Lyra had been waiting out in the yard for about half an hour, which had given her enough time to look around. At least, that is how she was considering to angle this, trying to stay positive. The courtyard was about a 50x50 meter square crammed in between the Guild HQ and the Outer City wall, fully encompassed and enclosed for maximum privacy. There were plenty of benches spread out along the sides, now occupied by curious adventurers who had followed Lyra to look and watch as she took the test. The ground was a fine gravel mixed in with sand, very firm, but not as hard as or slippery as pure stone would be. There were a few archery targets and training dummies against the outer wall, at the edge of the yard, who could be moved around with a bit of effort.
Another five minutes of waiting, and a man appeared accompanied by the receptionist from earlier. He wore simple armor and a red cloak, and carried a sword along his waist. He walked with quick steps, and looked a bit annoyed already. He probably had other important duties to attend, only to have them interrupted by the news that someone broke two no doubt expensive crystals, and now he had to spend time overseeing a test, so Lyra could forgive him for being somewhat vexed. Still, he was rather handsome all things considered. Short-cut almond brown hair and chestnut brown eyes, with freckles over his cheeks and nose. Looked to be in his late twenties. Muscular but lean build, similar to Prince Henry.
He stopped in front of Lyra, and despite being annoyed, kept his tone curt and polite as he held out his hand for a handshake.
"I am Kyle Smith, Vice-Guild Master of the Capital Branch of the Adventurers Guild. I am also an A-rank adventurer, so I know my stuff. I heard you broke two measuring devices?"
-"I am Lyra Lunarsong, pleasure to make your acquaintance. I did not break them intentionally." Lyra answered as she shook his hand firmly.
"So I was told. Either you are stupidly strong, or up to no good, Miss Lyra. It is my job to find out which is which. You see the center training dummy over there, by the wall?" he said after having returned the handshake. He gestured towards one of the dummies, which stood about a meter from the outer city wall. "Hit it with your strongest spell." he then added.
Lyra raised an eyebrow. Her strongest spell, wouldn't that be dangerous? Kyle saw the hesitation written on her face, and rolled his eyes. He sighed, and added: "You don't have to worry. This entire yard is surrounded by an extremely strong magical ward, made by the Guild-Master himself. And if that is not enough, the wall is 8 meters thick. You think you could destroy that?"
Lyra relaxed a bit, hearing about the ward. If there was some super strong spell in place, then she probably did not have to hold back! So she stepped out further into the yard, looking back at the Vice-Guild Master, as she said:
-"Here is good? And a strong spell, right?" she called out.
"Yeah that is good. But aren't you going to use a staff?" he said back.
-"What for?" Lyra answered.
"All mages do, to channel their magic. You did say on the paper you were a mage." Kyle called back, seemingly rather suspicious of her, doubting her story.
-"Oh... well I don't need one. May I begin?" Lyra called back, unbothered.
"Go ahead... do your best..." Kyle answered, folding his arms across his chest.
Lyra nodded, eagerly, and turned to look at the dummy some 30 meters away. Finally she had the chance to practice a spell she had envisioned but never dared use. But now this was a safe and supervised area, so this was the perfect time to try it out! The spell she had made was created on a simple principle, but one she assumed never existed on this world. Where she came from, back on modern day Earth, knowledge of molecules, atoms and even electrons, protons and neutrons, were common knowledge. But here in this fantasy world, when she had asked the Prince about atoms, he did not seem to know what that was. "We are made of flesh and bone and blood." he had simply said in return.
This had made Lyra question whether the laws governing this new reality were the same as her old world, but to her, that seemed to be the case. Everything behaved in the same way. There was gravity, light refraction, conservation of energy, laws of motion, everything she had learned in school seemed to be the same here. So it stood to reason, everything was made up of atoms here as well. And the atoms, well, atoms are bound together with other atoms, forming molecules via chemical bonds of different types. And the atoms themselves are held together by the negatively charged electrons being attracted to the positively charged protrons, and then also an opposite force which has something to do with quantum mechanics and schrödingers equation, frankly physics wasn't ever Lyra's strongest subject. But how was this relevant?
Well, Lyra had envisioned a magical spell which disrupted and canceled these molecular bonds and forces; a beam which ripped everything apart, tearing everything down to its very smallest parts. She had named it "Disintegration Beam[1]"
So, now it was time to try this out. Lyra spread her arms out wide, then raised her arms up over her head. She then brought her joint hands downwards, palms flat, aimed against the Target Dummy. The air seemed to become charged, as dust and small pieces of gravel rumbled and then lifted from the ground beneath her, as the mana surged around Lyra's form. Then, she spoke the words:
-"Disintegration Beam."
At once, a massive torrent of light-blue magical energies shot forth with insane speeds from her palms, a beam which seemed to be about a meter wide in its diameter, kicking up dust as it surged towards the dummy across the training yard. In less than .25 seconds it had reached the dummy and blasted against it, consuming it entirely in less than a second, as the dummy was absolutely deleted. But the beam did not stop there, it continued. Moments later, it slammed into some sort of barrier just in front of the city walls, which when triggered seemed to extend like a dome around the entire training yard, but that too did not stop the beam. The barrier cracked, as the beam ate into it, and after but a second, the entire thing shattered, upon which the Disintegration Beam continued, now blasting against the city wall itself. 8 meters of thick stone slabs, but thickness nor denseness of material mattered in front of magic such as this. The Stone Wall too was disintegrated, and by the time Lyra finally realized something might be wrong, which was only five seconds after she had cast her spell, the damage was already done.
Lyra canceled her spell, and the beam faded into nothingness. In front of her, only the feet of the training dummy remained. The barrier was gone. And if she wanted too, she could walk straight outside, because a large one-meter wide hole went through the entire city wall! Through the hole, she could see trees and grass waving in the wind outside the city. There was a silent woosh of air, as the wind now had access to the inside of the capital via the hole in the wall. No one said anything. Not the Vice-Guild Master, not the receptionist, and not Lyra. They just stood there, equally shocked, though perhaps for different reasons. The first to break the silence was Kyle, who screamed:
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?"
Lyra did not at all like his tone, as if this was somehow her fault, so she screamed back:
-"What do you mean what did I do!?! You said there was a barrier protecting this place!"
"WELL NOT ANYMORE THERE ISN'T!" Kyle said throwing his hands up in the air. He looked at the hole in the wall with pure disbelief. The paperwork alone on this would be many hours of overtime. And that was if the Guild-Master did not kill him first when he came back from his trip. Though the Royal Family could just execute him even before that.
-"You told me to use my strongest spell!" Lyra shouted, frustrated with the accusation. The Adventurers who had watched everything unfold looked mostly just impressed. The gaping hole in the wall and the broken barrier were not their problem, after all. They just thought the spell was amazing, and so they were chatting loudly amongst themselves.
"Yeah well I didn't expect that! What kind of a spell even was that!?" Kyle said, defensive.
-"Disintegration Beam." Lyra said, forcing herself to calm down by breathing in and out slowly, but her chest was still heaving up and down.
"Well that just doesn't exists..." Kyle responded.
-"Obviously it does..." Lyra said with an attitude, gesturing for the gaping hole in the wall.
Kyle just groaned, and rubbed his face with a hand. Then he squatted down, burying his face in both of his hands as he sat in a squat, groaning even louder. Then the groaning stopped, eventually, as he spoke to the receptionist while still sitting with his face buried in his hands:
"Cornelia... take Miss Lyra to the reception, give her her Adventurer Tag. Make it C-rank..."
The receptionist stood still for a second or two, still looking at the feet of the dummy, and the hole in the wall. Then she seemed to register she had been spoken to, and immediately perked up. "Oh! Y-yes, of course. Miss Lyra, right this way..." she said, her voice a bit weird, restrained.
Lyra then left the courtyard, following Cornelia the Receptionist back into the Guild HQ. She spared a final glance over her shoulder, looking back into the yard. A few adventurers were poking at the feet of the dummy with their swords, while the two dwarves were inspecting the hole in the wall, caressing the stone, even licking it. And Kyle... well he was still out there in the yard, squatting down, face in his hands.
Returning to the reception desk, Lyra was then issued a metal tag and a small chain, to be worn around her neck. It had all relevant information she needed. Name, Race, Rank, and place where it was issued. Cornelia explained that the C-rank tags were made of bronze. B-rank were silver. A-rank were gold. And S-rank were made from something called Elementium, which was a metal Lyra had never heard of before. Apparently D rank were iron, and E-rank were made from wood.
Cornelia also explained that the rank limited the missions you could do. For example, a mission could be classed as a D-Rank Missions, that means it is suited to a party of D-rank adventurers. A C-rank can do D-rank missions alone, but would need a party to do a C-rank mission, and so forth. So if you are S-rank, you can take any mission from A-rank and below by yourself, and only need a party for S-rank missions. Currently, there were no S-rank or A-rank missions on the notice board, as those were very rare. There were 2 B-rank missions, 13 C-rank missions, 24 D-rank missions, and 32 E-rank missions currently available. And that is just counting the ones not yet claimed. It was first come, first serve. So a mission is accepted by the guild, they determine the difficulty, rank it, and then put it up on the board. If you want it, you go tear down the paper, and let the receptionist know you have accepted it. You then keep holding on the paper until you are finished, and hand it plus proof of mission completion in to the receptionist for your reward.
To rise in rank, you had to finish a set amount of missions of your rank. Exceptions could be made and one could rank up without completing the necessary number of missions, but only with Guild-Master approval, and only up to A-rank. To be made into an S-rank, three guild-masters would have to give their approval. A country only had a single guild-master, often located in the main-branch office in the respective capitals of a country. The guild-master of the Revean Empire was currently away, supposedly to be back in a few days time. Anyhow, Lyra had her tags, so it was time to go. She bid Cornelia farewell, and stepped outside. She greeted the escort knight who had been waiting for nearly two hours, and they got going again.
As they were leaving, a bunch of guardsmen came rushing from the opposite direction, entering the HQ, no doubt there to investigate this new literal breach in wall-security. Oh well, that wasn't her problem, Lyra mused as she walked away.
[1] Disintegration Beam: Costs 4000 mana, and then an additional 500 mana for every second it is channeled. The Disintegration Beam is a beam of pure magic which doesn't deal any actual damage but rather converts anything it touches into its finest elements, destroying any form of molecular bonds or magical chain and bindings. In practice, if used on a person or living being, it will cause massive damage.