Once I eat, I make my way to the gym, hoping to get some light warm-ups in before today’s test. The moment I manage to enter the gym though, an announcement blares out around the building.
“Will all potential prospects please make their way towards the lobby area. I repeat, will al potential prospects make their way towards the lobby area. Thank you.”
‘Welp, I guess no warm-ups for me.’ I sigh internally as I make my way down towards the lobby.
Entering the lobby, I find it much the same as the last time I saw, that being large and a bit too grandiose for my liking.
Looking around I spot Regalius in a group of about twenty or so people, all of which look to be about my age if not a bit older.
Gael had informed me previously that there was a hard age limit, that being twenty-five years of age. I’m guessing this is to prevent people of a lower rank talent from staying a certain tier for long periods of time and amassing large amounts of mastery levels.
The company seems to take this rule quite seriously, as during the interview, Jimmy has specifically asked me specifically multiple questions about my age in hopes to not only gauge if I actually was the age I claimed to be, but also if I was capable of deceiving his abilities in some way, though I’m not exactly sure how he would be able to tell that second part.
Not wanting to interact with anyone, I sit calmly off to the side on a leather couch and begin practice on my item understanding skill by placing my sword into my lap and staring at it.
Unsurprisingly this, alongside my reputation, garnered me quite a few looks, but I elect to ignore them the best I can.
After about thirty or so minutes of waiting, I’m finally woken from my practice by a loud, attention grabbing voice.
“Alright everyone, I’ll assume that all of you are here and begin talking about what’s gonna be happening here today. So, for this year’s test, the Chairman was able to rent out a trial dungeon for all potential prospects. Now this is a great boon for all of you, even if you don’t pass, so I want you to keep in mind our generosity when you take the test and be respectful of not only our time, but yours. If you fail, there’s no complaining, yelling, fighting, or screaming. Doing so will cause you to be banned from all Saving Face events, buildings, or planets indefinitely. You guys got that?”
Everyone nods.
“Good. Now please follow me outside, a vehicle will be taking us towards the nearest warp pad.” The confident man says quickly before heading towards the door.
We subsequently follow suit, heading outside and onto the courtyard. Waiting for us is a large disc, similar to what Bretta has, but probably close to ten time larger.
We all make our way on the cube one at a time, with the man from before checking our identities with some sort of scanner before we are allowed to step on. Surprisingly, someone actually get stopped by him.
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“I-is everything alright?” The young man asks nervously.
He says nothing and instead stares intensely at both the device and the man.
After a few long moments, he looks over to the side at two large men dressed in elegant robes and nods. Both men nod back and begin walking towards the young man, his panic growing with every step until he bursts out running away off the property.
The two men disappear in a flash and reappear before him, causing him to run face first into the men. The two men then grab him by the neck and place some sort of metal collar on him.
As soon as they do, his face morphs from that of a young human male, to that of gaunt, clear skinned individual with deep black pits for eyes.
The man lets out a series of curses, struggling for his release at every second, before he finally resigns himself to his fate and allow himself to be carried all the way into the building.
“Holy shit, what the hell was that…” I mutter to myself.
“A scalper.” A dreary voice says behind me, causing me to jump in surprise.
I look back to see a grey, humanoid shaped blob of slime.
“System man, you scared me.” I say, letting out a sigh of relief.
“Sorry…” He says as his skin melts sadly in a way that could almost be considered… cute?
“All good, anyway, you said something about a scalper?” I ask, feeling slightly bad.
He returns to normal and answers quickly, eager to make conversation.
“Yeah, they’re called scalpers. Shapeshifters who decide to try and get benefits by killing them and stealing their identity. Quite scary, and I feel bad for the kid who he got to. Normally the building would have certain protections against that stuff, but every year they get better and better at evading detection. All of them give the shapeshifter race a bad rap, which is a real shame because I know a few good ones who’d be more than happy to kill each and everyone of those bastards themselves if they could.”
“Really? So, he could’ve gone after me?” I ask, slightly scared at the possibility.
“Yup, though it really depends on where you live. That guy probably came from a poorer neighborhood as anyone with backing would have more resources to defend against something like that. Really some of this could be considered his own fault for not taking proper precautions against it. Everyone here knows to be careful the month before you’re about to get something, whether it be a large amount of money, or some sort of opportunity for strength.” He says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Uh yeah, duh.” I say, very clearly lying. Luckily for me though, he doesn’t seem to notice
‘Good thing I didn’t leave this place, who knows what kind of people would have been waiting in ambush.’
“So what’s your name?” The dreary, but talkative blob person asks me.
“Uh Rowan. Rowan Attain.” I reply.
“Ohhh, so you’re the one that pissed of Prospect Kitania. I’m Dodge, nice to meet you.”
I sigh before replying,
“Yup, that was me.”
“Wow, impressive. Also is it true you beat Regalius in a fight? No way it’s true, but I figured I have to ask.”
“Yeah, though he said he wasn’t going all out.” I answer.
“Really? Still impressive. That guy’s a monster. Very easily a rank 1 talent when he wants to be, though he’ll never say that.” Dodge replies.
“You know him?” I ask.
“Of course I know him, who doesn’t. That guys practically a celebrity with how many arena battles he’s had over the past year.”
“That many? What’s the deal with that? Is he just hated or something?” I ask.
“No, but let’s just say his family has a lot of political opponents in the city that would love to throw their top prospect at him. They even sent a tier 5 at him.” Dodge replies as his slime shivers slightly, “That fight was brutal, clearly personal.”
“Sounds rough.” I reply, as the line once again begins to move forward, much to my relief.
“It was. Extra so when you consider his family’s… ideals.”
“Ideals?” I ask.
“His family is, eccentric, when it comes to giving their kids things. By eccentric, I mean they throw them out on the street and tell them to figure it out on their own. Something about ‘the best steel in forged in the hottest forge’ or something similar. Stupid if you ask me, but who am I to judge.” Dodge says while shrugging his shoulders.
Finally, the line turns to my turn, and after being thoroughly scanned, I’m allowed onto the disc. Once Dodge is let through to, we continue to talk about various subjects. Most of the time it’ll be me asking him questions about the city, about notable people, and about the wider multiverse in general.
It was a really refreshing conversation all things considered. It was also enlightening just how little I really knew about how the multiverse actually functioned.
In what felt like no time at all, we reach the warp pad, marking the beginning of our test.