Starting With A Trash Hand

Fusing an iron rank card

Push-ups x 20. Check.

Curl-ups x 20. Check.

10 minute squat. Check.

5 km run. Check.

Finishing my exercise, I went straight to the shower. The cold water dosed my exhausted muscles. I heard the door open as I was reaching for the towel. It was Klee. My hand paused as I saw who it was. An awkward silence ensued as we stared at each other. I grabbed the towel in lightning speed when I saw her eyes trail down. With a red face, she slammed the door shut.

Klee kept dodging my gaze over the dining table. She was stuffing her face so fast, she nearly choked. In a haste, I offered her my hot cocoa, which she spat back out when she burned her tongue. Gritting her teeth she glared at me.

I grabbed my jacket and ran out of the shouting, "I'll be back at noon, ciao!!"

"Be careful out there!" I heard my mom.

"Solon! Get back here!" Klee was fuming.

****

I arrived near the Dandelion Fields gate a few minutes later. There were more people than usual today, like a lot more. The queue had two lines and goes as far back as two whole blocks. "Hey, what's with the queue?" I asked the person at the end of the line.

"Ah. The College Entrance Examination is being held today. Apparently they even rented the gate today just to hold the event," he replied.

"Which college?"

"There's more than one. This time their distributing the students according to the school ranking."

"Are there any requirements to join?" It's not that I need to. But with the event going on, I stood no chance of entering the gates unless I join. The energy gauge is just a fourth from being filled. It would be suicide to enter other wood rank gates on my own. Even if I joined a party, it's highly unlikely that they won't let me have the last hit.

"None. Any individual below the age of 20 can join, just bring your ID."

I breathed in relief. I should be able to fill the energy gauge today. I also need to fuse two more copper cards.

The wait was short as I arrived at the gate an hour later. There were staffs scanning our IDs. A bracelet was handed to me after the scan.

"Your class?"

"Healer," I answered the staff. Then he started jotting down on his tab.

"You are given five hours to kill as many Furpuffs as you can. Because you're a healer your final score is multiplied by 3. Good luck"

"Thank you."

I pushed open the wooden doors and entered the gate. Green plains greeted my eyes, the bracelet on my wrist vibrated twice. There was an LED showing 4:59 and 0. The former should be the time allotment and the later was the score.

Shaking my head, I jogged towards my grinding rock… I mean spot. A few minutes later I arrived at the place. I found a flock of Furpuffs nearby. I grabbed one them and dragged it towards the rock. It didn't even resist as I smash it against the rock. It still took me 10 minutes to kill. I used the same method to deal with the rest.

Two hours of constantly torturing these cute and harmless creatures, I was finally able to fuse 2 more copper cards. As for the energy gauge, I still need to kill 14 more Furpuffs.

The same colored vortex appeared on top of the book as six stream of copper lights flew out from between the pages. The copper lights entered the vortex and an iron rank card was born.