VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne

Chapter 303: Rising the ranks

When the three of them, and Jason, entered the testing area of the Monument, they were quickly separated by class. With so many different systems, such as Aura, Providence, Mana etc, there was no one way to rank their power.

Instead they were given multiple tests based on their class and abilities, which were given individual scores, which were then averaged. Their first test being surviving the process of filling out tedious forms.

Since she couldn’t perform the roles of her normal class, Valerie submitted herself as a mage, as that was what she could best perform as in this feeble body. She was a little apprehensive when they asked for a blood sample, but without it being the Refined Blood Root, they wouldn’t be able to transform themselves into something like her.

Although they were free to test out how poisonous it was to drink.

As for her identity as a non-human, that wouldn’t be unique for long, so it didn’t matter. Plus, the people who had been spying on her no doubt figured that out themselves already. She did eat someone on camera, after all. Even if the AI had been tricked to look away, manual review would eventually show that.

Once the forms were out of the way, Valerie was taken to a long room that reminded her of her training bunker, and which held some very familiar items. At the far end of the corridor, which was roughly twenty metres, three metallic training dummies stood tall and ready.

She eyed those suspiciously, wondering if the company had connections to the Monarchs or if this was more stolen technology, before she was directed away from the firing range and to a table to her left.

The table held two strange items. A black, crystal orb that sat on a three legged stand, and a clear jar that held a viscous blue sludge of unknown origin.

"First, place your hand on the crystal. It will measure your mana levels." One of the two employees told her.

Valerie nodded, stepped over to the table and placed Beans down onto the table, before placing her hand onto the crystal. It immediately started to glow, as a small mote of white light formed in the very centre of the black crystal.

Valerie could feel it invading her body, crawling up her arm and towards her source, and kept a close eye on it as it moved through her. The closer it drew to her source, the brighter the light grew, until suddenly it shifted colour when it finally hit her source.

A mossy green polluted the white light, until it was fully green, whilst the light never stopped growing. It filled the majority of the crystal, stopping just shy of the edge, leaving a faint line of blackness surrounding the moss.

The testing staff narrowed their eyes, a slight look of shock dancing across their expressions before they quickly suppressed it through professionalism.

Valerie narrowed her eyes at them, then glanced at the orb curiously. Breathing in through her nose, she subtly filled her lungs with air, as well as the mana that polluted that air. With all of the mana filled people swarming this building, it was filled with plenty to go around even with it dispersing over time.

As she funnelled that new introduction of mana to her source, Valerie could see the light - which had stopped growing for a few moments - budge out a little bit further. That seemed to give the scientists a moment of pause, as they quickly had to alter their notes, before Valerie pulled her hand away.

"Sorry, If we are going to measure mana levels, I just need to do a little something first." Valerie said with an apologetic smile, clasping her hands together as she moved away from the orb. The examiners glared at her in annoyance, before glancing at each other and sighing.

Plenty had done the same, bringing D-fuel with them so they could boost their mana levels just before the test. It was technically allowed, as it was similar to eating a lot of food before a weight check, and their tests were designed around it. However, they really didn’t see the point for this girl.

At the level she was at, a touch of D-fuel was not going to make much of a difference. Even still, they gestured for her to continue.

Valerie smiled at them and reached into her pocket, which allowed her to hide her hand actually delving into the shadow that her pocket cast. She fished out her blood flask as well as a smaller Source Remnant.

She kept the remnant in her palm and, whilst she was unscrewing the lid of her flask, placed it on top of the flask’s opening. Quickly raising it to her lips, Valerie tilted the flask and drank some of the blood inside, whilst allowing the remnant to drop onto her tongue.

It rapidly melted, mixing together with the blood that she eagerly gulped down.

Valerie’s body flooded with power as her constitution instantly drained it from the source remnant, flooding her source with the new power, until it couldn’t hold any more. Her source overflowed, unable to contain the mana filling her body, which started to go wild as she was forced into taking the Second Step, exactly as she had hoped for.

With her experience from last time, it was much simpler and much faster this time, which was good because she was being watched by two suspicious examiners who were wondering why it was taking her so long to process a simple drink.

There was only one difference for this Second Step. Instead of refining her existing source, Valerie completely drained it of power, mixed the mana from her source with the mana flooding her body, and compressed the two streams of power into a new, purer source that she connected to the original by a tightening river of mana.

The river would actively purify the overflow from her original source, feeding the second and fuelling it with purer mana. This was the Second Step for mages.

"Alright, I’m ready. I’m sorry for the wait." Valerie said with a warm smile, as she stepped over to the table and slapped her hand down onto the orb once again.

The examiners rolled their eyes as the orb followed the exact same process as before. However when it reached the previous limit, and they were about to tell her to move away, the orb kept changing. The mossy green spread to the very edges, leaving no hint of blackness in the orb, and at the very centre of the green, formed a small speck of ocean blue light.

"Ah, there we go," Valerie said with a smug smirk, as she looked up at the shocked expressions of her examiners.

"That’s better, don’t you think?"