"This will be your proctor for the fang exam. Tokimichi, a swordsman with one diamond fang." Jin looks at the man with part shock and part fear. The fear quickly becomes the more intense reaction as the man walks up and stands in front of Jin.
"So you're the boy?" He says in a calm deep voice, his accent foreign to Jin's ears.
Lileen and Marim smile as they reflect on their own first adventurer's test. As Tokimichi guides Jin to the testing grounds, both Lileen and Marim turn to go wait in the adventurer's lounge.
Taking a seat at a booth, they order their favorite drinks. Lileen gets a green tea and Marim gets a milkshake.
"Looking at the two of us, one could never guess you're the one with the sweet tooth.." Lileen complains as she reaches down and pinches at her stomach a bit. Marim seems to preoccupied with her delicious drink to care.
"So let's cut to the chase. What did you do?" Lileen says with a sigh as she glares daggers at Marim, ready to scold her. Marim flinches and laughs nervously then takes a big slurp of her drink.
"Earlier, I went to go pick up Jin for his test and I might have caused some Reminiscence…" Marim says with a smile, hoping Lileen wouldn't take it too badly. Lileen, on the other hand, becomes furious at the confession.
"You did what?!?" She nearly shouted out. "You know we can't bring up what happened in his village! I locked those memories away in his mind for a reason! He couldn't even sleep at night when he first came here, let alone do anything besides cry all day!" Lileen scolds. Marim scratches the back of her head and sighs, her smile fading at the memories of Jin's sleepless nights.
"I know, I know. It was an accident." Marim says lowly as she thoughtlessly stirs her straw. Lileen takes a moment to think.
"I can cast the Reminiscence spell again, but we can't let this go on forever! He will have to face those memories eventually. And the longer I keep casting this spell the worse they'll be when he does face them." Lileen also says lowly. Together they sigh and look down, pondering the hard decision to make.
"You're quite soft on the boy, but there is a line where kindness becomes weakness. As a high elf, I should know, Mar." Lileen finally says firmly. Marim sighs and nods in agreement.
"I know, Lil. Just another month or two at most. He just needs to get a little more confident in himself and then he can face them. I swear upon it." Marim says with an extended hand. Lileen looks at the hand of her friend then reaches out and shakes it.
###
"We shall start with the language test. The first part is easy. You seem to be native to this language so speech should be no problem for you. This is merely a formality for people from other nations to test if they understand the language well enough to speak it with a proctor." Tokimichi says. To Jin, he looked more foreign than anyone else he had seen which confused Jin why he was proctoring the test.
"Y-Yes, sir. Wh-What do I need to say?" Jin says without any questions. Tokimichi grins and raises his hand to grab the hilt of his sword. After a moment of stillness, he draws the blade and holds it up to the light of the sun.
"Just describe what I am doing in as much detail as you can manage. Be warned, I will be judging you on your pronunciation." He says as he remains in pose.
Jin looks at him with a bit of shock at the pose he had struck. Jin almost felt like laughing but thought he would surely fail him if he did. Tokimichi stood there proudly, his face stiff and emotionless.
"We-Well, you are standing in front of me with a sword drawn up towards the sky. The sun is shining around it and makes it hard to see the blade well, but I can see it good enough." Jin said, thinking of the best words he could say without too much error. Tokimichi nods and drops the pose, returning his sword to his sheath before vowing to never do such a thing again.
"Good, then now we shall start the written test. It is a simple sheet of parchment. You must read the words and write the opposite symbol." Tokimichi says as he guides Jin over to a table in one of the many rooms of the guildhall.
"Wh-What if I don't know one?" Jin asks as he sits down, visibly shaking in nervousness.
"Just leave it blank then." Tokimichi says as he sets a small black jar of ink with a feather pointing out of it in front of Jin. He then scrounges around in his robe until he pulls out a parchment. Scanning over it, he stuffs it back into his robe.
"Not that one. That was my bill from last night. I had quite fun with those maidens." Tokimichi mumbles as he searches his robe again. Jin looks at him in confusion.
"A bill? For what?" Jin asks with a tilt of his head. Tokimichi looks at him for a second before laughing.
"Don't worry boy. It is something all men seek to have one day. You'll understand when you're older." He says before pulling out the test parchment and placing it in front of Jin. Jin looks down at the symbols. Some of them are very familiar, while others were complete mysteries.
"You may begin." Tokimichi says before heading over to the windowsill to look out. Jin nervously starts to write down all of the symbols he could remember until only the few questions with symbols he didn't know are left.
From there, he trembles and thinks with all his might, thinking if he tried harder he might learn the symbols again.
"I-I'm done." Jin nervously says as he stands up and brings the scrolled up parchment to Tokimichi. Tokimichi looks it over briefly then nods.
"Good. This looks mostly correct. You may pass to the next stage: combat experience." Tokimichi says as he bundles the test up and leads Jin out of the room.
'That boy's answers on the test were only right on the symbols commonly used in our profession. I'm rather looking forward to his combat experience.' Tokimichi thinks to himself as he guides Jin.