Back on stage 12, the Lead Observer finished his task of installing the Elite token into the brother’s Watcets, and along with the other seven Observers, escorted Cynrik’s group down off the Stage and through the crowd.
As Cynrik passed by, no other applicant made eye contact with him or even looked in his direction. Instead, they would immediately look at the ground and shrink back in fear when he passed. The memory of being subjected to the brother’s Killing Intent was fresh in their minds, and there wasn’t a single person who wanted to feel that oppressive force again. So, unspokenly and unanimously, over 400 children chose to make their existence as small as possible.
Cynrik picked up on this fact and sneered gloatingly. It was apparent that everyone left standing around Stage 12 were Tier-0 beings without Perfect Foundations, causing him to lose interest in them entirely. Brance, on the other hand, felt sad that he had joined in on his brother’s ruthless plan, causing a level of trauma to each of these kids.
With the absence of the eight Observers, Stage 12 was subsequently shut down, and the crowd was disbursed and integrated into Stages 10 and 11. Not a single child from Stage 12 was against this.
Meanwhile, under the guidance of the eight Observers, Cynrik and Co. were brought back toward the dorms, however, instead of entering them, a small Spatial Tear formed, and they were ushered through it. This did not go unnoticed by several groups of people.
At Stage 7, a pair of eyes followed Cynrik’s every movement. They belonged to a teenage boy in the group Cynrik had run into earlier from the Evasdeen Family. Nelson Evasdeen clenched his fist tightly. He had seen the asshole kid from earlier, who threatened him and his cousins, had triggered the golden glow from his machine; what’s more, he had actually already informed his father about the incident. Although all outside communication with the Watcet was disabled during the Exam, several large clans had ways around this; the Evasdeen was one. Unfortunately, Cynrik wasn’t aware that Nelson had used his family’s skill [Inspect] during the scuffle that day and memorized his full name. Not only that, but Nelson had run to his Dad to make him deal with the kid. To Nelson’s surprise, he was nearly made deaf by his father’s rage-filled screams.
It turned out that that ruthless kid Cynrik was actually the son of his father’s estranged third sister, making him his younger cousin. Naturally, Nelson’s father, Aspin Evasdeen, was absolutely furious. But, unlike the rest of the Evasdeen family who viewed Cinyah as a traitor and had disowned her, Aspin still cared dearly about his youngest sister, and when he found out her children were not only in the Exam, but his own son had tried to attack the oldest son, he nearly had a heart attack.
Growing up, Aspin was bullied by the rest of his siblings, except Cinyah, who acted more like an older sister to him, even though she was seven years his junior. As a child, Aspin was not only underweight due to sickness, but he was exceptionally slow at training up his Affinity, which led to constant ridicule from all of his peers in the family. The only thing Aspin really had going for him back then was how excessively high he had trained his [Inspect] skill; he was the only Evasdeen to have reached Tier-7 with it. Over time, he had even surpassed the patriarch and earned himself a spot as an elder of their clan.
But having a high skill wasn’t enough to stop the events that led to Cinyah’s departure and expulsion from the clan. The night she left with Rikard, Aspin found them and, after a tear-filled goodbye, gave her a unique artifact he had made, which would allow them to stay in contact, thus he was well aware of how strong Cinyah’s children were. Every year, on his birthday, Cinyah would call him and tell him all about her two sons. Cynrik, the rowdy one who gets in trouble constantly and talks back, and Brance, the kind-hearted one who could do no wrong.
Thus, when Nelson had called using one of his unique artifacts and told him how he had nearly fought with Cynrik, he wanted to bash his stupid son over the head with a piece of wood until he knocked some sense into the kid.
For over an hour, he interrogated his son, wanting to know every little detail of the event, and even wanting to know if the other members of the Evasdeen Exam team had done what he did by using [Inspect] and informing their parents. Nelson said he was the only one, and other than Quatre, none of them had even realized what happened, thanks to Nelson’s quick thinking, making Aspin secretly praise his dumb son.
That night, Nelson went to Quatre and told the younger boy to forget the scuffle had ever happened, but this didn’t mean Nelson himself would let it go. On the contrary, he was pissed that an inferior kid from a disowned member of his family had the gall to stand up to and insult him, and he made a vow to punish Cynrik in the near future. Or at least that was the plan until he saw Cynrik and Brance not only trigger the golden light, which according to his father, was a sign of being an Elite but also get escorted by all eight observers from his Stage.
All Nelson could do was grit his teeth and curse the asshole in his mind. It was abundantly clear that he wouldn’t get a chance for revenge. Kicking the ground in anger and drawing the attention of his teammates, Nelson went back to paying attention to the line he was waiting in.
—
After stepping through the Spatial tear, Cynrik and Brance quickly went on high alert. They were assaulted on all sides by a strange sticky feeling, and Gabby even reached out, grabbing Brance’s hand. The Observers turned around curiously to see how the two brothers would react but were unsatisfied due to neither having any outward response.
Cynrik calmly looked around and saw they had entered a massive, roofless square room the size of a football stadium. The walls of this room were covered with thousands of large doors glowing in various colors and shades.
“Welcome to the most dangerous area for thousands of miles. This room is called the Valor City Compound, and each one of those doors leads directly to an Egress located somewhere in the country. Every door here connects to a single Alpha Spatial Egress; the door’s color corresponds to the danger level presented by that individual Egress. Upon stepping through one of these doors, you will be teleported to the site, where you will be barred entry until paying for it. Keep in mind that outside of the Exam, you will have to pay the entry cost necessary to dive into that Egress, the price of which is in the control of that Egresses owner.”
While they walked across the building toward a cluster of applicants who had already passed the Physical Exam, the Lead Observer started explaining what they were seeing.
“For the purpose of the Practical Exam, you will be limited to choosing your Exam location to one of the over 100 Green Alphas. Access to any higher levels will be blocked, and you will suffer a…minor…physical punishment dealt by your Watcet if you try entering any door other than the green ones.”
[Cyn, I’m not really following…] Brance was slightly lost with all the talk of different classifications; in school, they had only been taught to run at first sight of Egresses; he didn’t delve deep into the information about them like Cynrik had.
[Alphas are basically permanent dungeons, clear them, then leave, and it resets, Betas are temporary ones that disappear when you clear them, and Gamma Egresses are basically rips in the fabric of space that drop a shit ton of monsters on a location before closing. The color scale represents the Tiers of monsters in them. Each type has a slightly different variation on the power scale inside. For Alphas, Green is all Tier-1, Blue has 1 and 2, Orange is 2-3, Purple is 4-5, they have a pretty significant power scale increase, and then there’s Red, where the weakest creatures inside are at Tier-6, and the strongest found have reached Tier-8. Lastly is the legendary Black Egress, they are only found in myths, but those stories say the creatures within are basically gods. No one alive has ever seen one, so there isn’t shit for info on it.]
[So basically, they wanna send a bunch of Tier-0 and 1 children into a dungeon that is filled with Tier-1 monsters…that sounds like a one-way trip to me.] Brance tightened his grip on Gabby’s tiny hand in worry as he thought about her being forced to fight alone against a bunch of Tier-1 monsters.
[Not really; think of Green Alphas as a tutorial, where you’ll see mainly small animals like slimes, fanged-rabbits, lizards, and shit. The threat level isn’t that high; we coulda decimated them at Tier-0. Mind you, this only applies to Alpha Egresses; up to Orange, we would probably be fine. But that changes if we factor in Beta or Gamma. I doubt we would last long in anything higher than a Blue Beta; as for Gamma, well, those are more like a marathon. Think endless flows of Tier-1 creatures that can last for days on end; that’s basically what a Green Gamma is.]
[So, what your saying is Mom and Dad regularly jump into ones below Orange?]
[Eh, how am I supposed to know? They stopped telling me about work years ago. If I had to guess, they jump into Egresses that won’t get them killed but will make them money. Not everyone is as crazy as the two of us.] Cynrik clasped his hands behind his head and followed the Observers while explaining a few more things he knew to Brance.