After finishing his "trip" around the table, Arthur came back to where everyone was standing. "What's gonna happen now?" he asked, pretending not to notice the surprised stares from everyone.
"Now we are going to go and get your adventurers identification card made", Mara answered politely. "Follow me", she started leading the way out of the room and into an elevator.
The elevator was quite big, which surprised Arthur. Mara pressed a button for the third floor and soon a *Ding* sound could be heard as the doors of the elevator opened.
What greeted Arthur and the others was a wide, red hallway, which lead to a big reception desk, with an empty seat.
Mara got behind the table and sat down on a blue computer chair. Then she typed something on the keyboard and looked at all the new Linkers that were standing before her.
What she was doing was filling in the information for the cards. She filled in the names, ages and the affinities of each person standing in front of the desk. At the end, she filled in the date on which the card form was made and stood up again.
"Now we are going to go into the room where everyone is going to take a photo for the card", Mara explained and started walking further down the corridor with us following after her.
We entered a room that looked pretty standard for taking a picture. There was a photo booth in the center and Mara told everyone to go in one by one. Everyone went inside in the order that they took their affinity test in. So Arthur was the last one to enter.
Just as he entered the photo booth the door behind him closed on its own and he heard a robotic sounding voice. "Please state your name". Arthur did just that. After that the same voice said "State your affinity and its grade" in its robotic tone. "Excellent grade fire affinity", Arthur answered without wasting any time.
"Please display your soul gem in close proximity to your face", the voice exclaimed. Arthur put his hand near his face and waited. "3...2...1..." *Kachow* after the countdown there was a bright flash of light and the door of the photo booth opened.
After Arthur exited, the machine spat out a transparent card, with his name, photo, age and affinity, which Arthur quickly collected.
"Now comes the most important part of the card verification. You have to drop a drop of your blood onto the card so it can collect your bio-metric data and confirm its owner", Mara said with a serious face.
Without waiting Arthur bit his finger and dropped a drop of blood on the card. It shined and became less transparent than before. "That hurt, Arthur!", he suddenly heard a voice. At first he was confused, but then he remembered that now he had Cali as his special soul-beast.
'You can feel my pain?' Arthur asked. "Yes, i can feel your pain, emotions and even desires. It's as if i am part of you now, remember that." Cali answered honestly. 'That could be useful in certain situations, Arthur thought and looked at Mara and the others.
They all seemed a bit grossed out. "What?" Arthur asked in a confused tone. And then he saw the girls had needles in their hands to prick their fingers with.
"It's nothing, Arthur" Mara said. 'It is just that there was no need to bite your finger, as i had prepared, some needles. But i guess boys will be boys, always eager to rush ahead of others' she thought to herself with a silly smile on her face.
"Congratulations on officially becoming Linkers." Mara congratulated after everyone was done with their card verification. "From now on you will have access to classified information and facilities that you wouldn't be able to access otherwise." She said.
"Although how you do in the future will depend on your choices and luck", now everyone follow me. Mara lead everyone back to the reception desk, and sat back down behind it.
"Now you can choose where you will stay and train for the upcoming month. I recommend the Linkers Plaza in the center of the city. It is the best training hotel, that our city has to offer and the whole month of training and lodging will be compensated by the government so there is no need to be shy." Mara recommended.
"No thanks, my family has the best resources and private teachers so i don't need anything you offer, can i leave now?" Emilia snorted and asked Mara if she can leave.
"No one is holding you hostage, you can leave any time you want" Mara said with a cold look on her face. She didn't like Emilia's behavior at all.
'How rude can this girl be' Everyone thought to themselves. And continued with their business. Harp and Aria, chose the Linkers Plaza, without batting an eye. Its like they waited to jump on that opportunity all this time.
"What about you, Arthur, where will you go?" Mara asked. "Let me think for a moment" Arthur said and started weighing the ups and downs of going to Linkers Plaza. "Come on, Arthur, we will have so much fun together!" the twins said at the same time, using their puppy-dog eyes technique.
They have taken quite a liking to Arthur today and so they had decided to try and rope him in into coming with them.
"Alright", Arthur sighed an gave in to their wish. 'There is no better place to go to anyways' he thought and agreed to go with them.
"Okay, i will send you the details of when your stay at the Linkers Plaza begins to your E-mail's in the following days. So pack up your stuff and be ready." Mara laughed and gestured for them to leave.
"Thank you, miss Mara" the twins said and left, but not before grabbing Arthur by his hand and dragging him out of the door together.