When the bus stopped and it was eventually Ren and Kai's turn to get out, they saw the giant building where they assumed the exam would take place. It was an Island Board building.
The Board is the government of the island, but they don't call it a government or anything like that. They call it the Board, like a school board, because at the end of the day the island is one giant school.
Ren tilted his head for a second. He guessed they also had an area for that. He thought there would be a whole building dedicated to the exam, but maybe he overthought it.
Then he looked around, seeing buses also coming in with students getting out of them one by one. They were all the same type of bus Ren came out of until the last one arrived, which was much more fancy than the rest. It had a similar design, but again it had a few features that made it look much more luxurious than the others, and it was much bigger.
The difference was obvious enough for everyone to look at it.
Even though Ren didn't know why that bus was different, the voices around him told him everything he needed to know.
"Do you see that bus? No way…"
"Oh heck, it's an advanced school. Why did I have to be in this group…" a student said.
He heard these types of complaints all around him.
So it was an advanced school bus, and everyone coming out of these buses were all the people who were going to be in the same exam group as him. Did that mean different groups were placed in different buildings?
He didn't really ponder on the thought too much and looked at the advanced school bus to see the students coming out of it.
When it opened, a slow stream of students came out.
Ren didn't care that much until he saw someone — a girl with red hair and green eyes stepping out of the bus.
Kai, who also saw her, didn't think much other than that she was extremely beautiful. The same went for a lot of the students who saw her, except they were focusing on her beauty a lot more.
But Ren was shocked — not because of her beauty, but because he recognized who she was.
"Astra Valmont…" he unconsciously said, making Kai recognize the name, but he wasn't really that impressed — unlike Ren, which kind of made sense.
There isn't any official hero ranking in this world — not by strength, not by popularity, not by the number of cases solved or anything like that.
I mean, you can find fan-made rankings of heroes and vigilantes all across the internet, and they always have debates around them.
At some point in the past, the government tried to make an actual hero ranking, but because of the fact that they were still anti-vigilantes, that ranking was pretty much exclusive to system heroes.
But that whole thing failed in a mess.
The biggest reason this project failed was because civilians didn't like the fact that it was exclusive to system heroes. If system heroes had the backing of the government, vigilantes had the unofficial backing of the civilians.
People liked the fact that there were individuals out there rescuing them from the goodness of their hearts, not because they were being paid to save them, with a lot of people feeling vigilantes were the only true heroes.
So because of this, civilians not actually caring about the official ranking of heroes made that whole thing collapse. Some governments around the world tried to keep it going, but one by one they all abandoned it.
The point is — all across the world, except for Blue Light being number one and a couple of heroes being placed in the top without a specific order, naturally everyone across the world debates who is one of the best heroes of all time and who should be ranked. It's a never-ending conversation that spans the entire world.
Except for one place — Canada.
In Canada, it's widely agreed who the number one hero of the country is. It's a hero called Snow Flower — Rose Valmont.
Astra's mother.
Rose is without a doubt the most powerful and popular hero in Canada, which is why it's even more shocking to Ren as a Canadian himself.
Snow Flower is his favorite hero like a lot of other Canadians.
And since Kai doesn't actually know much about her except for the fame of her mother, he isn't impressed by Astra — which is natural.
You have to be a real fan to be in awe of being close to someone connected to your idol, no matter how weird that sounds in theory.
Astra, when she got out of the bus, looked around until she spotted something and started walking — with what they assumed to be a couple of her friends — toward their direction.
Ren and Kai looked at each other, confused.
"Are they walking towards us?" Kai asked.
"I don't think so. We should probably get out of the way."
So both of them moved aside.
But then Astra adjusted her direction and kept walking toward them.
So for some reason, she was walking to them.
Ren and Kai looked at each other again, trying to figure out if the other knew why, but neither of them seemed to know anything.
And before they knew it, Astra was standing in front of them.
"Well, if it isn't Kai Mercer," she said.
Kai just looked at her cautiously. "Yes, that's me."
She took a glance at him, then at the bus he had just come from.
"Well, I guess the rumors are true about your situation."
Her friends, walking behind her, looked a little confused. They didn't know about any rumors.
Ren and Kai both narrowed their eyes.
Why is she bringing that up?
She seemed to know about his situation even though it wasn't public knowledge. Some people knew about it, so it was like an open secret for specific circles.
But Astra ignored the looks both of them gave her and spoke again.
"You know, I hate seeing someone with your potential being in your situation. After all, you are talented from what I've seen of you in the past. So how about this? I'll give you a hand — and you can come with us."
Astra said it plainly.
Is she being for real? Ren thought.
She just came to him, brought up his situation in an arrogant tone, and then invited him to join her after backhanded comments like that.
What the hell.
At least she didn't mention his situation directly, considering her friends seemed confused about that part, Ren thought.
Kai just looked at Astra and said,
"No."