"Yes, sir, we are all ready for the Trials." Astrid smiled and nodded as she said it. "We are not quite as close to level 21 as we'd hoped, but we decided it was better to get a couple days of rest than to get a couple thousand more experience."
"That is probably wise. The Trials are an exhausting experience, and taking the steps necessary to ensure that you will thrive while within the bounds of the Great One's Dungeon is greater than being able to evolve one day earlier. May I ask how close you all are to level 21?"
"I'm a bit over 20,000." Astrid answered, turning to look at Muti. Before she could speak, though, Greely shook his head.
"Specifics, please." The old man continued smiling as he insisted.
"20,274." Astrid answered, a little confused but unsure what that could give the old Druid. Not feeling the need to ask further, Astrid listened as the rest of her party answered.
"23,792."
"23,184."
"17,155."
"17,422."
Muti, Skandr, Benedict, and Felix answered, none seeming to hesitate to tell the truth, and, for the first time, showing Astrid the specific numbers that showed what the difference was between their levels. Greely nodded his appreciation for their compliance with his request, and made what approximation of eye contact he could, considering his cataract-clouded eyes.
"That's very fast. Congratulations. You have made more than satisfactory progress, and you have kept your promise. What were you planning on doing for the next two days as you rest?"
Astrid looked at her companions, knowing what they discussed, but unsure if she should just say everything right away or if she should wait for any reason. Eventually, she just shrugged and said, "Prepare for the Trials? We're not sure exactly what we need to do, but getting ourselves in peak shape and buying new equipment would definitely be one of the first things that we should do. I'm not sure how much Iron tier equipment will be able to afford, but anything that we can get would be a way that we can try to make sure that we're not falling behind the people we'll be competing against. Once that's done, we'll just be getting some rest and training."
"You won't need to worry about equipment." Greely chuckled. "The Guild wouldn't send you to the Wandering Trials without equipping you."
Astrid blinked several times, then looked at her companions. None of them looked to have expected to hear what they just heard, and they stood in silence for several seconds.
"Are you saying… that the Guild is going to pay to fully outfit us with Iron tier equipment for free?" Astrid asked, her mouth going dry.
"Of course! If we're sending you into the Wandering Trials in the hopes that you are successful, it's in our best interest if you're successful. We've already created the plan of having our delvers go right before they reach the next tier, might as well prepare for what happens after that, right? We won't know exactly what Class evolutions you'll end up receiving, but based on what Skills you've chosen and your existing Classes, we can make some educated guesses. Equipment that would work well based off a scaled–up version of your present selves will be prepared for you by the time we are fully prepared to leave in four days."
"Wait… are you saying that the timeline you presented us with already gave us two days of rest at the end?"
Greely's crow's feet at the corners of his eyes deepened as he smiled. "Most delvers lack the presence of mind to ensure that the mind is as sharp as the body. Especially at Bronze tier."
Despite the conversation that was continuing, Benedict interrupted with a groan. "Are you telling me that we're going to need to go back into the Dungeon tomorrow? For these last two days of experience?"
"No," Greely answered, "I asked for the exact numbers of your experience because the Guild will prepare monsters for you to kill to get yourselves within 500 experience of evolution before we arrive at the Wandering Trials. And don't worry, this won't be something that will impact the quality of the Classes offered to you, this last little bit won't impact anything."
"OK!" Astrid jumped back in. "This is making less and less sense. This is not the Guild that I have had experience with for the past nearly 2 years, but it is the one that I was always told about as a kid! I've been able to deal with how different everything is for the past five months because I thought you were just a better Guild representative than the ones I've experienced before. That isn't what's happening now, though. Right now, you're telling me that the Guild has the ability and resources that could've made me and every other delver successful in every other town across the entire damn nation! How is Humanity's Bulwark showing this potential avenue while also letting parties get murdered and kidnapped in other dungeons? It doesn't make any sense."
Astrid finished her tirade and panted, trying to re-gather herself. Greely's grin faded to more of a sad smile. Once she'd regained her composure, he spoke. "There is only so much that the Guild is capable of doing. The nobility, even the Duchess herself, is constantly looking for opportunities to leverage control over delvers as the most powerful individuals in our country. They frequently do, and their personal forces grow every day. More impactful to your personal experience, every good Administrator, Scribe, Manager, and Teacher ends up under a Noble's thumb, nearly without any exception.
"As such, the Guild is forced to put powerful people in positions of leadership, and very often, those who find personal strength through delving are not great administrators. As an example, Klara, who was the Guild's representative in Kznietch, is a great fighter. She has multiple accounts of fighting above her level, and even above her tier, now that she's stalled at the peak of Steel. However, she can also be counted as a cautionary tale regarding reaching beyond your abilities to evolve, but that's not what I wanted to get at, at least not at this moment.
"She thought of herself as more intelligent and a better planner than she is, and she considered herself unable to reach out for help, due to her suspicions of Anders being the traitor. She was correct, and she still should have asked for help from the Guild. Instead, due to her foolish fears of making waves or possibly hurting somebody's feelings, she got people killed." Greely's voice, always so warm and soft, gained a hard edge as he spoke. "There is a reason why she no longer has any leadership position available to her, nor will she ever have one again. She never wanted any leadership position, but after years in it, she grew complacent and innocent people paid the price for it. The Guild should have seen Anders's deceit, as well as had more people in Kznietch, but in the end, it was her responsibility to do something and she didn't.
"I've been in the position of a representative for the Guild for a very long time. I'm a holdover from those in the previous era, those in a less turbulent time. I remember how it should be, and so does the Count here. He lacks the egotism of other nobles who'll see the country burn to gain another single advantage. As such, I can leverage my position as well as my power to give you the treatment that you deserve. I'm sorry that your experience with Klara has so soured your opinion of the Guild as a whole."
Astrid wasn't quite sure what to say about this at all, but Greely's rationale was sound enough, and he'd mentioned things that she had only heard from her mother before, so she was left with either accepting what he was saying as the truth or moving on. Effectively, they were the same anyways, so she just let out a slow breath and nodded. "Well, thank you then. Is there anything you need from us for now?"
"No, thank you, Astrid. Enjoy your break for the day, and we'll have some instructors come to train you tomorrow. How diligent have you been in attempting a variety of different strategies?"
"Not as diligent as we should've been." Astrid answered with a sigh. "We won't turn away an opportunity to be trained by people who know better than us, I'm sure, right?"
Looking at the rest of her party, Astrid received confirmation that they were all willing to work with higher tiered people to continue preparing themselves, and she nodded at Greely. The old man smiled, nodded his head, and said, "Very well. Then, in the morning, additional training will begin."
Astrid nodded and walked out of the office, not quite sure how she felt about everything that'd just happened. Sure, Greely seemed to be taking steps to be able to help the party to succeed, but he also seemed to be taking away their ability to choose for themselves. However, her other option was to just step away from what he was offering, which she would do only if she was an idiot. He was giving equipment, supposedly, that they wouldn't be able to afford, and training that was out of their grasps. Walking away from that would just be an exercise in bullheaded stubbornness that served nobody. Would there be strings attached to this? Would there be some contract they had to sign? As soon as that thought crossed her mind, Astrid turned and poked her head back into the office. Greely had anticipated her return, or simply was generally unflappable, and asked, "Yes?"
"What are the conditions of you and the Guild's help?"
"The only conditions we offer is that you do your best in the Wandering Trials, that you not work against other Human interests while in the Trials, and that upon your exit from the Trials, you pay a fair price for the equipment that you keep or return that which you do not want or cannot afford to keep after the Trials' conclusion."
"So it's more of you lending the equipment, in case we want to keep it? Only then do we have to pay, and if we disagree with the price you offer, we are under no obligation to pay anything?"
"Exactly. As for the training, that is something that is given freely, not something to be paid for. Those who choose to train those who come after do so from a desire to assist, not from a desire to profit. There's no need to worry about anyone looking to twist this into an opportunity to take from you. Any who even suggest such a thing can be referred to me, and I guarantee that I will put them in their place, whether that is in a prison, 2 meters under, or something else."
Again, Greely gave a hint of the steel that dwelled underneath his apparently cultivated soft older man exterior, and Astrid nodded, allowing herself to feel a little bit of trust in the old man. Perhaps that trust would be betrayed, but all she could do for now was hope that he wasn't a liar.
Back out of the office, the party looked at each other, none seeming to want to say anything just yet. Astrid eventually just shrugged and said, "You heard the man. Tomorrow morning, we get some practice."
Nobody said much, and Astrid allowed herself to imagine they were all thinking the same things that she was: the Guild had promised to present the party with trainers and experience and equipment and travel and this opportunity to go to the Trials in the first place… It was growing more unbelievable by the minute, and Astrid finally had a thought occur to her that made her stop in her tracks. Skandr looked at her, his head cocked to the side as he asked, "What?"
"Does the Guild do this for everybody who's going to the Trials?"
***
"Yes, of course we do this for everybody who's perfectly positioned to succeed in the Trials like you five are." Astrid's trainer, a low Steel tiered Hammerman named Jakub, answered her when she asked. "The Guild has a vested interest in treating delvers right, especially ones that have the possibility of getting boons from the Great One. And you're not the only people we're sending to the Bronze entrance. I've heard about at least two other parties, and they're getting the same treatment as you. One difference at the higher levels, like Steel tier and above, is that it's a lot harder to outfit people with a full set of their next tier's equipment, so there isn't as much provided for those who're entering the Trials. But this is a huge opportunity for the Guild specifically, more for them than any other group. It would be stupid of us not to do what we can to try to gain your trust and your loyalty right now. And if all this isn't enough, then, honestly, the price of losing a promising Iron tier isn't great enough to skimp out on the other people."
Astrid nodded as Jakub extended a hand and lifted her back to her feet. They'd been drilling through the specifics of how to use mana in every movement, and she'd fallen. With how much of a higher level he was than her, he had probably a decade more experience with strengthening himself with mana than she did, and in the several hours that they've been working together so far, Astrid already understood how childish her understanding of mana was. She just threw it into her attacks without thought, but Jakub taught her how to shape the mana to achieve very different goals. If she wanted for her attack to penetrate through defenses, she could bring it to a pyramid point to punch deeper. A more devastating attack could come in the shape of a flat surface, one where everywhere the mana touched ended up exploding. Astrid had almost done that before. Or at least, she liked to think that she almost had, but she knew she'd never gotten close.
She continued to experiment with the shapes and forms and intents to the mana as Jakub taught, but mana was far from the only thing he taught her in. In fact, much more than training her with her mana manipulation, he trained her to be much more flexible with her weapons. So many of his own abilities were very different from her own, but not because he was Steel tier. Instead, Jakub's strength came from how he specialized and then broadened his experience within that specialization. He was so much more mobile than her, and not just because of his attributes and level. Instead, in many ways, he was like Felix. A part of Astrid just thought of people who wielded axes and hammers as brutes, large, strong, and slow. Yes, they could take hits and they could deal devastating damage in return, but she hadn't thought of her hammer work as particularly graceful or delicate.
Jakub wasn't, in any way, shape, or form, delicate, but he was graceful. In his practice, he was wearing his full armor, but he continued moving, except for in the exact moment when he needed to strike. Then, he would ground his stance to help deliver devastating blows, but otherwise, he was light on his feet, active and focused. In addition, he carried three hammers on his belt, each one with a head the size of his fist. When Astrid had mentioned wanting to get a better ranged option, he'd simply asked, "And why don't you throw things?"
He then infused mana into his hammer, much like Muti had in several fights where she experimented, and threw it at a training dummy. Astrid hasn't gotten a good look at the specific form of the mana, but the hammer's head flared with energy as it made contact, the mannequin exploding into pieces.
Astrid's vision swam as she was drilled harder than she'd ever been with her mother, since this man was training her not as a regular Human, but as a high Bronze. Once she hit those limits, he gave her the "privilege" of stopping her physical exertion, instead pushing her mana into different shapes and positions on her body to be used differently. A couple times, while she experimented and tested herself, she could catch glances of the others as they were trained by other similarly experienced delvers, but all that Astrid could really do was train and train and rest when she could. She refused to show Quick Recovery when saving her from the depths of exhaustion, instead using it more subtly to simply allow herself to go for longer while she trained.
Two days passed, and then the experience acquisition began. Contrary to everything that she'd ever been taught, there wasn't a problem with what they were doing, and it wouldn't supposedly, weaken the Class options presented to the party. With the Guild's assistance, the party killed monsters beyond their tier that had been crippled and mostly killed before they'd been brought to be slaughtered. They appeared in the training sand pits, wagons with monsters inside of them, with a stranger standing outside of each with directions of who was to kill what.
It was a strange experience, killing multiple Iron tier monsters that were little more than limbless torsos, but despite any disgust Astrid and the party did it nonetheless. While doing so, they were commanded to continue experimenting with what their tutors were training them to do. Doing as she was told, Astrid killed by throwing steel spheres to weaken and cave in skulls as she attempted to make the mana stick with a strike beyond the throw. She didn't have enough time to master the skill, but at the end of four days, every member of the party was very nearly level 21, had been trained for at least 14 hours a day, and was ready to go to the Wandering Trials.
"Didn't that damned old man say we were going to get a break?" Benedict cursed as he sat on a bench.
"I said no such thing." Greely interrupted as he strode into the pits, his body covered with mottled grown and green robes. "I said that rest is as important as exercise. You will get rest before we arrive. Now, let's get each of you your packs and get going."