4. Applications & Exams

The application to any of the 4 great academies is quite complex. There are many trials and tests which need to be taken to determine the power and use of a story.

During the remaining 3 months of high school Jun En continued to work on his body, actively engaging in quests if they ever were any that appeared. In the span of three months he had increased his body by leaps.

*ding*

Name: Wu Jun En

Race: Human

Class: Unknown

Title: (_the caring_) {title effect: strengthen healing properties and effects by 50%}

Level: 5

HP: 40/40

Stamina: 16/16

Strength: 19

Agility: 16

Dexterity: 26

Intelligence: ???

Unassigned stats: 4

Skills: Speedy Devour, Speed Reading, Quick Thinking, Second chance [3/3]

Skills Tree (???)

Stories: [The quick eater], [Immersive reader], [over analyser], [the one who saved]

EXP: 40/300

His stats had increased tremendously over this 3 month time period, however his current stats could be said to only be better than the average human by far, but this was not enough. Those who had stories that could improve their bodies would be much much stronger by far. He realised this when he asked the voice, which informed him a physical story type teller which has just awakened would have an average stat of twenty across the board. While his health and dexterity met that requirement his other stats were lagging behind.

Jun En was in his room laying on his bed staring up at the status window. He still hadn't figure out why the intelligence stat was just marked with [???]. He tried asking the voice about it but all he got was "when the time comes you'll know". That wasn't very helpful at all.

Jun En had already sent in his application and had to go in for the test. The test was a week away and Jun En had to prepare himself for anything.

*****

Jun En left his home the day of the test and set out, he didn't really have any fancy clothing but he tried to make a good first impression, dressing up in long pants and a button up shirt as he was going for an interview.

He took the flight train to the station near the Novelia Academy. As he walked out of the flight train he noticed something different and rather peculiar about the characters walking towards the school. Everybody was about the same age all a little different, a little peculiar. Some dressed too formally, others just came in shorts. Some had hairstyles which were quite out there, and others seemed to be trying too hard with fashion putting on way too much.

The path to the academy was long and tiring as there were no direct station near the school. To get there one had to walk towards mount Selvic which was a kilometre away from the station. From there one had to get on gondola to get to the top of the mountain, this was the only way in and the only way out. A flight train or any flying vehicle is unable to move to the top of the mountain as any vehicles within range of the mountain would shutdown. This was a safety-precaution first installed when the academy was first built.

Of course if one chose they could try to trek up the mountain as well but they would be risking their lives to do so. The mountain was covered by a giant forest, that laid in a thick blanket over the mountain, making it hard to navigate if one were to enter. No one knew clearly whether any beasts roamed the mountain. In the end the only thing that worked was a gondola that would move groups of people up and down the mountain.

Jun En reached the gondola station at bottom of the mount Selvic, as he approached the gondola station a security officer could be seen dressed in a full navy blue outfit with a blazer and long pants standing inside the booth.

As Jun En approached the booth after many others and a low raspy voice could be heard, it was the security officer. He was slightly taller then Jun En and had a larger build, his eyes seemed to pierce the soul of anybody who stared.

"State your business" the security guard said as he stared at Jun En

Jun took out his application form and showed it to the security officer

"Okay proceed to the line for the gondola" the security guard handed the application

Jun En walked towards the line which zigzagged all the way to the gondola. He stood in line as he overheard some of the other applicants talking. Two of these applicants were talking behind him, these two people were particularly tall, they looked almost 190cm in height.

As they stood behind Jun En and loomed over behind him he overheard their conversation.

"Hey did you know apparently only 20% of the all applicants ever reach graduation"

"That is intense does that mean the other 80% fail or drop out?"

"I don't know it isn't really certain but apparently a good number of the 80% die before they drop out, well it is just a rumour though"

"Geesh way to bring down the mood now I'm not sure if I should have applied in the first place"

"Yeah maybe we should just go"

Jun En stood there in line listening to the two giants banter, constantly debating whether they should leave or stay.

As he stood there in line he thought to himself. '80% don't make it and some even die huh?'

A grin formed on his face as he stood in line, some people saw this grin and immediately turned away. The grin and expression he made, made others think that he had gone insane or was some nefarious villain in a superhero movie.

As he stood there grinning only one thought seemed to cross his mine.

'Well this will definitely be a fun experience.'

*****

At the end of the Gondola applicants got off at the station and started moving out of the station towards the direction of the school. As they approached the school a large wall appeared in view seemingly growing bigger as people approached it. This large wall was obsidian black in colour and seemed to surround the school, and these walls towered over everything reaching 35-40 meters in height. It prevented people from attempting to break in while stopping the students from breaking out as well. From the outside the school looked like nothing but walls, as if a giant prison was placed on the top of the mountain, walling off the school from the rest of the world.

Everybody approached the giant wall and a low audible click could be heard as part of the wall split down the middle and slowly opened up, resembling a giant doorway or path to the school grounds.

As the wall opened up the path the earth beneath everyone's feet began to rumble, the large walls moved to the side like an automatic glass door and revealed the most architectural futuristic and beautiful campus. The first thing that the applicants saw was a large field in front of the school, in the field students could be seen in the midst of classes practising utilising their stories with one another.

The fields itself wasn't even a field of grass but a a grid like field with concrete slabs as squares. There was a path that moved through the field and led to every building in the school. The school building itself was massive upside-down trapezoid shaped building with multiple other square and circle shaped structures of similar size to the building floating beside it. These floating building like structures appeared to be disconnected from everything else floating beside the main building.

'Huh' how peculiar Jun En thought, in 2155 of course technology had advanced since the early 2000s but some of the most advanced technology either belong to the government or the rich, thus Jun En had never seen anything like it before.

As they approached the main trapezoid building the outside of the building could be seen, one side of the building was lined with glass windows that glistened in the afternoon sun.

All those who came were amazed by the size of the building and immersed in the floating building-like strucutres next to the main building. As everybody entered the lobby of the massive trapezoid building, everyone was lead by what seemed to be the teachers of the school to the auditorium.

The auditorium was not a normal auditorium, the walls were a combination of concrete and metal all heavily reinforced. The walls and floor were all white. At the front of the auditorium was a stage, however it looked more like an elevated platform then anything else.

A woman who looked seemingly old walked towards up to the stage. She was dressed from head to toe in military garb, a. Full black attire with army boots, on her left chest was a white star that could fit into one's palm. Despite looking old due to her wrinkles, she had very soft spoken features with a seemingly gentle smile, he hair was a mixture of black and grey and was tied in a bun.

As she got on to the stage. She looked at the applicants with smiling eyes.

"Hello kids welcome to Novelia, you can call me the headmaster of the school. There is no need to disclose who I am, thus when addressing me please just call me 'headmaster'. Today we will be determining which of you will enter and which one of you will go home. Oooo sounds like a gameshow doesn't it? Do give it your best shot. Does anybody have any questions?"

A girl raised her hand and asked "is it true that only 20% of the students graduate"

"Ho". The headmaster looked towards the voice who asked the question.

"Now who told you that, that's not true, it's just that the 80% that didn't graduate weren't qualified enough"

"So there have been times when the more then 20% passed" asked another kid

"No, not yet it's just that many couldn't last. So how long do you think you'll last?"

The kid froze at her question. How hard was the curriculum that not more than 20% always passed. Her final comment left the room frozen.

"Well good-day to you all and I hope you survive" she smiled as she walked off the stage.

Many were scared after this, others felt overly confident, Jun En felt surprisingly happy at the prospect of something exciting waiting for him in the future.

After the address, applicants were first split into groups each taking turns to do different trials. Firstly the groups would be tested to see what their stories were and their respective classifications.

Applicants were given a watch which could read the unique energy signatures given off by their bodies, using it to determine the stories and the powers or abilities which are given by such stories. The watch then displays the stories in their possession and respective ability classifications. They were then sent to different locations within the campus depending on the classification their story fell into.

Stories had many different classification, as there were many types of stories. Stories about inventors or had to do with crafting, creating or innovating would fall under [utility] stories, as such stories could allow people to make multitudes of things from advanced weapons to technology that would increase an individuals power, improve an economy and even enhance society as a whole.

The next classification would be [battle], these were stories usually stories of warriors or beasts which possessed great powers and battle prowess, or stories that had the power to strengthen people and turn the tide of battle.

There was also [medical] this dealt with healers as they didn't fall into other categories. With the final classification being [general] these were stories that were classified to either have no use or no current use could be found. Stories that were listed in general could move to other categories if a significant use was found. A student could be placed in multiple classification depending on his or her story.

Jun En fell into the category of [medical] due to his most recently acquired story being the most prominent of his stories. He entered the room designated for all those with medical stories, there were more applicants than he thought. They all had varying levels of healing ability and all seemed be fundamentally different from Jun En's ability.

Inside the room were multiple people, all of them were veterans who fought against the regs laying across multiple beds. Each of these people suffered from different injuries and ailments due to fighting with regs. Applicants were tasked to heal and mend the injuries found on the people as much as they could under the supervision of the instructors, if anything went wrong the instructors would step in to help and correct everything.

Some healing abilities were only able to heal cuts and bruises and were too weak other's were able to perform large scale. Jun En was the latter his healing ability if he used to its fullest was capable of fully healing a person in one day due to the increased effects from his title. However he would only be able to perform this once a day if he did so as he only could use the ability three times per day. This meant that while the potential for healing people was great, the amount of people which could be treated by him would be too few. In a fight situation against regs it was usually better to have 10 people at 50% capacity rather than 1 person at 100% capacity.

This was something Jun En had to work on in the future or else his ability despite its effects would just be labeled as useless again.

Luckily for him this exam only required him to demonstrate his healing abilities on one person, this meant that he could hide the flaw and improve his ability in the future.

When it was Jun En's turn he approached the battered soldier, there was large gash on his right leg that was so deep it almost hit bone, his head was hurt causing him to be suffering from a mild concussion, and his arm was in cast.

Jun En chose to prioritise more serious injuries and focused on healing the leg. Using 1 charge of the ability [second chance]. Jun En put his hands over the gash and activated his ability. The gash slowly closed itself, severed muscle strands within the leg started to grow back reconnecting with each other and the leg healed to the point where the gash turned into a light cut on the right leg. Once he finished he waited for his evaluation.

*****

'ah crap I can't move one bit and it everything hurt'

This was the soldier that Jun En was healing his name was Lucius one of the [tellers] who was deployed by the government to investigate a newly found regs nest.

When he went to scout the area he had found a mid-sized reg nest, however when he ventured deeper he found that the nest was much larger than expected, luckily the regs were dormant and hadn't showed much. However as he tried to leaved the nest the few regs which were active caught wind of him and tried to hunt him down.

As a veteran Lucius could have easily taken care of the regs, he was no slouch when it came to ability and strength, however the regs were stronger than expected and overwhelmed he barely managed to escape and sent out a distress signal. After that he was brought here to the medical bay of Novelia.

When he awoke he was told that normal hospitals and government hospitals were too busy thus they had to bring him here. He was told that he would be healed by those within the academy, knowing the academy's reputation Lucius trusted that he was in good hands

but

Never did he expect to be used as part of the trial exam for [medical] type story users who were only applying to the academy. He didn't trust these kids one bit as most haven't actively used their abilities till they got to the school and they weren't even professionals.

Despite that the injuries on his bodies made him unable to move and protests, his leg was completely cut to the bone, he broke his let arm and suffered from a concussion, he couldn't think straight and was in no shape to move. The pain all over his body threw is mind into chaos and despair. However all he could do was lie down and accept his fate.

With his eyes barely open he saw one of the applicants walk up to him, put their hand over the gash on his leg and at that moment a sensation swept over him. The large gash had regenerated and healed to the point of a light cut on his leg. The pain due his broken arm was slightly less painful, his head no longer hurt and his mind felt clearer. Not only that but he felt much more at peace and warm.

As the applicant walked away, Lucius watched him with eyes of respect and gratitude, while the effects of his healing didn't fully heal him of his injuries, it provided something more, the healing had an added effect which helped to calm him down mentally and emotionally. To Lucius who was struggling and in pain this healing was better than anything he had ever received, it felt similar to a warm embrace from a loved one.

"Thank you" Lucius muttered as the Jun En walked away.

*****

The instructor watching this happen just marked it down on his notepad. Jun En didn't fully use his power, using 1 charge as he had thought to not show off too much of his ability and its flaws. However….he underestimated the competition.

In the end he ranked on the mid-lower end for this trial. Despite that healers were hard to come by as most sought to possess battle stories or possessed stories of other utilities thus they had an easier time during the application examination.

He knew that if he wanted to gain what he wanted, to achieve his goal he had to work harder. To be able to stand on his own two feet, to be able to protect his family and to be able to earn his freedom.