The first day of the Mages' Guild's Qualification Certification Examination assessed candidates for Junior Mage status. Many Apprentice Mages who wanted to officially qualify as mages came to take the examination, so naturally, it drew the largest crowd.
Compared with the first day, the second day's examination for Second-Level Mages drew somewhat fewer people.
Of course, that hardly meant there were few of them.
According to statistics from the Lampari Kingdom's Mages' Guild, there were nearly two thousand Junior Mages in the kingdom. Each year, over a thousand might consider themselves strong enough to attempt the Second-Level Mage examination.
When Xu Yi and Stille arrived together at the examination grounds outside the city, they were greeted by an incredibly boisterous scene.
With their current abilities, neither had come to take the Second-Level Mage examination. They were there specifically to cheer on the mages from the Xinfei Merchant Guild who were taking it.
The Xinfei Merchant Guild had recruited nearly three hundred mages in total. Apart from the forty-six researchers at the Magic Research Institute, all were Low-Rank Mages of the third level or below, working in the guild's factories drawing magic arrays.
The mages willing to do such simple factory work either lacked the talent to advance very far in magic or came from poor families and lacked the funds to accelerate their progress. Naturally, their abilities would not improve particularly quickly over the course of a year.
Still, every mage would find a way to attend the annual Qualification Certification Examination, even knowing their abilities fell short of the requirements.
Besides hoping they might get lucky and pass, they could use the examination as an opportunity to meet more of their peers and experience the atmosphere of a large gathering of mages.
For many mages, the annual Qualification Certification