Chapter 427: Craftsmen, Healers and Scholars

The administrative interviews continued inside the Grand Guild Hall the following morning, but Sage was no longer sitting behind a desk.

More than nine thousand applications still required initial processing, and temporary recruitment staff had been reinforced overnight with the first clerks who passed their interviews, allowing Sage to shift his attention toward the applicants who couldn’t be judged through paperwork.

Across the Grand Complex, facilities that had stood silent since construction were opening their doors for practical examinations. Smiths carried hammers and toolboxes toward the Production Quarter.

Alchemists arrived with ingredient cases and personal equipment. Healers gathered outside the Grand Medical Center, while monster processors were directed toward receiving bays that had been stocked with purchased carcasses specifically for testing.

Chefs disappeared toward the Dining Quarter, and scholars entered the Grand Library carrying enough documents to make Mina visibly lose interest. For the first time, several parts of the Headquarters were active simultaneously.

Sage started with the Grand Guild Smithing Complex, where the atmosphere had changed completely. The furnace halls were alive with heat, applicants occupied separated workstations, and temporary examiners moved between them recording results.

Entry-level smiths received ordinary iron and were required to forge functional equipment within a set period. Some were handed deliberately damaged weapons and armor, some with obvious problems and others containing hidden structural weaknesses.

Experienced smiths received better materials and more difficult specifications, while candidates applying for senior or master positions were taken into separate workshops where higher-grade metals waited.

The examination wasn’t based entirely on producing the prettiest sword. Material waste, furnace control, working speed, structural integrity, safety and the ability to follow exact requirements were all recorded.

A heavy metallic impact drew Sage toward one of the master workshops.

The dwarf inside barely reached Sage’s chest, but almost everything else about him seemed built wider than necessary. Thick forearms covered in old burn marks swung a hammer against glowing metal while a braided copper-colored beard hung over a reinforced leather apron. Sage recognized the name from yesterday’s report immediately.

Bramdir Coppervein.

Three other smiths had finished their examinations and were standing near the workshop entrance watching him.

Bramdir ignored them.

The test had given him a damaged high-grade war axe with fractures running through the head and a partially corrupted enchantment channel. The expected task was to determine whether the weapon could be repaired economically and explain the process. Bramdir had examined it, declared the previous smith "a criminal with a hammer," and requested permission to repair it himself.

Sage arrived as he finished.

Bramdir quenched the axe, waited, then inspected the repaired channel before placing the weapon on the table. "Whoever forged this originally pushed the mana line too close to the edge because they wanted more power without making the head thicker. That’s why it cracked. Repairing the visible fracture without rebuilding the channel would’ve sent it straight back here after another dozen hard strikes."

One examiner inspected the axe. "You changed the internal design."

"I fixed the internal design."

"The assignment was repair."

"And now it’s repaired."

Sage picked up the axe and examined it with his Aetheric Insight Eyes. Mana moved through the restored channel without gathering around the previous fracture.

"How many smiths could you supervise?" Sage asked.

Bramdir finally looked at him. "Depends whether you want me supervising smiths or babysitting idiots."

"Smiths."

"Good ones? Fifty. Decent ones? Thirty. Apprentices?" The dwarf grunted. "Depends how much you value my sanity."

Sage smiled slightly. "We’ll speak again."

"Bring better metal."

The Alchemy Center was even busier. Candidates worked in separated stations while examiners deliberately introduced complications.

Basic applicants prepared standard healing potions and antidotes. More experienced alchemists had to identify unlabeled ingredients before choosing the correct preparation method.

Several ingredients looked nearly identical but reacted differently to heat, forcing candidates to rely on knowledge rather than appearance. Senior applicants received incomplete formulas and were asked to identify what was wrong before brewing anything.

Sage watched one woman immediately extinguish her burner after noticing residue inside the vessel she’d been assigned.

"Problem?" the examiner asked.

"Yes. This wasn’t cleaned properly."

"It’s clean."

"No, it looks clean." She scraped a nearly invisible blue film from the inner edge. "Mooncap extract. If I heated this with the powdered Emberroot you gave me, we’d spend the afternoon replacing this table."

The examiner marked something on his sheet.

Two stations away, a loud crack was followed by purple smoke.

"Apparently that table needs replacing anyway," Boren remarked.

Sage ordered stronger ventilation before moving on.

The Grand Medical Center operated differently. Sage had refused any examination that rewarded healers simply for pouring the greatest amount of healing magic into a patient. Instead, instructors and temporary assistants created controlled scenarios using volunteers, training constructs and written symptoms.

Applicants had to diagnose first, stabilize second and treat third. Some injuries were intentionally deceptive. A patient with a broken arm also showed signs of internal mana disruption.

Another appeared unconscious from blood loss but had actually been exposed to a paralytic monster toxin. Candidates who immediately used powerful healing spells without checking the underlying condition lost points.

One healer stood out because she used almost no magic during the first several minutes.

Her name was Elowen Moor, a silver-haired woman in her early forties who had previously worked at a private Capital clinic. The mock patient before her had supposedly been injured during a dungeon expedition. Elowen checked breathing, pulse, pupils and mana circulation before touching the obvious wound along the man’s side.

"You’re ignoring the injury," an examiner said.

"No. I’m ignoring the distraction."

She pressed two fingers against the volunteer’s neck and asked several questions about the simulated symptoms.

"Venom," she concluded. "Something affecting mana circulation and muscle response. If this were real, closing the wound first would make everyone feel productive while the patient stopped breathing."

"What treatment?"

"Stabilize respiration. Identify the toxin family. Antivenom if available. Controlled cleansing magic if it isn’t. The wound can wait unless bleeding becomes critical."

Sage watched her complete the scenario without wasting mana once.

"Why leave your clinic?" he asked afterward.

"I didn’t own it. The owner decided wealthy patients preferred younger healers with prettier robes."

Boren frowned. "Seriously?"

Elowen shrugged. "The patients weren’t consulted."

Sage added her name to another shortlist.

The Monster Material Processing Center smelled considerably worse than the Medical Center. Several purchased monster carcasses had been divided across examination tables, forcing applicants to identify valuable parts, dangerous organs and correct preservation methods.

One candidate lost most of his score after reaching barehanded toward a venom gland everyone else had recognized. Another correctly identified a useful organ but suggested storing it beside materials that would contaminate it within hours.

Experienced processors were asked to estimate value, determine which materials belonged in cold storage and explain where each component should be redirected.

Sage liked the examination because mistakes were obvious and expensive.

A badly processed monster didn’t merely waste material. It could poison workers, destroy alchemical ingredients or ruin something worth thousands of gold coins.

The Dining Quarter was less orderly.

Mostly because Mina had appointed herself to a position nobody had created.

Sage found her sitting behind a table with a plate, a cup of water and a piece of paper she’d titled OFFICIAL FOOD EXAMINATION RESULTS.

"Mina."

She looked up while chewing. "I’m helping."

"Who authorized you?"

"I’m an adventurer."

"That doesn’t answer the question."

"Adventurers are going to eat the food."

Boren examined the argument with surprising seriousness. "She has a point."

Sage stared at both of them before deciding this wasn’t worth the effort.

The culinary examinations were genuinely demanding despite Mina’s involvement. Applicants received ordinary ingredients first, allowing examiners to judge basic preparation, consistency, cleanliness and speed without expensive materials hiding poor technique.

Later rounds introduced monster meat and mana-rich ingredients requiring specialized preparation. Some monster flesh became poisonous if certain glands weren’t removed correctly. Other ingredients lost their useful properties when overheated.

At the center of the examinations stood **Maura Bellamy**, the restaurant manager whose name had reached Sage the previous day. Rather than focusing on one dish, she moved between several kitchens observing workflow.

When a talented chef repeatedly delayed everyone by occupying two preparation stations, Maura reassigned his workspace without interrupting service. When another team began running short on an ingredient, she adjusted three dishes rather than allowing the entire line to slow down.

Sage approached her after the round ended. "You barely cooked."

"I’m applying to oversee restaurants, not prove I can chop onions faster than a twenty-year-old."

"Twelve restaurants."

"I counted."

"Too many?"

"To cook in? Yes. To manage? No. But if you expect one kitchen structure across all twelve, I’ll leave now."

Sage raised an eyebrow.

"A banquet restaurant and an inexpensive adventurer dining hall shouldn’t operate the same way," Maura continued. "Different customers, different menus, different staffing, different inventory. Centralize purchasing where it saves money. Don’t centralize everything because the buildings happen to share an owner."

Boren glanced at Sage.

Sage already knew what he was thinking.

Another name for the shortlist.

Their final stop was the Grand Guild Library, and the change in atmosphere was immediate. No furnaces roared. No potions exploded. Nobody was cutting monsters apart. Applicants sat at long tables surrounded by copied reports from Evergreen, maps, monster records and deliberately conflicting documents.

This examination was the one Sage had personally insisted upon.

He didn’t need people who merely enjoyed books.

He needed people who could build knowledge.

Applicants were given multiple reports describing the same monster encounter and asked to produce a reliable reference entry. One adventurer claimed the creature breathed fire. Another reported no such ability. A third mentioned scorched trees but admitted arriving after the battle.

Good candidates separated confirmed observations from assumptions rather than combining every statement into one supposedly factual record.

Cartographers received incomplete expedition maps and conflicting distance estimates. Archivists had to design retrieval systems for reports coming from hundreds of future branches. Researchers were tested on source verification and whether they could admit when available evidence wasn’t enough.

One man finished considerably later than most.

**Lucien Marrow**, forty-nine, formerly an archivist attached to a private scholarly society, had transformed six contradictory dungeon reports into a concise record divided into confirmed information, probable information and unresolved claims.

Sage read it twice.

"You removed almost half the details."

"They weren’t reliable."

"One report came from a respected adventurer."

"Respected people can still be wrong."

Sage looked up.

Lucien adjusted his spectacles. "A library that records every confident statement as fact isn’t a library. It’s an organized collection of rumors."

That was enough to earn another interview.

By evening, Sage returned to the Production Quarter as examinations ended. Not everyone had passed. Hundreds had failed, withdrawn or been redirected toward positions better suited to their abilities. Others remained under consideration.

Bramdir, Elowen, Maura and Lucien were only a few among the names moving toward final interviews, while Oren Thales, Selene Arkwright, Tobias Merrow, Cassian Rook and the administrative candidates from yesterday remained under evaluation for their respective divisions.

But the Headquarters was changing.

Workers who had already passed basic positions were being issued temporary assignments. Alchemy assistants organized storage rooms. Medical attendants inventoried supplies. Library clerks began unpacking the first copies of Evergreen records. Kitchen workers cleaned stations that would soon serve actual customers.

Then Sage heard the hammering.

He turned toward the Grand Guild Smithing Complex.

One furnace was burning.

Then another.

A chimney above the first hall released a dark stream into the evening sky, followed moments later by smoke from a second.

For the first time since construction ended, smoke rose properly from the Smithing Complex.