With silent steps that seemed to echo in his ears, Godfrey ascended to the top of the hexagonal platform, his eyes locked on the headmaster, who retreated for him to stand at the center of the stage.
The headmaster stood alongside a woman who held a tablet. It was the device that gauged the tier of a summoner's summon; she would be the first to see if he was just a normal human or had a summon lying dormant within him.
"Calm down. Take deep breaths and close your eyes. You'll find yourself in a place we call your soul space, and you'll be staring right at your summon."
The headmaster paused as Godfrey closed his eyes. "It will be dark, but do not worry. The light of your summon will be the only light you need…"
At this point, Godfrey couldn't hear what the headmaster was saying anymore. The dungeon cores glowed faintly, their brilliance dulled by the sunlight, and Godfrey was drawn into his soul space.
He had heard his mother's experience and several others. It was always the same: they appeared floating in what looked like endless space, and their beast awaited them there. Some said they were frightened at first sight, some were happy, and some recoiled at what they saw. But when Godfrey opened his eyes, he didn't know what to make of the sight before him.
He stood on a massive staircase, as wide as a highway. The blocks that made up the steps were pure white, as though marble and magic had been fused together, and the staircase ascended toward a towering wall with a colossal double door of wood.
Above it hung the sun, its piercing glow flooding everything in light.
Godfrey looked around in bewilderment. Where was the darkness? Why wasn't he floating in space, but standing on a staircase?
'It can't be that I died the moment I'm about to awaken, right?' He chortled, though the jest felt hollow. Still, it was better to see what awaited him at the top.
The moment he took a step, Godfrey found himself already standing before the great door. Carved into its surface with exquisite detail was a great oval shield crossed with a longsword.
He placed his hands on the door, and with the gentlest nudge, it swung inward.
"My God!"
The headmaster snapped toward the woman with the gauging device, deep lines cutting across his temples. "What is it?"
"His tier…" the woman looked at him, horrified. "It's 1…"
"It's what?!" The headmaster moved closer, his voice sharp, until the woman finally managed to speak.
"It's 12.1." She could barely force the words out, as though her voice was chained to a stone and dragged down.
The headmaster's eyes widened. "His summon has the potential of a 12.1 King-tier!"
The woman shook her head vehemently, thrusting the screen toward him. "It's 12.1 — and the potential…"
The headmaster's face drained of color, as if he had seen a ghost, when the reading revealed that the potential exceeded 12.9.
It was incalculable.
Just then, a golden diagram flared above Godfrey, its brilliance forcing Isolde, Snow, Dale, and the others in his class to squint as they leaned out from the windows to get a clearer look.
With a thunderous metallic crash, a summon descended from the diagram, clad in ornate golden armor layered over thick steel, a white cape fluttering from its shoulders as it landed.
The figure stood a full seven feet tall, a great oval shield in one hand and a longsword in the other. Its presence was imposing, and its helm bore a single vertical slit, no wider than a finger, that glowed faintly from within.
"A knight!" Disdain flared in Snow's eyes. Everyone knew humanoid summons like golems and orcs were considered weak compared to beast summons. The only exceptions were Adam's Monkey King, which was part monkey, and Cain's Dark Seraph, which carried celestial blood.
"You've summoned a humanoid creature with a tier of 3.0 and a potential of 6.0," the woman with the gauge announced aloud, then shot a furtive glance at the headmaster.
Only the two of them knew what the device first displayed, yet this was the reading she spoke aloud. Was he one of the rare summoners who harbored two summons within them?
If not, then the gauge was wrong. But since when did a low-tier summon possess such absurd growth potential?
"You may descend," the headmaster said in an even tone, his expression unreadable as he watched Godfrey retrieve his summon and step down. But his mind was calculating. "He stays under watch. There's something we haven't grasped yet. I need to know if that boy is truly a low-tier summoner or a king-tier hidden in disguise."
"A humanoid summon. What a terrible way to start the ceremony!" Godfrey heard someone mutter from the crowd, their voice tight with fear for their own fate.
"It has absurd potential, though. Imagine the chance to rise from a low-tier to a high-tier wasted on some ancient knight whose sword might not even scratch a beast."
Godfrey's eyes narrowed on the man who had spoken, standing beside his child. Their gazes met, but the disdain in the man's eyes didn't faze him. Nothing did, not when his mind was in turmoil.
He remembered the stone door with the symbol he had glimpsed behind the chamber of the knight he summoned. Everyone said the first thing they saw in their soul space was their true summon.
The first thing he saw wasn't the knight. It was the staircase leading up to what looked like a palace. If that was his true summon, then the knight was only a part of it.
Which meant behind the other doors… were other knights.
When he finally stepped into his class, his thoughts receded as every gaze fixed on him. The boy once mocked for having no summon now had one, but still.
"Your father's summon could spit gold and level an army of orcs, but yours can only wave around a puny sword and shield. Did the garbage just upgrade into the garbage bin?" Dale snickered, clutching his stomach as his lackeys roared with laughter. Others only looked at Godfrey with pity.
With a summon like this, he would always remain a mockery to his father's legacy.
"It's about time for combat class. Let's test that knight of yours." Siegfried rose to his feet, the grudge in his green eyes sharp as he ruffled his hair and walked out.
One by one, the others followed, some casting him pitying looks, others ignoring him, some mocking with their faces. Finally, only Isolde remained.
"It's a cool knight," she said at last.
Godfrey rolled his eyes. "The entire class is waiting for me to be humiliated publicly."
"Truueee…" Isolde pursed her lips. "But every summon has its advantages. I bet your knight has his."
....
A/N: I hope you enjoy this novel. Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Thank you.