As soon as the Principal left the room, everyone rushed towards the anatomy lab. Unfortunately, we had hidden in the corner of the gym, and even with the holy elbow jab and smiting knee to the crotch, we could only force our way so far. In the end, about 210 people were in front of us, while about 60 were behind us. Even worse, the 60 behind us were all glaring at me. Apparently, some of them weren't too happy about my holy elbow jab to the solar plexus, who would've thought.
At first, it wasn't too bad. Every student spends hours learning how to stand in a line. In kindergarten, you learn to hold hands and wait to go to the bathroom before taking a nap. In High School, you learn how to cut, not let someone else cut, and the wonders of slamming your heel on someone's instep. This time though, the line just seemed not to move. Every time we took a step forwards, we'd look up to see that we were actually further from the stairs instead of closer. After half an hour, I started sweating, my face flushed. An hour later, we finally made it to the stairs and I could barely move.
Climbing the stairs turned into a battle of mythical proportions. The floor seemed to shine, the air shimmer, and gravity steadily increased the higher we got. Sweat poured off me, people had started to collapse on the stairs, rolling down it. I nearly got taken out by a 350 lb. guy who seemed to have passed out. Looking to the side, for the first time since I met him Connor's hair wasn't perfect.
After about an hour, I finally managed to make it to the second floor. On the way we'd managed to pass about a hundred people, in the end I was crawling up one step at a time, sometimes over the person in front of me. As soon as I was completely out of the stairwell, the pressure went away completely.
It took me nearly 10 minutes to work up enough energy to look around, noticing that no one dared to enter the stairwell again. To my left, Rick, Beth, and Connor were still unable to move while they lay on top of each other. Smiling evilly, I took out my phone took a picture. Putting it on mebook with the caption, "They finally got busy!".
Chuckling to myself, I heard Mrs. Harmon mumbling under her breath, "Can't believe they're doing this to students, what imbeciles." She walked up to me, and placed her hand on my forehead. A white light suddenly surrounded me, and I was rejuvenated. If it wasn't for my shirt plastered to my skin due to sweat, I would've thought the entire incident had never happened.
"Get a move on, we'll have to stop testing at 4 so everyone can get home before the storm." Mrs. Harmon pushed me towards the stairs as she went to help the others recover.
Taking a deep breath, I took my first step towards the third floor. My knee's buckled, my hands flying out to try cover my face as face planted into the stairs. "What the hell is going on?!?!" I yelled, unfortunately no one answered me. Now, normally I'd just say screw it, and go home. But for some reason, I just couldn't give up. No matter what. In the back of my mind a voice, weirdly similair to Coach Christopher the PE coach, was constantly screaming at me, "You think you're special? Well you ain't yet. And you never will be if you DON'T GET UP!!!!"
I started to climb despite the ever increasing gravity. Whatever Mrs. Harmon had done to me had given me a seemingly endless amount of energy. Every step, I climbed to my knees slowly with my arms shaking as I pushed myself up. Then, I let myself fall forward to the next step. Using this technique I somehow managed to climb the 24 steps to the third floor.
This time, I only needed 5 minutes to recover after making it all the way to the top, thanks to Mrs. Harmon. Somehow, I'd managed to pass everyone and as I shakily stood, I turned to look at the stairs. Rick, Beth, and Connor were slowly making their way up together. Rick and Beth helping to pull Connor up while another hundred or so were making their way up.
*DING* The elevator chimed, and I dropped my jaw in shock as about 20 students who didn't manage to make it up the stairs walked out.
"What the fuck!!! We could take the elevator?" I nearly exploded in rage, eyes going red as I remembered the nearly 2 hours of hell going up the stairs.
Principal Hubert opened the door to the anatomy lab just as I cursed, "Yeah, but only those of you who make it up the stairs will get their implants for free. Everyone else has to pay for them, we set it up as a scholarship test. Congratulations Mr. Hughes, but please keep the cursing to a minimum." He glared at me for a moment, his eyes flashing a dark red before continuing, "Now, if you'll follow me, those who passed the test get to go first."
Following Principal Hubert into the room, I saw it'd completely changed since this morning when I barged in on the suits and Ms. Johanson. All the furniture had disappeared, and two giant metal boxes had been erected with male and female signs on them. I approached the one on the left slowly, still not completely recovered from the climb. The fat guy in the suit handed me a clipboard saying, "This is a waiver, saying that you are over 17 and you understand what the test is. Under the waiver is an explanation of the test."
Not giving it a second thought, I flipped past the waiver and began reading. 'The implant compatibility test is actually a body constitution test. The implants run on various types of energy, but since they are inside your body you can't exactly plug them in. That's why we test each applicant's body constitution to learn what type of energy cultivation the applicant is most compatible with. During the test, after determining your most compatible cultivation type, energy is forced into the applicant in order to open the applicant's energy storage vessel. This is usually in the pubic region known as the dantian, although in rare cases they can be in the heart, or brain area known as the mindspace. The forceful opening of an energy storage vessel is known as a forced awakening, and can be dangerous if done improperly. This machine is known to have a 99.8% success rate of awakening, by signing the waiver you are forgoing your rights to sue in the case of an imperfect, or completely failed awakening.'
By the time I finished reading, my jaw had dropped. EC, or energy cultivation has been widespread since the late 2010's. Everyone knows cultivation exists, and almost everyone joins a school at some point, but only 1-2% of the population is ever able to successfully open their energy vessel becoming a cultivator. Even if it's dangerous, the fact that this machine can actually open it safely over 99% of the time... God, the world will never be the same again!
Without even thinking twice, I signed the waiver. Since I learnt about cultivation, I've always dreamt of flying around, raining hell down on my foes. Not only that, but if this machine actually works, than anyone who doesn't cultivate will quickly find themselves irrelevant. Cultivators live longer, have higher cognitive functioning, are stronger, faster, have more stamina... What company wouldn't want legions of cultivator employee's? Heck, most CEO's of fortune 500 companies are cultivators already.
Handing the paperwork back to the fatty, I rushed into the metal chamber without a second thought.