Aries Pack Conference Hall
"Okay, now that our special guests are here, it's time for the selection ceremony. The results of the top hundred will be displayed on the projector now. The ones that are not part of them will go to the testing pillars and we'll see if you'll qualify to be disciples of the Council or the royals here" Seriel announced.
A giant screen was placed in front of the crowd and the top 100 was displayed. The first was Lord Jason of house Dixen. Those who thought he was part of the top ten in the Academy was due to him being the Queen's fiance had their beliefs shaken. Since Luica was disqualified, he wasn't part of the list.
The first fifty spots went to the Academy. Spot fifty one went to a wolf from a low leveled school. Then the remaining fourty nine spots went to students in prestigious schools which were only lesser than the Academy.
The rest of the thousands of students went to the testing pillars to test their aptitudes. They were all hoping to become disciples of either the Judges or the Queens. However, the most talented out of them had only two judges. It was a dragon and he was accepted by Szessan.
The Council did not accept any other disciples and the royals and officials took advantage of this and accepted the ones with three patron judges. The ones with four went home sadly.
"Okay, now that that's over, can everyone else except the top hundred excuse us?" Seriel said and they complied.
"First of all, congratulations on passing this examination. Underneath this hall is a teleportation array that leads directly to the Orikson Fullei Star. There your talent will be tested and if you're lucky, you'll be chosen as disciples by the occupants of the central realm. If not, the Council will take you as their disciples.
Now, I want everyone to step forward to the centre of the hall" she announced and they did so.
The Queens stood from their chairs and went to different corners. They put their right hands on the floor and started chanting. The floor started glowing and multiple pentagrams started forming. The pentagrams created a bright blinding light and all the participant had to shield their eyes. They concluded their chant and the building started to shake.
The roof opened and all the participants were flung towards the sky before disappearing. The judges all teleported with their disciples. In a minute, all of them were on the star. After months of observing the star, Jason finally got to see it first hand. It was as fluffy as Xunia described and the stars were oscillating around it constantly.
"Welcome to the transport star, Orikson Fullei. Please wait as the pillars will emerge in an hour" a voice came from around the planet.
"You are welcome our lovely judges" a voice full of reverence said. It came from the planet itself.
"Orikson. It's good to be here after a long while" Light replied, still petting Jason. Jason had pretty much gotten used to it and was eagerly looking around.
"You mean this planet is a person?"
"No Jason. Orikson is a star that gained sentience. He is the one that basically appoints the ones that could travel through realms like Oliphilis" Xunia replied gently. She was already getting jealous with the way Light could touch Jason freely.
"Alright, since the Judges are here, we would speed up the process. The pillars will come out in two minutes" Orikson announced. Two minutes later, there was a loud sound and the clouds started parting. Crystal pillars emerged from the ground slowly until they stabilized at four feet and there was a hand print there.
"Please form a single queue in front of the crystal pillars. Place your hands on the hand print located there. Your talent will be communicated to you immediately" it announced and they all formed a queue. Starting from the hundredth person, the participants all placed their hands on the crystal pillars.
Most of them had two patron judges and ancient but powerful bloodlines. The student from a low leveled school had the highest bloodline purity and his main patron judge Power and Darkness as his other patron Judge. Xunia took him as a disciple, shocking all of them. When they asked for a reason, she simply said he reminded her of someone.
When it got to the turn of that male dragon Jason had defeated who was tenth on the list, as soon as he placed his hand on the pillar, the whole environment became filled with an ominous aura. The same aura was leaking from the dragon as he smirked.
Light narrowed her eyes as she dispersed the aura.
"The despicable one, son of evil. What is a devil like you doing here?" She asked calmly even though she wanted to rip his head off.
"I asked him to come. I wouldn't want my lovely disciple to miss the biggest event of his realm now, would I?" An ancient voice came from above. A much oppressing aura came and a white dome covered the ninety eight students and the Judge's disciples.
A Judge who had been silent all this while was the one who cast the dome.
"Brother" she said with a glare.
"My dear sister, oh how I've missed you" Evil replied. His avatar was in form of a serpent who was horrifying to look at. His smirk made them want to hide as fast as possible.
"Judge Good, I see you have yet to find a disciple, pity"
"How can you even utter my name you scoundrel! Get your demon spawn of a disciple out of here" Judge Good said angrily.
"Tut tut sister. All the other Judges can bring their disciples here but I can't? Sounds unfair"
"There is no fairness when it comes to you. Get out!"
"Dear sister...."
"She said you should leave Evil. Take your disciple and go! Don't think you can preach to us about fairness because I can still vividly remember the time we tried to be fair with you. A big mistake on our part" Darkness said coldly.
"Even you big sister...."
"Orikson, activate the defence mechanisms!" Light commanded sternly. The pillars suddenly turned blood red and streams of red blood flowed from them towards Evil and his disciple.
At first, when the blood touched him, he sneered as nothing happened to him.
"Sanctified blood from the Judge Light. Rare to get and used to be effective, not anymore" Evil said, cackling. The Judges however were unperturbed.
"Are you sure about that? Is that the correct Judge?" Judge power asked with a smirk.
The blood slowly climbed their bodies and they tried to get rid of it but they couldn't. Slowly, it started to burn.
"Sister, but that's impossible! No! My sister would never hurt me! This can't possibly be the blood of The Judge Good!" Evil yelled in pain and fury.
"Ah, goodness, a slow and steady poison. Even more deadly than lust. You know, you were the one that pushed your sister to this extent. You killed her beloved" Judge Love said, inspecting her nails.
"That worm wasn't worthy of my beloved sister!"
"Your obsession with her is quite scary. You know gender is only a formality for us. We chose it because we want to mix with mortals" Judge Spirit said, disgusted.
"Darkness, if you would" Light said politely.
"Sure" Darkness replied and stepped forward. An aged black stick appeared in her hand and she stroked it fondly. She waved it lightly and a black vortex appeared.
"A portal to the underwaild, at your request" she gestured to the portal. The judges nodded in appreciation while the contestants eyes were as wide as saucers.
Light snapped her fingers and a white staff appeared. She grabbed it in the middle and swung it with great force towards the immobilized Judge disciple duo. An arc of white light forced the two into the portal and the only sounds that were heard for a while were Evil's disciple's miserable shrieks and a loud zipping sound when the portal closed.
No one dared to speak as they were afraid the terrifying duo would return. It was Judge Good's sigh that returned them back to normal. She was slumped against Judge Power, who was both supporting and petting her. A light cough brought their attention to Judge Light.
"Please students, let us not forget our mission yet. Those who are yet to test their aptitudes, please step forward and do so" She said and eight people came out. One by one, they put their hands in the pillar and the result shocked the contestants. Their aptitudes were very high but compared to the Central realm, it was not really rare so the Judges didn't pay much attention.
Soon enough, it was time for the first on the list to test his aptitude. Jason stared at Judge Light and Xunia, asking for their permission. He already knew what his aptitude was so there was no need to test again. Both women nodded lightly and Jason went forward to place his hand on the pillar.
Nothing happened for a while which confused everyone. However, Judge Light raised her staff and drew a golden pentagram in the air. The Judges saw what she was doing and summoned their weapons too. Since darkness had her black stick with her, she started right away. Seeing the black stick produce golden pentagrams was very weird.
"Using their soul weapons to draw a high tier protection array means that the phenomenon about to be caused by Jason will have a large effect on us and Orikson. Naturally, it wouldn't affect it but he just unveiled the son of Evil. Unveiling another universe tier talent will make him unstable and may destroy him. This is why Light is holding back Jason's power and nothing has happened" Xunia said after observing them.
She sighed softly and her eyes turned pitch black. She drew a thin line with her nail in the air and it seemed like it split into two. She put her hand in the middle and brought out a long black sword. She suddenly grew bigger and from her back, two humongous terrifying wings appeared. Fur appeared on the open places in her body and her claws started to emerge. A huge spiky tail appeared behind her and swung occasionally. When it did, it would create a tear in space. She looked much more terrifying than a demon.
"Oblivion" she chanted in a loud draconic voice which shocked all the contestants out of their wits and golden pentagrams appeared on the black sword, on her tail, on her horns that people just recently noticed and on her wings. Golden bursts of light shot from the pentagrams and appeared around the 98 contestants and escorts. When they landed, they also formed huge pentagrams on the where they did. Slowly, a dome that was barely visible to the naked eyes began to rise and cover them.
She didn't reverted to her original form when she was done and at the same time the Judges were done. Light released Jason's powers and his eyes turned white. At the same time, the protection array was activated. The people watched as Jason's body was enveloped in white light which grew more blinding as time passed.
Even with Xunia's high level spell, the white light still lashed out and tried to obliterate everything in it's path. All the participants broke out in cold sweat. If not for the protection spell, they would all be dead with no soul remaining.
"Ch...child of light! How could this be?!" Orikson stuttered in disbelief. It took a while for the white light to die down. In that moment, his circulation level had increased and his soul dimension was closer to forming a Zenith core. During that time, his body had received the baptism of light and his mentality had changed. He truly believed he was above the world. In his soul dimension, the shell of a core as hanging there, showing Jason was in the initial Zenith core realm.
The light died down and everyone could see his aptitude. No one except for the Alpha Queen can match him. Now they truly understood why those two were mates even though they were of the opposite elements. The light in his eyes faded away and he could see the monstrous Xunia. Instead of fear, he was curious as he went to touch her tail.
"Jason nooo!" Darkness yelled and used a dark veil to stop him. He bumped into the veil and was thrown into Light's arms who made sure he had no injury.
"Honestly Jason, do you want to die?!" Darkness yelled and pointed her stick at him angrily.
"Is that Xunia?"
"Well, yes. You didn't know?" Light replied with a strange expression.
"No. I've never seen her like that. She looks really fascinating" He replied admiring her huge wings. He had the urge to trail his hands along them but he knew for now, he couldn't.
"Why are you like that? I've never seen anything like your transformation before"
"She's a hybrid and that's her in full power. She was born from the union of a wolf and a dragon. Both bloodlines are very powerful and her birth is very rare" Judge Power replied as he looked at her in pride. Her eyes were still pitch black and it showed no emotion.
"Why isn't she moving or speaking?" he asked in annoyance.
"If she did, she'll destroy Orikson. The dark energy she has gathered need7s time to disperse before she can revert to her neutral form. Her speaking is enough to completely breakdown the minds of the contestants" Judge Life replied him, all of them staring at her.
Darkness snapped her fingers and dark threads of energy rushed into her body from Xunia's. It took a minute for all the dark energy to leave her body after which she was in her neutral form again. She looked pale and Maery handed her a bottle of water from her formless void ring.
"You were channelling Abyss dark energy?!" Darkness yelled, throwing a thread of dark energy that Xunia narrowly missed.
"Calm down elder sister, she's fine" Judge Life pleaded which earned her a glare.
"She's fine?! You're telling me she's fine?!"
"Yes she is. She didn't go against any law and her use of abyss energy is quite regular" Judge Nature replied.
"Calm down elder sister, she's not going to die or any thing" says Judge Spirit with an eye roll. Judge Good put her hand on Darkness's shoulder and her mood calmed slowly. Xunia took refuge in the arms of Judge Spirit and slept off almost immediately. This stunned all of them for a while till Jason started laughing. Everyone else just shrugged it off. The contestants, however, dared not to laugh.
The queens reactivated the portal to return them to the conference hall. The same thing happened again and they were back in the familiar hall. The screen was still there and their aptitudes were added. Some of them were picked as disciples by the council and the others by high ranking officials which were only second to the council. The most talented were picked to be protectors. Once they graduated from school, they would go for training.
There was a lot of crying and rejoicing in the hall. The Judges had an indifferent look to this.
"I still liked when they died better" Darkness commented glumly. Judge Light glared at her.
"You heard what you're disciple said, she needs them alive" Darkness grumbled and said nothing. There was a banquet arranged after the ceremony so the students were ushered there.
Xunia had a really big announcement that day but due to her immense fatigue, someone else had to do it for her. All the Judges immediately escaped, leaving the queens in an awkward position.
"Who's gonna do it?" Maery asked all of them. They looked away and some of them just whistled.
"Aww, come on guys, don't be like that" Savannah said pouting.
"Why don't you do it?" Seriel asked with a pointed expression.
"Fine! I will!" Savannah replied angrily.
Suddenly they heard an amused chuckle. Xunia, leaning on Seriel, was laughing softly at them. All of them, including Jason, turned crimson as they saw her.
"My lovely queens, you are all so adorable. You'd readily accept any task I give you, even if it means forfeiting your life but this particular one, you're tossing it to yourselves? So unbearably cute" She cooed. They turned a deeper shade of red and sought for a place to hide.
"Don't worry, I'll do it myself. Then I'll go back to rest" she says and they all sigh in relief. Their eyes are full of worry but they knew she would be fine. It was only for a few minutes anyway. Seriel led her into the hall and into her small throne. Jason followed dutifully behind, with the escorts trailing after him.
The banquet went on for a while before Xunia decided to give her announcement. She clapped loudly to get the attention of the crowd and held Jason's hand.
"I have a huge announcement to make. Two weeks from now, Lord Jason would be officially bestowed with his title and we would be having our engagement party. The venue of the appointment is here while our engagement party would be in my palace. The second guest list, as you all know, is exclusive but anyone can attend the first. That is all" She said and turned to leave admist the loud applause.
It took Jason all he had in his body not to collapse there and hurried after Xunia, with his face totally crimson. The queens were overjoyed and smiling wildly while the rest of the crowd didn't know exactly how to feel. It was a strange day for all of them.