The moment Elena saw a single question-marked card floating in front of her, she already knew she was nothing like the main characters of her shojo manga.
Right after her Awakening, Fiora had already been escorted away under the protection of a few very high-ranking-looking officials.
She was probably standing next to the mayor right now, watching Elena from the VIP section.
All Elena could do was stare at the Profession card in front of her in fear and hope that whatever she awakened wouldn't be anything like a Warrior Profession.
The other students were desperate to awaken a Warrior Profession, even a low-rank one, so they could hunt monsters in the Dream Realm and secure a high-paying future. If they ever heard what she was wishing for, they'd probably assume she was a traitor to humanity.
The truth was, instead of putting her life on the line, she would've much rather awakened a painter Profession like her mother.
"Come on, stop stalling!"
"O-o-okay."
The man in the suit's warning tone was completely normal, but Elena still flinched and immediately reached out to touch the Awakening card.
Among the spectators, right next to the empty seats Fiora's parents had left behind, sat a beautiful, mature woman. She closed her eyes and prayed to the Goddess of Bounty to give her daughter a good Profession.
Suddenly, darkness burst out of Elena's platform and swallowed all the light around it.
A type of Awakening never before seen in human history.
It actually represented an SSS-Rank Awakening. But throughout all of human history, apart from an SS-Rank that had happened in the early days of the apocalypse, no one had ever awakened at this level.
Of course, the never-before-seen weren't exactly unheard of.
Every now and then, some people awakened with very unusual colors or visuals. They were called Unique Profession holders.
And everyone knew that even the weakest Unique Profession holder was an A-Rank Awakener.
The darkness pulled back and gathered into the card in front of Elena.
As everyone watched in excitement, holding their breath...
On the back of the card, a seal representing the Summoner class shone like a light inside the darkness.
"Oh, fuck!"
That and thousands of similar curses burst out of the mouths of people who couldn't hold themselves back.
A high-rank Summoner...
It was about as good as awakening no Profession at all.
Awakened people could fight the monsters in the world, but those monsters did nothing to make them stronger.
The only place people could level up was an abstract realm called the Dream Realm.
As long as Awakeners activated the smartwatches the government gave them before going to sleep at night, their consciousness was pulled into the Dream Realm. There, they fought monsters to climb an endless tower.
Unfortunately, the first ten floors of the tower were designed entirely for solo fighters.
That meant a class like Summoner was more or less useless. Unless, of course, its Awakening rank was C or lower.
Because the higher a Summoner's Awakening rank, the more Energy stat they needed for their first summon.
Which meant Summoners, who had no combat skills at all, could never make it up to the 10th floor.
As Elena's classmates looked at her, they did their best to hide the pity in their eyes.
"Please tell me it's A-Rank."
Elena heard the attendant's question while she was looking at the Profession description on the card in front of her.
[Profession: Hero Summoner (SSS)]
[Profession Skills: Hero Summoning (A) (Lvl 1), Stat Sharing (P) (Sealed), Skill Sharing (A) (Sealed), Summoner's Blessing (A) (Sealed), Recall (A) (Sealed), Shared Senses (A) (Sealed), Royal Decrees (A-P) (Sealed)]
As Elena looked at the rank in front of her, she felt a sharp pain catch in her throat.
Like everyone else, she knew about the Summoner class and the fate that awaited them.
She was just about to confess that her Awakening was SSS-Rank when years of otaku instincts kicked in and saved her from heading toward an even worse ending.
"SSS... S... Sir, I had an S-Rank Awakening."
The attendant heard the little girl's trembling voice and didn't sense anything wrong.
"You know you have to tell me the name of your Profession too, right?"
Elena was already upset. She lowered her head and ignored the attendant.
After all, what did the name of her Profession even matter now?
It wasn't like anyone was going to call on her for help during a fight.
The attendant saw how Elena's palms, half-covered by the sleeves of her oversized clothes, were clenched into fists, and he sighed.
Remembering the darkness from a moment ago, he figured it resembled the Profession users of the Assassin class. So he made up a Profession and filled out the paper.
[S-Rank Profession: Assassin Pet Summoner]
Meanwhile, Elena's mother couldn't bear to watch any longer. The announcer's commentary was projected onto her AI-assisted glasses, and in front of her was her daughter's dejected back. She angrily yanked her glasses off and began to cry.
The Summoner class. Just like her ex-husband, who had walked out on them when Elena was very young and left them to starve...
It had always been a known fact that Awakening classes were influenced by family to a certain degree, and now the thing she had feared had happened.
Even if Elena couldn't awaken a combat Profession, her mother had hoped she would awaken painting, a Life Profession like her own.
That was why, for years, she had even gotten her daughter to love drawing and watching anime and stuff like that.
And now all her efforts had gone to waste.
...
As Elena hurried through the crowd toward the exit, she realized just how uncomfortable this crowd was.
Once the excitement of the Awakening faded, her antisocial side came back out.
A wave of nausea she couldn't hold down rose up inside her.
She threw herself into the stadium's public restrooms.
She sat down on one of the toilets, locked the stall door behind her, and started checking whether everything she'd seen was just a dream.
"System."