Chapter 117: [GT Bonus] The Grand Selection [4]

’What should I even use?’

Alden stood in the center of the basin with the four Assemblies looking down at him and ran through everything he had just watched.

Adrian’s speed. Cecilia’s controlled mana. Claire’s swordsmanship. Leon and Roselle’s magic output. Nicholas and the Eternal Dragon, which had made all four Assembly leaders raise their hands without hesitation.

He needed something that none of them had shown. Something unusual enough to make a room full of gods actually look twice.

A faint grin formed.

’Alright. I have something for that.’

He reached into his Soul Library internally.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Equipped: Breath]

[Equipped: Thread]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The moment they activated, his mana shifted. Blue-red flames erupted from both sides of his body simultaneously, but they didn’t scatter or explode outward. They moved with him. Two burning streams twisting through the air at his sides, controlled and deliberate.

The chamber went very quiet.

Alden bent his knees.

Then he sprinted.

His boots struck the marble hard as he accelerated across the floor toward the far wall. The flames trailed behind him as he ran, like the rough shape of wings that hadn’t fully decided what they were yet.

The wall was close.

He flicked his wrist. Thread shot forward, a barely visible line of mana-web extending from his hand, and latched onto the stone surface several meters above the floor. He pulled immediately.

The line yanked him upward. Instead of slamming into the wall, his foot planted against the surface. Then the other.

Balance activated under his feet, and they held.

He ran.

Straight up the wall. Thread adjusting his trajectory when momentum started pulling him sideways, Balance keeping each step flat and solid against the stone as he climbed. The flames burned at his sides the whole time, and for a moment he looked genuinely like he was running through open air.

He reached the height he wanted.

One foot planted hard.

He launched himself backward.

His body flipped. The blue-red streams responded to the rotation immediately, twisting inward, following the arc of his turn, and then spreading outward as they unfolded. What had been two trailing ribbons of fire became something much larger. Wings extended from his back and spread wide.

Blue flames burned across one half, red across the other, the two colors weaving into each other along the center in sharp feathered patterns that flickered violently.

Flight was activated, black wings usually flared from his back, but breath concept ignited them into pure flames.

BOOM.

The wings erupted downward and Alden shot upward. The force of it sent a wave of heat through the chamber, and he rose above the floor with the flaming wings stretched wide behind him, casting moving orange light across the white marble below. His hair lifted in the warm current from his own wings.

He held position. Suspended in the air, blue burning on one side, red on the other, the whole thing striking and strange against the clean white of the chamber around him.

’That has to be enough.’

He turned his eyes toward the four platforms and waited.

Nobody moved.

Not Aetherion, Aurora, Leonidas.

Or even Constantine.

All four of them were looking at him, but none of their expressions had changed from what they had been when he stepped into the center of the floor. Some had narrowed eyes. Others looked almost indifferent. None of them were raising a hand.

Alden’s smile disappeared.

’...What?’

He looked from one to the next, genuinely trying to figure out what he was missing. He had shown them something none of the other cadets possessed. Combination Concepts. Vertical mobility. Aerial control. Blue-red fire that he had never seen anyone else produce.

’None of the other cadets have anything like this. So why aren’t they interested?’

His jaw tightened.

’Fine. Then I’ll give them something impossible to ignore.’

He shifted his mana.

[Electricity Activated]

Lightning gathered across his body instantly, bright and sharp, blue-white arcs snapping between his fingers. A blade began forming in his hand, crackling with electricity along every edge.

He looked at it.

’Wait. I got a Better idea.’

He dismissed the blade before it fully formed. Instead, he let the electricity build outward in a different shape. One spear materialized near his shoulder. Then another. Then more, faster, until dozens of them were floating around him in a tight formation, surrounding his body from every angle, each one radiating intense light that bounced off the white chamber walls and made the whole space glow blue-white.

He kept pushing mana into them.

The electricity intensified. The crackling sound built into something continuous, lightning jumping from spear to spear in constant arcs, the air vibrating with it. He pushed more. And more. Until each spear was overflowing, barely containing what he had put inside it.

’That’s enough.’

He raised one hand. The spears began moving, swirling around him in a massive circular formation, each one leaving a trail of electricity behind it as they rotated. The combined light was almost blinding. The sound was constant and sharp.

He thrust his hand forward.

’Go.’

They launched.

BOOOOM.

Every spear hit the far wall simultaneously. The explosion that followed was not small. The sound hit every surface of the chamber at once and came back. Cracks raced outward from the impact point across the marble in every direction, chunks of stone blasting free and scattering across the floor. Lightning crawled through the damaged surface in branching patterns, spreading further than the physical cracks before finally fading into nothing.

A large, blackened crater sat where the wall had been unmarked thirty seconds ago.

Alden descended.

The flaming wings dissolved into sparks as he landed. He straightened, looked up at the four platforms, and waited.

The chamber was silent.

’Alright. That was two completely different abilities. Unusual fire, aerial mobility, Thread, Balance, Flight, and then lightning that literally broke the reinforced marble wall of a chamber built for divine entities.’

’Someone has to raise their hand now.’

Nobody did.

The same narrowed eyes. The same indifference. The same four figures looking down at him with expressions that hadn’t shifted from what they were when he first stepped forward.

Alden’s face went blank.

’Nothing?’

His thoughts started coming apart quietly. ’What exactly do they want from me? I showed them things none of the other cadets showed. I showed them combination Concepts. I showed them an attack that damaged a wall in a Primordial chamber.’

’And none of them want me?’

He looked from one face to the next. ’Did I do something wrong? Is the presentation itself the issue? Is there something about the way I’m showing it that just doesn’t work here?’

No answer came, he had none to give himself.

Alarion looked from Alden to the four Assembly leaders and back. Even his expression, which had remained completely unaffected through the entire selection, had shifted into something faintly surprised.

"No one for Alden?"

His voice echoed across the basin, met only by absolute silence.

Not one of the four moved.

Alden stared upward and felt genuine nervousness he hadn’t expected to feel in this room.

It sat in his chest quietly. The specific feeling of standing in a place you thought you understood and realizing you don’t.

Alarion’s eyes settled on him. He brought one hand to his chin for a moment. Then his hand lowered.

"I see."

The pause that followed was short.

"It appears that one cadet will not be selected this year." His voice carried no emotion. "Alden did not qualify for the Grand Selection. Therefore, he will be sent back."