After completing the formalities in the main hall, Lu Qiuchen was officially registered as a temporary member of the “Courage and Justice” adventurer party. During the identity verification process, both York and the just-returned Trist widened their eyes in shock.
Listed under Lu Qiuchen’s class was—Ice-type Archmage!
An Archmage was a further advancement from a Magus, which itself was an advanced form of the mage profession.
According to the adventurer classification system, an Archmage was equivalent to an Epic-tier combatant.
Who would’ve thought that this delicate-looking half-dragon princess was actually one of the few epic-tier powerhouses in the entire kingdom?
Of course, both men knew that “Princess Cecily” might very well be old enough to be their grandmother, but her youthful and beautiful appearance was far too deceptive, making it all too easy to forget.
Watching their stunned, frozen expressions gave Lu Qiuchen a small sense of satisfaction.
“You both seem to be thinking some rather impolite things.”
Snapping out of their daze, they quickly bowed and said, “We’re simply shocked by how powerful Your Highness is, yet still so humble. Thinking back on how we behaved earlier… we truly feel ashamed.”
Standing nearby was the staff member in charge of Lu Qiuchen’s registration—a loyal fan of the dashing Viscount Trist.
Seeing her beloved Trist praise another woman, and a beastkin at that, she instantly felt displeased. But hearing Trist address this beastkin as “Your Highness,” she realized this wasn’t someone she could afford to offend.
Begrudgingly, she spoke up in a falsely polite tone: “Esteemed Archmage, I’ll now take you to the certification grounds for a strength assessment.”
Lu Qiuchen turned and gave the staff member a glance. The adoring look in her eyes directed at Trist said it all. So that’s what this is—jealousy.
Still, she had enough sense not to deliberately make things difficult. Otherwise, she’d be setting herself up for embarrassment—possibly even losing her job.
Lu Qiuchen didn’t bother taking it personally and followed the two men toward the assessment grounds.
The staff member led her to the Adventurers’ Guild’s internal training field, then went off to contact the personnel responsible for strength testing.
Moments later, another guild worker came jogging over and said respectfully, “Honored Archmage, we don’t have any suitable facilities here for someone of your level.
Please come with me—our Guildmaster will conduct the certification personally.”
Lu Qiuchen sighed inwardly.
If I’d known it’d be this much trouble, I’d have just written down ‘Saint-tier Magus’ and saved myself the hassle. Now I have to meet some guildmaster.
The staffer asked York and Trist to wait at the testing ground and led Lu Qiuchen toward the guildmaster’s office.
The moment she stepped inside, both she and the guildmaster froze in surprise.
“You’re here?” the guildmaster said, blinking. “Ah, I see—you’re here to register your Archmage credentials?”
He walked over with a respectful air and asked, “Esteemed lady, may I ask… what brings you here today?”
As soon as Lu Qiuchen entered the office, she recognized that this president had also attended the banquet that day.
However, she hadn’t known he was actually the head of the Adventurers’ Guild—otherwise, there wouldn’t have been all this fuss.
“It’s nothing. I just want to quickly become an epic-ranked adventurer,” she said directly, now that the guildmaster clearly knew her identity.
There was no need to keep up any pretense. “I want to head to the Londo Ruins to investigate the matter of the corrupted wyverns.”
The guildmaster let out a sigh of relief internally. As long as she wasn’t here to cause trouble, it was fine.
Though he was the president of the entire Tara Kingdom’s Adventurers’ Guild, getting entangled with dragons—those awe-inspiring yet terrifying beings—wasn’t something he wanted.
Upon hearing her request, the guildmaster showed a troubled expression.
After thinking it over, he said, “It’s difficult to immediately promote someone to Epic rank. But granting you the rank of Saint-tier adventurer is within my authority. Would that be acceptable to you?”
After Lu Qiuchen nodded, he promptly instructed his staff to process the paperwork.
“No need for any assessment. Just process the Saint-tier adventurer credentials under my name for this esteemed lady!”
Once the staff had left, he made a bit of small talk with Lu Qiuchen before politely showing her the door.
“Honored Dragon Lady, I still have some other matters to attend to. If there’s nothing else, I must excuse myself.”
Though she didn’t know what urgent matters the guildmaster had, the issue was already resolved. Lu Qiuchen was considerate enough to simply nod and take her leave.
After she was gone, the guildmaster picked up the registration form from the desk.
“Cecilia, half-dragon, Londo, corrupted dragons… I just hope this Dragon Lady doesn’t stir up some mess in Londo that we can’t clean up later.”
With that settled, York gathered the team, purchased supplies needed for the ruins expedition, and headed out of the city to rendezvous with the Lightning Griffon adventuring party.
By the time they arrived at the meeting point near the city’s stables, the sun was already low in the western sky.
Audi and his Lightning Griffon team had already rented the carriages.
The two teams had worked together before, so they weren’t strangers, but since Lu Qiuchen was new to the group, everyone took a moment to go through introductions again.
Most adventurers were physically strong, and some classes wore extremely heavy gear. Regular horses couldn’t bear such loads, and although earth dragons—a type of domesticated large magical beast—were often used, their speed was far too slow.
That’s why parties like Lightning Griffon typically rented carriages when traveling.
There were sixteen people between the two teams, and they had hired three large carriages. Five girls rode in one, while the other two carried the rest of the group along with their gear.
Although this world did have spatial storage items, the cost was still prohibitively expensive for ordinary Saint-ranked adventurers.
Among the two teams, only Audi and Trist had storage gear, and even theirs were the most basic kind—barely a single square meter of space. (Of course, Lu Qiuchen wasn’t counted among the “ordinary.”)
In the carriage with the girls, Lu Qiuchen already knew Phyllis. The other three were Tia, Viviana, and Seriel—all of whom were also Saint-ranked.
Tia’s class was an advanced one within the Cleric tree: Priestess.
Priests were different from other classes—they were an exclusive vocation tied to the Church. As an advanced Priest class, Priestess was highly sought-after among adventurers.
Their powerful divine arts not only provided sustained healing for the team but could also dispel various negative conditions. Offensive divine arts were particularly effective against dark or evil beings.
And who wouldn’t appreciate a class that could save lives in critical moments?
Viviana and Phyllis both belonged to the advanced Mage class: Scholar.
This branch, unlike Sorcerers who specialized in large-scale battlefield suppression magic, focused on magical potions and equipment enchantments to enhance the team’s overall combat capability—an essential support role in large adventuring parties.
However, because a Scholar’s support abilities scaled directly with their financial investment, most adventuring parties simply couldn’t afford one.
Seriel’s class was Guardian Knight.
She was also the second-strongest combatant in the Lightning Gryphon adventuring party, second only to their leader Audi, and was on the verge of advancing to the Epic rank.
Like Tia, she was affiliated with the Church. Once she advanced, she would inevitably become a Holy Knight—another exclusive class in the Church’s system, just like the Priestess.
The Knight class was also fundamentally different from others. While most classes had multiple specialization branches, and even if some were difficult to advance into, there was usually a “standard” progression option that was widely accessible.
Knights, on the other hand, had four different class branches—the most of any class—but each required extremely harsh conditions to unlock.
Holy Knight required joining the Church and having unwavering faith.
Royal Guard demanded enrollment into the Royal Knight Order of the Knight’s Nation, granted personally by the crown.
Dragon Knight required a pact with a dragon. While subspecies were acceptable, even they carried the pride of true dragons, and human history had seen only a rare few Dragon Knights.
Blood Knight involved transformation by a high-ranking demon, which was practically impossible given that the demon race had retreated to the Demon Realm over ten thousand years ago.
So, even though the Knight class boasted exceptional overall strength, very few people chose it. In adventuring parties, Knights were a rare sight indeed.
*****
While the girls in the carriage whispered among themselves, Lu Qiuchen didn’t join the conversation.
That was because right after their convoy set off, the two Dragon Kings had secretly contacted her with a message that had kept her deep in thought ever since.
Her adulthood trial… was complete.
Just yesterday, shortly after the two Dragon Kings returned to Dragon Island, the sisters Andona and Andola also made it back safely. Their unharmed return allowed the dragons of the Elder Council to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Silver dragons have few offspring to begin with. If anything had really happened to them, there’d only be five heirs left in the whole clan.”
But when asked where they’d been all this time, the answer left the elders at a loss for words.
Apparently, Andona had heard somewhere that the Elven Holy Spring could increase fertility.
As a young dragon determined to strengthen the Silver Dragon clan, she successfully persuaded her hesitant older sister, and the two of them snuck off to the Northern Continent to request the spring from the forest elves.
The elves, of course, had no idea the spring had any such function—if it even did. It was incredibly rare to begin with, and certainly not something they’d give away to outsiders.
So the two sisters pestered the elves for an entire month—causing mischief here, whining there—until the entire forest was in chaos.
The usually peaceful forest elves were finally driven to anger, but they couldn’t beat the dragons in a fight, so they begrudgingly handed over a small amount of the spring water to make the troublesome duo leave.
Ecstatic, the sisters flew straight to the Northern Sea to find a newlywed silver dragon couple. When they found them, the couple happened to be in the middle of some “intimate” business.
Naturally, being interrupted at such a moment made them furious, and they gave the sisters a proper beating.
Satisfied after “accomplishing their great mission,” the two dragons returned to Dragon Island, completely unaware they’d scared both the dragon clan and the Kingdom of Tara half to death.
Now that the sisters were back, Lu Qiuchen’s coming-of-age trial had officially concluded.
But she wasn’t exactly thrilled.
You’re telling me I spent all that money hiring adventurers, not to mention diving into a dangerous ruin myself, all to rescue you two—who weren’t even kidnapped, just off playing around?!
The two Dragon Kings, aware that the dragon claw marks and demonic energy in the ruins hadn’t been fully investigated, and that the mysterious figure pulling the strings behind the demons in the capital was still lurking, instructed Lu Qiuchen to continue investigating with the adventuring parties.
They themselves would return to Dragon Island to consult the Elders on how to proceed against the demons.
And so, Lu Qiuchen’s two biggest backers just… flew off. Leaving her alone in the carriage.
She was definitely a bit angry with the sisters—wanted to fly back and give them a piece of her mind—but she was also curious about the goblin ruins and the mysterious demons.
After months of training, her combat power wasn’t far behind that of an adult dragon. Plus, the demons had only interfered and hadn’t dared launch a full attack against the dragons, which suggested their strength might not be all that impressive.
Even if they were attacked, she was confident she could stall any high-ranking demons, while the adventurers could handle the rest.
If there really were corrupted dragons, things still wouldn’t be too bad. After all, surely more than just these two parties had been drawn here—other adventuring groups would definitely show up too.
And most importantly, if the Dragon Kings were confident enough to let me move alone… it must mean the danger level is manageable.
With that, Lu Qiuchen successfully convinced herself, and began to look forward to the upcoming adventure.
Most of the adventurers drawn to the Londo Ruins were after the chance to slay corrupted dragons and harvest rare materials from dragonkind. But she was different—she was here to broaden her horizons and satisfy her curiosity.
Once upon a time, Lu Qiuchen had doubted everything about this world. She thought it was all fake. That maybe, someday, she’d return to that warm and peaceful world she’d come from.
But after the past few months, she’d come to realize just how vast this world truly was, and how extraordinary the things happening around her had become.
She was now convinced—this was a real world.
And she was starting to accept the fact that she was becoming part of it.
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