It didn’t take long before it was their turn. Standing inside the building, Kayden finally got to take a closer look at the interior of one of these tall spires.

The first thing he noticed was a circular staircase that presumably led all the way up to the top of the tower. Immediately, Kayden could see tell just how inconvenient that would be. Didn’t they have lifts or any other magical means of transporting them onto the other floors? All of this just seemed unnecessary.

The circular room they were in held intricate carvings upon the walls, most of which Kayden couldn’t decipher. But if he had to guess, it was something related to their history. Most of them showed a robed wizard spreading his arms apart as pillars upon pillars rose up from the ground as crowds of worshippers kneeled below. It was most likely a God of some kind, but Kayden couldn’t tell which.

Situated in the middle of the room was a long row of counters, ten to be exact, where staff members furiously scribbled down the information given by applicants. Each applicant didn’t take longer than a few minutes to finish, and with ten different counters working at the same time, the speed of registration was quite fast.

Soon, it was his turn.

A woman behind counter nine waved at him, signaling for him to come over. Paris had already gone ahead to counter four, where his large frame proved to be a headache for those at counters three and five. Thankfully, Kayden didn’t have to deal with that.

When he approached the counter, he was met with a polite greeting.

“Hello sir, if you’re trying to apply as a teacher, I’m afraid you’re at the wrong building. Please head over to—”

“I-I’m applying as a student dammit!”

He slammed his Adventurer’s Guild card onto the table and shifted it towards the clerk for her to see, furious he was mistaken as old once again. This wasn’t the first time it happened! Just because he was tall, doesn’t mean he was old!

Gingerly, she took the card into her hands, and then looked up at his scowling face. Kayden stood a full head and shoulders over her, and she wasn’t even short, to begin with. No wonder she mistook him for an adult.

“I-I see… You’re seventeen. Um… Let me take down your details.”

She scribbled down something onto a sheet of paper and then proceeded to ask questions.

“From where do you hail?”

“Dragonsteel city.”

“Are you a part of nobility?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

“Okay…” With each tick she made on the paper, she clicked her pen a few times and then continued to write. Each time she asked a question and awaited his response, she would rapidly click away at her pen.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

‘Why is she doing this? Is she running out of ink? No… she’s doing this out of habit… Sigh…’

As the sound continued to grate on his ears, Kayden was doing his best to act unfazed as he honestly answered the personal questions. Finally, after what seemed to be a million clicks later, they reached the last question.

“What are your abilities? And I don’t mean just the types of spells you can use. Any weapon that you’re proficient in, or any useful skills you may have, we will take note of all of it.”

Here it is. The question he had expected, and somewhat dreaded. Kayden had mentally prepared for this while he was queuing, or at least he thought he did. Now that he was here, he hesitated to speak.

The problem was: How much of his abilities should he reveal? Necromancy was out of the question. Illusion and transformation were okay, but ice magic on the other hand…

The Adventurer’s Guild already had quite a lot of info that pointed to him being the culprit. First off, the culprit could use ice magic. Second, the culprit had connections to Dragonsteel City. Third, his height and stature were fairly similar to the information they had about the culprit. Add on the fact that he was the sole witness of the whole ordeal… it wasn’t hard to trace it back to him.

When the Adventurer’s Guild had asked him questions about the incident, he had tried his best to throw them off his trail. His reputation as his master’s disciple came in handy there, but it couldn’t protect him forever.

One of these days, he was going to be caught.

Kayden wasn’t foolish enough to think he could keep getting away with it. The Adventurer’s Guild was a worldwide organization. Criminals stronger and craftier than him had been taken down before. Nothing said that he would be any different.

As such, to save himself from this inevitability, his plan was simple. To become strong enough to defeat all that stood in his path. That was the one and only way to solve his problems.

And for that to happen. He needed time.

Taking a deep breath, he gave his final answer.

“I can use illusion and transformation magic. I can turn into monsters and animals, but I’m not sure about plants or other organisms. I’m proficient with a knife, both in melee combat and knife throwing. I can also pick locks, set traps, and disarm them. I’m also pretty confident in my running speed… That’s all.”

The clerk nodded repeatedly as Kayden gave a brief summary of his skills.

“Wow, you’re a dual-type, huh? You just might stand a chance to enter!”

She pulled out a drawer from underneath the table and handed him a sheet of paper that was in it. Neatly printed on the smooth paper were letters and numbers… a schedule.

“Your assigned number is 23480 as printed on the top right. Do take note of the timings and be punctual. Tardiness will not be accepted.”

Kayden gladly accepted the paper and took it with a bow, simply because showing good etiquette might just increase his chances or something. If two people were of equal strength, it was common sense for them to choose the one with the better attitude and manners over the rowdy and rude one. Nobles and such probably had the etiquette down since it was drilled into their brains since young, but Kayden was different. He was nothing but a filthy commoner.

‘Man, I’ll have to deal with the noble types from now on, huh? I hope the times with my therapist counts as experience…’

He was quickly ushered away after his registration was complete. Paris, the half-orc, was finished as well, and they met up just outside the spire.

“Your number?”

“18525. My exam starts tomorrow at nine in the morning. You?”

Kayden grimaced, “Seven in the morning… Why is my number higher than yours, but I’m going first? And I thought I could finally sleep in.”

Paris leaned forward and peeked at his paper.

“Your first number is… two?” Paris suddenly reeled back in surprise, in all his heavy armor. “You’re a dual type!”

Kayden didn’t know that the first digit of your assigned number was indicative of the number of types of magic you had, but he was now glad to know. A complete newbie like him would take any information he could get.

“Yeah… but is it that surprising? 23480 implies that there are thousands of others as well… Seems like there’s a lot of competition.”

Paris shook his head.

“That’s not what your numbers mean. It’s more of a… Nevermind, they’ll probably explain it to you tomorrow.”

Whatever it was that the half-orc wanted to say, he had apparently deemed it too troublesome to tell him now. But that brought up another question.

“How do you know so much?”

“Research.” Paris turned his head to him, and Kayden found himself staring into a dark abyss through the slits of his helmet. “There are decades worth of information about the entrance exams out for public use, I’m a little surprised that you didn’t even look into anything before coming here…”

“Well, what can I say?” Kayden smiled and playfully slapped himself on the back of his head. “I’m so powerful I don’t need to prepare!”

That was a lie. Obviously. But he couldn’t show weakness to a potential competitor.

The half-orc fell silent, and not wanting to impose on him any longer, Kayden decided that he would go.

“I’ll see you… next time, I guess! “ Kayden waved enthusiastically, “I have a place to go! Goodbye!”

The half-orc silently waved back as the rogue traveled further and further away until only his silhouette could be seen off into the distance.

The half-orc began muttering under his breath.

“No prior knowledge. Not an ounce of nervousness, or at least from what I can tell. And a dual-type with an 8 in Niche? Definitely one of the strongest contenders… I’ll have to take this down!”

From underneath one of his armor plates, he reached his hand in and pulled out a notebook. Miniscule in size when compared to his large hands, yet with practiced ease, he began scribbling notes down onto the paper with an equally small pen.

On it, dozens of lines were already written, packed with useful information he had gotten from his research and observations.

Just on this one page alone, a hundred names lined the paper, evenly spaced apart with their observed abilities and tactics in between.

“I’ll pass the entrance exam first try! For people like me… it’s the only chance I’ll ever get.”

***

Now that all the boring stuff was out of the way, it was finally time for something interesting. Kayden had a mission, given to him by one of the strongest beings in existence.

A Goddess.

He was to find one of her temples and speak to her followers, who will apparently fill him in on everything.

That was good because he really didn’t know what the hell was going on.

Located around the East of Solus Academy —The city, not on school grounds. Yes, Kayden thought it was dumb to not rename the city to something else—, was the designated ‘religious area’, for all the religious folk out there. It was aptly named: The Religious Zone

Every temple, church, or any kind of place of worship had to be built there, for the Solus Academy was strict about that kind of thing. Nearly the entire world’s worth of talent was concentrated in this spot, and they had to control any religious influences somehow. As long as you didn’t worship any of the illegal Gods, people were free to worship all they like, but only in this specific area could you preach and obtain new followers.

The God of Thieves himself is an illegal God, despite his praiseworthy philosophy of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. No sane government would promote the God of stealing, which was a shame since Kayden wanted to know more about its followers. As great as it sounded, Kayden had never actually met a follower of the Thief God, hence his desire to meet one.

Kayden was headed for the Religious Zone. In fact, he was already here, but he just didn’t notice. Why? Because of another massive crowd.

It wasn’t a queue this time, but still…

“What’s with all the people?”

“[Probably because it’s that time of year when people all over the world come to visit? I bet you that many applicants are here to pray for their success.]”

“Ah. That makes perfect sense.”

Quite a few people here were young, which gave credit to Hel’s explanation. However, they certainly weren’t the majority. In fact, there were a lot more old people here than young. Still, there was a common trait shared among the many people here though.

Injuries. From just a sickly appearance to missing limbs, all sorts of disabled people were here gathering around this one temple. There was another common trait they all shared: Hope.

Their eyes were shining as they longingly stared at the raised platform, where a white-robed girl was performing miracles, free-of-charge.

“Ah, I see. They came here to be healed. Makes more sense now.”

The girl was unmistakably a healer. Cheers rang out from the crowd as a man, significantly happier than before and fit as a fiddle, stepped down from the platform. As he joined the crowd, the surrounding people all patted him on his back and congratulated him.

‘That’s kinda scary…’

He wasn’t scared of how powerful this healer was, but rather of the influence she would gain, both for herself and for the church. Healers that could heal life-changing injuries weren’t exactly common, and not all of them were willing to do so for free. The people’s favor for this particular church was going to increase drastically thanks to this, which could mean a lot of trouble.

Hell, if he had an injury and was fixed like many of the people here, he would probably join the religion without question.

And that was what made it so scary. Kayden wasn’t averse to religion or anything. It’s just that with his recent tussle with a divine being just recently, he didn’t have the best of impressions of them. Giving someone, or something, too much power and influence was never a good thing.

After all, they can kill and ruin people’s lives however they pleased with the only thing stopping them from doing so being their morals. Sure, someone could probably stop their rampage, but how many people will die until that happens? Just think of Zhang, whom Kayden assumed was a devout follower of the Moon Goddess. He was used as an avatar and killed without any say in it. Would you really surrender yourself to higher beings like that?

Kayden couldn’t be bothered to stay and watch any longer. He himself didn’t need any healing, and he had places to go. However, as he left for the Moon Goddess temple, he could have sworn that the girl on the platform was watching him.

‘I hope that’s not the paranoia talking… I’m just going to quickly walk away…’