The moment Theo stepped inside, the air completely changed.
Several groups of hunters stood spread out across the lobby, some scrolling through their phones, others talking openly.
But all of them had one thing in common. They radiated confidence and seriousness.
'This is it,' he thought, heading towards the center of the hall.
There, multiple lines had already formed in front of several counters, each manned by an Association employee.
The line Theo had joined moved forward slowly.
By the time he reached the front desk, a young receptionist looked up from her screen and paused, her eyes lingering on him with a strange gaze.
"Good afternoon," Theo said politely. "Where do I go for the basic hunter exam?"
The receptionist quickly wiped the scrutinizing look from her face and smiled.
"You'll need to go one floor up," she replied, gesturing toward a nearby staircase. "It'll be the first room on your right."
"Thank you," Theo said, giving a small nod before stepping out of the line.
As he climbed the stairs, his brow furrowed slightly.
'Why did she look at me like that?' he thought. 'Is it my age?'
Most people his age were busy with school and college. Showing up here was probably unusual.
'Whatever…' he thought, reaching the second floor.
Theo glanced around and immediately spotted the door the receptionist had mentioned. Without hesitation, he pushed it open.
Inside was a small, quiet room. An attendant sat behind a simple desk, another door positioned beside him.
"Please place your personal belongings in the lockers," the attendant said, gesturing to a row of metal compartments along the wall. "You can retrieve them after completing the written test."
Theo nodded and quickly stored his phone inside one of the lockers before closing it.
As he stepped back toward the desk, the attendant spoke again.
"Do you know how the test works?"
Theo thought for a moment and nodded faintly.
"Good," the attendant said, standing up with a sigh. "Take a seat at any available monitor and begin."
He opened the door beside him, revealing a larger room filled with rows of desks facing the wall. Small screens sat on top of the desks, several of which were already occupied by examinees focused on their tests.
'This is… different from how I imagined it,' Theo thought as he walked toward an empty monitor.
As he sat down, the screen lit up, asking him to fill in his name and the passcode he'd received upon registering for the test.
'Alright,' Theo thought, letting out a deep breath as he focused. 'This is it then.'
Quickly filling in the requirements, ten questions popped up on his screen one by one, until it stopped on one.
'You encounter a wounded F-rank hunter being chased by an E-rank monster. You are alone, low on mana, and unfamiliar with the terrain. What do you do?'
Theo repeated the question silently.
He narrowed his eyes, immediately falling deep into thought.
'If I go all out and catch it by surprise, I might be able to kill an E-rank,' he thought, tapping a finger lightly against the desk. 'But that would drain most of my mana… and I have no idea what else is nearby.'
That alone made the option unacceptable. Being without mana in unfamiliar terrain was a death sentence.
As harsh as it sounded, there were only two realistic choices.
'Lure it away while calling for backup… or retreat outright.'
Theo typed it in, his brows still furrowed.
He knew it was the correct choice. In the wild, caution was everything. It was the most fundamental rule a hunter had to follow.
'You don't owe your life to anyone,' he thought coldly. 'If they walked into a bad situation, that was their decision.'
Like that, he continued with the next nine questions, answering them all within thirty minutes.
After finishing, a bright green light lit up the screen, signaling he'd passed.
'Even though the questions were a lot harder than expected,' he thought, a broad grin spreading across his face as he stood up. 'I still passed.'
He quietly walked out of the room, leaving a dozen examinees behind him.
As he pushed back into the locker room, the attendant's voice echoed out beside him.
"Congratulations," the attendant said, pointing toward the door. "You can now head to the room opposite of this one. That's where the combat test takes place."
"Thank you," Theo responded, smiling faintly as he grabbed his phone from the locker.
He turned around, nodding once to the attendant. "Have a nice day."
"Much the same," the attendant replied with a polite smile.
With that, Theo left the locker room. Like he'd been told, he approached the door on the opposite side and pushed through.
A faint wave of mana washed over him immediately, making him pause for a moment.
The inside of the room was far larger than the written test hall. Thick reinforced walls surrounded the open space, with several metal targets lined up at the far end.
To the right side of the room stood a small reception desk. A single examiner sat behind it, quietly checking a tablet, barely sparing Theo a glance as he entered.
'Guess I'll sit down for a few minutes,' he thought, glancing at the metal chairs beside the reception.
He sat down beside another examinee, seemingly in his late twenties.
The man immediately looked at him with a strange expression.
"You're young," he said quietly. "Aren't you supposed to be in school right now?"
Theo smiled awkwardly and scratched his head. "Yeah… normally. But I need to earn some money."
The examinee chuckled, glancing back at the test dummies. "Don't we all."
Just then, another examinee was called to the front and generated a broad, firm water shield in front of him.
The examiner flicked the shield once and nodded. "Pass."
Minutes passed as Theo waited, patiently watching each test.
'Most of them are already Bronze Cores,' he thought, narrowing his eyes slightly. 'But their raw power seems to be below mine.'
The same couldn't be said for Silver Cores. None of them got examined properly and were just handed a straight pass.
"Theo Lane," an examiner's voice echoed across the room, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Yes," Theo answered, standing up.
A thin man wearing the Association's uniform gestured for him to follow, a firm, serious expression on his face.
"Great," Theo heard him mutter under his breath. "Another waste of time."
Theo raised an eyebrow but said nothing as they walked toward the center of the room, stopping near a white circle on the ground.
"Stand there," the examiner said, pointing at the circle. "And fire your spell at the metal target."
Theo nodded once and stepped into the white circle.
'This is it,' he thought, letting out a deep breath.
He faced the metal target at the far end of the room, slowly raising his arm.
Several examinees turned to look at him, clearly curious because of his age.
'Just like practice,' Theo thought, guiding mana through the familiar channel in his arm.
A soft yellow glow shone from his palm in an instant.
Suddenly, crackling sparks of lightning formed in the air beside him, condensing into a thin but long lightning bolt.
The examiner's eyes widened, and the murmurs in the room died down.
Theo locked onto the target.
Then—he fired.
The lightning bolt tore through the air in an instant, heading straight for the metal target.
Boom!!!