The Hunter Exam's survival test was officially bullshit. The first few days had actually been rather nice, just living in a forest, gathering fruits, hunting for meat, making himself a nice little tree house. He even started preserving some food, because he, correctly, assumed it wasn't going to be this easy the entire time. That's when the bullshit started to happen. The weather started to turn cold, and the ninja squirrels began to appear! These insidious bastards could slip through the tiniest crack, eat all your food, and disappear in a matter of minutes! You know that trick where you put all your food in a sack and hung it off a tree branch? Ninja squirrels didn't fucking care. If you didn't seal that sack air-fucking-tight, they were getting into it.

Thomas had just gotten used to the ninja squirrels, when the freezing rain started! Sheets of water that poured out of the sky and instantly froze the moment they touched anything! His sealed sack? A freaking ice block. Thankfully he'd gathered enough wood to keep a fire going, or he'd have really been screwed. But he guessed that was the point.

As time progressed, things got progressively more and more ridiculous. It honestly reminded him of one of those old school survival games, on nightmare difficulty, including the damn hunger and thirst bars that depleted faster than should be reasonably possible. Thomas had to eat and drink every few hours or he'd start getting hunger pains. He could tell that if he didn't eat or drink anything for even a day, he'd be done, so he had to constantly stay on top of it, through all the bullshit. He honestly thought he was doing pretty well until on the fifteenth day, the forest burned down.

"Fifteen days, I'm impressed." Flynn nodded in appreciation as Thomas jumped out of the chair with a gasp. "Most rookies don't make it past the squirrels."

"There was- the entire forest- fire!" Thomas muttered numbly.

"Oof, that's a rough one." Flynn nodded. "Ursa's in the stealth test, so you have combat next." He continued, waving for Thomas to follow him over to the other formation. "The combat test has thirty rounds. The first round is fighting an opponent with equal strength, but basically no skill. The second you fight two, and the third you fight four, then it resets and your opponent's skill increases. Again, last as long as you can." He explained, before activating the formation.

Thomas frowned slightly as he appeared in an empty courtyard, thankfully this time with clothes. "Couldn't have given me a little break?" He grumbled slightly, before shaking his head. He didn't really need one anyway. Suddenly a wall of weapons appeared in front of him, and Thomas paused to consider it before ultimately grabbing two daggers. He'd considered going for a sledgeblade, but at this level of cultivation, it would weigh him down too much to drag it along without using it, and if he had to choose one or the other, he was better with the daggers. He was about to move on, before stopping and grabbing two more daggers. He wasn't great at using his Spirit threads to attack yet, but he could at least do something, right?

Sheaths appeared on his belt as he turned and walked towards the center of the courtyard, which he promptly stuck two of the daggers into, twirling the other two as he prepared for the fight, starting to form his Essence armor. After practicing, it only took him forty-four seconds to form it now… still not great, but he'd get there. Thankfully, the basic form of the armor only took him about four seconds to form now, which was good because the moment he crossed a line which circled the courtyard, a barrier shot up and his opponent appeared on the other end, immediately charging at him with a roar, waving a club. Thomas rolled his eyes, sidestepping out of the way, delivering a slash to his opponent's side as he did, only to frown as he realized he hadn't actually done any damage… His opponent was using Essence armor too.

Thomas had to jump back to dodge his opponents wild swings. His eyes widened as he suddenly stumbled, a Spirit thread catching his ankle just as the opponent dove in for another strike. "Shit!" He cursed as he went with the fall, rolling out of range and jumping to his feet again. His eyes narrowed as he glared at his opponent. Wasn't this supposed to be the unskilled one? Though… unskilled didn't necessarily mean stupid. It had Spirit threads. Why wouldn't it use them? Thomas clicked his tongue, emitting his Spirit mist so that he could see any Spirit threads coming from the opponent and also chastising himself for not making any use of his Spirit threads.

Thomas finally decided to get serious and charged at his opponent. It sent another wild swing at him, which he again sidestepped, going in for a stab this time, which easily pierced through the Essence armor, eliciting a cry of pain from the opponent. He broke a Spirit thread that darted in to… strangle him? Before delivering a few more quick stabs, staying close to the opponent so he couldn't make use of his club, before finally hitting something vital and it collapsed.

Thomas stood there for a moment, frowning and feeling oddly… mixed about the fight. Once he'd gotten serious, the opponent had been a joke, but it was obvious it wasn't something he could just brush off and assume he could take down easily. "This… is an oddly good test." He was honestly impressed, though he probably shouldn't be. It was ridiculously arrogant of him to think he could pass even the first level of the Hunter exam without even trying. "Have I been letting myself succumb to pride?" He frowned, sinking into thought, before shaking himself out of it as his next opponents appeared, twirling his knives. No getting cocky this time.

This round was harder, obviously, but he maneuvered around so that he always had one of the opponents in between him and the other, letting him focus that one down while the other tried to get around, and once one was down, the other went down pretty quick. Trying to deal with four at once? That was rough. There was no way to completely avoid getting ganged up on, so he finally had to break out his parrying skills, which weren't great against freaking clubs. He also started to use his Spirit thread, though only using one dagger since his ability to multitask was still shit, focusing on using the daggers in his hands to create openings for the other to spear through. Still, he ended up taking a few hits, which his Essence armor mostly tanked, though he was just definitely going to have a few bruises. At least, so he thought, until the last one fell and suddenly all his aches disappeared.

"Huh… healed after every fight?" Thomas's eyebrows rose in appreciation. "Nice."

The next opponent appeared wielding a hammer, which… Well, it was like the last set, but with a hammer. The opponent didn't really get much more skilled, the weapon was just more dangerous. Particularly when he got to the sixth round because you couldn't fucking parry hammers! He was really appreciating the after round healing at that point. Then the next opponent showed up with an ax and Thomas cursed. The one and two opponent rounds were still fairly simple, but when it came to four… "Fuck this." Thomas cursed, just giving up on entering into melee range, going full Spirit threads and circling, only moving closer when he could get an opponent in a position where he could hit it without the others being able to get to him. He was not tanking a swing from one of those axes. It took much, much longer than he'd have liked, but thankfully the opponents weren't great at working together, and once he got them back down to two, the rest was easy.

"Fuuuuck!" Thomas groaned as the last one fell. "That was brutal. What are the next ones going to have? Freaking sledgeblades?" He was regretting not grabbing one before. The shear area denial ability of it would have made the group battles a breeze! He paused as his next opponent appeared. "Huh. A sword… I can work with that." Thomas nodded. At least he could parry a sword.

Unlike the previous rounds, this opponent finally showed signs of some actual skill, at least enough to try and dodge when Thomas went in to strike. Thomas couldn't even use his Spirit threads, because they were constantly occupied disrupting its Spirit threads. Still, Thomas was better with his daggers, particularly now that he could parry, so it didn't take too long to take it down. However, when his next opponents appeared, he knew he was screwed. "Oh, shit, they're working together." The two maneuvered as one, not letting Thomas isolate them, and he wasn't that much better with his daggers. They eventually cornered him, a stab slipped through, and that was it.

Thomas gasped awake again, before letting out a groan. "Round eleven, huh?" Flynn commented as he walked over. "Not bad. Not great, obviously, but not bad. Ready for the stealth test?" Thomas shot him a glare, before letting out a sigh and nodding as he got up. "Great! This one is simple. You simply need to make it from one end of a map to the other while avoiding pursuit. Each time you succeed, you'll start again on a harder difficulty, for thirty rounds." He explained as they walked to the next test. "Survive-"

"As long as possible, yeah, I got it." Thomas rolled his eyes as he dropped into the seat. He'd forgotten how much Flynn liked to repeat himself.

"Right, well, good luck." Flynn replied awkwardly, before starting the test. To no one's surprise, stealth wasn't Thomas's strongest attribute, so it only took four rounds for him to get caught. Flynn even looked a little disappointed when he came out of it. Thomas was just thankful he didn't have to actually die in this one. The pursuer just tagged him and that was that. "Alright, all that's left is the knowledge test, but you'll have to wait until Ursa's done with the survival test." Flynn explained, waving him over to a few seats by the door.

It took Ursa another twenty minutes to finish, making it clear he'd done much better than him, seeing as he'd started before him and ended after, meaning he'd spent more time in each test. Flynn led them out of the testing room to a much smaller room with a few desks, before handing them each a small packet of paper. "You have an hour to answer all the questions." He explained. "And I have my Qi out, so no cheating." He warned, before gesturing for them to begin.

Thanks to Flynn's stupid binder, Thomas practically flew through this test, particularly the multiple choice section. The short answer section was a bit more difficult, but not overly so, and the essay question was actually rather thought provoking. Plus, Thomas had always been rather good with tests. He even kind of enjoyed them. Yeah, he was weird. He finished with ten minutes to spare, getting a raised eyebrow from Flynn as he took the test back and began to grade it. As he did, his eyebrows continually rose higher and higher, until he finished and turned to look at Thomas. "I gotta say kid, I'm impressed! Here I was thinking you were a generic meat head, but you actually have a brain up there, don't you? Why don't you apply it more instead of simply trying to brute force your way through all the tests?" He shook his head as he wrote a larger nine on the front of the test and circled it.

Thomas didn't know what to say to that. He had been using his brain! Hadn't he? He thought back over his tests. They were all pretty straight forward, weren't they? Survive as long as possible. The survival test was probably the most mentally intensive one, keeping track of your food and resources as best you could against the forces conspiring to take them away from you. You didn't have to hide or fight, you just had to be smart, and Thomas had done pretty well, hadn't he? If it hadn't been for that random forest fire- Thomas paused. Is that what Flynn meant? He should have been prepared for the forest fire? Thomas snorted. In Flynn's world, everyone should always be prepared for everything. However… in this case he might have a point. The test was obviously throwing him into worse and worse scenarios. He should have realized that something catastrophic would happen at some point and he should be prepared for it. He should have built himself into as impervious a position as he could. Instead, he'd simply focused on the immediate issues every time. The most future planning he'd done was preserving food!

Thomas had a sudden shift in perspective as he realized what Flynn was getting at. It wasn't enough to just take the tests, he had to game the tests. He knew what they were trying to do, and he could use that to his advantage. He knew the survival test was going to throw crazy shit at him, so he should have prepared for crazy shit. The stealth test was designed to stop him from getting across the map, which meant going straight would always be the most difficult path, yet that's exactly what he'd done every time, relying on hiding to get by, which was his worst skill. He should have avoided ever getting close to the pursuers, laid false trails, set traps, anything to stall them while he made his way closer to the other side. As for combat… he'd gone in with one way to fight against enemies he knew would be changing. His daggers were good for one on one, but for the groups, he needed a way to disrupt their cooperation, and daggers were terrible for that. The amount of skill it would take to perfectly defend yourself from multiple opponents was something he just didn't have. What he should have done was taken in his sladgeblade and just blown through their defenses, because sledgeblade, fuck you. It would have made the group fights much easier. Though… he still wasn't sure how much it would have helped him against the sword users. He might have been able to beat the two opponents, but against four? He wasn't confident at all.

Thomas sighed. He needed to work on his skills in group fights. And he really needed to get better at splitting his focus, because that's what really got him. Trying to do multiple things at once in a high-pressure environment where slipping up on any of them would mean failure… he just didn't have that skill. He could be aware of multiple things at once, rather easily too. It wasn't that hard to take in everything happening around him. The problem was when he actually had to do something about it. When he tried to do multiple things at once and everything seemed to rush around him as signals got mixed and everything seemed to pile up into an impossible mess… Thomas shook his head. There had to be some sort of trick to it all. Maybe he should talk to one of the Hidden Blades? Or even Maurice. A certain level of multitasking was required for Core Strengthening, right? They had to have some tricks he could use.

Thomas was pulled out of his thoughts when Flynn clicked his tongue, shaking his head as he looked up at Ursa. "You need to hit the books more, my friend." He chastised him, drawing a two on his test. "Now, let's see, the final results are… Thomas, you passed ten rounds in combat, three in stealth, and fourteen in survival. Plus nine from knowledge, that gives you a score of thirty-six, which makes you a three-star Hunter. Congratulations!" Flynn clapped lightly for him, before turning to Ursa. "Now, for you, you passed five rounds in combat, sixteen in stealth, and fourteen in survival as well. Plus to two from knowledge, that puts you at… thirty-seven. Also three star, congratulations!"

Thomas blinked, turning to Ursa. "You didn't get past round six in combat?" He asked, slightly incredulously.

"Stupid hammers." Ursa grumbled bitterly. He wasn't a combat expert, he was a big, strong bear! What did they expect to happen when they put him in a weak body to fight several opponents who were just as strong as him? He'd been lucky to eke out a win against the first four!

Flynn snorted. "You're one to talk. You didn't even pass round four in the stealth test! And he got sixteen in that. It's well known that the combat test favors Essence Cultivators, so as a Qi/Spirit Cultivator, getting passed the first set is pretty impressive as a novice." Ursa grimaced slightly at being called a novice, but given his scores… he let out a sigh. It was probably accurate.

"Combat favors Essence?" Thomas asked, frowning slightly. That made sense, didn't it? A lot of Essence Runes related to combat. "Which means stealth favors Qi, and survival… favors Spirit?"

Flynn nodded. "Precisely."

Thomas's frown deepened as he wondered why Spirit Cultivators would have any advantage surviving in the wilderness over the others, before dismissing it with a shrug. "So what do the stars mean?"

Flynn blinked at him. "It- means you can take missions rated three stars or lower? Did you not research the Hunter Guild at all before deciding to join?"

Thomas paused. "Uhhh…"

Flynn shook his head. "Freaking kids." He grumbled, before letting out a weary sigh. "Alright, here are the basics. Hunter missions are rated for the minimum cultivation and skill level required to complete them. The cultivation requirement is determined by the level of the Rune Beasts involved, while the rating is determined by the amount, the relative danger of the area they live in, the complexity involved, and so on. One to three star missions are simple extermination or resource gathering bounties. Either the prey is a known quantity, or you have the freedom to accomplish the mission in any way you see fit. One to three moon missions have some level of uncertainty to them. They could involve investigation, venturing near the territory of a powerful Rune Beast, or some other vaguely risky necessity that would require a Hunter to have some sort of edge that would allow them to handle something… unexpected occurring. Then there are the one to three sun missions, which are less missions and more… postings. A mission to keep a certain area clear of Rune Beasts for a certain period of time, to explore an ancient ruin, or to protect an individual for a certain period of time. Missions that are reliant on having a wide breadth of skills that allow you to respond to a variety of unexpected situations."

"So… we're at the highest level of hunting things that are known threats then?" Thomas asked, putting together everything Flynn had said in his head. That was… perfect, right? That's all they wanted to do, hunt Rune Beasts. Thomas wasn't interested in heading out to investigate or risk pissing off some ancient Rune Beast. He'd gotten a little worried that somehow they'd be stuck doing crap missions or something until they could raise their rank, but no, this was fine. This was perfect.