Dalis opened his eyes to find a familiar scene in his sight. He stood amongst many others upon a rhombus-shaped marble stage.

The first thing he captured was his roommates. All of them appeared to be a little dishevelled with some bearing worrying injuries. Dalis's sour mood dwindled noticing that ten out of the fifteen roommates were present. Sixty-six per cent of them had managed to survive for the entire five days of the exam.

Dalis searched around and barely caught a glimpse of other stationed individuals at the back through the crowd of candidates. He discovered Elliot in that crowd next to Jessica. He conceived that those particular individuals must be the people who have retired.

The sight of Jessica replayed a particular scene in his mind. Guilt washed over him.

"Dalis, you made it back."

Dalis turned his head back towards the front where he saw the smiling Sister Edna.

"Sister Edna. Yes I'm back," Dalis replied. He couldn't help but smile back in response.

Whenever the waves of Sister Edna's warmth washed over him, his mood would exponentially increase. Usually, he would hide the change of mood. However, his current low spirits evoked him to express his change open to the world.

Sister Edna was delighted to see Dalis's jovial mood, but she noticed that there was something a bit off with the carved smile of his. Unfortunately, she had no time to quell her piqued curiosity as the closing ceremony was about to begin.

"It appears that everybody is present now."

The noise generated from the crowd diminished until it was nil. Everyone had their eyes on the thirty or so individuals standing firmly. They were the examiners and overseers of the exam.

All attention focused on the speaker—General Zelgius.

"It is good to see a decent amount of you Orphans still left from the Pre-Soldier exam. Seeing this outcome shows that there are many bright future prospects worthy to soon be Vanquishers in the upcoming years. Vanquish Soldier Bethany! Please read the reports of the exam!"

"Yes Sir!"

A woman with brown curly hair and a slim figure stood before his side. A yellow parchment was revealed in her hands as she began to announce the results of the exam in a stern voice.

"First we will announce in ascending order the total amount of candidates who have retired for each day out of the two hundred and forty-seven participants . . . "

The reports on each day were announced, and a brief summary was reported pertaining to the retiring amount.

On the first day, thirty-three candidates had retired. The overseers commented that almost all of these individuals were bluntly the bottom lot. They were inept at surviving the first day. Only a minority of them were struck with unlucky circumstances.

The second-day, seventy-five candidates had retired. There wasn't too much difference between this and the first-day report. Many had failed to find an appropriate shelter to accommodate and had struggled to fight the beasts in the wild.

The third-day, ninety-three candidates had retired. Notably, the candidate retiring amount per day had reduced. Everything was quite general, except for one particular mention which was a few candidates attempting to challenge The Monster.

The fourth-day, a hundred and twenty-six had retired.

This report was rather different than the rest . . .

In this report, Vanquish General Marie spoke up.

It was a straight-up ear-lashing.

General Marie raised her voice and became a wrathful deity. She scolded all the children of Caleyar, condemning the insane foolishness of their actions by attempting to face The Monster.

She was so frightening that the guilty retired individuals at the very back felt their hair raising All they could do was lower their heads down in utter shame, enduring the backlash until the terrorising storm had passed.

What made the scene even more dreadful was that she had her eyes the entire time on the back group.

"You spoiled naive brats think this is a game? You brats are going to become the next Vanquish Soldiers for not only the Church, but also for the whole continent! How dare you impudent children bite more than you can chew off?! When you are sent on the battlefield to combat The Land of Demons’ fiends are you going to run off and try being a hero by taking the commander's head? Are you brats stupid? Do you understand that your impulsive actions are detrimental to not only us, but your friends, family, and your respected nations!!"

General Marie's demonic scolding went for so long to the point that the other overseers who watched were forced to cut it short.

Almost everyone who stood underneath the scolding of General Marie felt very tense as if they had done something wrong by the end of the speech. Even many of the overseers felt discomforted with a tinge of fear.

"You may now finalise the report," General Marie said as she turned to face Vanquish Soldier Bethany, handing the report over back to her.

"Yes, General Marie!!" she responded with a salute, visibly trembling while taking the report back from her.

Because she was the closest to her . . . she was forced to take the full brunt of the scolding.

On the final day, a hundred and thirty-one had retired. Only five above the previous day. Those five individuals were all candidates who decided to depart early in the exam.

" . . . Thus, out of the two hundred and forty-seven candidates, a hundred and sixteen managed to survive until the activation of the teleportation of the fifth day of noon."

Once she had finished her report, another report followed. A Medi-Brigade soldier announced this. The man who spoke disclosed the types of injuries that candidates had suffered and explained how one could avoid such a situation and ways of temporary treatment. It also noted that there was nobody who had died during the Pre-Soldier Exam despite the emergence of The Monster. However, the man succeeded those words with case reports that divulged candidates who had almost died.

Afterwards, General Zelgius spoke up.

"Now we will commence the announcement of the top thirty candidates from this year's Pre-Soldier Exam."

Eight individuals approached General Zelgius, one of whom was Scholar Somal. Five of them lived were citizens of the Church of Vanquish while the remaining three were from the Cresuilge Kingdom.

Upon their arrival, a short tremor quacked from the earth. Without warning behind the overseers, a majestic towering marble screen was raised above the marble stage. It appeared so naturally that one would think that this was an inbuilt mechanism. However, it was not that simple. The wide humongous marble screen was operated through the powers of the reinforced mana seed. Only those recognised as enchanters were able to make this function.

"Start the collection!"

The enchanters slowly lifted their arms, palms facing forward to the front. In response, over a dozen weapon artefacts elevated into their air fifteen feet above the ground. An identical blue translucent light glowed upon the surface of every airborne artefact present. Although matching, the gleaming intensity varied between each raised artefact.

There were some that glowed a pale blue resembling an aqua colour.

A number of them appeared to be cerulean.

Even less than that were glows that one could genuinely state as blue.

The rarer ones were dark blue like the deep oceans.

All of these artefacts reacted to the gestures of the enchanters, drifting towards their direction. Then the artefacts were categorised into colour groups that reflected their illustrated glow. This process continued until the enchanters collected each artefact.

"Now we will gauge the amount of mana present within the artefacts. As you may have noticed, the artefacts that glowed the darkest represent the greatest intensity of mana attained. Unfortunately, there is no real way to assess the quantity of mana contained inside accurately. Thus, an estimation is conducted for each collected artefact. Generally, there is a correlation between richer mana source and quantity of mana. However, in exceptionally rare instances, it is not always the same case."

Vanquish General Zelgius held out a white crystal the size of an average man's head. It gleamed through the thousand facets glorifying its attractive glassy surface to the world.

"This is a mana storage crystal. It is a modified version of Cresuilge Kingdom's fuel cells. It is a storage device that allows people to store mana. Although there is a limit to how much one could hold, the type of mana is not a deterrent to its mana holding capacity. Many of the beasts within the Vanquish territory are known to have a high degree of blessed mana within their bodies. Thus, mana collected will mostly be blessed. It is a known fact that blessed mana is special and tends to have conflicts with other mana types. Henceforth, this source of energy is limiting for its practical use. However, that is not an issue. After all, the point is to gauge the amount of mana for the artefacts. This crystal has been specially made to be much more potent in its ability to store mana."

General Zelgius paused for a moment of time before continuing his speech.

"The screen will televise an estimated ranking of the top thirty individuals for the Pre-Soldier Exam. Individuals who have gathered the most mana and the richest will be broadcasted there. Remember the rankings are not of much importance. Whether you rank first or rank thirty or was unable to enter the top thirty, it is not to something to fret over yourselves. The point of the exam is to test your individual skill and see how far you have come. Each candidate has already been individually assessed, and these records are not disclosed. Of course, if you manage to make it into the rankings, then that is an accomplishment that one should be proud of."

General Zelgius put the crystal within a marble container and placed it onto the floor.

"Let the appraisal begin."