"Yes, I am, but my brother here is not. He's just accompanying me," Hannah replied.
"Ah, I see. Nice to meet you two," the elderly man said.
"Nice to meet you too," both Hannah and Alex replied the greeting.
The three of them walked inside the building and were stopped by the guards. After verifying their information, they were made to go to a certain room to wait before the program went live.
There were already a few people, all young ones, in the room when the group of three arrived. Slowly people started being added one after another and soon it reached around 30 people in the room.
However, not all of them were being interviewed. Half of the people were like Alex, who came with their friends or family to support them today. Nobody decided to start up a conversation with someone they didn't know and only kept talking with the people they came in with.
After a while, a woman from the staff entered and started calling out names. She called about 13 names before she stopped. Hannah's name was among them as well.
"Alright, I will be off. You should be able to see me on that TV over there," Hannah said and left. 12 other people consisting of 5 young women, 6 young men, and the elderly gentlemen left as well.
Alex looked at the time and realized that there was still 15 minutes before the actual program began.
'Are they going to prepare their talking points or something?' Alex started wondering.
'I wonder if these people think of their time in the game as a job too. Sister did mention that they were selected based on their bank transaction. Also,' he looked around and thought, 'What happened to that guy that said he was the best in the game? He seems to be missing.'
After a few minutes, about 10 minutes before the show started, a woman walked in and asked, "Hello, would you people want to sit in the audience of today's show?"
"Yes, please," a bunch of people stood up and started walking out of the room. Alex decided to do so too. Along the way, the staff member gave them a bunch of information on the do and don't in the studio like putting your phone on silent or vibration mode.
Alex got seated at the corner seat with a girl about the same age as him seated next to him. She was wearing a small pinkish-red dress with frills all around it. She had glasses on that complimented her big and beautiful eyes. She seemed to be a little anxious about something and was constantly fidgeting about it.
"Are you alright?" he proceeded to ask.
"Oh!," the girl jumped in response. She then immediately apologized. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to freak out like that. I— I'm just not used to being around people," the girl said.
"It's okay. I just saw you fidgeting a lot and wondered if you were alright. If you are fine, then it's okay," Alex said.
"Thank you," the girl said.
Alex looked back to the stage and nobody was there yet. There were still about 5 minutes for the show to start, so he decided to make some small talk.
"Are you here with someone?" he asked.
"Ah, yes. I— I'm here with my roommate. She is quite good at the game and told me that she landed an interview and dragged me here. I wonder when it will start," she started to drift off with her thoughts and then remembered that she was still talking.
"Oh, what about you?" she asked.
"I'm here with my cousin. She didn't tell me what was going on and just dragged me here," he said with a chuckle.
"I'm Alex by the way," he said as brought forth his hand for a shake.
The girl hesitated for a bit, but reciprocated at the end with a handshake and said, "I'm Emily. Nice to need you, Alex."
"Nice to meet you, Emily," Alex said with a smile.
Then, a bunch of noise started coming from the stage as the 13 people in the show starting walking up the stage to sit on one of the 13 seats on the stage. There was another seat a bit to the right reserved for the host.
"Ah, she said interview, but it seems like it's more of a talk show," Alex said.
"M—My friend said it was an interview as well. Seems like there were too many people for it to be an interview and they will have to change the format," Emily suppressed her anxiety to speak.
Once all the 13 people were seated in their seats, the host walked onto the stage and sat on his seat.
Within a minute, the light in the audience dimmed and the show started.
"Good evening everyone. This is your host, Drake Hamil from Channel 8. Tonight, we have these 13 people in front of us. Now, while they may look like some ordinary high school students … or maybe teachers for one person's case, they are actually something way better."
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me introduce you to the 13 Best of the best players in Eternal Cultivation right now," the host spoke.
Countless applause rang up around the studio devouring any other sound. After the crowd was finally silent, the 13 people went around introducing themselves.
Hannah introduced herself 3rd. When a lady named Sarah introduced herself, Emily let Alex know that she was her friend there. The old gentleman introduced himself as Sean White. He was at least 20 years older than the host, so the host didn't try to make any more funny remarks about the man.
Soon, after the round of introductions were done, the host spoke, "Let's start tonight's show where we talk with the current top players of Eternal Cultivation. Go in-depth with some of the mysteries surrounding the game and maybe have some questions that a game developer over at Deva Corp can answer to us, all in today's show.