"S-Rank!"
"Holy shit! The Senos Monarchy really sent monsters this year!"
The moment the evaluation runes materialized, the atmosphere around the testing platform erupted into a deafening roar. A young man stood proudly at the center of the formation, his expression composed as the glowing text solidified above his head.
[S-Rank]
The crowd immediately broke into raucous cheers. For ordinary mortals, S-Rank was the absolute pinnacle—the highest natural threshold of potential a summon or combat class could reach in the mortal realm. While it didn’t guarantee ascension to the Demi-god realm, anyone possessing an S-Rank asset was viewed as a future pillar of humanity.
Sovereign kingdoms would wage diplomatic wars to recruit someone like this. Ancient noble families would eagerly betroth their daughters, premier academies would exhaust fortunes in cultivation resources, and even the high council of the Bastion would take notice.
"Beat that," Mora muttered under his breath, a sharp smirk returning to his lips as his gaze drifted toward Ethan.
Yesterday’s encounter at the restaurant had severely rattled him. Mora had spent his entire youth building his identity around his S-Rank summon and his aristocratic lineage in the Heavenly Flame Manor. Then Ethan had casually dropped a Dawn Faction medallion on the table, proving he had been personally scouted by the strongest faction in the citadel.
It had made Mora feel deeply insecure, but he had convinced himself overnight that an invitation did not equal raw power. The Dawn Faction might have scouted Ethan for some niche utility, but Mora possessed an S-Rank summon—a true mark of martial genius.
Ethan, however, didn’t spare him a single glance. An S-Rank potential was impressive among local peers, but after clashing with sovereign beasts, enduring the descent of ancient Angels, and witnessing the execution of a god, Ethan was hunting for the true monsters Ulric had warned him about.
The next contestant stepped into the circle.
The crowd didn’t cheer right away. The newcomer was a shirtless man carrying nothing more than a weathered woodcutter’s axe resting against his shoulder. His coarse black hair fell loosely across broad, scarred shoulders, and he stepped onto the stone with complete, bored indifference.
The diagnostic array spun beneath his worn boots, and the light flared.
[Lin Mu]
[Class: Light Cutter]
[Rank: A]
[Tier: 4 Demi-god]
Silence blanketed the massive arena for several long seconds before the entire platform violently detonated.
"Demi-god?!"
"Tier 4?!"
"An A-Rank class broke through the divine boundary at his age?!"
Even Mora’s smirk vanished into thin air. The spectators had been so fixated on letter ranks that they had completely forgotten the brutal reality of combat: a practitioner with an A-Rank class who had already forged a divine core was infinitely more lethal than a Tier 5 novice holding an unevolved S-Rank contract.
Lin Mu didn’t linger to bask in the shock. He simply stepped off the platform, completely unfazed by the uproar.
Ethan watched the man’s retreating back with a faint, appreciative smile. *’A hidden dragon.’* That was the caliber of talent he had come to the Bastion to measure himself against.
The trials continued, and the true outliers began surfacing one after another from the crowd.
[Jade Lorna]
[Class: Summoner]
[Summons: 3 A-Rank, 1 B-Rank, 1 S-Rank]
[Tier: 4 Demi-god]
The crowd gasped in disbelief as the density of elite talent warped the atmosphere. Hidden prodigies boasting ancient mutant bloodlines, rare spatial classes, and Tier 5 summoners with multiple A-Rank contracts took the stage, completely overshadowing the standard candidates.
Mora’s fists clenched tightly at his sides. His arrogance turned into bitter dread as his single S-Rank summon seemed increasingly ordinary among the terrifying figures assembling on the dais.
Then, the proctor called the next name.
"Ethan Algar."
Ethan stepped forward through the parting ranks, drawing immediate scrutiny from every corner of the platform. Mora’s eyes narrowed into slits, desperate to see what kind of talent lay behind the Dawn Faction’s personal endorsement.
Ethan stepped calmly into the center of the array.
The formation flared to life, casting an ethereal pillar of light into the sky—and then abruptly hitched.
The light flickered erratically, the runes stalling in midair without rendering a single line of data.
Bartholomew’s gray eyebrows knit together. "Hm?"
The proctors operating the containment perimeter exchanged bewildered glances. "The array hasn’t finished calculating his soul resonance."
The Bastion’s diagnostic formations had been refined over centuries, capable of cataloging mortal biodata, soul contracts, and bloodlines near-instantaneously. The only existences that caused computational drag were divine entities whose conceptual weight broke mortal arrays.
Yet Ethan did not project the aura of an Angel.
After several agonizing seconds of runic distortion, the array stabilized with a crisp chime that resonated across the entire mountain.
[Ethan Algar]
[Class: Summoner / Blood Tyrant Blade]
[Tier: 5]
[Summons: 5]
[S-Ranked Summons: 5]
A suffocating, dead silence fell over the platform.
Then, the arena exploded into absolute pandemonium.
"Five S-Ranks?!"
"What the hell is that?!"
"That has to be an array failure! Nobody holds five S-Rank contracts!"
Holding a single S-Rank summon made an individual a generational prodigy; holding two was virtually unheard of. Five S-Rank summons under a single Tier 5 summoner defied the fundamental laws of soul-contract capacity.
An attendant hurried toward Bartholomew, his voice trembling. "Elder!"
Bartholomew’s weathered face remained impassive, but his thoughts raced frantically. Even a disciple personally blessed by the Mad God Karth would struggle to maintain the immense mana strain of five S ranked summons.
"Recalibrate and run the diagnostic again," Bartholomew commanded calmly, stepping toward the circle. "Pardon the delay, young friend. The array may have encountered an artifact error."
"Understood," Ethan replied smoothly, stepping out and re-entering the glowing ring without hesitation.
The formations flared again, scanning his soul signature with double the arcane resonance. The runes spun, locked into alignment, and projected the exact same result:
[Ethan Algar]
[Class: Summoner / Blood Tyrant Blade]
[Tier: 5]
[Summons: 5]
[S-Ranked Summons: 5]
Absolute silence washed over the stage.
Nobody cheered, nobody laughed, and nobody questioned the array a second time. The Bastion’s grand formation had verified the anomaly twice: Ethan held five authentic S-Rank summons, and he hadn’t even crossed into the Demi-god realm yet.
Mora stood completely paralyzed, his face entirely devoid of color. The single S-Rank asset he had built his entire identity around felt utterly pathetic against the glowing screen towering over the stage.
Looking at the Dawn Faction token resting against Ethan’s hip, Mora finally grasped the terrifying reality: the strongest faction in the Bastion hadn’t invited Ethan out of political goodwill, they had recruited an unprecedented monster.
Ethan stepped off the platform without lingering, ignoring the stunned stares as he returned to stand beside Ella and Hela.
Bartholomew let out a slow, measured breath, staring at the dissipating runes before raising his hand to break the trance.
"Next candidate."
His voice remained firm, but the underlying tension had fundamentally shifted. The selection had barely begun, and the internal balance between the Bastion’s four factions was already tilting.
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