Potential Assembly

The late morning sun blazed down on Pearlcrest City, providing it with its usual healthy sun rays. With the weekend over, residents of Pearlcrest City were all returning to their regular routine lifestyle.

The exciting atmosphere of the City had gradually transitioned back to its stable yet bustling air. Throughout the downtown area of the General District, everything was routinely the same.

All but for one place. At Balreth Academy, there was a palpable atmosphere surrounding the vast place that was even there during the weekend.

If anyone were to just come within the general area of the place, they would even feel a bit of blood pumping up their veins.

For this day, an intense air had gathered between the students.

It wasn't an ordinary day for the Academy as students weren't in their classes but instead was in an enormously broad field.

Thousands of students from both the General Job year and Competition year all gathered inside here. Despite the colossal number of students, Balreth Academy had the means to hold this enormous amount and even let the students have breathing room while on this field.

At the center of this vast yield was the main attraction on why everyone was gathered here.

An enormous metallic stage was set upright in the middle of the field, attracting all eyes and splitting up the field into sections.

On the metallic stage, the students that weren't on it had their eyes drawn to seven large white color stones. These stones were spaced out from each other and at every stone was a Professor and a line of students waiting for their chance to go up.

It made for a bit of surreal sight having primitive stones on stage when they have far advanced technology. But nobody thought it was odd. After all, these stones were publicly known as the Talent Stones.

Talent Stones were explicitly crafted by numerous experts. It is used to determine the talent, potential, and uniqueness of what lies within anyone's System's Soul.

The students weren't precisely sure how that process is done, but they all, of course, believed it to be true.

It was quite noisy in the massive field, more so than the time the Awakening Ceremony occurred. But even with students being far more upbeat, no one dared to step out of line.

Despite having thousands of students for the Professors to manage, no one was rude or disruptive.

The competition year students all patiently filled the seven lines, eagerly awaiting their turn to test their true talents.

This is the Potential Assembly, and strict rules and regulations were put in place and enforced more harshly than under regular Academy hours. Because of such strictness, the Potential Assemble could smoothly go underway and at a fast pace.

Once a student was called up next to the Talent Stone, they would simply unleash a small concentrated portion of their Magical Aura and Magical Power on the Talent Stone.

The Competition year students were informed that it wasn't about discharging the highest amount of power possible. But to use a concentrated amount of their Soul essence for the Talent Stone to even work.

This small portion of energy didn't have much power, but it holds everything that Talent Stone needed to peer into their System's souls.

Within one line of the Competition year students were two youths that were on Asher's mind day and night.

Of course, it could only be Reese and Kylee. As per usual, they both were together, and they were waiting for their turns.

On an average day, both Reese and Kylee would have a jovial expression and would be chatting it up with each other. But for today, both of their faces were a bit downcast.

Even as a whole weekend passed already, there were several hard-hitting thoughts still heavily weighing on their minds.

No matter how hard they tried, these pessimistic thoughts wouldn't leave their heads. However, since they were in a vast Assembly, Reese and Kylee put all of their attention on this, desperately trying to keep their minds distracted.

Hundreds of students had already gone up, and Reese had a slight small smile while he peered over their results. He began to speak after some time, telling Kylee,

"See Kylee? I told you it won't be so bad. Mostly everyone has a Late-Stage talent. And I'm sure even us are not that pitiful to only have a Mid-stage talent."

Kylee squinted her eyes, carefully observing each Talent stone.

And true to Reese's words, no matter which Talent Stone it was, nearly all students could only make it slowly glow up in a slightly dark shade of blue.

Everyone being on generally the same level should've relieved her a bit since she too, was a part of the common crowd. But, there still was doubt swirling in her mind.

She turned back over to Reese, giving him a slight worrying expression. "Maybe you're right….but you never know. There still was the occasional Mid-level talent. And there were a few Peak-level talents. It's all just a big toss-up…."

Reese began scratching his head, feeling a bit mixed. He wanted to deny Kylee's downtrodden words. But his own pessimism was about to rear its ugly head.

However, before Reese could give any response, his and Kylee's attention immediately shifted.

A sudden uproar began bursting through the Competition years students and spilled on to the other students observing from afar.

"Hey....Look at that line! It's Kibe Hayato!"

The Sword Qi guy….I wonder if he'll really have a high talent."

"How would this guy stack up to Vipond?"

Reese and Kylee turned their gazes to the left as it was where a lot of the murmurs were coming from. And at the front of the line, they spotted a handsome young man standing before the Talent Stone.

The young man's appearance was sharp, having neat stylized jet ink-black hair, a serious gaze that pierces into anyone's eyes, and a confident stature that exudes pure nobleness.

This was the student everyone had on their mind during the first days of the Competition year, Kibe Hayato.

He was one of the very rare students that had an excellent Magical Power that could give him a promising future.

Although, since Asher's recent rise of fame, it put an abrupt stop to Hyaoto's own notoriety. After all, that duel with Zara did show more of an example of Asher seemingly having a bright future.

But when seeing that Hayato was about to show off his talent, it innately pricked everyone's curiosity once again.

The curiosity spread over nearly all students there. And to even students who hold a vastly superior status to all others,

Over at another side of the field, this area was very secluded, barring six exceptional youths.

To have their own set space from all others could only be achieved by the monumental status of the Ranking Genius Students!

Daisy, Chase, Leon, and Elsa were all there. And along with them were two new faces.

One of them was a staggering tall young man whose appearance screams imposing. He stood 7'2 tall, towering over the ranking students. His face held several long, deep-running scars that accentuated his frightening looks.

This was the Ranking Genius, Dane.

And next to this tall, imposing-looking young man was a youth that actually didn't have an outrageous appearance like his fellow Ranking students.

His looks were really only slightly above average.

The only notable feature on him was a tattoo at the center of his forehead that was in the shape of a hammer. This was the Ranking Genius Anton.

Between the six of them, Chase, Leon, and Daisy stick close together.

Dane and Anton were at a reasonable distance apart from each other and the other Ranking students. While Elsa stood off on her own as per usual.

They were mainly talking among themselves until Hayoto walked up to a Talent Stone.

It was then that Chase decided to address everyone here. "So looks like he's finally up. What's everyone's bet? I've read some surprisingly intriguing things about those who can wield Sword Qi powers."

Leon had a brief pondering look before shrugging his shoulders. For most subjects under him, he really couldn't be bothered to look up much about it.

He answered in a light casual tone. "Not sure on how high he'll go. But, I am sure he will show something that surpasses the common bunch."

Suddenly then, Dane shifted his attention to Leon. His eyes began to glower a little, putting a slight pressure upon Leon.

"This better not be a waste of time, like you said. If I'm right, then this Hayoto kid should be comparable to that Asher kid. I'm expecting a decent show, at least."

Leon didn't show any outward expression towards Dane's slight intimidation. But a cold thought did sweep through his mind.

Before he could respond, Anton had suddenly spoken up, telling him, "Hm. Well, who can say if this kid can even put on a good show? That other guy did a show of more impressive feats than him. And it's only the beginning of the year."

While the boys talked with each other, Daisy had subtly got closer to Elsa. She tried seeing if she had any slight reaction but wasn't surprised to see only indifference.

Still, Daisy tried to probe Elsa by asking her, "So? What do you think of Tirel? Any predictions on how Hayoto will compare with Asher?"

Elsa didn't even look back at Daisy. Her eyes were kept forward, and her expression was indifferent, almost like she didn't care at all. She only told Daisy, "We will wait and see."

Daisy knew she would get a short answer and was going to try and ask another question.

But right then, Chase got both of their attention when he had said, "Look. He's about to start."

The Ranking students and all other students had their eyes locked onto Hayato, who began to raise his hand to gather his Soul's essence.

As Hayato surged his power, his calm expression started to grow immensely confident. Unknown to all, he was there with one huge goal in his mind.

And that is to set an unbreakable example and majorly outclass a certain someone.

All because of one kid showing off, his rising surge fame was stripped away from him. A grudge bore into Hayoto's mind, and he was going to wipe out that grudge for good right now.