[Assessing Compatibility with The Host….]

[Host is Found Compatible]

[Host Chosen]

A young man seemingly in his sleep slowly opens his eyes. “What a weird dream.”

He stretches his hand before excitedly getting off the bed and glances at the clock. “Damn it I am late!” quickly getting himself ready for the day.

Today was the annual selection which is conducted under the supervision of the six strongest academies in the continent, held to select and nurture children with good talents who had just turned 16-years-old.

He left his house in a hurry without saying any words and headed straight to the central plaza where the selection was scheduled to be held.

The area was filled with hundreds of people, mostly with people his age and their parents.

When he arrived, he found the event has already begun.

The area wasn’t too large as the city he lives in is considered a very small city. A little over a hundred or so chairs were arranged on either side of a not too large, paved platform, the platform currently had an elderly man and a young lady standing on it, in his hand was a transparent orb which shun bright with a majestic golden glow before turning transparent again.

“Allura…., G-Gold-grade talent!” the elderly man announced to everyone watching while stammering a little, surprise evident in his voice. The young lady could be seen standing in front of the orb, a big smile appeared on her face as she heard the man.

“Woah a Gold-grade talent that hasn’t appeared in our city for almost a decade.” A woman from the spectating area commented.

“Look at her she is not only extremely beautiful but also talented the other ladies watching must be envious.” A man shouted.

“Hahaha finally our city has a produced a good talent, now we won’t be looked down by others.” A man said while laughing out loudly.

Everyone in the crowd were chatting about the beauty and even the participants were no different.

“We of the Moonlight Academy would like to invite you to join us.” An elegant and stunningly beautiful lady who was sitting in front of the platform where the sitting arrangement for the representatives of the academies were made for, said with a slight smile.

“Join our Luminous Academy we are the best in the continent, you would gain the most from joining us.” A middle-aged man who was the representative of luminous academy spoke in an arrogant and proud tone, confident she would join them.

The other four academies also invited the young lady in hopes of her joining them.

Without thinking even for a second she bowed slightly to the seniors before announcing confidently “I appreciate the offers made by seniors but, I have always wanted to join the Moonlight academy because of their summoning arts, so I would like to join them.”

The lady from the moonlight academy now wore a big smile on her face. “You are welcome to join our ranks.” She was evidently joyous that she joined them, she then continued “Take a seat for now we would talk after the end of the event.”

Allura nodded and went in the spectator’s area to take a seat.

The representative from the Luminous Academy lost all interest at her as he said “Fool, who would choose a weaker academy when they could join a stronger one.”

“Mike, I would advise you not to speak about our disciple or academy in such a way, don’t look down us I say this for your own good.” The lady from the Moonlight Academy warned as she stared at Mike coldly.

Mike shivered a little, but he hid it well, he then merely snorted at her before shifting his attention.

The elderly man on the platform called the next person on the platform and this continued with the people getting offers from different academies. Some even got multiple offers.

The young man who had arrived here and watching for a while, went to a certain area near the spectator’s area, there an old man sat, writing the names of the participants.

The young man went to him. “Hello, I would like to register to be assessed as well.”

The old man without taking a look at the youth said, “State your name and age.”

“Kai, 16-year-old.” Kai replied

The man noted his name, he told him to sit down and wait for when he is called. Kai thanked him and took a seat in the crowd.

He came pretty late, so the event has almost reached its ending stage.

“Next, Kai.” He was called after waiting for fifteen minutes.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He walked towards the platform nervously. As he was walking towards the platform everyone sucked a mouthful of cold air, the man before them was the most handsome person they have ever seen. The representatives were no different.

“Wow so handsome, if he also gets a Gold-grade talent, then there wouldn’t be a girl who wouldn’t find him appealing.” A woman in the crowd commented.

The other women around her all nodded in agreement.

He stood in front of the old man as he stared at the orb in his hand.

“Don’t worry so much, place your hand on it and relax” The old man advised.

Kai nodded as he took a deep breath and placed his hands on the orb.

After everyone waited for a minute, nothing happened. The old man a little confused said “Remove your hands and place it again.” The old man told Kai.

Kai did as he was told and after waiting for another minute, nothing happened. The expression of the old man turned sour. After waiting for some more seconds what he announced made Kai’s body freeze stiff and his heart clenched.

“Kai, no talent” he announced with an apologetic tone as he looked at the youth in front of him with an empathetic look.

The representatives and the crowd were no different, they knew that although extremely rare, there had been cases of people who didn’t have any talent.

“Such a shame, if he had a good grade his life would be set. Looks like the heaven’s don’t always favor beautiful people.” A woman commented as she glanced at Allura.

All the other people from the crowd also started talking.

The grades of the talent were represented by the light that would glow inside the orb, there were 5 known grades, from lowest to highest they were- Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond and the legendary Amethyst-grade.

Only the headmasters of the 6 academies were known to have Diamond-grade talents, while the Amethyst-grade was considered a myth since it has not appeared for centuries in their continent.

Usually, it is enough to have a Bronze-grade talent for entering a academy, meanwhile having a Silver-grade was considered good and the Gold-grade people were considered geniuses coveted by every academy. Although there were still plenty of Gold-grade talent people around it was still pretty rare.

Kai stared at the orb before looking at the old man, his entire body was shaking and his eyes showed disbelief and doubt. Everyone in the crowd were silent and looked at the youth with pity, shaking their heads. While some were gossiping silently.

Allura was no different, she had a frown on her face as she watched everything, she didn’t like how things turned out for the young man.

“Stop wasting our time, you have already wasted enough of our time, now get off the platform, no academy wants a talentless trash.” Mike was the one who broke the silence, he was still irritated that he couldn’t get Allura to join them, so he decided to take it out on him. He could care less about his feelings.

The people in the crowd and the other representatives frowned deeply upon hearing this. Mike had done a lowly thing, kicking the youth at his lowest point.

His words further shook Kai as he shivered and took small steps forward with his head down, almost stumbling in the process. He had the urge to cry but he held back knowing this won’t help him and only make him look even more pathetic.

Just as he was about to leave the platform, he heard a strange voice in his head for a split second, but he just thought he has started hearing things since it came from within his head.

Then he heard another voice that didn’t come from his head making him halt. “I have an offer for you….”

The voice then continued “Although you don’t have a talent for learning the mythical arts it doesn’t mean that it is impossible, it only means that it would be extremely difficult for you to learn it.”

“I can’t accept you as a disciple but if you are willing you can start as a servant in our academy, if you gain enough contributions, you can spend them to study the mythical arts. What do you think?” The person who spoke these words was the lady who represented the Moonlight Academy.

The other academies were shocked after hearing this, they didn’t think the Moonlight Academy would take in such a talentless person.

“Hahahaha good, good came to become a disciple and reduced to a mere servant, befitting of a talentless fool.” Mike laughed out loud, mocking Kai.

Kai lifted his head and when he looked in front of him, he screamed loudly as he fell back on the ground.

This made some people from the crowd laugh and chuckle harder, along with some representatives as well. The lady merely furrowed her eyebrows not understanding why he would scream and act this way.

Kai looked in front of him for a few seconds before standing up and after composing himself he said while bowing “I appreciate your offer senior, and I accept your terms. Please look after me.”

The lady smiled and nodded a little. “Take a seat, we will talk after the event is over.”

Kai nodded and walked off to take a seat.

Afterwards everyone went back to normal and then the next person was called. When the youth placed his hand on the orb a scene occurred which shocked everyone present, including the old man and the representatives.

The orb shattered into thousands of pieces right in front of them. This has never occurred in the event.

The old man and the youth being assessed didn’t know what to do.

“Just bring another orb it must have gone rusty after all these years of usage. No need to panic.” One of the representatives announced.

The old man nodded before sending someone to get another orb. After a few minutes another orb was brought.

The youth was assessed again, and he had a Silver-grade talent, which implied that the orb was indeed faulty.

The lady from the moonlight faction looked at the shattered orb before glancing at Kai who still had a dejected look on his face seemingly lost in thought, completely unaware of the commotion going on. She then shook her head and continued with the event.

The event ended after one more hour without any more accidents occurring.

Then all the people chosen by their respective academies were called.

“Hey, can we go together?” Kai heard a voice beside him, as he lifted his head to look, he found a beautiful young lady looking at him while avoiding eye contact and with a shy expression on her face. It was none other than Allura.

Kai nodded and then walked with her towards the lady from the Moonlight Academy. The other men seeing this couldn’t help but feel envious of his luck.

“Why does the trash get to walk together with her, a genius?” A man complained.

“Hmph, he doesn’t know his place yet if I ever find him in the future I would show him his place.” Another man commented angrily.

The other men were not that different.

Kai and Allura quickly found the lady, there were only 15 people standing in the group in front of the lady. The duo quickly joined the group as they waited for the others to arrive.

Once everyone was there, which was not much, only 20 people were selected by the lady, Kai included, which was very low compared to the other academies who would choose around 50 people. The lady began to give them a briefing of everything that would happen now.

She first introduced herself, her name was Jane, she had a way to detect people who had an affinity for summoning magic explaining the reason for the small amount of people, what surprised Kai was that she could even detect this from Kai, explaining why she chose him. Kai felt a bit better knowing the lady was not just showing pity to him.

They were given a week before they were to departure to the Academy which would be a two days journey. They were ordered to meet at the city gate in two days at sunrise, anyone who would be absent would be left behind.

They were then dismissed.

Kai and Allura walked away together while chatting on their way.

During their conversation Kai found out more about Allura, apparently although she was so beautiful she didn’t have any friends due to other jealous girls bullying her every time and the boys always looking at her indecently. This made her quite shy and afraid of talking to others.

She thought now that she is about to step into a new phase of her life, she determined herself to make lots of friends. Kai was the first she tried to befriend, which Kai happily accepted. She didn’t feel like Kai had wrong intentions, which she confirmed during their conversation with how politely he spoke to her. She actually felt quite comfortable and relaxed talking with him.

They spoke with each other for some more time before parting ways getting ready to leave the city in two ways.

As Kai walked towards his house, some people around him looked at him with pity and shook their head while some mocked him of being a trash. The news about him being talentless had already spready throughout the city.

Kai did not let their words affect him, he knew he is going to have a hard life ahead, but he still had hope. There was also something else that was bugging him for the entire time.

He entered his house, he lived alone in the house. The house was not very big, but it was extremely big for a single person to be living in it.

Kai’s parents died when he was 10 years old, and he did not seem to have any memory of them. He had been living these 6 years on the money left behind by his parents. In this time, he solely focused on training his physical body to its limits as this was the only thing that can make him strong. He waited for this very day as this was when his talents would be assessed, this was his plan for his life which was almost crushed in a few hours.

He had already decided to sell the house and take the money with him to what he would like to call his new home. But all this was for a later time, he has something more important to figure out right now.

Kai sat on a chair before closing his eyes. A familiar sound resounded in his head.

It was the same sound he heard and deemed to the result of him going crazy during the assessment.

Kai opened his eyes and stared in front of him, there he saw the actual reason for him screaming and falling down once again.

[Talent Grade Assessing]

[Talent Grade: Error….]

[Reassessing….]

[Talent Grade: Error….]

[Talent Grade is unable to be assessed]