Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

'So basically, I'm fucked then.'

Things actually turned out to be much worse than he thought.

If their method of testing was just like the other assessment centre, then he could just get away with lying, or hiding the truth again.

But this time there were no loopholes for him to exploit.

If he tried such a thing with this soul contract, then he'd essentially be killing himself.

The only upside was the fact that the other party, which he assumed would be the university's board of directors, and the woman testing him, would suffer the same fate if they divulged his information to anyone else.

'What to do, what to do…'

Alex was seriously considering just leaving the university right then and there.

He hadn't signed anything yet, so he could still back out now.

But something inside of him screamed at him not to do so; that he would be committing a horrible mistake if he did so.

'Fuck it! If they find out, they find out. It would have happened eventually one day anyway. I'm just bringing that day forward on the timeline!'

After Alex had calmed down from his shock, he nodded to the woman to begin.

She began shortly after, and Alex was completely shocked by what just happened.

He thought she'd just take out a fancy piece of paper from a drawer somewhere, but no such thing occurred.

Instead, a system panel appeared in the middle of the air between the two people.

But the amazing thing was, that both of them could view it!

'I never expected this!'

The panel looked exactly like the one that showed up when he summoned his details, but the contents on this one was different.

It was a Soul Contract.

'So this is how it works! I should have expected this, the system always does things outside of the normal conventions. It's no surprise that it puts its magical abilities to use in such a way.'

On the Soul Contract, the details for both parties were already filled in, and Alex read through them very slowly and carefully.

His life and Soul were on the line after all.

He didn't want to get scammed into killing himself because he didn't read the Contract properly.

'Alex will agree to share the details of his talents to the parties specified…'

'The parties specified here… will agree to keep his details secret indefinitely.'

'...'

'Failure to comply with the conditions on both party's ends will result in the subsequent party's Soul Punishment — Soul obliteration.'

'Do you agree to sign this contract?'

The whole contract wasn't that long, which helped Alex to understand the terms easier.

There seemed to be no loopholes, which was expected of something the system had conjured up itself.

He looked at the Yes or No prompt that floated in front of him, and hesitated for a moment before he made a decision.

'There's no going back once I hit yes…'

His hands were visibly shaking as he was stuck with this dilemma, but in the end, he forced himself to push through it.

'Yes…'

The contract disappeared immediately after he agreed, as the other parties had already agreed as well.

Everything seemed normal at first, with nothing out of the ordinary happening.

"Uhh, so do I just tell you the details of my talents or something like that…"

He broke the awkward silence in the air by asking the woman.

But she just looked at him with a smile he couldn't see through and didn't answer.

"..."

A few more seconds passed and still, nothing had happened.

The woman had still kept up her mysterious smile the whole time, but deep inside even she was getting a little confused.

'Shouldn't it have shown up by now?'

She was getting worried herself, as it had never taken this long in the countless talent assessments she had conducted before this one.

In fact, she was a little scared, as her life and soul was on the line as well.

If anything went wrong for some reason, she'd die!

But just as her hands started to shake, another system panel appeared in the air — also visible to both Alex and the woman.

'Phew! What took that so long? Never mind, let's just get this over with.'

Alex recognised the panel that appeared immediately.

It was a snippet of his details!

It only showed his Talents section, as well as the Talent details themselves, but such a thing appearing for another person to see was still startling to him.

He observed the reaction of the woman as she looked at them, and it was as predicted.

She gasped in shock as she read through his talents and their details. This was the first time she had visibly shown her shock in front of Alex, as she simply couldn't have masked it this time.

'Fuck, here it comes. 'How do you have three talents??', 'I've never seen this rank in my life…', 'I need to report this to my superiors!''

All kinds of different scenarios passed through his head of how the woman would react to him, but surprisingly none of them occurred.

"You have two elemental talents!?" The woman blared out in a mixture of shock and excitement.

'Huh, that's it?'

Alex took a look at the panel that popped up himself, and he was utterly confused.

'Where is it?'

He read it again, just to make sure.

Talents: [Flame (C+)], [Inferior teleportation(E)]

'Huh, they've both gone up in rank since I last checked them…'

'Never mind that, where the hell is my Soulforge talent!?'

He read through the whole thing again and again, but it just wasn't there.

Considering the fact that he was still alive and well, clearly nothing had gone wrong with the Soul Contract, which just made this situation even more confusing.

'Wait, don't tell me it's really gone!'

In utter desperation, he opened his details, which only he could see and rushed to check his talents.

[Details]

Name: [Alex]

Age: [17]

Talents: [Soulforge(Soul+)], [Flame(C+)], [Inferior teleportation(E)]

Trait: [Warrior]

Trait description: [After learning about the truth of the world, you've started venturing upon this path yourself. You can now be considered a fletchling elite. You still have a long way to go, but you are already considered a part of the top 5%.]

Trait effect: [Healing speed increased by 5%]

Soul core: [D- 2%]

Soul Classification: [Mutant - 0%]

'Okay thank god for that!'

He was relieved beyond measure when he spotted it sitting there as it always did in his details.

But that just left him with even more questions as to why it wasn't on the talents shown to the university.

Though, he couldn't really complain about it being missing either…