Miles patted Ethan lightly on the shoulder before he stepped out of line.
"Once you become a Warrior, let's find a dungeon and level up together. I'll handle support, and you can stand in front and take the hits."
Ethan turned to look at him.
"You only awakened as a Card Mage less than an hour ago, and you're already assigning positions?"
"It's always good to plan ahead."
Ethan laughed.
"All right. Wait for me to come back as a Warrior."
With that, he stepped into the Awakening Circle.
Walter Hayes confirmed his identity on the console before placing his hand on the activation point. Silver lines spread across the floor, lighting up one after another as the mana in the gym began to gather toward Ethan.
At first, everything was no different from the previous awakenings.
But only a few seconds later, Walter suddenly raised his head.
A deep rumble of thunder echoed down from the sky.
Through the tall windows near the gym's ceiling, the daylight suddenly dimmed. Dark clouds swept in from multiple directions, piling into a dense layer directly above the school grounds.
The wind picked up almost at the same time.
The ventilation system shook violently. The large panes of glass rattled in rapid succession, while the flags hanging outside were pulled taut by the abnormally swirling wind.
Many people on the bleachers immediately stood up.
Claire Donovan whipped around to face Walter.
"Mr. Hayes?"
"I didn't do that."
Walter had already taken his hand off the console.
He stared at the changing figures on the Display. The flow of mana through the Awakening Circle was rising at a rate never seen during any of this morning's awakenings, yet the system showed no error.
That meant this wasn't a malfunction.
Claire understood at once.
"An awakening anomaly?"
Walter didn't answer immediately.
He had witnessed a similar phenomenon before.
Just never one this obvious.
"Very likely."
The moment he finished speaking, the wind outside grew even stronger.
The dark clouds blotted out the sunlight, plunging the entire school grounds into a cold gray light like the world before a major storm. The magical defenses around the gym automatically appeared as faint glowing lines across the windows and steel framework.
The students who had been talking fell completely silent.
Miles looked at Ethan in the Awakening Circle, the joking expression vanishing from his face.
"What is he awakening?"
No one nearby could answer.
Claire lowered her voice.
"Are you sure this is a sign of a Hidden Profession?"
"We can't be certain until we have the result."
Walter kept watching the Display, but his voice had become far more serious than before.
"Hidden Professions often produce unusual mana reactions during awakening. The more extraordinary the profession, the harder the anomaly is to predict."
In the modern profession system, combat, support, and civilian professions were only the three broad classification groups.
Beyond those three groups, there were also a handful of extremely rare professions that couldn't be predicted by the usual laws of awakening.
They were collectively known as Hidden Professions.
Some possessed combat abilities far beyond those of common professions at the same level. Others developed along entirely different paths that couldn't be evaluated by ordinary standards.
The only thing they had in common was their rarity.
Most people who awakened might go their entire lives without ever meeting someone who possessed a Hidden Profession.
Claire looked at Ethan, barely able to hide her delight.
If a Lakefront High School student truly awakened a Hidden Profession, that result alone would be enough to draw attention to the school's training program for years to come.
But Walter didn't look nearly as excited as she did.
"A Hidden Profession isn't necessarily a powerful profession."
Claire turned to him.
"What do you mean?"
"There is no standard development path."
Walter answered.
"Some Hidden Professions are incredibly powerful from the start. But others are nearly impossible to advance because their requirements are too unusual. Rare only means rare."
Before Claire could ask anything else, the Awakening Circle suddenly emitted a deep vibration.
The light beneath Ethan's feet surged.
A pillar of silvery-white light erupted from the center of the ritual circle, enveloping his entire body before shooting straight toward the roof.
The defenses above immediately opened a passage for the mana.
The pillar pierced through the barrier and continued climbing into the sky.
Walter took a step forward.
"An Awakening Light Pillar?"
This time, even he could no longer maintain his composure.
During an ordinary awakening ceremony, mana only gathered into tiny motes of light to assist in the formation of a profession.
The higher the mana density, the more complex the profession structure was usually expected to be.
But mana condensing to the point of forming a complete pillar of light was extraordinarily rare.
The people in the stands didn't yet understand the full significance, but Walter's reaction alone was enough to tell them that something abnormal was happening.
Several recruitment representatives stood up completely.
Some opened their recording devices.
Others immediately sent messages.
Miles simply stared at the middle of the arena.
"I knew there was something abnormal about him."
Then another change appeared.
Four rings of light formed around Ethan.
Green.
Black.
Blue.
Purple.
They didn't touch his body. Instead, they floated outside the Awakening Light Pillar, slowly rotating around him along four different orbits.
Each ring carried its own distinct mana fluctuation.
Walter frowned.
He recognized them as elemental signs, but he couldn't immediately determine the complete structure.
The four rings of light continued to rise.
At the same time, the silvery-white pillar grew blindingly bright.
An invisible force tore open the dark clouds overhead. The layers of clouds that had been churning violently split apart, allowing sunlight to pour over the school grounds once more.
The wind began to weaken as well.
In less than half a minute, the sky returned to normal, as if the storm had never existed.
Inside the gym, the Awakening Circle slowly faded.
Ethan reappeared amid the dying light.
A profession interface opened in front of him.
「Awakening Complete」
「Unique Profession Detected」
「Profession: Life Priest」
Ethan stared at the final line.
He stood still for several seconds.
Life Priest?
Not a Warrior.
It wasn't even a melee profession.
Nearly nine years of physical, close-combat, and life-science training had ultimately given him a profession with the word "Priest" in its name.
For a moment, Ethan didn't know how to react.
But what drew his attention even more was the line above it.
Unique Profession.
If the system was displaying the information correctly, that meant that within the entire current profession system, Life Priest existed in Ethan alone.
On the bleachers, the silence lasted only a few seconds.
Then discussion erupted.
"A unique profession?"
"Not just a Hidden Profession?"
"Lakefront really has a student who awakened a unique profession this year?"
"That anomaly was definitely caused by it."
Claire could barely conceal her excitement.
A Hidden Profession was already rare enough.
A unique Hidden Profession was an entirely different concept.
Regardless of its specific abilities, its uniqueness alone made Ethan an extremely valuable subject for research.
But then she realized that Walter still didn't look happy at all.
He stared at the words "Life Priest" on the Display for a long time before quietly exhaling.
"What a shame."
Claire froze.
"A shame?"
Several nearby teachers turned toward them as well.
Walter watched Ethan step away from the center of the Awakening Circle.
"It's a Life Priest."
"But it's a unique Hidden Profession."
"That's exactly why I say it's a shame."
Claire immediately grew more serious.
"You've met someone who possesses it before?"
"No."
Walter shook his head.
"But I've read historical records about Priest professions in the same branch."
He turned toward the people standing nearby. His voice wasn't loud, but it was clear enough for Claire and some of the students in front to hear.
"Priests are a very special branch of magical professions. Rather than directly controlling elements like Mages, they use mana through Battle Hymns to affect their teammates."
"Each Battle Hymn can produce a different effect. Increasing strength, boosting endurance, improving recovery, bolstering morale, and even changing how a formation operates in battle."
Claire frowned.
"That doesn't sound like a weak profession."
"It isn't weak."
Walter answered immediately.
"Not if you only consider its abilities."
He paused for a moment.
"The problem is advancement."
Ethan had just approached and heard that sentence as well.
Walter looked at him before continuing.
"Priest professions in this branch can't advance simply by reaching a high enough level. Every time they pass a development milestone, they also have to absorb an Elemental Origin compatible with their profession structure."
Ethan knitted his brows slightly.
"An Elemental Origin?"
"You can think of it as a kind of material containing an extremely pure elemental structure."
Walter explained.
"It almost never appears in ordinary environments. The most stable source we've ever recorded lies within the Elemental Cores of Elemental Calamities."
The air around them immediately grew heavy.
Miles, who was standing nearby, stopped smiling as well.
Elemental Calamities weren't some exaggerated term for storms, wildfires, or natural blizzards.
They were large-scale phenomena caused by mana spiraling out of control.
A storm could create elemental creatures.
A burning region could continue to burn even after it ran out of fuel.
A frozen area could cause the mana in a living person's body to stop circulating within minutes.
Places like that were usually sealed off and placed under strict surveillance.
Walter continued:
"An Elemental Core usually forms in the most dangerous area of an Elemental Calamity. To retrieve one, you first have to survive long enough to approach the core."
Claire asked:
"Could someone at Level 60 do it?"
Walter looked at her.
"It depends on the type of calamity."
Then he shook his head.
"But if it were only one Level 60, I wouldn't recommend trying."
That assessment carried more weight than any explanation could have.
Walter himself was a Level 60 awakened person.
If even he didn't want to approach the core of an Elemental Calamity, Ethan had even less chance of doing so right now.
"In the records I've read, Priest professions with similar requirements almost always get stuck at their first advancement milestone."
Walter said.
"Most never make it past Level 10."
Claire fell silent.
The joy that had just appeared on her face quickly vanished.
A unique Hidden Profession.
An awakening anomaly never before seen at Lakefront High School.
A profession structure with the potential to provide incredibly powerful support.
But none of that meant much if its owner couldn't get past Level 10.
Ethan understood the problem as well.
Level 10.
For an ordinary combat awakener, that was only the beginning.
If he were locked at that point, then forget about high-level dungeons or dangerous battlefields—even joining a professional exploration team would become difficult.
Claire stepped closer.
"Ethan."
He looked at her.
"Don't assume it's over yet."
Claire's voice was no longer as excited as before, but she wasn't trying to force herself to sound cheerful, either.
"Even if the advancement requirements are difficult, this is still a unique profession. The existing records may not have documented all of its abilities."
She paused before continuing:
"The school will also help you look through additional materials. There may be another path."
Ethan understood that she was trying to comfort him.
And Claire probably understood just how slim that possibility was.
If solving a Life Priest's advancement requirement took a team strong enough to infiltrate an Elemental Calamity, the cost wouldn't be measured in money alone.
It would also be measured in lives.
No organization would pour enormous resources into helping a Level 10 student complete an advancement, especially when the same resources could train multiple other awakened people along safer paths.
Ethan was silent for several seconds before nodding.
"I understand. Thank you, ma'am."
Disappointment was unavoidable.
He had spent nearly nine years preparing for this day.
In Ethan's imagination, the best possible result had been a powerful Warrior profession, perhaps even a rare branch suited to his physique.
In the end, he had awakened a unique profession that sounded incredibly special, but whose path of advancement was nearly blocked from the very first milestone.
To say he wasn't upset would have been lying to himself.
But Ethan wasn't about to collapse, either.
Two lifetimes had taught him one thing very early on.
Not everything went according to plan.
At least he still had a profession.
He could still level up to Level 10.
He could still learn about Battle Hymns and find out what abilities Life Priest truly possessed.
As for the future, he would deal with it when the time came.
Ethan left the ritual area and returned to the line of students who had completed their awakenings.
Miles was waiting for him.
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he only patted Ethan on the arm.
"At least your profession sounds cooler than Card Mage."
Ethan looked at him.
"Are you trying to comfort me?"
"I'm not very good at it."
"That much is obvious."
Miles shrugged.
"But if you ever need someone to go find that Elemental Origin thing, remember to call me."
Ethan smiled faintly.
"Learn how to use those cards first."
The two of them said nothing more.
All around them, the eyes watching Ethan had changed completely.
Some people felt pity.
Some were curious.
And some of those who had been tense while witnessing the awakening anomaly were now quietly relaxing.
A genius whom every teacher had pinned their hopes on.
The top student in the advanced combat-profession preparatory program.
The person who had created an anomaly never before seen at Lakefront High School.
In the end, he had awakened a profession that was nearly impossible to advance.
To some people, that result was a shame.
To others, it was a great relief.
Ethan didn't care.
He only lowered his head and looked at his hands.
Life Priest.
A unique Hidden Profession.
Level 10.
A path that seemed to have been blocked from the very first day.
At least, that's what Ethan thought for now.