DMS Chapter 254

Abericht returned, and the discussion about the perks and responsibilities of becoming a Platinum-rank adventurer began.

The old wizard answered all of Flinx’s questions about what would be expected of him once he ranked up.

The main issue was that Flinx didn’t want to become tied down to the kingdom, and he told Abericht as much. The old wizard simply laughed.

“It’s not expected for adventurers to stay in the kingdom. That’s why we’re called adventurers. We’re expected to do a lot of adventuring throughout the world. The only thing we want is for you to treat the kingdom as your base of operations. Sooner or later, you will come to treat it as your home, and as your home, you will defend it from any external threat.

“You don’t even have to dabble in politics if you don’t want to. In truth, among the twenty-four Platinum-rank adventurers based in Ilioven, only five of them involve themselves in politics.”

Flinx told Abericht that he already treated Ilioven as his base of operations and was starting to consider it his home city.

The old wizard replied that it wouldn’t be a problem for Flinx to accept the responsibilities that came with receiving the noble title accompanying the rank.

“My issue is that I don’t really want the responsibility of managing land,” Flinx told the old wizard.

“The land that will be given to you wouldn’t be in the city, and we don’t expect you to stay there. Lands granted with the title accompanying the rank, which is non-hereditary, would revert to the kingdom once you died.

“Basically, the land is simply a place you can claim as your home if you don’t want to remain in the city, and its proceeds would be another form of reward you would receive as a Baron of the kingdom.

“As I’ve said, you don’t even have to stay there. You can let managers you hire take care of it. You would still need to inspect it once in a while to make sure the land is being managed properly without you having to oversee it yourself.”

While Abericht continued explaining what it meant to become a Platinum-rank adventurer and a Baron of the kingdom, Flinx started thinking that having land and a castle would be greatly beneficial for him and his friends.

They could check it out, and if it was large enough for all of them to stay there, they could transfer there. Living on private land would be safer for them, and they could even make it as beautiful as their current compound by using their abilities.

After thinking about it, Flinx started getting excited about owning land as a baron of the kingdom.

In truth, it amused him a little that once he became a Platinum-rank adventurer, he would be called Baron Flinx.

When Abericht completed his lesson, Flinx told the old wizard that he had decided to proceed with the rank-up test.

He was surprised to learn that the test consisted of three parts.

The first was a written examination, which made Flinx a little apprehensive since he didn’t know much about Ilioven. He told Abericht as much.

“You don’t need to worry about the written exam. It won’t check your knowledge of local history or anything related to politics and the kingdom. It will only check your literacy, knowledge of logical and moral reasoning,” Abericht assured him.

Flinx was glad that he had learned the common language, including its written form, from Anuel, the priest in the first town he had arrived in.

Even though his spells could easily assist him with any language-related issues, knowing the local language was still better.

The second test was a combat examination against a Platinum-rank adventurer. Abericht told Flinx that he was lucky because he wouldn’t have to wait for one to arrive; there were currently three Platinum-rank adventurers in the city.

The combat test would be private, unlike his Diamond-rank test, where he had been given the choice of making it public or keeping it private.

The last test was dungeon delving, and he would be accompanied by two or more Diamond-rank adventurers.

The good thing about the final test was that the last floor of the Dungeon of Mara qualified as a testing floor.

Since Flinx wanted to rank up as soon as possible, he told Abericht that they could start immediately.

What surprised Flinx was that he didn’t have to pay anything for the rank-up test.

“Is that normal?” Flinx asked.

“No. Normally, it would cost a lot to apply for the test, but those fees are for people we’re certain will fail. Semanor assured us that you’re fully capable of passing the test,” Abericht said.

When Flinx asked why, Abericht shrugged and told him that he didn’t know. However, Semanor and his two Diamond-rank friends had already reported that, sooner or later, Flinx would request a rank-up test for Platinum Rank and that the chance of him passing it would be extremely high.

Abericht simply handed him the written examination and left him alone.

Upon going through the questionnaire, Flinx was glad that the old wizard hadn’t been exaggerating. It was a simple test that checked the literacy of the person taking it, along with some logic and moral questions.

It was a long test, and it took him two hours to complete.

Flinx was glad that he was used to answering such questions.

When Flinx summoned Abericht by ringing the bell on the table in the office where he was taking the test, the old wizard arrived immediately and took the completed examination from him.

He was advised to return the next day for the next part, since it would take some time to check the results of the test and schedule a Platinum-rank adventurer to conduct the combat examination.

Flinx would have asked Abericht why there was a need to test his dungeon-delving ability since the combat test alone would probably be enough to demonstrate his combat abilities, but he didn’t ask.

If that was what they wanted, Flinx would simply comply.

While he was on his way home, Flinx decided to pull David, Arcios, Keero, and Violet out of the Mage Guild for a day of celebration once he successfully ranked up to Platinum.

Even though Flinx was a little nervous about the rank-up process, he was confident that he had reached the level of strength required for the rank.

Thankfully, the thirteenth-level spell slot cooldown was over, and he could start using it again.

He was supposed to cast the Wish spell to make someone young, but they could delay that for a day or two while Flinx underwent the rank-up test.

When the delving groups arrived later that day, they all met up in the meeting hall to discuss the results of their delve.

They basically said that they had all completed the tenth floor without difficulty with the help of Flinx’s two elementals assigned to each delving group.

They had also managed to obtain magic items from the boss of the tenth floor.

There were some instances when they encountered dangerous situations, but Windy was fast enough to destroy any dungeon monsters that managed to slip past Rocky.

Delving the tenth floor also gave them tons of experience points and an impressive amount of mana stones.

They had decided that, to be safe, they would stick to the tenth floor until they reached level three. Based on the members of the group who were good with numbers, they concluded that it would take them about a month to reach that level.

Hearing that, Flinx was extremely glad for the buff he had received from the stone gate he had used to escape the Torbal Slavers. It multiplied the experience points he received from killing monsters, and without it, it would probably have taken him considerably longer to reach the level necessary to rescue his friends.

Given the rate at which the slaves were dying, even a delay of a few months could have meant that Flinx would have found no survivors left to rescue.