The C-rank assessment was in the morning and ran for three hours.
Guild assessors from the regional office put us through the standard evaluation: individual skill demonstrations, party coordination scenario, written combat theory for the mages and support members, physical capacity testing for Torvin and Rena. I watched most of it from the documentation table where my role was to provide enhancement demonstration and answer questions about the skill variant, which I did accurately and without volunteering information beyond what was asked.
Clean, I thought, watching Rena run the coordination scenario. She wants it clean and I want it clean and that should produce a clean result.
Rena performed above the C-rank threshold by a margin that made one assessor stop and check the assessment criteria. Torvin's physical test results produced numbers that required recalibration of the testing equipment. Sera's Fireball landed on the marked target six times consecutively with no drift, which she then had to explain in writing was not her normal performance but a function of the enhanced staff, which she then explained in three additional pages of technical documentation that the assessors read with varying levels of comprehension.
Yua healed a training injury from the previous assessment group that had been waiting for the guild healer. This was not part of our assessment. She did it anyway. The assessors added a note.
I demonstrated the stacking mechanism on a grey scroll, watched the assessors test the result, answered questions, and deflected two follow-up questions about the skill's ceiling with "the research designation covers the full investigation, I can provide documentation from my mage if needed."
They awarded C-rank at 2 PM.
C-rank, I thought, standing in the guild courtyard with the certification in my hand. Two months from G to C. I'm still F-rank personally. That's fine. That's a running joke that's going to have a punchline eventually.
Hyunwoo found me in the guild cafeteria two hours later.
He was alone, which was unusual. He sat down across from me with a tray of food he didn't touch and the expression he'd had at the desk yesterday, except more settled — like he'd been working on it overnight and had reached a conclusion.
"I need to ask you something," he said.
Here it is, I thought. Here's whatever yesterday was the beginning of.
"Ask," I said.
"My Blazing Fist keeps misfiring. I've been doing the extra training, I've logged more hours than anyone else in the group, and it's still misfiring." He looked at his untouched food. "The court wizard says it's a control issue. Mirae suggested the problem might be in my mana channel alignment. The training instructors are saying I'm overexerting." He looked up. "You know things about mana channels. From the enhancement work."
That's not why he's here, I thought. He could have sent a message about mana channels. He came in person. He's here because of yesterday and the troll and probably a few weeks of thinking.
"What's the actual question?" I said.
He was quiet for a moment. "Can you help."
There it is.
It wasn't an apology. I wasn't going to pretend it was. But it was Jang Hyunwoo, who had laughed in a throne room two months ago and who was now sitting across from me with his hands flat on the table asking me directly. That was something. Not everything, but something.
What do I want here? I thought honestly. Do I want to say no? Do I want to make him ask harder? Do I want to use this?
No, I thought. None of those. I want him to be better at his skill because a Hero with a misfiring combat ability is a liability, and if the Hero party is a liability in the north then more people die, and I'm not willing to let that happen because I'm carrying a grudge.
"Let me look at your stance," I said.
He stood up without hesitating. Showed me the activation position.
His right elbow is an inch too high, I thought, watching the mana channel tension in his arm. That's tilting the channel output about eight degrees left, which means every Blazing Fist he throws is slightly off his intended axis. Compound that over a full-force output and the misfire is predictable.
"Your elbow," I said. "Drop it an inch. Hold the channel there."
He adjusted. Held it. Tried the activation stance again.
"The discharge direction," I said. "Test it."
He fired a low-power test into the air. It went exactly where he'd aimed.
He stared at his hand. Then at me.
"That's it," he said. "That's all it was."
"Your control's fine. Your foundation was off."
"The court wizard couldn't—"
"The court wizard looks at skill output, not stance mechanics. These are different things." I went back to my food. "Tell the training instructors. They should log it."
He sat down. Didn't leave. I ate.
"Junho," he said, eventually.
I looked up.
"I laughed," he said. "In the throne room. I know I did."
There it is. Smaller than I'd expected. Harder to be angry at than I'd expected, which was annoying.
"I know," I said.
"I'm not — I know that doesn't fix it."
"No."
"But I'm—" He stopped.
"You're working on it," I said, not making it easy, not making it impossible. "That's what it looks like from here."
He nodded. Not satisfied — neither of us were satisfied. But it was honest, and honest was the only thing that was going to actually do anything.
"Work on the stance," I said. "The rest will come."
He left with his tray still untouched. I finished my food and sat with the specific complicated feeling of doing the right thing and not knowing yet whether I was going to be glad I did it or not.
Both, I thought. Probably both, at different times.