Chapter 42: Rankers Guild Of ISOLO City

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Rankers Guild Of ISOLO City

The Rankers Guild rose out of the city like something that didn’t belong to this century.

Victor stood across the street, craning his neck just to take in the whole thing.

The base of the building was old, dark and weathered stone, carved with runic symbols that looked like they’d been standing there for centuries even before the first Gate ever opened.

But the upper floors shot straight up into glass and steel, having clean sharp lines that wrapped around a core that pulsed faintly with blue light. It was like the whole structure had one foot in the past and one shoved hard into the future.

[Rankers Guild — Central Branch, ISOLO CITY]

The words hovered above the entrance, projected in clean glowing script that shifted slightly depending on the angle he looked at it from.

Even at this hour, the plaza out front was packed. People in guild black and white uniforms moved in and out through revolving doors, some dragging equipment cases, some walking out already bruised and bandaged from whatever they’d come back from.

A line had formed off to one side, dozens of people standing with the particular restless energy of folks waiting to find out if their lives were about to change.

Massive screens lined the buildings flanking the plaza, cycling through ads.

An energy drink brand with a Ranker mid-swing on the label, promising "the strength you need to conquer the Outer world."

Victor frowned. The Ranker on the massive screen was Nadia.

Now that he thought of it, his date with her was today. He tightened his fist, the thought of what she did to him passing through his mind.

Victor stared at the ’A guild recruitment ad’ for some team called Iron Veil, their logo was stamped over footage of a massive beast collapsing.

There was also A public safety broadcast reminding civilians to report unauthorized Gate sightings, the text scrolled past almost too fast to read.

Victor had seen the Guild building in passing before, either from a bus window, or in the background of news segments.

But standing in front of it now, actually about to walk inside, it felt like an entirely different building.

He swallowed, adjusted the strap on his bag, and looked up one more time at the entrance.

Then he stepped forward, up the stairs towards the queue.

"Do you know who is standing before you? How dare you tell Mr Cuffling, second cousin of the A–Ranker Tugfer aka The Bone Molder, to enter a queue of wretched below his station."

An uptight man in a butler’s attire screamed on top of his voice, addressing a female staff of the guild.

By his side was a short, moderately pot bellied man acting high and mighty with extravagant poses.

"It’s a known fact that people from Ranker Tugfer’s family all have incredible potential, and awake with outstanding abilities." The Butler continued, praising his master.

Victor slowed as he reached the edge of the queue, close enough now to hear the man’s voice spreading across the plaza like he wanted the whole city to hear it.

The staff member was a young, obviously patient woman. Her expression was one of a person that had done this regularly and was used to it. She kept her tone level. "Sir, everyone waits in line. There are no exceptions for..."

"Exceptions?" Cuffling’s face went red. "Do you understand what you’re saying to me? My cousin cleared three Blue-tier Gates last year alone. THE Bone Molder. And you want me, a man who shares his blood, to stand here with..." his eyes swept the queue with open disgust, "...with whoever these people are?"

The butler stood behind his master for support.

Nobody in line said anything. A few people looked at their shoes. It was true that Cuffling was if a different brand. This was clearly not a fight worth having.

Victor almost felt bad for the staff member. Almost. He was more focused on the line itself, which stretched around the side of the building and probably further than he could see from here.

People shifted on their feet, some checked their phones, some others looked like they’d been standing there since before sunrise.

He understood why. Awakening tests weren’t cheap. Most awakened from birth, and those that didn’t but still wanted to be Rankers had to pay a fee for an artificial awakening.

And the result was permanent the second you took it.

Yes. The guild was responsible for testing for the awakened, testing for possibility of becoming awakened, and the artificial process of awakening.

Most important or financially capable families that did not have a person awaken naturally, would usually get their kids tested for the possibility of using the artificial awakening later on.

The reason was because Artificial awakening had its own side effects.

If it failed, one could end up becoming a vegetable. In some not so rare cases, even death.

This test to determine if one could awaken was even more expensive than the Artificial Awakening itself, and the success rate was low.

Poor citizens could not afford it, and only scrap enough for the Artificial Awakening itself.

Yes, it was dangerous. They all knew it. But the kind of lives Rankers lived was too attractive to resist. Enough to risk death.

Rumors had it that the queue to enter the Rankers Guild was never empty. On some days, it was long enough to reach the other street.

Today was not that bad, but at this rate, he’d be here until the building closed.

Just then, he remembered Hana’s card. He pulled it out of his pocket and walked straight past the line toward the registration desk near the front doors.

"Excuse me." Victor held the card up. "I was told to bring this. I am here to test if I have awakened."

Murmurs went out in the queue.

"Urh... another rich boy that thinks he can use his influence and skip the queue."

"Is he not too old to test if he awakened? I never heard of anyone awakening at that age unless it was artificial."

"Don’t mind him, he is going to be greatly disappointed."

"Yeah, what a fool. They might even tell him to return next week."

Some chuckled. But Victor did not mind, handing the card over.

The staff member at the desk — different from the one dealing with Cuffling — took the card, and her expression shifted the second she read it.

"This is..." she looked up at him, then back down at the card, then up at him again. "Is this really yours?"

"Uh. Yeah. A priest gave it to me."

"A priest." She said it slowly, like she needed to hear herself say it to believe it. "You have a priest’s personal recommendation?"

Somewhere behind him, the noise around Cuffling had died down. Victor glanced back to find half the queue now staring at him instead, including Cuffling himself, who’d stopped mid-rant with his mouth slightly open.

"Who is this one?" Cuffling’s voice rose again, sharper now, aimed entirely at Victor.

He looked him over, the worn jacket, the bag with a frayed strap, clothes that had clearly never come near anything designer. "You cannot possibly be serious. THIS is who gets to skip ahead? Some street urchin?"

The staff member ignored him entirely, already waving over a second colleague. The two of them murmured something Victor couldn’t quite catch as they both glanced between the card and him like they were trying to work out if this was some kind of prank.

"Please," the first staff member said, stepping around the desk. "Right this way, sir. We’ll take you immediately."

"Immediately?" Cuffling’s voice cracked. "I am cousin to an A-Ranker and you make ME wait, but HIM..."

"Sir, if you’d like to file a complaint, the office is on the third floor," she said without even looking at him, already gesturing Victor toward a side door that clearly wasn’t for the general line.

Victor walked past Cuffling, who looked like he was one sentence away from a stroke, sputtering something about this being an outrage. His butler also screamed insults but there was nothing any of them could do about this.

Instead, Cuffling turned to the retreating figure of Victor, swearing to not forget his face.

Victor didn’t know priests carried this kind of weight. He knew they were rare, and knew guilds fought over them. But this was something else entirely.

It made him even more puzzled as to why a Priest like Hana would remain in such a small insignificant team like Dawnbreak.