All My Summons Become Divine Girls

’This whole exam is stupid,’ Hajin thought, his grip tightening as the golden aura around his fist began to hum.

He knew the Guildmaster had set this up as a filter, a way to cull the weak and humble the arrogant. It was a test designed to be impossible, a wall that was never meant to be climbed by a group of rookies.

’But I’m not playing by their rules anymore,’ he decided, his mana flaring in perfect synchronization with Juna, Elise, and Sable.

The entire arena seemed to hold its breath while the four of them moved as a single entity. Their combined aura erupted into a blinding golden pillar that reached the ceiling, the sheer pressure of it making the air itself scream.

"Now!" he shouted.

They struck the core at the exact same millisecond.

The impact was shockwave that blew back the remaining applicants and sent a massive cloud of dust into the air. The pedestal groaned under the weight of the force while the ground beneath it shattered into a dozen pieces.

Silence fell over the room as the dust slowly began to settle.

Gorren was the first to react, his jaw dropping as he took a step toward the center of the arena.

"No way," he muttered, his voice trembling with awe and disbelief. "They actually cracked it."

He wasn’t talking about a small, superficial scratch. When the dust finally cleared, the ten-shard core was sitting on the pedestal with a massive, jagged fissure running through its center.

The crack was so deep that it looked like the crystal was about to split in half, its once-pristine surface now a map of fractured light.

"That thing is massive," another applicant whispered, her voice barely audible, "I guess that counts as a win but isn’t the damage too much?"

Gorren turned his gaze toward the observation deck, a small, expectant smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. He was waiting for the Guildmaster to lose his composure and roar about the damage to the guild’s most expensive artifact.

But Allen didn’t look angry, instead, a slow, genuine smile spread across his face while he stared down at the pedestal.

Gorren blinked, his smirk vanishing as a wave of confusion washed over him.

’He’s smiling?’ he thought, his brow pulling together. ’That core is worth more than this entire building, why the hell is he smiling?’

Up on the deck, Allen’s heart was still racing. His eyes locked on Hajin, who was currently shaking out his fist as if he hadn’t just rewritten the rules of the Ranker exam.

’He actually did it,’ Allen thought, his hands still gripping the railing with enough force to dent it.

He had expected an anomaly, but he hadn’t expected a monster that could bend a ten-shard core to his will. The shock felt unreal to him, a sensation he hadn’t felt in nearly twenty years of leading the guild.

He let go of the dented railing, a rare burst of genuine excitement spreading through his chest. He had just changed the exam format this year to act as an impossible filter, fully expecting every single applicant to fail and learn a harsh lesson in humility.

But looking at the massive fissure splitting the crystal right down the middle, he knew a terrifying new talent had just walked through his front doors.

’A true monster,’ he thought, a wide smile settling on his face while he turned toward the stairs.

Down in the center of the arena, Elise and Sable were standing completely still. Their weapons still raised in the air, their breathing ragged as they stared blankly at the ruined artifact.

Sable slowly lowered her sword, her hands visibly shaking from the residual adrenaline pumping through her veins.

’We actually did it,’ she thought, her mind completely short-circuiting. ’We broke a ten-shard barrier. We cracked a dragon’s heart.’

Elise just stared at the core with a numb expression, her grip on her rapier loosening. She had walked into this exam fully expecting to fail or scrape the outer layer of the shield at best. Realizing they had done way more than just leave a tiny scratch made her feel incredibly lightheaded.

Hajin stood next to them, shaking the dust off his coat before rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at the deep, glowing crack and felt a sudden wave of awkwardness wash over him.

’Did we overdo it?’ he wondered, his brow pulling together.

The Guildmaster had explicitly told them to leave a single mark, and instead, they had nearly shattered the most expensive item in the building. He quickly checked his inventory, running the math on how much a ten-shard dragon core actually cost.

’I really hope he doesn’t try to bill me for this,’ he thought, feeling a little nervous. ’I only have nine hundred gold.’

The stream panel flickered in the corner of his vision right on cue.

[ CringeSlayer91: bro is definitely thinking about the repair bill right now ]

[ ShadowMage44: you broke their toy hajin lmao ]

[ NewViewer_02: time to run before they make you pay for it ]

[ LurkerNoMore: his face right now is priceless ]

He ignored the chat and let out a quiet sigh, watching the other applicants staring at him with a mix of absolute terror and disbelief. Even Gorren looked like he wanted to shrink into the floor and disappear.

The sound of slow clapping filled the arena.

The crowd of applicants quickly scrambled out of the way as Allen walked onto the floor, his usual exhausted demeanor completely gone. He stopped right next to the pedestal and spent a few seconds admiring the catastrophic damage, tracing the air just above the jagged fissure.

Then he turned around, looking directly at Hajin, Elise, Sable, and Juna.

"Congratulations," he said, his voice carrying easily across the room. "You all pass."

Elise let out a massive sigh of relief, her legs finally giving out as she dropped right onto her knees. Sable didn’t fall, but she closed her eyes and let her head drop back, a huge, genuine smile breaking across her face for the first time all day.

Juna just gave her tail a proud flick, looking at Hajin like she had expected this exact outcome from the very beginning.

Hajin kept his hands shoved in his pockets, deciding to get the worst part over with immediately.

"Sorry about the core," he said, keeping his tone casual. "I can probably pay for some of the damages if you give me a few weeks to earn some money."

Allen stared at him for a second before letting out a loud, barking laugh.

"Pay for it?" he repeated, shaking his head. "Boy, you couldn’t afford a fraction of this core if you worked for the next three lifetimes. But you do not need to worry about the bill."

He gestured toward the cracked crystal.

"I changed the exam format this year specifically to humble arrogant rookies," he explained, looking at Hajin with total approval. "The entire point of using an artifact this valuable was to see if anyone had the sheer audacity and power to actually break it. You gave me exactly what I was looking for."

Hajin felt the tension leave his shoulders. ’Thank god,’ he thought, glad he wasn’t about to go into massive debt just to get a guild badge.

Allen turned his attention to the rest of the room, his smile vanishing as he looked at Gorren and the other applicants who were still huddled near the walls.

"The exam is over," he announced, his voice dropping back into its cold, authoritative register. "The four of them worked together, synchronized their mana, and bypassed an impossible barrier. The rest of you stood around, complained about the rules, and waited for someone else to do the heavy lifting."

Gorren swallowed hard, looking down at his chipped axe in pure humiliation.

"You failed," he said bluntly. "Take your gear and get out of my guild."

He watched as the group of dejected applicants started shuffling toward the exit, none of them daring to say a word while they walked past the four people who had actually succeeded.

He turned back toward Hajin and noticed the way he was still eyeing the massive crack in the crystal with a bit of lingering doubt.

"Oh, and don’t worry about the core," he said, giving the pedestal a dismissive wave of his hand. "That thing is a high-tier artifact with a self-repair trait, so it will be back to normal in about a week."

Hajin blinked, looking from the Guildmaster back to the jagged fissure splitting the dragon core.

’It fixes itself?’ he thought, a sense of relief finally washing over him. ’That’s a relief. I was starting to think I’d be working off a debt for the rest of my life.’

He looked at the pedestal one more time, noticing that the faint, pulsing light inside the crack was already starting to slowly knit the edges back together.

’Must be nice to own something that fixes itself,’ he thought, pulling his hands out of his pockets and looking at the three girls standing behind him.

Elise had finally stopped shaking, her face regaining some of its color while she stood up and dusted off her combat skirt. Sable was still grinning, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword like she was ready to go another round.

"Since you passed," Allen continued, his tone shifting into something more professional. "You need to come to my office to finalize your registration and receive your official Ranker badges."