CHAPTER 53: KYE RENFIELD

Of course, although he believed in it, he still had a long way to go before he came anywhere near to achieving it.

The first test Nick wanted to try out was the speed test. Naturally, all of the tests would be combined at the end, but this was the one he was most eager to try out first due to his Speed Augmentation beast Armament.

He wanted to see just how much it boosted his speed, by comparing his normal speed to the speed he achieves after he activates the Beast Armament.

He stood before the entrance to the testing centre’s speed hall, with his chest tightening with adrenaline.

The hallway ended at a chamber, where up ahead, artificially generated imitations of various different, motionless environments — forested areas, rocky passes, narrow caverns, dry deserts, and so on — all fanned out like branches from the hub.

There were already various different Altered socialising in the main hall where all of these different environments met, with some also currently in the process of testing themselves in the environments.

As this was the public testing hall, people had to wait their turn to use each section, which led to this situation.

Nick’s footsteps barely made an echo in the huge hall as the chatter surrounding him penetrated everyone’s ears. The whole testing hall gave off an otherworldly sheen, as if he’d stepped into the heart of a mechanical utopia.

He tried to keep to himself, leaning against a wall beside the entrance after confirming his place in the queue, eyes scanning the various terrain sections ahead.

But it was impossible not to notice the buzz that filled the air, which made even him curious.

’What’s going on here to have all these Altered riled up?’

Dozens of Altered milled about, some standing by environmental sections with folded arms, waiting their turn, while others leaned closer to the screens in the centre of the testing hall, displaying the various different environments and their challengers.

In fact, from what Nick saw, most of the people in the hall weren’t even in the queue to enter the speed test! A large majority of them were just there to spectate...

Even with the noise of the different Altered dressed in all sorts of Beast Armament Armours clanking against the floor, conversation rose above it all in a tangled murmur of anticipation.

Nick caught fragments of chatter drifting from a cluster of young Altered, around the same age as himself.

One of them, a lean woman with coiled silver tattoos crawling up her jawline, was practically vibrating with energy... and desire.

"Is he still in the volcanic gauntlet section? He’s been in there for almost a minute now!"

"Still surviving that heatstorm? No way. That place fries your skin off even with better fire resistance... He’s insane."

"If it were anyone else, I’d be inclined to agree with you." The silver tattooed woman’s eyes glistened as she spoke with admiration.

"But this is Kye Renford we’re talking about. He’s the top prodigy of the Renford family! What I’d do to gain his favour..."

The other youths felt a chill crawl down their spine as they saw the silver tattooed lady lick her lips, with her eyes flashing with burning desire.

Wanting to quickly move past the awkwardness, another chimed in.

"And he’s already ranked in the top prodigies on Terminus by Battle Force. Rumour has it that he’s already close to completing his Radiant Soul Star!"

Nick blinked when he heard all of this in short succession.

Kye Renford? He’d heard that name before, but he didn’t know about him too deeply.

In fact, he knew more about his family, the Renford family, than he did the prodigy himself.

That’s because the Renford family were the ones who ran the biggest mining company in the entire star system!

Their capital alone was more than enough to buy several private planets, though uninhabitale of course, as owning inhabited planets privately was forbidden in the Federation.

They had free reign on all of the uninhabitable ones though, which nobody in the mining industry had any qualms about as they were the most packed with resources anyway!

And since Terminus was the only inhabitable planet in the entire Renford Star System — yes, it was even named after their family... — they essentially just owned the entire star system itself!

Of course, it was only named after them as they were the first ones to discover it back in the era of colonisation — that was just how far back their roots and wealth went.

Knowing all this, Nick knew that Kye was bound to be a big shot in the future, especially considering how everyone paraded him to be a top prodigy.

"He doesn’t even need to activate any of his Beast Armaments to beat the highest level of this test, or any test for that matter!"

The murmurs about Kye continued entering Nick’s ears.

It was a public secret that the 50 BF maximum limit for a Radiant Altered’s strength was only a public, commoner limit.

The elite had their own ways to push one’s strength further past this threshold, which they weren’t willing to share to the public for obvious reasons.

These were through the use of techniques — a unique creation by humanity itself, rather than another facet of the Beast Domain. This was something both the Federation and humanity were particularly proud of, as this was a significant strength they had created without the help of the Beast Domain.

The only way a commoner could hope to contend with such elites was if they joined the military and gained enough merits to purchase one of these techniques through their internal system— but most people never achieved enough meritable feats to do so.

For one, most people didn’t even have the ability to complete a Radiant Soul Star, which was one of the most basic requirements to purchase a technique.

But most importantly, most average people didn’t even see any action throughout their entire military career!

How were they supposed to perform meritable feats if they were never in a situation to even do so in the first place!?