Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"Miss Nicola, are you really not going with me back to the church to take a look?" Right before we parted ways, Selene was still trying her best to bring me and Nicola to Preston Cathedral together. After all, angels are very special existences in the church, so if she could bring the two of us angels to visit the grand cathedral, it would definitely be a great honor.

"Uh...we still have a lot of things to do, like going to the Adventurers' Guild." Nicola very tactfully rejected the other party's invitation.

Actually, ever since my last conversation with Selene about the church, Nicola still had some interest in this True Church. We had even discussed it specially between us, and even suspected there were shadows of other crossers behind it.

But because we had been talking about joining the Adventurers' Guild all this time, that was the most pressing issue right now, so there was no rush for the time being.

"Let's talk about it again when we have the chance."

"Alright then, I don't know how long it will be until I can see Miss Nicola again..." Since that was the case, Selene couldn't say much more. She could only leave very disappointedly with Irene, Adrian and the others.

As for Irene, it was already agreed that she would meet with other light elves at the church and hopefully get proper arrangements.

After bidding each other farewell, we agreed to meet up again after finishing everything that night.

"The Adventurers' Guild is actually not far, just near this lake." As Vivianne spoke, she led us along the road by the lakeside. The green belt by the shore was very nice, not only surrounded by tree shade, but there were benches placed at intervals for people to rest.

After not walking far, we saw a huge domed building standing by the roadside. The front had many columns standing side by side, looking very much like those national assembly styles, which looked especially conspicuous among the surrounding low buildings.

This is it! We could indeed see several plaques hanging on the roof, with the words:

"Adventurers' Guild"

There was also a small plaza in front of the building with people coming and going, very bustling.

"It's the headquarters of the Adventurers' Guild in the Astralrealm Kingdom so that they made it so grand." Vivianne explained to us. "If it's a branch in other cities, some of the premises can be very shabby."

When we went inside, we found the interior was not smaller than the exterior. It was somewhat like a train station ticket hall layout, with a spacious main hall towards the back, lined with many small windows. There were long queues in front of each window.

Each window seemed to serve a different purpose. Vivianne brought us to a window marked

"Registration"

and stopped, queueing at the back.

"Aren't you two angels just messing around coming to register as adventurers?" Vivianne whispered in my ear, as in her eyes, what we were doing was really wandering around aimlessly. Even if the two angels couldn't return to Edenmere for the time being, there was no need to come do odd jobs to earn money.

"I just don't want to trouble you guys anymore. Since there's a way to earn money, of course I have to be self-reliant." There were too many complications involved that I couldn't tell her we actually didn't dare to go back to that Edenmere, so of course we had to make long-term plans first. We couldn't keep eating and relying on them forever.

Nicola didn't seem to have thought too much about it. She didn't care much before, since she was from a wealthy family and wasn't too concerned about basic livelihood. But being penniless after leaving the forest made her start to feel very uncomfortable, so she was very supportive of coming along with me.

"Next!" The window in front called out.

It was our turn very soon. Nicola went first, and I saw her seemingly filling out a form under the guidance of the staff. But it looked like she encountered a problem and gestured for Vivianne and I to go over.

"There's a race option here..." Nicola pointed to one column on the form and asked us softly. "What should we fill in?"

I saw that column had a long list of choices, including Human, Angel, Light Elf, Dwarf and so on.

The business scope of this Adventurers' Guild seemed a bit wide, although they were basically all races friendly to humans, but I was a bit shocked to see the Dragonkin option at the end. Were they really that unorthodox?

"Although the Adventurers' Guild is said to have a wide range of members and great influence, I've never seen any adventurers other than humans despite these options. You angels are the first." Vivianne also had a lot to say about this race issue. But she was right, despite so many people in this hall, I didn't see a single non-human except for Nicola and I.

This did seem to be a problem now. We had originally wanted to hide our wings and pass as humans to register, but if we filled in "Human" for race, would there be issues in the future? But if we truthfully filled in "Angel", would that cause other troubles?

"But if our wings aren't revealed, we won't even be able to exert an angel's powers right? We'd basically be like ordinary humans. What if they test our abilities?" I recalled the confusion that happened during the siege of Minos because our wings weren't revealed. And just on the left after entering the door, I saw a sign for "Ability Evaluation".

"So we can only fill in truthfully?" Nicola looked to us for confirmation.

"I think there shouldn't be any issues." Vivianne thought for a bit then said to us. "Since they dared to list this option, it means they were prepared for it, so no need to worry too much. And even if you conceal it, it'd be hard to prevent discovery."

She had a point. I didn't believe such a large organization had no one who could see through our disguises, since those sages saw through us at a glance before.

"Let's just fill in truthfully."

I decided and nodded to Nicola.

It went very smoothly after that. Nicola seemed to not have caused any abnormalities by truthfully registering at the window. Then it was my turn.

The process was very simple, just filling in the form.

"You're also an angel?" When the staff saw my race, she looked up in great surprise to glance at me. She didn't react so strongly just now, but having two angels register seemed to be very rare to her. However, she was indeed very professional, and she didn't make a big fuss, quickly resuming the processing as per normal shortly after.

Seeing this made me unconsciously raise my opinion of the Guild a bit more.

Before long, I received a card registered under the name Feliciana.

The card from the Adventurers' Guild was said to have great uses, not only within the Guild, but could also be used as ID in many countries.

Number: XXXXXXXXXX

Name: Feliciana

Gender: Female

Race: Angel

Magic Attribute: Light

Rank: 0

Points: 0

Was it because of my race that they automatically added my magic attribute? The content was very minimal, just these few items. The texture also felt strange, I couldn't make out what it was made of. It was said to contain magic to verify authenticity and prevent damage.

Ah...looking at my name and gender on the card, I knew that unless I crossed back, I'd have to completely bid farewell to the name "Flynn".

Nicola's card had similar contents to mine, both rank 0, only the ability test could change it, initial data was like this.

Vivianne told us we'd at least need to be rank 1 before we could activate the card and take on missions. So it was useless now, basically scrap paper. No wonder the staff didn't check my identity, not worried I might be a fake angel.

"Let's go test our abilities first?" Nicola suggested, and I fully agreed. So we headed towards the "Ability Evaluation" together.

The evaluation was divided into two types of tests, one was a comprehensive ability test, the other was a magic attribute test.

The comprehensive test was free, but after taking it once, you couldn't retest again soon.

The magic attribute test required a fee, 200 silvers each time, and there was no limit on attempts.

Since the comprehensive test was free, we had to try that first of course.

"It feels kind of weird somehow." Queueing at the back, I couldn't help but blurt out. All around were people who came to test their abilities, dressed in all kinds of outfits. This queuing method made me feel like I was back on Earth. But it wasn't to get documents or tickets, it was to go fight someone.

That's right, the comprehensive ability test was fighting someone, I found out from listening to people who just came out talking. To obtain a comprehensive assessment through combat, this did seem like a sensible thing.

"Don't take out the Condensation Sword when fighting later okay?" I reminded Nicola worriedly. That so-called celestial weapon, the great killer, would be far too dangerous if brought out with so many people around, no matter how you looked at it. And this was just a test, not hacking at people.

"I understand." Nicola looked assuring, so I couldn't say any more.

After queueing for around thirty minutes, it was finally my turn.