"Judging by your uniforms, you must be students of the Soul academy in the Kuraikyo Empire. My name is Zuke, I'm the vice-principal of the Havens Academy here in the Suzana empire." The moment he spotted the students of the Soul academy, lingering by the entrance, he walked over, his smile inviting as he addressed them.
"I remember you, Miyuki of the house of Tenuari, I never expected to see you here again after what happened last year in the exams." He said, referring to Miyuki who stood quiet at the back of them all.
With one glance at her, Rentaro could easily ascertain that a great feeling of unease dawned over her just by coming across a familiar face.
"Well, it doesn't matter I suppose, follow me." He added, his voice exuding his prestigious authority.
He led them into the school, showing them to their temporary accomodations. "If you need anything just ask, I wish you the best of luck on your exams, you'll need it."
As he left, they all had their eyes on him, pondering hard on what he meant by that. Miyuki rushed into her dorm room, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft thud.
Puzzled, they all glanced at the door of her temporal room.
"What's up with her?" Daichi asked, his tone light but laced with sincerity.
"Beats me, but what the vice principal said earlier, he made it sound like she's been here before." Rentaro replied, yawning slightly as he felt a bit tired from the drive all the way here.
"That's because she has — this isn't the first time Miyuki Tenuari has attempted the Soul-Hunter exams." Silver leaned against the wall, arms crossed and gaze fixed intently on Miyuki's door. His voice was calm but carried an edge of urgency.
"Wait what?" They were all mesmerized, this isn't the first time that Miyuki had taken the exams?
"How is that possible? Didn't she awaken her talent with us?" It sounded absurd to Mizuko. "How did she take the exams before if she awakened her talent with us?"
"The proctor from the Soul-Hunter's association failed to mention many things to you, one of those things is this, the Orb Of Awakening indeed draws out one's latent talent, but it also reveals one's Soul-Type. Miyuki is the daughter of the retired Soul-Hunter Hana, she had her talent awakening three years ago. She awakened a D-rank Soul-Type."
Lucy stood casually against the wall, a slight smirk playing on her lips as she spoke.
"What!?"
The remaining students asides silver all proclaimed in shock, their mouths agape.
"A D-rank Soul-Type!?"
In truth, Miyuki did awaken a D-rank Soul-Type as of three years ago, but as of last year her Soul-Core evolved to become an A-rank Soul-Type.
"However, she didn't fail the Soul-Hunter's exam because she couldn't pass. She failed because she left." Silver said, retiring at last to his room.
"Why?" With Silver gone, they had only Lucy to answer them.
"Who knows, but whatever reason it is, she must have solved it for her to come back. Well, guess we'll see each other later." With her final answer, Lucy retired to her own room.
As night approached fast, the students retired one by one to their quarters. The exams were tomorrow so they had to get lots of rest. All except Rentaro, he wasn't confident enough to take the exams at the level he was at now, so he decided to train a bit.
[Hours later]
After confirming everything was asleep he sneaked towards the back of the school.
"Okay I guess I'm going for the Electric Burst." He placed his right hand infront of him and stared into his palm. From what he could recall from his battle against Muramasa, the [Electric Burst] was a soul-technique that fired a ball of electricity after concentrating electrical energy into his hand.
Using this knowledge, he began focusing electrical energy into his hand, sparks of electricity emanated from his arms which showed the flow of electricity towards his palms.
The sparks increased little by little as the electricity in his palm began transforming into a blue ball of energy enveloped by multiple sparks of electricity.
"Alright." His celebration was cut short by a minor explosion from the ball of electricity dissipating quickly, it knocked him off his feet and to his buttocks leaving a small scorch mark on his palm. When dealing with abilities like lightning, fire or electricity, safety gear was recommended for them as they could inflict severe damage.
Nonetheless, Rentaro discovered that he could only maintain the true nature of the [Electric burst] for 2.1 seconds before it dissipated, displaying the little mastery he has over it.
"That's a problem." He groaned softly realizing if that was how long he could hold on to the technique or the time range the technique will last before dissipating, he would be in a lot of trouble during the exam.
He didn't have any stat point to level up his spell so he had to hone the spell to it's maximum at the level it was in. Not to mention that he had only one technique in his arsenal.
He got to his feet and repeated the same process again, struggling to hold on to the technique and this time it lasted for 10 seconds before the outcome of the spell dissipating reoccurred again.
"Argh." He groaned slightly, feeling the sting of the scorch mark on his hands. He has been at this for at least three hours, his hand was becoming sore from all the minor explosions.
"I don't think I've gathered enough Soul-Essence to fully develop the true Electric Burst. This is going to more difficult than I thought." Concluding the training for the night, he retired to his bed and finding some bandages to dress his slight burn marks.
Morning approached swiftly, and before they all knew it, the Soul-Hunter exams was about to commence.
Just like they were told, they freshened up and arrived at the designated location they were given inside the academy as the venue for the exams, a stupendously large hall. In that hall, more than 2000 Soul-Users were present, which made it a bit difficult to breathe.
"This place is huge." Rentaro spoke softly as he examined the entire hall and the participants.
"Of course, the Soul-Hunter exams is always held in the most prestigious academies in all of the kingdoms in the continent. Thousands of aspiring Soul-Users all wish to become hunters, because of that, the location changes depending on the numbers."
As Silver explained, a feminine figure climbed the stairs leading to the gold encrusted podium on the stage in front of them.
"Dear participants, we welcome you to the start of the ,15th Soul-Hunter Exams. I am Principal Helen and the examiner for this year's exam, this year we are going to be doing things a little bit differently than the previous years." The principal of the Haven's academy addressed the 2000 participants from the stage.
She began, her voice resonating through the entire hall. Her gaze swept across the faces in the audience, conveying both authority and warmth.
"A bit differently?" Mei asked with a bold voice, unclear to what she meant by that.
"That's right, as you know the usual procedure for the exams are a total of 5 stages, given the situation of the present day it has been trimmed down to 3 stages. As a result the numbers of participants must be reduced drastically as well." The principal's words caused a huge murmur to occur within the hall.
"R-reduced drastically?" Yui, along with some other participants stammered.
"Y-you don't mean.." Another participant stammered, their mouths agape as they realized what the examiner was asking for.
"Mass elimination." Mizuko spoke softly, summarizing the principal's intentions in just two words.