"Place your hand on the crystal, don't just stand there," the professor addressed the protagonist.
"Oh, yes, I'm sorry, professor," said the protagonist and then placed his hand on the crystal.
As soon as he placed his palm on top of the crystal, a holographic screen formed above the sphere, and his rank showed up,
"High A-rank," announced the professor while looking at the protagonist with a smile, in contrast to when he scolded him previously.
'Everyone is always two-faced,' thought the protagonist with a sneer.
-Meanwhile, just before the assessment of the protagonist-
'System, how does the talent assessment work,' asked the protagonist, the system in his mind.
'You just channel mana to the sphere, and it measures the potency and the speed at which your mana travels from your body to the crystal,' replied the system to his head.
'So basically, my talent will be A-rank right now, right,' inquired the protagonist.
'Yes, indeed, Alex, though don't fret much about that since you can upgrade it through me, as you've already done. And even if you had higher than S-rank talent, this crystal couldn't possibly show it since ranks above S-rank have been forgotten,' replied his system back to the protagonist, now Alex.
'Yeah, I remember you informed me about that. Anyway, show me my status screen,'
'Here is your status screen, and I've added your current talent,' replied the system and showed him his status, which had the same concept as the status screen of the other people, just with some extra functions, like inventory and store.
--- Status ---
Name: Alexander Sider
Age: 15
Rank: E-
Strength: E
Agility: E-
Stamina: E
Intelligence: E-
Mana: D
Charm: B-
Talent: A+
--- Profession ---
Swordsmanship lvl.1
--- Techniques ---
Thunderous sword art:
(A powerful sword art that, after a certain degree of mastery, the user can imbue each attack with a bit of lightning, making the attack faster and more lethal. Works best if the user already has a lightning affinity.)
'Good, a little more, and I won't have to endure any more beating from these losers,' thought Alex as he peaked at the trio who always beat him up throughout the last two years.
His good thoughts were ruined when the professor called him to perform the useless test. Yes, this test was useless to him since he could change his rank anytime provided with the right price.
-Current time-
'So his talent is A-rank. I shouldn't probably take this for granted, assuming that he could enhance his talent and maybe even his skills with the help of his system,' thought Michael while looking at Alex.
After Alex got tested, Michael stopped standing behind the line of the professors and went to the position where most of the students who passed gathered, and went straight to his friend, or more specifically, his former's body owner friend, cause even though he perfectly retained the memories that's all that there was to it, just memories, like seeing a movie with you as the protagonist and your life as the plot.
"Why did you go there and didn't come here with the rest of the students?" asked Anne Michael.
"As the future head of the Dacre family, I'm tasked with finding capable subordinates, so I wanted to see if someone was good enough, even from the ones who failed, cause rank isn't all there is to someone's talent," replied Michael while mixing lies within the truth, cause his father did tell him to find some capable people, but that was something that didn't interest him right now much.
"Ah, I see. My mother didn't ask me to do anything like that since most of my assets will be taken by the one I marry since I'm the sole heir to the family," said Anne while looking at Michael with a mix of sadness when mentioning her family's situation and a bit of hope when she mentioned the marriage prospect to him.
"With me by your side, who could even dare to take advantage of you?" asked Michael, looking straight into her eyes.
Yes, Michael was toying with her feelings right now. The urgency he felt the last two days managed to change his perspective on certain things. One of them is his relationship with Anne. Through his memories and the previous two times he met her, he could understand that she liked him a lot, so why not use her to his advantage right now, giving her hope and then take it back, again and again, making her in the process completely loyal, and obedient to him.
If only he had known…
"D-Do you mean that?" asked Anne while a blush covered her face, and her eyes started tearing up.
"You shouldn't even ask that question," said Michael cupping her cheek.
As Anne was about to reply to him, a voice interrupted their conversation.
"Hello Michael, it's been a while since we've seen each other," said Helen approaching the duo.
"Yes, it has. Nice seeing you again," replied Michael retracting his hand from Anne's cheek.
"I want also to congratulate you on the outcome of the second test," said Helen.
"Thank you. You as well since with your high A-rank you can easily breakthrough to S-rank," replied Michael, since it was known that higher class meant better and more resources for you, so what he said was not so far-fetched.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Helen.
"I think we haven't been introduced. I'm Anne Rosewood. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, princess," butted in Anne, feeling left out of the conversation and not caring about her manners towards the princess of the kingdom.
"Yes, indeed, we haven't met before. A pleasure," replied Helen, and then proceeded to talk only to Michael, making Anne seem out of place.
After a short while of talking, the exam ended. From the original thousand, more or less only 450 remained. The ones who failed would probably attend a different academy.
The same stern professor who made the opening stood once again before the students who passed and announced the test's third phase.
"Congratulation to everyone who passed. Your dream to attend the best academy in every kingdom came one step closer. Now, for the third phase, we decided it would be a battle royal. The 450 students who passed will be split into two different arenas and fight till only one remains. Then for the final winner, a special match will be held between the winner of the first and second arenas. Yes, there will be an award for the final winner that the headmaster of the academy will grant, so rejoice, young ones, for you will have the honor of being in the presence of the esteemed headmaster. That's all I wanted to say to you. You can now leave," said the not-so-proud professor, and then left.
Murmurs once again began to form among the students, "How many will pass from the original 450?" some of them wondered, "Why is he always leaving the important information out," some others wondered. After the slight complaints, they all left the stadium.
"What do you think about the battle royal, Michael?" asked Anne Michael.
"To be honest, I kind of expected that since the number of passing students is high and making the third phase 1vs1 would take a lot of time, so battle royal was the most probable test," replied Michael.
"I see. Now that you mentioned it, it does make sense," replied Anne, and then the trio headed towards the dorms.
Just before entering the dorms, Michael suddenly spoke up, "Oh, I remembered that I planned to see my sister after the test, so I'll see you later."
"Do you want me to come with you? It's been a while since I talked with Liz," asked Anne.
"Actually I wanted to talk to her about the thing I told you at the test," said Michael referring to the possible scout of some talents.
"I see, okay. Just tell her I missed her, and be careful. The rain is getting heavier," said Anne.
"I'll tell her, and don't worry about the rain. You know I love it. Helen, I'll see you too later. Bye," said Michael and then left, heading to meet his sister.
'I've seen the protagonist leaving the stadium with his three buddies. Let's see how he acts this time,' thought Michael while walking through the rain.