Registration

The next day, Kane woke up as early as 5 am. He cleaned himself up and ordered breakfast. After eating, he took the elevator and went down to the lobby. He approached the receptionist but noticed it was not the same person he met the previous night.

"Good morning, how can I help you, sir," said the receptionist who had a smile on her face. "Good morning. I would like to know if you guys buy beast carcasses".

"I am sorry, we don't purchase low-level beast carcasses" replied the receptionist with an apologetic smile on my face.

"Take a look at it first," said Kane as he passed a storage ring to the woman. She took the ring and probed the contents with elemental energy. She was mildly surprised by the quality and quantity of the beast carcasses inside the ring.

Kane who noticed the change in her expression was also shocked. A mere receptionist was at least in the evolved realm. What about the other staff? She looked at Kane and said, "We will offer 20,000 medium-grade mana crystals. We can only offer that price because their cores have been removed".

"Take it," said Abel. "Okay, I will take it" Kane replied. "Very well. Nice doing business with you. Could you wait for a little while as your payment is being prepared?" she said as she looked at Kane with the same smile on her face.

"No problem" replied Kane. In a few minutes, a male staff in a black suit walked up to them and handed a storage ring to the receptionist before leaving with the one that contained the beast carcasses. After confirming the contents of the ring, she passed it to Kane. He kept it in his waist pack and only left the hotel after the receptionist reminded him that he could always find them if he wanted to sell more beast carcasses.

He exited the castle gates and walked to the sidewalk where he flagged down a taxi. His destination was the venue for the storm cradle recruitment examination. In no time, he arrived at the venue. It was almost 8 am but there were still a lot of crowds scattered about in the area.

The venue was a humongous arena built like a stadium and was more than three times larger than a stadium used in the Olympic games. There was a long queue in all of its five entrances which were closed and would not be opened until it was 9 am. So he had to wait in line.

The huge stream of people waiting in line was made up of foreigners. To join the Imperial sect, one could just head over to the branch located in every city of the Dyssiodian Empire hence the little turn-up and low requirements from the prospective recruits as their quantity could be used to compensate for quality. This was not the same for other sects though.

If one wanted to join the other sects created by individuals or clans, they first had to travel to cities owned by the respective sect or large cities that had a branch of the sect located in them, using either teleportation gates that linked the city they were currently located with the one the sect they intended to join was located or they could travel long distances if they were brave enough.

The storm cradle sect mainly attracted cultivators who either had lightning elemental affinity or were interested in the sect's lightning skills and equipment.

Kane patiently waited in line and it was soon 9 am in no time. The doors of all five entrances were open and guards were ushering those who were in line into the arena one by one. After waiting for about thirty minutes, it was already Kane's turn to enter.

He was led by someone who looked like a service disciple of the storm cradle sect from the blue uniform-like robe he was putting on, to a room filled with many sophisticated gadgets. There was a man in a lab coat who was holding a transparent handheld computer and was standing beside a slightly elevated platform that had enough room to accommodate only one person.

There was also a woman who was also in a lab coat sitting behind a computer. The man beckoned for Kane to come closer with his free hand. "Can I have your hunter association identity card?" asked the man. He wanted to sound polite but he could not mask the trace of impatience in his voice.

Kane took out his hunter association identity card and handed it over to the man. The man glanced at the information displayed on it and was pleasantly surprised. The kid was actually in tier 2 mutant realm and his contribution points were well over 300,000. That was quite rare for someone his age. This meant that the kid might be a hidden genius.

"Hello, Mr. Kane. My name is Dhakwan Sarraf. I hope you don't mind me asking, how old are you?" asked the man. The impatience in his tone was completely gone by now. If Kane was only in the grunt realm, there would be no need for any examination. He would become a service disciple who would be assigned minor errands by the sect until he gets to the mutant realm.

"I am 15" replied Kane. He and his master decided to use this as his official age. It would sound strange if he told people he was 4. The man had a big smile on his face as he pointed at the platform "please step on this so we can confirm your elemental affinity".

Kane climbed onto the platform before the man touched some icons on his handheld computer. After a while, there was a whirling sound as faint white light rose from the ground and reached all the way to the ceiling.

Kane felt some sort of energy seeping into his body and encasing his core. Less than a minute later, the light faded and the whirling sound stopped. Kane looked at the man. The man now had a big smile on his face and said "Wow, I am impressed double elemental affinity of earth and lightning.

Although, I don't know how it's possible as both elements are polar opposites and don't mix well together. The fact that it worked with you shows that you are special".

Kane remembered the time he fought the electric eel. It kept electrocuting him throughout the battle. That seemingly counted as exposure enough for his body to emulate.

"Can you tell me what your mutation is? Giving us this information means that you place complete trust in the sect. The sect will naturally reward you with enough resources to progress in your chosen path and of course, not disclose your information to others." said the man whose eyes were brimming with expectation.

"I am sorry, I can't reveal that" Kane replied. "Oh" Dhakwan was clearly disappointed. He sent Kane's information to the lady's computer before she printed out a card with the number 16 on one side and mutant on the other. She handed the card to Dhakwan and returned to her previous position.

"This is your number. The registration period ends after two days. The examination would commence after that. The examination is just a combat capability test where candidates fight each other.

Don't worry. There are referees available to make sure that there are no fatalities. The fights are divided according to power levels so there would be three stages for mutant, evolved, and warrior realm battles.

Contestants will be randomly paired with each other in a tournament. Losers will be eliminated and winners will progress to the next round and fight the winners of the previous round. This will progress until the one contestant remains.

In the case of there being an uneven number of contestants, members of the storm cradle sect would be used to make up the numbers.

Those who pass would be determined by the number of fights they win and other factors they display like skills, etc. See you then. Oh here is my card if you need any help or any inquiry about the examination you can call me with the number on the card.

Kane accepted the card and thanked the man before being escorted out of the arena by the service disciple. He took a taxi back to the Hyatt hotel and went straight to his room. He relaxed and watched TV till it was past noon.

He ordered a large lunch. He was not afraid of the expenses as they all went to Juwayn's tab. He was almost done eating when something happened.

There was a loud fanfare and the sounds of fireworks being fired into the air. His attention switched to the television. The program he was watching suddenly switched to something like a commercial that had fireworks exploding in it.

The exploding fireworks then formed a sentence "CONGRATULATIONS TO RHIENER HUGH OF THE BRUNHILDE EMPIRE FOR STEPPING INTO THE EMPEROR REALM".