"Next up, schedule a fan meeting."
Drex Valen instructed the Black Queen to add it to the calendar.
He planned to arrange public meet-and-greet events for Hulk in order to strengthen superheroes' approachable image in the eyes of civilians.
"Anything else?" Drex asked.
"Jessica Campbell is attending the Superhero Association entrance test today," the Black Queen replied.
Jessica Campbell had officially decided to become a superhero.
Considering she had somehow endured the hellish training program designed for superheroes, Drex Valen eventually approved the decision.
Besides, her academic performance had been terrible anyway.
Out of the dozen or so subjects Drex had personally arranged tutors for, Jessica had failed to show meaningful talent in any of them.
At that point, becoming a superhero honestly seemed like the better career path.
"Open the live feed. Let me take a look."
Drex leaned back with interest.
Soon, the testing grounds of the Superhero Association appeared on the screen before him.
A massive crowd had gathered there, all hoping to become superheroes.
Inside the Association headquarters was a gigantic testing arena covering more than three thousand square meters.
Viewed from the outside, the structure resembled an enormous monster egg.
Even with over five hundred applicants gathered inside for the entry-level F-Class hero examination, the space still did not feel crowded at all.
That alone quietly demonstrated the Association's astonishing wealth and influence.
The "eggshell" walls themselves consisted of five separate layers.
The outer shell was disguised as high-performance polymer material, beneath which sat a honeycomb reinforcement structure, impact-absorption fluid layers, and various other protective systems.
The entire facility had been publicly advertised as a shelter capable of resisting Dragon-Level monsters.
In reality, of course, that was complete nonsense.
Jessica Campbell stood prominently among the applicants.
"Attention. Today's examination consists of five phases."
"The written exam."
"Speed and endurance testing."
"Jumping ability testing."
"Strength testing."
"And finally, destructive capability testing."
"The second phase will now begin."
The broadcast system calmly explained the examination structure in detail.
"No neural reaction speed or cellular activity testing?"
Drex asked the Black Queen curiously.
"Sir, neural reaction speed is actually difficult to measure accurately," the Black Queen explained.
"Ordinary F-Class heroes generally achieve very similar results before undergoing advanced training. The standard reaction test involves dodging balls fired from multiple directions inside a sealed chamber."
"As for B-Class heroes and above, by that stage they already possess either basic bullet-dodging ability or the capability to ignore light firearms entirely."
"Because of that, accurately determining the upper limit of neural reaction speed becomes extremely difficult."
Drex nodded slightly.
After all, the baseline requirement for becoming a B-Class hero was already the ability to survive or ignore ordinary small-arms fire.
By this point, the written examination had already concluded.
The test included personality assessments measuring heroic tendencies and moral behavior.
But beyond that?
The questions themselves were brutal.
For example:
How do you rescue civilians trapped on the first floor during a structural fire?
Which section of a building can be safely destroyed without compromising overall balance?
How should severe burns be treated in an emergency?
The rest of the exam ranged wildly across biology, medicine, physics, engineering, and countless other subjects.
The entire paper looked more like a doctoral certification test than an entry exam for superheroes.
Soon, the speed and endurance phase officially began.
All applicants changed into standardized athletic uniforms provided by the Association.
This was partly for fairness and partly to prevent cheating through special equipment.
The passing condition was simple:
Maintain a 100-meter sprint speed under seven seconds continuously for ten minutes.
For ordinary people, that sounded like a ridiculous joke.
But anyone capable of paying the Association's expensive application fee generally possessed at least some degree of enhanced physical ability already.
Even so, nearly two-thirds of the applicants had already been eliminated.
"Marvel's Earth really is full of hidden monsters…"
Drex muttered in amazement while reviewing the statistics.
Thanks to the enormous size of the testing grounds, fifty participants could be tested simultaneously each round.
Jessica Campbell's group soon entered the field.
This kind of test posed absolutely no challenge for her.
She exploded forward at a speed so overwhelming that she left everyone else behind almost instantly, shocking even the examiners.
Back when the Superhero Association had first been established, extraordinarily powerful superheroes appeared one after another constantly.
But in recent months, the test supervisors had rarely encountered anyone whose physical performance exceeded the others by such a massive margin.
After filtering out applicants with insufficient physical capability, the final destructive power test soon began.
"Destructive capability test will now commence. Please enter the designated zones according to your assigned number."
The moment the announcement sounded, the entire testing platform began descending slowly and steadily.
Thirty seconds later, it connected seamlessly to an even larger underground arena.
Physical Destruction.
Non-Physical Destruction.
The signs hanging above the two sections were brutally simple.
Behind them sat sealed testing chambers designed specifically to protect superheroes' ability information.
After all, if the details of a speedster's powers became public knowledge, enemies could create terrain specifically designed to restrict movement.
Likewise, a psychic hero might end up getting ambushed and knocked unconscious with a brick before they could react.
Of course, some people were either powerful enough or arrogant enough not to care.
Jessica Campbell naturally selected the Physical Destruction category.
By the time the lengthy examinations finally concluded, nearly two hours had passed.
Most of the newly qualified F-Class and E-Class heroes, the ones who barely scraped through the endurance tests, had already left.
Now came the real evaluation.
The Super Destructive Capability Test.
This section existed specifically for individuals possessing special abilities or overwhelming power.
Anyone who passed with exceptional results could potentially skip ranks entirely and become an S-Class hero immediately.
Of course, almost nobody had ever succeeded.
Drex Valen maintained extremely strict standards for S-Class heroes.
Even Spider-Gwen and Venom had only received A-Class rankings.
That alone demonstrated how harsh the requirements truly were.
Normally, the destructive capability test simply involved attacking a target wall with the applicant's strongest technique.
The system would then calculate impact force alongside secondary damage factors such as toxins, flames, electricity, and similar effects.
But today's "target" was different.
An actual S-Class hero.
Naturally, it was not Tony Stark.
Even though Tony's armor had already advanced to Mark 45, he still lacked absurd future technologies like the Bleeding Edge Armor or Celestial-tier equipment.
As far as Drex Valen was concerned, Tony was still relatively fragile.
And honestly, Drex worried that some unexpectedly powerful newcomer might accidentally beat Tony to death in a few punches.
That would create a very awkward situation.
So instead, the examiner serving as the test benchmark was another S-Class hero:
Ben Grimm, the Thing.
An S-Class hero personally evaluating someone's strength was obviously far more accurate than relying purely on machines.
At the same time, the test also allowed rookie heroes to understand the terrifying gap separating them from the true top-tier heroes.
Not everyone was born as monsters like Sentry, Blue Marvel, or Nova.
So far, Ben Grimm had yet to encounter anyone who truly impressed him.
Jessica Campbell was no exception.
Still, she performed well enough that Ben visibly brightened while giving her an evaluation.
"A-Class."
And just like that, Jessica Campbell officially passed all examinations and became an A-Class hero.