we set up a fog trap for the Goblins that would return that night. We managed to eliminate the entire Goblin Tribe by morning, and then we called these fine gentlemen for a ride home." The Special Forces team leader smiled and nodded along, then gave Karl a gesture of approval. "Short, succinct, but covering all the major steps of the plan. I approve, excellent summary." The soldier chuckled. "I will expect a full report by tomorrow morning. But before that, we all need to have a meeting. It appears that the Base Commander has some fine things to say about you all, and it has raised some questions here at the Academy." Sergeant Rita informed them. "And that is my cue to retreat. Have a good afternoon, Cadets." The Special Forces leader laughed. "Oh, no. You're coming with us. We need a full report from your team on what they found when they got to the town, body counts, the state of the students' combat readiness, and anything else that the mages come up with. Since the students claimed to be Awakened Rank when they reported to the phone operator, we need to determine if they lied to a government official." The soldiers smirked at her assertive manner, as the Sergeant didn't actually outrank them, she was just the messenger passing on the bad news that they would not be returning home so easily. "Well, we've got just the thing for the testing, then. We have an entire Special Forces team of trained officers at the Commander Rank who are willing to test the two students right now if necessary. I believe that not even the stuffiest of bureaucrats will question our judgment if we can show the results." He replied. With that much of a power gap and their level of experience, it wouldn't be a problem for them to somewhat accurately gauge the performance of the attacks made by Karl and Dana, but this particular team had their own estimation method. "I will have Lieutenant Keyes set up a series of barriers, each one at ten percent increments of his total power. There is no doubt that he is in the middle of the Commander Rank, but there is a big jump between Ascended and Commander, the power nearly doubles. If they can make it to fifty percent of his barrier at full capacity, I would say for certain they can put out Ascended level damage. If they can make it to twenty-five percent, it should be at least Awakened level damage. That's straightforward enough, and then we can just have them repeat it to prove they have the stamina for a fight. I don't think that will be an issue either, after seeing that they could cover an entire town in magical fog and kill Goblins all night long." The teachers from the Mage department were much happier than expected with that plan. They were around the same power level, and they would have used the same general testing method, but having an official examination done by the army would remove all questions about bias in the testing. They were the instructors of the students in question, after all. If someone thought that they had passed too easily, it could hurt the teachers' reputations. Sergeant Rita pointed to a building at the side of the compound. "Let's do this in the practice gym. It's set up with all sorts of protective walls so nothing gets damaged, and we don't have the whole school as an audience." Karl shrugged, not concerned one way or the other. He knew that he could pass this test. But Dana was happy to get out of the public eye, just in case the teachers were not convinced that her magic missile was up to the standard for an Awakened Mage. She had been holding back quite a bit all night long, but the Goblins were pretty soft targets, and they were easy to kill even with a third of her total power. Getting away from the crowd just wasn't going to happen, Karl realized once they made it into the gym. There were viewing boxes up on the second and third floors, and with the scene that they had made, arriving with soldiers and going straight to the gym with a group of teachers, they had gathered numerous curious students that were anxious to find out what was going on. Normally, only the senior classes would be off campus at this point in the year, so seeing two new students coming back from somewhere was gossip worthy all by itself. Seeing them coming back like this, and getting a full welcoming committee from the school that wasn't the disciplinary committee, was even more juicy of a story. "Alright, who wants to go first?" The mage known as Keyes asked as he set up a row of glowing squares along one side of the room. Karl stepped forward. "I will go first. I will do it alone first, then with Hawk, since we're a team, but the testing is supposed to measure the elite."