The reason for their shock was the common fact that Ethereals were supposed to only summon beasts.
Meanwhile the summon standing before Hikaru was a tall man, who was about six foot three, he had long white hair that was tied in a neat ponytail. He wore small earrings and had a long sword by his side that his hand rested lazily on. Hikaru himself stared in shock at this anomaly.
He could feel the weight of every eyes in the room looking at him and silently he prayed. "Let this be the good kind of anomaly please."
Raiden walked closer to Hikaru and peered closely at the human, there was disbelief on his face. Did you really summon that? He asked.
Hikaru nodded hesitantly. 'Good anomaly please..'
Raiden shook his head slowly and an angry expression spread over his face. "I knew you were a scrub who wouldn't achieve much, the orb never lies."
Hikaru felt his heart shatter.
He turned away without another glance and raised his voice at the group. "All you new Ethereals, leave the hall now and go on with your lives, I don't want to spend any more seconds with this scrub."
The Ethereals headed out this time they talked quietly, some of them sneakily looked back towards Hikaru. He didn't need anyone to tell him they were gossiping about him.
He headed out as well, keeping to himself and not talking to anyone. He didn't stop until the building was behind him and the noise faded and he found himself in a small courtyard tucked between two wings of the complex.
Hikaru looked around to make sure he was alone, then he focused on the gentle tug and the human appeared again in front of him.
He looked at the man, who had resumed his previous activity of staring at nothing in particular.
Then because the system was the floating at the edge of his vision, he decided to try something. He focused on the man and tried to activate its profile, the panel blinked and new text appeared.
Name: —
Rank: Paragon
Soul Rank: Menace
Soul Cores: 0/300
As Hikaru read the profile his heart skipped a beat. The summon's rank was Paragon, which was the second rank. His soul rank was Menace which was the second soul rank. However Hikaru himself was a mere disciple, which was the first rank, and his soul rank was threat, which was the first soul rank.
It was known that the summon was not supposed to be stronger than its Ethereal, by this logic, Hikaru's summon should be a Disciple and a Threat as well.
However his summon was considerably stronger than him.
As Hikaru pondered this, he began to accept the possibility. 'After all.' He thought. 'It folllws the logic really. The orb glowed faint green for me which was unusual, I got a system from the summoning god which is unsual, it is not too surprising that I now have a summon that is much powerful than I am'
When he had accepted it, he began to comsider the possibilities. With a summon this powerful under his command, he could easily go to the first floor of the astral tower and he would be able to clear it with less difficulty than a disciple would normally do.
Also, he was now much more powerful than all the other new Ethereals.
He looked again at the human who was staring into space absentmindedly and decided he needed to give him a name. However Hikaru was not the best at naming things and after a long moment of deliberate, the brightest idea he came up with was:
"Nameless."
As he said this, the human's profile changed.
Name: Nameless
Rank: Paragon
Soul Rank: Menace
Soul Cores: 0/300
When this happened, the human suddenly came alive with energy, the distant expression vanished from his face and he bowed deeply. "Thank you for naming me, Master! I promise to serve you always!" he said cheerfully, then straightened and gave a bright thumbs up.
Hikaru was caught off guard by the sudden change in the man's demeanor and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Uhmm.. okay… you're welcome."
Hikaru then made another decision, they needed to enter a smaller Astral Gate. The reason was simple, if they could kill some monsters, they would be able to sell its cores and possibly, corpse for money. With this money he could buy clothes food and better gear.
Normally, a newly awakened Ethereal would have rushed home to celebreage with their family and friends. However Hikaru didn't have any family or friends, he was an orphan who had been ostracized from every circle he could possibly belong too.
He had nobody at all… well except for Gina. Hikaru's face became red as he thought about her, however he shook it off.
There were two types of Astral Gates, N gates and T gates. T gates were found in the Astral Tower, each floor had a T gate in it. N gates were the Astral gates found everywhere else.
The T gates were the most dangerous gates, they led to the harshest areas of the planet where the most powerful beasts roamed. While N gates were weaker, they were also dangerous as well, however they were filled with lower ranked beasts.
Most ethereals prefered to hunt in the N gates, there they could earn money and live very comfortable lives, at the same time, they would grow stronger and increase their soul ranks.
Only the most ambitious Ethereals entered T gates, most of the ones who entered failed to come back but the ones who did came back with a higher rank and their status in society was elevated.
It was to a N gate that Hikaru was now headed.