The dragon's harem

Chapter 1478: Failure

Arad and Tina finally reached the sect’s entrance, a massive wooden gate decorated with golden lanterns, floating orbs of light, and ever-growing green vines. ”This looks like where druids would live.”

”No, it doesn’t.” Tina stared at him, ”It looks a bit better. Druid homes are more scuffed than this. This looks like something between what the elves and halflings would build.”

Arad looked around, ”There are many humans here, but there are a lot of elves as well.” The two walked inside and found themselves in the middle of a massive plaza with thousands of people waiting in lines. The selection process can take days, if not weeks, for their turn to arrive.

But to his surprise, they didn’t wait for long. Seconds later, a woman’s voice boomed across the plaza, ”You there! The tall one, come to the front.”

Everyone glared back with enraged faces, even here, cutting the line was hugely frowned upon, but the moment they saw Arad’s size, they all sighed and looked down, as if they got their explanation there.

The whole festival point is that the masters could test people and find out if they are suitable for cultivation. Arad was massive, and no one in their right mind needed to guess whether his soul was powerful enough to cultivate or not.

He passed for sure, so get him out first and let the other ones keep getting tested.

The woman who called looked at Arad as he approached. Everyone else was shorter than even his belt, and he wore two of them. She must snatch him up before any of the other masters get their hands on him. Even if he wasn’t blessed for cultivation, with such a massive and powerful body, he would be sought by most noble families to strengthen their bloodline.

When Arad reached the woman’s desk, she noticed that he wasn’t alone, but had a sickly-looking woman at his side. She frowned. ”Lady, you have to wait in line.”

Arad glared at the woman, who was, in fact, a master collecting students for her class, and put his hand on Tina’s shoulder. ”You called us, didn’t you?”

The woman looked between Arad and Tina in confusion, ”Wait, I called you, not her. Why would I call her?”

”I don’t know, you tell me.” Arad shrugged and handed the woman Tina’s card.

The woman looked at the card for a second and frowned. ”Fine, since you’re here.” She passed Tina’s card over a glass table, and while waiting for the information to return, she pulled a glass orb and put it in front of Arad and Tina.

”Put your hand on this, it’ll read your talent. Average is 100, anything lower and you’re rejected, anything above and you’re in. If you’re a solid 100, then you’ll wait until everyone gets tested, and I’ll fill the empty places with those who are 100. Based on other traits, of course.”

Tina looked at the orb with a worried face. ”Arad, are you sure?”

”Yeah, it won’t explode. Put your hand on it.”

Tina lifted her shaking hand and gently placed it on the orb, feeling the cold glass beneath her palm.

The orb stirred and showed a number [2]

The biggest shard in Tina’s shattered soul only held about 2% of the power of an average person.

The master frowned, her eyes glaring at the orb, ”Hold up, this thing must be broken. A fly has more soul energy than that.” She pulled another orb and had Tina test again.

”A second test would be lower than the first one, since the orb needs a bit of soul energy to work. Just one is enough, so I’ll add that to your score.”

[1]

The master froze, rubbed her face, and then looked at Tina and Arad, ”Sadly, I have never seen someone with such a low soul energy. The lowest I saw was [87], and that was a tired and beaten-up commoner.” She looked around, ”Don’t tell anyone about this, take her home, and pretend she never came here.”

She then took a deep breath, ”But you might have a better chance, care to test as well?” She presented the orb to Arad.”

At that moment, the crystal table flashed with light, and an urgent message came from the inner circle of the sect. ”Excuse me for a second.”

The master turned around and checked the letter. She paled the moment she saw it.

”Tina, was that your name? Here is your card. I’ll get you signed up for my class.” The master looked terrified, her face rapidly shifted the moment she read the letter. It had come from the highest branches of the second, anonymous, but there were only a few elders who could hijack the system like this.

”Was there a problem?” Arad asked, and the master shook her head, ”No, nothing. Just orders to pick extra people, especially from the talentless side. We’ve got some new training methods that might help them, so I’ll be testing that starting from this year.” She noticed Arad slowly frowning, and she quickly waved her hands in panic, ”It’s nothing strange, just diluted forms of the same lessons and exercises. Far less efficient for regular people, but for someone like Tina, that slow growth might just help her advance, at a much slower rate, but advance nonetheless.”

Arad nodded as he headed deeper into the sect with Tina, leaving the master alone.

The woman fell on her chair, panting. The letter said nothing about such new methods; it just stated that she needed to let Tina in. She couldn’t think of any valid reason why the sect would let a woman with such a low talent in, but they are probably after Arad, not her. Tina is just a bait they want to use to get him.

She looked at Arad’s back as he headed deeper into the sect; even from such a distance, he was too massive. ”I bet his talent is over 1000, a sure way to become a disciple right off the bat.”

She sighed and went back to her work; She would probably spend several days at this desk apprising people; she had better get to work.

Most people scored between 100 and 110, and even those who didn’t score well were at least above 90, which made Tina’s glorious ’2’ stuck in the master’s mind, making her consider several times that her tools might be broken in some way, as such a result was impossible.

Of course, there were a few talents that scored extremely high, some even broke 500, which made almost all the masters rush in to fight for them.