Even with healers on standby, there was only so much a single session could do when the healers had to stay on reserve for other candidates. In the worst case scenario, Sua could be on bed rest for a few days, but Haneul had a difficult time imagining the rookie getting pummeled that thoroughly.

As the A-rank golem rose from the floor panels, Haneul couldn’t help but think about her initial evaluation, and how this exact model had nearly sent her to the hospital when she was freshly awakened.

Nearly a meter taller than the previous golems, its stone was reinforced with a metal skeleton to make it difficult for even a completely refreshed A-rank to destroy. Considering the fact that Ahn Sua had already been in combat that day, Haneul was just as curious as the engineers to see what she would do. 

When the golem was finished rising from the ground, Sua dragged her gaze over her new foe, drumming her fingers against the hilts of her daggers as she took it in. 

At its size, it would be difficult to get a strike right to its core with Sua’s height, especially considering her short-ranged weapons. However, that would only be a real problem if she was unable to destroy it with blunt force. Despite feeling a significant increase in power over the earlier golem, Sua couldn’t find it in her to be concerned in the slightest. 

Racing at the golem, she darted between its legs. Her arms snapped out sideways, whacking both joints hard with the hilts of the daggers, the feeling of stone giving way beneath the force more gratifying than it had any right to be.

All the same, she didn’t slow down during her attack: rushing out from underneath the golem before it dropped to its knees, cracks shooting up and down the stone legs from the point of her attack’s impact. 

Given that they had increased the difficulty of her test, Sua was mildly surprised to see how much damage she was able to do with a single attack. As far as learning how strong she was compared to the other hunters, she supposed she was easily racing toward the top of the pack.

A glint of metal was visible underneath the larger cracks where her attack had landed, Sua noting the new information as she darted past with a quirked brow. That sort of inner structure wasn’t something the other creation had, and it was likely the only thing that got this golem back to its feet despite the structural damage to its legs. 

Pivoting on her back foot, Sua used the force of her momentum to send one of the daggers flying: it hurtled straight into the golem’s head, cracking the stone right down the center. 

She didn’t wait for the dagger to land, already on the giant as rubble tumbled to the ground, reversing her remaining dagger again for a vicious horizontal slash, severing the thinnest part of the metal skeleton with sheer force, decapitating it in one swing.

Sua kicked off from the golem’s chest, flying backward and landing light on her feet while the device crashed to the ground in the opposite direction. 

Her smile was minsucle as she took in the results: while she never slacked off in her lessons, it was a different sort of gratification to feel the effect of her maneuvers and strategies against something tangible. 

Fetching her thrown knife from the ground, Sua glanced up at the observation deck, “I’m ready for the next one.”

"One moment, the next golem requires a few setting adjustments.” Duri’s voice was even as she flicked to the highest testing protocol, the testing center’s primary mana source being tapped to strengthen the shields around the testing room. Turning the mic off, she glanced at Haneul from the corner of her eye, “You really just happened to find this girl in the slums?”

“Yes.” Haneul’s attention was on her phone as she sent a handful of notifications to the Association’s publicity department, the chairman’s team, and security now that her suspicions were becoming a reality. “But she’s clearly not some brand-new fighter. She’s been trained but how, where, and by whom is a complete unknown right now.”

“I didn’t drink enough coffee for this,” The engineer muttered. “At this rate, I’ll have to work all night to get these things back into testable conditions.” 

Duri flicked the microphone back on, “We are commencing the highest level of test: please be careful and call surrender immediately if you cannot continue.”

Down in the arena, Sua propped the daggers between her thighs as she made quick work of twisting her long hair up into a bun, “Understood, thank you for the warning.”

The floor opened once more, the S-rank golem rising up to the surface as the observation deck went into lockdown. 

Despite it being over two years since she faced this beast during her reevaluation, Haneul could feel her hackles rising as she took in the deceptively smaller frame of this golem. 

It was a speckled silver in color, built entirely out of Miladium—a nearly indestructible ore only found in gates. Without the use of mana, either infused in a weapon or the hunter's attack itself, it was difficult to do any serious damage.

Nearly two heads shorter than the C-rank golem and about half of its width, this device was designed to mimic the agility of powerful humanoid monsters. 

Unlike its predecessors, the golem moved first: racing at Sua as a sword grew from its palm to stab for her gut. Quick on her feet, Sua leapt up and back, still in midair when a panel opened on the golem’s shoulder, firing a laser beam right at her head.

The combination of tactics, speed, and built-in weapons had defeated dozens of A-rank applicants within seconds. Despite barely escaping a similar pincer attack, Haneul had been too injured to continue during her own test. She leaned forward slightly, unsure of what she was looking for, but positive that Sua would get out of the setup. 

Head twisting slightly toward the noise as the golem’s shoulder panel opened, Sua vanished entirely from sight when the beam blasted at her. The beam crashed uselessly against the barrier, the collission accompanied by a startled curse from Duri.

Haneul didn’t look away from the gym as Sua reappeared at the golem’s back, daggers bouncing uselessly off of its body, “What was that about?”

“She’s not using magic.”

That was enough to tear Haneul’s stare away from the fight to blink at the engineer, “It has to be magic. She teleported.”

“It’s not.” Duri sounded torn between frustration and amazement as she started to recalibrate the controls, fingers flying at an inhuman speed. “The sensors aren’t picking up anything: no mana, no mystic energy, not even the usual flux of air pressure or any indication of where she was going to appear.” 

“She did it again, Gyo-ssi!” The tester on the far side of the table piped up, “Still not registering anything.”

Turning back to the arena, Haneul blinked several times, stunned to see one of the golem’s arms flapping uselessly on the ground, looking as if it had been ripped straight off of the creation’s body. Sua slammed her foot into the golem’s chest, sending it skidding back and away from the missing limb several meters.

There was not a second of hesitation in the young woman as she raced forward, vanishing once more just before she was within the golem’s reach, reappearing underneath its remaining, outstretched arm to jam the tip of her blades into it, ripping the arm off with a pair of vicious sideways slashes. 

“How did she even find that joint?” Haneul muttered, stepping away from the control panel and closer to the window as Sua picked up the dropped arm, pivoting on her foot and using the momentum to slap the golem in the head with its own part. 

It was a clever choice: the golem’s hand was plenty hard enough to break its body, snapping the head backwards so it was left dangling by a few wires. 

Tossing the arm behind her, Sua leapt up, slicing at the wires and grabbing the head before it dropped on the ground. Winding her arm back, she sent the head flying into the furthest wall where it cracked in two as it slammed against the protective barrier. 

Sua still didn’t stop moving, seeming to drop through the ground as if a trap door had opened beneath her.

Headless and armless, the golem staggered toward where the head had clattered, following the auditory cue in the absence of optical sensors. As it stepped forward, Sua appeared directly underneath the junction of its leg, slamming the hilts of her daggers straight up.

The golem hurtled airborne, but Sua leapt from the ground even faster, her leg snapping out to kick the device right back down with a brutal kick. She landed daggers-first, the momentum enough to pierce the chest cavity and dislodge the mana stone that powered the golem just as her time ran out, the buzzer noise echoing through the testing gym.

It was quiet in the observation room, everyone staring at the scattered parts that made up the last golem. 

“… I never thought I’d actually preside over an S-rank evaluation.” Duri was  the one who spoke up first, sounding slightly faint. “And she’s a unique class to boot.”

Haneul huffed a laugh, “Witnessing history can actually be fun now and then. Send a confirmation to the chairman before submitting the result, he’s already waiting for it.” She headed for the stairs without waiting for a response, stepping into the gym when the doors unlocked. “Well done, Hunter Ahn.”

Sua looked up from the wreckage of the golem, brows furrowed slightly in what looked like disappointment. “That took me too long to take down.”

Briefly, Haneul was stunned into silence. “… you shouldn’t have been able to take it down at all. That golem is designed to require a party of high-rank hunters to defeat it.”

“Huh,” Sua’s expression barely changed. “So that means my score was good?”

That made Haneul laugh again, “Congratulations on becoming Korea’s third S-rank hunter, Ahn Sua.”