"Did you see who's the first?" a student from the crowd asked
"No, the ranks are being updated as the students are coming out. We will know within a few minutes", another student replied.
The ground was crowded as it always would be whenever the exams for the academy happened. Everyone wants to know who scored the highest points and who got the first rank.
Depending on the points that one was able to gain in the exam, the academies would select them and depending on the rank of the person, the contract varies.
The top rankers would obviously get a contract with preferential treatment from the academies. After all, the academies are established to nurture the best seedlings to the highest position as soon as possible.
After an hour of waiting, the results were displayed.
The most attractive one was the big announcement that was displayed.
"Congratulations, Aaron Skyhart, for being the top ranker of the Alliance".
This was something that only the top rankers of a city, province or the entire alliance would get and from the announcement, one can see that the Aarons scored the highest in the entire alliance.
So, the announcement which was to show the top in the school or city is now showing the top of the alliance. Afterall, as the top ranker of the alliance, he is by default top of his school, city and province.
"Who the hell is Aaron Skyhart?" one of the students asked.
This was something that was on the minds of everyone in the crowd.
"Wait, I know him. He is the one who awakened the S-Rank profession, Death Mage", one of them remembered the event day of the awakening.
Aaron was once famous but they quickly forgot about him after the awakening. Though he was the only one that awakened S-Rank which was rank below the SS-Rank.
Mary and Aaron are said to have awakened the highest-ranked professions. Mary was taken away by the higher-ups and as Death Mage is considered to be of lower potential, they forgot about his existence.
Now he showed that he is not someone who has lower potential, rather he is quite the opposite. He showed everyone that he was of the highest potential.
"What do you think of the recent results?" a middle-aged man in a suit asked his fellow colleagues.
"Surprised, I should say. Who would have thought that a person who awakened one of those professions to reach the highest rank?" one of the people spoke.
"Yeah, that is definitely a surprise. If that SS-Rank girl were to be present, she would have been first but without her, this S-Rank boy has gained first rank".
"It says that he is a good seedling. Normally, S-Rank is the highest profession that anyone can get in this world when they awaken. Sad thing is that he is a Death Mage and may not reach higher stages".
"Yeah, while it is true that he may be restricted in his growth and can't reach higher ranks easily, he could be a good one in the middle layers. Well, a King needs Generals and a General does need Captains and I believe that he might become a good captain".
"Hmm, let's keep an eye on him and since he is the first ranker in the entire Alliance, he should get the best benefits, no matter what his profession might be or else no one would work for better. They would resign that their professions were appreciated and depreciate in time. We can't let that happen".
"Yeah, though I see that this boy would stop improving later on, at the moment this is what he earned. If we reduce his benefits just because we feel that his profession is not valuable, then it could backlash on us".
"So, we all agree that the boy would get the benefits that were gained by him. There would be no change in that".
The higher-ups decided that Aaron would get all the benefits that the Alliance would give the top rankers but there is an issue. Whether the academies would give him the best contract that was supposed to be his as the top ranker or not is still unknown.
Moreover, the reason why the higher-ups decided not to shortchange Aaron is not because they are kind. No, a situation is this occured once.
A Necromancer reached the top ranks years ago but the Alliance ignored him and the benefits he was supposed to get were diverted to other professionals that the Alliance thought were good.
What happened was a massacre.
Years later, that same necromancer not only killed the higher-ups who shortchanged him but also the ones who benefitted from that decision. In this process, there was a lot of collateral. A lot of people died.
After that massacre, cultists got involved and a lot of towns and smaller cities were wiped out.
If only the higher-ups hadn't hindered that necromancer, he would have become a great asset to the alliance. No one knows what happened to that necromancer.
What most believe was that one of the five SS-Rank gods got involved to clear up the mess. After that incident, the alliance's officials became alert to not look down on any profession.
Sure not everyone with minimum talents can reach a higher rank later but when they do it could become a disaster. No matter the profession, the officials made sure that they paid the student what they should.
Even if that person falls behind later, that would not be their problem. They can't blame the alliance for that as the alliance did everything that they promised.