Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

"I will first be taking a measure of your soul core's rank. Please restrain your willpower and do not resist this process, otherwise the results will not be accurate."

'Hmm?'

The woman spoke to him as soon as he entered, not wanting to waste any time as there were still thousands of other students to get through.

As it turned out, testing the power of a person's soul core rank was actually easy to measure, and every awakened university had the means to do so.

It was just an expensive process.

That was why Alex had never gone through this when he excited the Primordial Expanse, and was required to go through the legal procedures before he was allowed back into society.

The government just hadn't deemed him worthy enough to use their more advanced equipment to assess him, as he was just a lowly runt from the slums of one of the many mining colonies in the star system.

The more expensive and advanced testing equipment was only affordable for those in the middle classes upwards to use.

But it was free for every student in Capital Prime, which just boasted their prestige and resources even further.

Shortly, the woman positioned an ominous looking device over Alex's head, encompassing his entire cranium with its many testing apparatuses.

"Please don't resist, you may feel uncomfortable at first, but the results need to be accurate in order to be valid."

She gave him a polite warning once again before she activated the device.

'Ugh, I feel nauseous!'

Immediately Alex was hit with a weird feeling, like his brain was being prodded by a burst of energy.

The feeling was uncomfortable indeed, but it wasn't painful.

Alex just felt a little sick from the effects of the device, but the woman turned it off a few seconds later.

"All done! Your results will take a few seconds to compute, before they are available for you to view on your communicator."

'That's convenient.'

After a 10 second wait, a little longer than the woman predicted, just as she said his communicator pinged with a notification while the woman's own device received the same notification.

"Wow… Looks like you're quite the strong one!"

She was speechless when she first read the report, with his rank unmistakably being D- rank!

"It seems this year will be quite interesting, I look forward to your performances in the Combat assessments. With your rank alone you'll be able to make it into the top 10,000 on the first year rankings!" The woman's professional demeanour subtly shifted into an energetic one as she read out Alex's results.

Though, Alex didn't have any reaction at all.

If he wanted to see his soul core's rank, he wouldn't ever go through this uncomfortable process again.

He'd just open his details…

"Next we have the talent assessment. This one will be much less uncomfortable than the previous one. Unfortunately, the university doesn't afford you the option of privacy like the external assessment centres do. But it is good for you to let your talent be known here anyway, as it increases your chances of a high ranking drastically."

Alex listened to the woman closely as this was the one assessment he was really worried about.

The fact that the university didn't offer the option of privacy was what worried him the most, as that meant that his Soulforge talent would likely be discovered and reported to the university's higher ups.

He didn't want this to happen at all, as he'd just end up as some lab rat, or even worse as a slave to some high rank human for the rest of his life if they found out he had a method of 'producing' Soul orbs.

"Excuse me, but before this test begins, can you explain to me how exactly my talents will be tested? The association assessment centre I went to when I first came back from the Primordial Expanse said that they can't test for them, they can only see me activate my talent directly? That would be troublesome for me as I have quite a destructive talent…"

He asked the woman in as careful and as curious a manner as he could muster. Alex really wanted to know if there was a chance of his Soulforge talent getting found out or not. If it was just like the previous talent assessment he had, then he wouldn't need to worry.

But he had a bad feeling that the university would have some more advanced testing process that would uncover his talents whether he liked it or not…

"Sure thing, unlike those other testing centres, we have a much more simple way of doing things. This isn't common information until you come into contact with organisations like this university, but the system has contracts that govern an exchange between two parties. We call these Soul Contracts. These are what we use to record student's talents."

Alex was confused, 'Soul Contracts?' he thought.

'So there was such a thing?'

"Can you explain to me what these Soul Contracts do?" He didn't feel good at all when he heard of such a thing.

Just the name alone seemed ominous enough, and he could glean their use just from the mention of the word 'Soul' in the name.

"Soul Contracts act just like our normal legal contracts in the federation, only they serve a much higher power and have much more dire consequences for breaking them. Both parties agree on the terms, and if either party breaks their side of the deal, their Soul will be dealt a varying degree of punishment." The woman paused to see Alex's reaction.

And she was satisfied when she saw the shock on his face, and continued.

"And in this case due to the severity and secrecy of the information we wish to gain from you, the punishment to both parties will be the complete obliteration of the soul. There is no coming back from that, and if you believe in an afterlife, well good luck getting there without a soul…"

"..."

'Fuck.'