It took Talon a few minutes to reach the entrance to the Blue Tower. There were so many people, it actually felt like he was moving through an endless sea of them. However, his strong physique helped him navigate through them with ease.
Eventually, he reached the entrance and walked inside. There, he found a long line of people, mostly young n and won. They all looked rather nervous with so having a frown on their faces. The entire lounge was now filled with senseless tension as everyone awaited their turn to move.
'Wow, there are so many people inside too... Poor receptionists.' Realizing the amount of work they had to do, he shuddered. He had worked in restaurants and cafes before so he knew how hard it can be to deal with this many people one after the other for hours.
Reaching the end of the line, he took his place. He knew that he was going to have to wait a very long ti, so he decided to do sothing else anwhile.
"I wonder what the test is going to be about."
"It will be most likely about flying, perhaps they would also make you fight monsters outside the city to see if you can handle that," Acrypha replied as she boringly played with her fingers while resting on Talon's back. "It won't be a problem. Almost every single person in this place is weaker than you."
"Almost?" He asked. Talon knew that he wasn't the strongest person in this world, far from that actually. Still, he was shocked to know so people were stronger than him and didn't join the Sky Seekers Guild yet.
"Yeah, she's actually two people ahead of you." She said.
"Oh?" Talon raised an eyebrow as he quickly expanded his senses. Amidst the weak auras around him, he noticed a particular aura that stood out like a sore thumb among the others.
'Strong...' He thought to himself as he took a peek at the person ntioned. The girl was facing the opposite way so he couldn't see her face. But, he could see that she had a distinct short black hair that reached her nape, it had a few strands of red in it that was quite distinct.
She was clad in the uniform they were handed yesterday just like everyone else. Except, she didn't add anything else on top to make herself standout like most other people.
He could see the glamorous ways the contestants tried to change the style of this bland uniform to fit their characters and make them appear stylish even when they were supposed to look like one another.
'She's deliberately trying to hide her aura. I guess that's why I didn't feel it at first.' He thought to himself.
Many people here were flaunting their auras around without a care in the world, as if they were trying to assert dominance or catch the eyes of others. Many of them had worked for years to reach this level, perhaps even going out on their own to hunt down monsters in the wild.
But, that only brought them so far since in the end, they were still far from reaching the level of strength Talon would consider unique.
This girl, however, she seed to not care at all about her surroundings. All she did was look ahead with focused eyes.
Slowly, the line moved one by one. Each contestant would talk to the receptionist for a few monts, hand her the piece of paper they had in their hands, and then move to another room at the back that led sowhere.
The procedures were fast, but it still took almost an hour for Talon to finally reach his turn. Surprisingly, the receptionist who took him was the sa woman from yesterday.
"Oh, welco back! Are you ready for today?" She asked as she smiled at him.
"Yeah, I'm excited."
'Not really.' Talon smiled back as he hid his thoughts. If he had to be honest, he was more worried about what kind of things he would unravel once he joined this guild rather than being excited to beco a Sky Seeker.
It was just another day at work for him.
"I see, well good luck." She said as she took the paper, and wrote sothing down before she handed Malice a tag with a number on it and his na attached under.
"Please, pin this on your clothes." She said. "Ok, thank you." He said.
'I already received a tag yesterday. I guess they want to make sure you don't lose them.' He thought to himself as he walked behind the counter and headed to a room that was entered by everyone else before him.
Opening the double doors, Talon found himself inside a large hall. Giant, blue pillars rose from the ground and lifted the massive ceiling dozens of ters in the air.
The entire place was big enough to welco tens of thousands of people inside. At this point, it was 40% filled with constants. The atmosphere was sohow a lot tenser than before.
So people were talking with one another but most were silent, thinking about what could happen and what couldn't.
"This feels exactly like my graduation exam back in high school. Ah, good old days." Talon muttered as he took a lone pillar and rested his back on it.
"You're being nostalgic over feeling stressed?" Acrypha asked with a chuckle.
"Hey, that's valid. It's a good type of stress. Like, you have the expectations of your family on your backs, and yet you still want to make them feel proud. I don't hate that." He replied with a shrug.
It was indeed tough, and the pressure was huge. But, Talon didn't hate that, weirdly enough. He was already accustod to being under pressure due to work, studying, and other things mixing together.
Now, he was even better under stress since he had thousands of people under his command that he had to take care of and make sure they were safe. It was within his nature to thrive in that kind of environnt.
"I see..." Acrypha muttered as she rested her head on his shoulder while floating in the air.
With that, so ti passed, and people continued pouring into the room endlessly. Eventually, the room was almost filled with people.
It gave Talon an even clearer sense of scale about what this test was going to be like. It was taken very seriously from the very start and it garnered the attention of countless inspired young people.
As his eyes wandered over the masses, he saw the girl from before standing on her own too.
His gaze lingered on her for a mont before it shifted sowhere else as sothing interesting happened.
"Ugh!!"
One of the contestants was suddenly blasted back as he fell to the ground with a loud thud. Rolling around, he finally stopped near Talon.
The latter stared down at the injured contestant with a stoic expression without doing anything. Whatever was happening, it was none of his bussiness.
"Hahaha! What got you to beco foul-mouthed, little guy?"
At that mont, he heard a loud laugh as a rather tall young man stepped forward. He had an arrogant grin on his face as he stared down at his target.
"... L-Leave alone! I really have no money!"
"Who is talking about money? I was just asking for friendly help, man! Why make it this hard on ?" The man said as he crouched down, making the latter flinch and jump back.
"Now, I'm a little angry since you disrespected when I ca with good intentions. I don't like being disrespected." At that mont, he raised his hand, about to punch the target.
But, for a mont, he stopped and then channeled his Aetheris into his fist.
Talon's eyes imdiately turned a degree colder as he noticed that. 'He's going to break his face with that punch if it connects.'
He could see that the difference in power between the two was quite large and any punch embued with that man's Aetheris was bound to be devastating.
'Should I stop him?' He asked himself. Talon wanted to simply mind his own business and not get in trouble during his stay in this world.
But, unsurprisingly, trouble would always co knocking on his door every single ti he tried to avoid it.
As he was thinking about that, the man swung his arm, aiming for the jaw. At that mont, Talon wanted to move, only for soone to seemingly be faster than him.
Out of nowhere, a kick sent the man flying to the side. His body rolled around multiple tis as he landed next to another pillar.
'Fast...' Talon thought as he turned around.
"Who did that?!" Standing up, he looked at the culprit with clear anger in his eyes.
"Don't cause a fuss in the exam hall." A rather non-chalant voice replied as soone erged in front of him.
A//N: If you enjoyed reading, don't forget to support the book with GT and PS. Thank you!
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