Awaking abilities (2/4)

For now, Sebastian could finally stop pretending with closed eyes…

Why am I even faking though? Suddenly, the boy realized that it wasn't necessary in the first place.

Somehow, this reminds him of the uncountable occasions in math class when, for incongruent reasons, something was learned by him, but not yet by his classmates.

In a situation like that, most of the time he keeps silent instead of bragging or asking to leave the class. Because he knows that in the most unexpected moment, little useful information that he had no idea of will appear mixed with the lesson, and even if there's no such thing, the class was still good for feedback.

His good student habits might have disappeared already, but some parts of that haven't died yet.

That brought him here today, to hear what can be considered classified information.

He was baffled that Manifesters could be created by human intervention for example.

…

"Okay, now we are moving on to the next stage."

After Tina Allenson said that, Sebastian felt the condensed mana in the classroom diminish until almost disappeared.

Not letting him any time to analyze the reasons for the odd phenomenon, the soldiers placed a familiar device in front of all the students sitting in the first row.

"Please be careful with this machine, it's expensive, don't break it, the price is around ten thousand dollars each."

Oh, I see, it's that thing.

Sebastian thought.

Looking at the student placing their hands over the machine following the soldiers' indication, Sebastian recognized where the familiarity came from.

This is the device used to evaluate the number of ability slots in a Manifester. In his encounter with Russell Nguyen, the man brought a bigger and better version of it to put him to the test.

Since it looks a bit different, Sebastian didn't recognize it at first glance.

The mechanic of the instrument is simple, it works with 10 ability gems that are restricted from getting out, so the Manifester can't absorb it.

But then the sensors inside do catch the movements, causing the tiny lights bulbs to turn on.

The number of gems reacting would be the Manifester's ability slot number.

If the device with ten gems isn't enough, they just need to bring a second or third device to use at the same time. Although if someone has 10+ slots they're above average already, and if the case is 20+, that's an absolute talented genius.

However, this testing method might have some loopholes: it probably doesn't work for people who already absorbed a gem.

So talented people can pretend they are not? Sebastian asked inside despite that was nothing of his concern. The authorities should have some kind of solution.

…

As the students kept testing with the limited number of machines in the room and then passing these to the person behind, Tina Allenson took the time to explain what other things are related to the slot number, and that was the mana absorption speed.

Form 1 to 5 slots, that's the normal range.

6 to 10 slots mean that this person absorbs 1.2 times faster.

11-15 is 1.5 times

16-17 is 1.7 times

From 18 onwards, the speed is the slot multiplied by 0.1.

18 = 1.8 times

19 = 1.9 times

20 = 2.0 times

21 = 2.1 times

22 = 2.2 times

And so on.

But as said before, the higher the number, the rarer is the Manifester.

"Yes sir! I've 8 slots!"

"Why are you even proud, I got 9!"

"Hohoho, little b*tches, I would say I have 10, but I might need a second machine to see if I don't have 20 hohohohoho."

The mood of students raised in high spirits, showing off their numbers while the soldiers with low presence wrote down this data.

Those who didn't know if they manifested or not were finally relieved after seeing the lights turning on.

…

4 light.

The device on Sebastian's hands only shone 4 lights.

As he expected.

Without any surprise or disappointment, he returned the machine to the soldier, since no one else was behind him.

But the curious eyes in the room interpreted the scene differently.

"Is he okay? I think that was the lowest of our class."

"The way he gave back the expensive box… looked so defeated, what if there was a mistake? Maybe he can try again."

"No offense, but if I only had 4 slots, I would rather prefer to not awake anything. At least it gives hope for the next time I try."

"I honestly feel bad for Sebastian, nothing has gone right for him since…"

"Babe! I got 10 light!" Alexandra suddenly yelled, cutting the whispers without realizing.

Then those previous attentions were all caught by her.

She rose the device clumsily for Miriam and Sebastian to see. Just to realize that Miriam's also shone 10 lights.

"Congrats." The blonde girl put the instrument on her girlfriend's desk. "Here, use mine to see how many you have in total."

"Hehe, sixteen, and you?"

Miriam stretched out her hands.

"Thirteen."

"Wow, I won!"

"Yes yes, you won~" Miriam petted Alexandra's head.

…

But not everything was just fantasy and passion.

By comparison, other students that didn't awake anything held the machine tightly, hoping it to shine, at least one light.

That did not happen.

The classmates and friends around started to comfort them. But somewhat, coming from the victorious people, that felt awkward and out of place.

Tina Allenson standing in the front of the classroom read through the data handed by the soldiers. At some point, she cracked a smile seeing the two-digit numbers on the list.

But her job didn't consist of the favorable results only, she had to be partial.

"Those who didn't awake, don't worry. Today's result doesn't mean you're untalented or anything of that style, it just tells us that your body isn't ready yet."

"You can sign up for a trip to our forest base this weekend, the concentration of Mana is higher the closer you get to the portal, this opportunity is unique. Although it will have some additional cost, so please communicate with your teachers if you're interested."

"And no matter if you go on this trip or not, in case that in any close future you awake naturally, we'll leave one testing device at your school under your principal's supervision. The most important part today was the information given, so it's not the end of the world."

"Quack!" The duck spoke too as if it said 'don't give up'.

"Now, those who did become a Manifester, please follow me to the gym, we'll do some testing of your initial abilities. The rest, have a nice day. And please remember to not reveal any of the things that happened here."

With that said, half of the students stood up, leaving the room in a disciplined manner.

Of course they did, soldiers were watching.

As the last one to exit, before closing the door, Sebastian heard his teacher's voice saying 'open your book on page…', but he doubted that the students still had an interest in listening to that class.

The teacher probably knew it too, but instead of rubbing salt in their wounds by saying 'let's talk it out', maybe it was better a bit of distraction.

…

The group of fourteen students followed the Woman, the duck, and the three soldiers to the gym.

On their way, they casually found another group of students escorted by other MDW officers.

The looks on the teenagers' faces were similar: excited to test their new 'superpowers'.

"You own me the dinner." Tina Allenson said smiley to the other MDW superior after counting the number of students following him.

"Twelve… thirteen… Fourteen… Shoot, by a single one." The man cried for his wallet for a second. "Let's go grab some food here in town then, what about some roasted chicken?"

"There's a reason why you're single and now I know it." The uniformed woman teased.

…

The now bigger group crossed the locker hallways to finally stand in front of their destination.

When they opened that door and entered the gym, a huge surprise was taken out of them.

"Mhmm, did something happen during these months that I didn't know of?" Sebastian asked the two girls referring to the destroyed floor, broken basketball hoops, and burned walls.

This place was a disaster.

"Terrorism?" Alexandra said the first word that came to her mind.

"No wait, I meant vandalism! I have no idea why I said the first thing." She hurried to explain again to the closest soldiers.

"The MDW will pay for this, so don't worry. We just can't test your abilities outside or else people will watch what we are doing."

To the bewilderment of the newly arrived teenagers, a man dressed in casual clothes approached them. And by casual, he was way too comfortable: shorts, sandals, a loose T-shirt of a rock band, and even sunglasses. Knowing that Zhreta doesn't have any water-related tourist attractions, dressing like that was just strange.

"Actually, you folks can even see this as an opportunity to damage school property," He joked as he touched with his index finger his head. "…without any sanction."

"First Lieutenant Meeks! I didn't know you would be here." Tina Allenson turned around in surprise after seeing the man.

"Russell is an absolute asshole, he knew that today was my day off and still decided to call me. If it wasn't because I'm curious about the initials of these chicks, I wouldn't even come here." The sunglasses man complained.

"Good to see you here sir." Tina Allenson smiled to avoid the red flags.

"Just go, they are waiting for your duck, all those kids are stuck here because they don't know how to use their initial. We need to keep moving, really, how many other schools do we need to go to today? And why… wait, is that? Ian! Is that you?"

The man suddenly left the woman behind and walked closer to the group of students.

These teens cleverly opened the way for him, until he finally grabbed the person he looked for by the shoulders.

"Ian, what are you doing here?"

"Huh?"

Sebastian looked at the sunglasses in front of him, full of question marks over his head.

Who's this man? And why is he touching my body?