Rather than going back outside after Sua’s 'nap', Haneul led the way to an tunnel system that connected the entire complex underground: excavated and well-lit with markers displaying their positioning on the campus along the way.

“It’s fairly unusual for a new face to end up down here,” Haneul commented as they walked, explaining the curious looks Sua was receiving from the other staff. “This tunnel system is a decently well-guarded secret. The last thing we want is for reporters to start sneaking in.”

“Does that happen often? I saw the group waiting at the evaluation center…”

“Not always." There was a wry edge to Haneul’s smile that Sua hadn’t seen before. “It gets crowded when something dangerous happens, like today's gate break. Since I brought you in, that crowd out front has practically tripled and they can get really persistent in trying to get one of us to talk.”

Sua huffed a soft laugh, “You’re not doing a great job at selling the Association as a fun place to work.”

“That could be true, but I’ve got a feeling that you’ll make whichever decision suits you best based on your own agenda, regardless of how well I sell the Association." Haneul's grin brightened drastically, "So, I might as well be honest, don't you think~?"

There was something charming about Haneul's personality, something that tugged a ghost of a smile onto Sua's lips as she inclined her head, "The honesty is appreciated, Lee-ssi."

An elevator took them up to the third level of the evaluation center, the doors opening to an observation deck.

A long table with a control panel seated three people, all wearing lab coats with Association badges pinned to their chest pockets. Screens were inlaid across the middle of the panel, controls sandwiching them on either side. 

Beyond the table, a wall made of glass looked out over a large, sterile gym: floors and walls all painted white with lights shining down from overhead. A pair of janitors were in the room, carefully brushing away a few crumbled rocks. 

Haneul let out a soft noise of surprise, stopping behind the panel to glance over the readings. “Someone decent came in today? What did they score?”

“B-rank.” The speaker sat in the middle of the group of three, sipping a cup of coffee. Short, pink hair was pulled back in a messy bun—secured by a pen—a badge around the woman’s neck that was partially covered by the lab coat. “Already had a conditional agreement with Nightfall, so you didn’t miss much.” 

A soft sigh was Haneul’s response, “Their scouts might as well be testers at this point, they haven’t missed a single high-ranked hunter for the past five months.”

“Hopefully, their streak is about to end.” The woman glanced over at Sua, brown eyes assessing. “It’s been over a year since Lee Haneul brought someone in personally. Ahn Sua, was it?”

Sua dipped a polite bow in greeting, “I’ll be in your care, miss…”

“Gyo Duri. I’m an engineer with the Association.”

Haneul grinned, “She’s being uncharacteristically modest. Duri-ssi is practically a genius: other A-rank engineers fall behind her quite a bit. It’s a bit of a miracle we got her on the payroll.”

“Stop embarrassing me,” Duri commented, despite looking far more pleased by the praise than embarrassed, a little grin hiding behind her coffee cup. “The stairs are over to your left, Ahn Sua. You can go on in.”

Sua did as instructed, taking a short flight of stairs down to the now empty gym.

The doors beeped when they closed behind her as Sua caught the sound of a mechanism locking. A soft orange light bathed the room immediately after, making her ears pop as a protective barrier surrounded the space, cutting off all noise from the exterior.

Gyo Duri’s voice piped in cleanly through a speaker, “The test has two components: in the first, we’ll measure your potential; the second, your practical ability. Your final score will take both into account, but we’ll also let you know if your potential is higher than your final rank. You can use that information to train and come back for a reevaluation as necessary. Any questions?”

Sua shook her head, “No, I understand.”

Nor did she feel the need to ask about the ‘how’ regarding either part of the test, given that a square meter of space had opened up in the center of the gym as Duri spoke, an instrument the shape of an obelisk rising up from the opening.

The obelisk was about a meter taller than Sua, nearly transparent with prisms slightly distorting the view through it. More importantly, Sua could feel mana radiating around it, her shadow flickering slightly beneath her in response to the instrument’s presence. 

“Please place both of your palms on the device and leave them on until you hear a chime over this speaker. It is normal for it to grow warm or to vibrate slightly during the measurement.”

Stepping up to the device, Sua placed her palms out straight in front of her, studying the device more thoroughly now that she was closer.

It was difficult to pick apart its mechanisms, given that there was not a shadow of any kind within—or even casting off of—the device. What she could sense with the bit of mana sensitivity training she’d received in the Abyss was that the device was incredibly complex, and certainly not something that occurred organically. 

“Did a hunter make this?” She asked as the stone warmed underneath her touch. 

“It was created by Hunter Byun Kang-Dae, who we discussed in my office.” Haneul was the one to respond to her question. “How can you tell?”

“It just feels too complicated to be organic,” Sua mused, brow inching up as the aforementioned vibrations started, rumbling down through the floor the longer she stayed in contact with it. 

If it weren’t for the protective barrier, she thought the shaking might even rock through the entire building before it finally eased down. At the sound of the chime, Sua stepped away. 

Up in the observation room, Duri turned in her chair to fix Haneul, “Where the hell did you find this kid?”

A small smirk curled onto Haneul’s face, “At the gate break in Guryong Village. She was born there, and we haven’t found any record of her in governmental systems yet. How are the numbers, Duri-ssi?”

Duri glanced back at the control panel, lips pursed thoughtfully as she took in the scattering of results popping up on the screens. “Weird. The data doesn’t usually take long to stabilize unless it’s dealing with some baselines we’re not used to. The way this looks, it’ll take a few minutes for the final reading to be calculated.”

“But she’s strong?” Haneul prodded.

“She has the potential to be, yes. The practical will say for sure.”

Haneul clapped a hand on Duri’s shoulder, “Then stop wasting time. I like to be proved right.”

Sua was jolted out of her consideration of the measurement device when it sank back into the ground, the head engineer speaking over the intercom again as it vanished. “It’s time for the practical. Based on the application submitted by Haneul, we will be giving you a combat practical unless you have a protest. You are allowed to select up to two of the training weapons on the far wall.

“No protest from me.”

Sua turned to the far wall as a panel on it slid away, revealing a set of well-kept options. Stepping up to the selection, Sua was able to tell immediately that all the weapons were significantly weaker than her blades, but they seemed to be of good quality overall. 

Picking out a set of daggers, she tested their weight briefly before turning back to the room at large. “I’ve made my decision.”

The panel closed behind her as the next set of instructions were rattled off.

“You will have ten minutes to take down as many of the test enemies as possible. We have a healer on standby in case you get critically injured, so please do not hold back. If you decide to forfeit the rest of your time at any point, call ‘surrender’. Any questions?”

“None.”

If anything, she was eager for the test to begin.

Training against shadows was a frustrating experience: no matter how clever her moves or how strong her slashes, she couldn’t actually cause any damage to them. The sensation of her attack cutting through nothing was burned into Sua’s body and she was eager to have it replaced with something more substantial.

Killing that initial ogre was the first time Sua actually felt the weight of her combat training, and she was curious to see how far she could go when given the chance. A training ground dropping into her lap so quickly was almost too good to be true. 

A new section of the floor opened up and a stone golem rose into the room. It was just as tall as the normal ogres had been and broader in size. Even more, there was no chance that it would have any fleshy parts where a blade would slice in easily.

It was perfect. 

With the healer on standby, and the fight happening in a controlled environment, there was no need for the earlier caution she used with the ogres. 

With the motivation of climbing the ranks as quickly as possible so she could meet with Jae-sung, there was no point in her trying to downplay her strength.

Sua went from across the room to directly in front of the statue in the span of a breath, reversing her grip on the daggers to slam both hilts into the center of the golem with all of her strength, eager to see what it would do to a testing dummy specifically designed to fight enhanced humans.

It was a bit of a letdown when the golem crumbled into dust. 

Sua blinked down at the pile—topped with an artificial mana core that blinked right back up at her—before looking up at the observation room. “… there are more of these, right?”

Haneul’s laugh was nothing short of delighted as she gave the closest engineer a gentle jostle when no one reached for the intercom mic. “Snap out of it and give the woman a better fight.”

“She just- that golem was brand-new… it’s nearly as solid as a C-rank tank…” The engineer’s voice was faint as they stared down into the testing gym. 

“… excuse me?” Sua’s voice was truly one of the softest Haneul had ever heard in her life: gentle, soothing, and completely controlled. The contrast with the young woman’s power was almost comical. “Will this pause factor into my score with the time limit?”

“Lee-ssi-” It was rare for the eclectic creator to speak so formally to anyone besides another respected engineer. Haneul looked away from the testing arena to quirk a brow expectantly at Duri. “I’d like permission to skip directly to the A-rank configuration.”

It was quite tempting to see if Ahn Sua would even notice if the jump in difficulty, Haneul stifled a little sigh at how strict protocols were for such a situation. Leaning over, she spoke into the microphone, “It won’t count against you. The testing team thinks the next golem level would be a waste of your time: will you consent to a jump in difficulty?”

The corner of Sua's mouth quirked up slightly in what Haneul assumed was an attempt to smile considering her usual impassive expression, “I consent.”

Straightening at the response, Haneul nodded at Duri. “Go ahead, I’ll take responsibility if she gets hurt.”