The portion of the large building where testing was done was on the opposite side from where Max initially entered. Along the way, there were informational posters and plaques, so Max was able to learn that retesting to raise one's rank was done at a different location. That's good to know, he thought. He wasn't really in a huge hurry to be ranked higher, but it probably would help to have a higher rank in the future to be taken seriously.

  Max was quietly impressed by the Agency’s layout and effort to make their processes easy to understand. He was sure the last few years, especially the first, had been a trial to rebuild the world. It was a bit surprising to him that other than abandoned cities and such, some areas like this almost felt like pre-monsters Earth.

  The informational materials on the walls helped him organize his thoughts as he walked.

  He was still going back and forth on how much of his power he wanted to reveal and how high of a Challenger rank he actually needed for the moment. Luckily, before he reached the actual testing location, he reminded himself that this was Earth, not the Quartet. Nobody here really knew anything about him. In fact, if anyone knew anything from the Quartet, other than a Summoner, all they’d know was that he was student in the Summoner Academy.

  It was confirmed now that Lance was back on Earth, but there were very few Summoners, and only a tiny handful from Earth in the first place. Maybe only Max and Lance. Now that Max was thinking about it, he'd never put much effort into finding out whether there were other people from Earth at the Academy. Oops, he thought. But still, only the instructors and maybe some of his friends had actually known that he was also a Blade Sorcerer.

  He was fairly sure he didn't want to reveal in his test that he was a three-Path Challenger. That information was eventually going to come out one way or another, since Max strongly suspected that representatives of the Quartet system were going to be tracking him down sooner or later. In any kind of serious fight against serious enemies, he'd have to use every tool at his disposal. This meant that revealing everything to the world was a matter of “when,” not “if,” but for the moment, it made sense to keep some of it secret.

  Max reasoned he’d probably have to reveal that he was a Summoner because that was the Quartet school he'd been in, and he didn't know if the Agency could verify that or not. Let's just assume they can, he mused. If they could, that meant he could also declare that he was either a Bead Sorcerer or a Blade Sorcerer as well.

  Being recognized as dual-Path meant less hiding, more options, and a higher rank.

  He was definitely a much stronger Blade Sorcerer than a Bead Sorcerer. That might be a good reason not to let everyone know that he was as skilled of a close-quarters combatant. In fact, the way nobody he'd met so far had recognized the little knife on his hip as being a full-sized sword in another form was swaying his decision on this. It would be good to have the best trump card he could. If he was going to declare his skills to the world, making them think that he was less powerful was probably the way to go.

  Not only that, he could still use his physicality from having a three star mana body, use martial arts, and claim that his physical enhancements were from spirits.

  The signs read he was almost to the testing site.

  Okay, I think that’s the play. I will just tell them I am a Summoner and a Bead Sorcerer. He briefly second-guessed himself, wondering if he shouldn’t even declare himself a two-path Challenger, but decided to go through with it. He wasn't too shabby as a Summoner, but he hadn't collected enough spirits to truly be a well-rounded Challenger with only that Path yet. Not least of which because he'd only spent half a year in the Quartet, and everything he'd done so far was to bolster his Blade Sorcerer abilities.

  If he limited himself to only using Summoner abilities, his ruse would probably be found out too quickly.

  He'd made up his mind. Whether it was the best decisions, he decided it didn't matter past this point. He'd settled on a direction and now he was going to take it. This was how he'd been in two lifetimes now–being decisive was one of his strengths he didn't want to break.

  The beginning of the Path validation and testing point ended up looking somewhat like the DMV.

  Overhead lights were neon and soulless. The entire area just had that strange, overwhelming feeling of bureaucracy mixed with the waiting area of a doctor's office. There were service windows against the far wall and distant chairs facing the area, but luckily there weren't very many people waiting to be processed.

  There was a help desk to one side of the service area.

  Against one of the side walls was a sign that read, "All Returners, please take a ticket and wait your turn." A sign on the opposite wall read, "All natural or spontaneous Challengers, please take a ticket here and wait your turn." Max felt like that was pretty self-explanatory. Rather than walking up to the help desk, he took a ticket from the Returner side and sat down. The digital display on the wall read that there was one other person ahead of him.

  Luckily, Max didn't have to sit very long before his number was called. He noticed that another man's number was called at the same time, and the two of them were ushered through doors into a more sterile, or at least more durable-looking area. The busy-looking woman who'd called him disappeared through a side door, and a man in some sort of uniform that Max hadn't seen before appeared before them. He was middle-aged with a hooked nose, wings of gray in the hair above his ears, and his stern expression also betrayed a twinkle in his eyes. He seemed like somebody who really enjoyed what he did for work.

  "Welcome! My name is Ashaj. Here at the National Guild Suppression Agency, we know you’re busy, and wasting time is the last thing we want to do. Before you ask, yes, we are all aware that the National Guild Suppression Agency was named poorly and sounds like we’re suppressing the guilds instead, but it was translated from another language in to English and I don’t have any control over that.” He smiled. “Since you’re here to get a Challenger ID card, the first thing we will need to do is verify you are actually Challengers."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The other Returner man next to Max began to speak, but the uniformed man, Ashaj, smiled and cut him off. "I bet you're wondering how we can tell if you’re a Challenger. The easiest way is just to have you give a demonstration of your power. We know that not everyone can easily give a demonstration in an environment like this, but so far we've figured out ways to accommodate almost everybody…even those that have suggestion powers! It's still better to verify everybody that everyone is what they say they are first instead of wasting time and money testing people who are just here for fun, or out of delusion."

  Max nodded at the explanation. It made sense to him.

  "If you two will follow me, please." Max and the other Challenger to be tested, a tan-skinned man who looked about thirty years old, went to another room. There were rooms with thick walls at the other end, both of which were about twenty meters by twenty meters. They almost looked like pressure chambers.Each enclosed room had what looked like extremely thick glass portholes–probably bulletproof, too. A casual glance at the ceiling of each chamber showed multiple diagnostic instruments.

  "If you both could take one room each, and while inside, turn to face me so the cameras can do their thing. After that, please state your name and what school you attended in your respective Quartet."

  The instruction was simple and aligned with what Max was expecting, so he complied, moving into his own chamber. Then he turned and introduced himself, "Max Cunningham, Summoner Academy."

  He braced himself to hear chuckling or maybe a snide remark from the man in the next chamber, but none came. Instead, he actually sounded sullen when he said, "Amun Patel. Blue Wizardry."

  Blue Wizardry? thought Max. He had never heard of that before.

  Ashaj said, "Your responses have been recorded. From this point on, sound will be cut off to anywhere outside of your own respective room." True to what the man had said, the speakers that were allowing Max to hear outside of his chamber stopped working. But then a new voice came through the speaker, a woman's voice.

  "Hello, Max. We're going to go over a few questions with you after you demonstrate your abilities. Do you need any props or any extra devices to show what you can do? We can use dummies, or objects or, as the director explained, we can even bring in animals or other people if it's necessary. For instance, you are a Summoner, and we are aware that some summoners use their spirits to confuse or frighten enemies. If you need an opponent that won't be harmed or terrified, we can actually invite another Challenger to face you."

  "That won't be necessary," said Max. "This is just to prove that I actually have power before you waste more time on me, right?"

  The woman laughed through the speaker. "That's basically correct.”

  “Okay, fine. I'm also assuming that you'd prefer some physical proof that you can validate instead of something else that might be considered an illusion."

  "Well, illusions are fine, actually," said the woman, "but in your case, since you are a Summoner, it would probably be better if you can demonstrate something that an illusionist would not be able to do. If you have more than one spirit, that should be possible, right?"

  "It’s possible, but you really wouldn't somebody prefer to be an illusionist than a Summoner?" He remembered how he'd expected people to react negatively when he admitted his path. But contrary to his expectations, the woman's voice came through speaking faster and with a bit of emotion.

  "Are you kidding? Summoners? The Summoner Path? Like Lance Fraser? There are people all over the world who wish they could awaken as a Summoner!"

  Oh, that's right. I forgot about Lance, Max thought. He quirked a wry smile as he thought about all the reports he'd read and even the interview he'd watched with Lance. The world didn't know that most of Lance's observable power was because of the sword that he'd taken back from the Quartet with him, the Shadow Sun Rising. He'd also lied and claimed that he had graduated from the Summoner academy. Normally, at first when returners came back to Earth from the Quartet, whether they'd graduated or not had been a big deal. But over time, people had stopped caring, not least of which because all of the challengers that failed out returned in the first year. Lance had returned in the second year.

  Being sent back early by Max had an effect on when he appeared on earth, or maybe his sword had something to do with it. Max could only speculate.

  "Okay," Max said out loud, "I just need a rock, a stick, a ball, or anything physical that you'd like me to manipulate since I figure you'd prefer I don't use my own backpack."

  "That's correct," said the woman. A few seconds later, a small door near the floor opened, and a basketball rolled out. The door closed behind it. Max mentally asked Lavinia to form some of her spirits into their strange, gangly transportation forms. A second later, there was a bipedal construct made of ectoplasm carrying the ball around the small room.

  "Is that enough?" he asked.

  "Yes, that's enough," said the woman. The ectoplasmic figure dropped the ball and disappeared. Then the woman began asking Max a series of questions, like his birthplace, his age, and other basic biography questions. He answered them all until she said, "If you could put your driver's license on the floor near the door where the ball had come out, we would appreciate it."

  Max frowned. "Why am I still in this room instead of just filling out a form? And also, I don't have a license."

  There was a few seconds of silence before the woman's voice came back on the intercom. "We prefer to have Challengers stay in the safe room after demonstrating their abilities in the real world because sometimes effects can linger, like with poison or conjurations. We actually have a fan silently scrubbing the room and disinfecting everything in it as well. It's not invasive, but in order to make the process comfortable for everybody involved, it takes some time. As for the second part, it's highly unfortunate you don't have your license. It's not unheard of, but tying your credentials to your driver's license is part of how this process works."

  Max cocked an eyebrow. "Well, I still remember my license number, and I was a resident of this state. Can't you guys look it up and just do whatever it is you do on the back end?"

  "If you can remember the license number, that would actually speed things up quite a bit, yes." Max rattled off his license number and then waited a couple of minutes in silence.

  The woman's voice came back on the intercom and said, "It looks like we have everything we need from you now. Thank you. The license number definitely helped. Before we—"

  Max cut her off and said, "Should I tell you now if I'm a dual Path Challenger?"

  "Oh! You have two paths? Yes, we definitely would like to know that!"

  Max wasn't sure how the process worked, but he could imagine that this small demonstration of his power wouldn't be enough of a demonstration for any kind of ranking. If he had to actually fight or show any of his abilities later, he already planned to use two Paths. It would probably be better to just tell them now.

  "What's your second Path?" said the woman.

  "I'm a Bead Sorcerer."

  "Bead sorcerer," she said slowly. "That's actually a new one. Hold on, I need to enter this into the system." There were another few moments of silence before she came back and said, "Would you mind providing an explanation of what bead sorcerers can do?"

  "I'd prefer not," said Max.

  "Come again?" she asked.

  Max responded, "I prefer not to. I don't want to share the particulars of my Path."

  "All right," said the woman slowly. "Do you need anything special to demonstrate your Bead Sorcerer abilities?"

  "No," said Max. "This room is a bit small for explosions. So, I'm going to just make a smoke cloud. That should be different enough from anything I can do with spirits to prove it. And can you turn up the fan after I demonstrate this so the room won't stay smoky for too long?"

  "Absolutely. You can start whenever you’re ready."

  Max removed one smoke bomb bead from his wrist and tossed it to the other side of the room. With the mental command he gave, the bead billowed out into huge, thick, white peals of smoke. Almost immediately, a fan above him whirred fast enough for him to actually hear it, and the smoke rapidly was sucked out of the room. It still took some time, though, because the bead had been quite potent.

  After the smoke was all gone, the woman's voice came over the speaker and said, "Thank you for the demonstrations. I have noted that you do not consent to give us a more information on Bead Sorcerer abilities or powers. If you exit the door that will open after I finish speaking, you will join your fellow testees and proceed to the second stage of the process."

  "Alright, thanks," said Max. Sure enough, a door popped open behind him that had been seamless in the wall before this. He exited, and to one side, Amun, the man in the chamber next to him, was leaving at exactly the same time. He nodded his head at Max, much more friendly than before he knew that Max was a Summoner.

  "That took a bit of time," he said. "I was actually waiting on you.”

  “They wanted both of us to leave at the same time, huh?"

  "Yes. They usually have groups all do this at once for efficiency and also because part of the testing is for teamwork."

  Max’s eyes widened in surprise. He realized that he hadn't spent much time the night before looking up much about this test. That was kind of dumb, he thought. Now he could recognize how tired he’d been, and how much time he’d spent trying to look up his old friends and the Trifecta guild.

  Oh well. Not knowing will make this test more interesting.