.
.
"That number #038 is on 9th place again." Rory stated while looking at the second test's rankings.
"Hoo... Another 9th place. I'll tell you what, if he keeps going with this pace, he might just be the first high school student who'd make it to the final exam today. You know, granted that he passed his Written Exam." John, on the other hand, could be seen giving his opinion to Althea.
"I've never seen him before, which high school is he from? Is he on an Arena team?" Even Rory had started to turn to Althea for answers.
"Hehe, here's your chance little miss. Why don't you introduce him to us?"
"!" Althea widened her eyes at the unexpected responses of the two, 'What good timing!' She thought.
"Yes! M-my brother's name is Irvine Lang, he's been a starter on the Greenwood High's Arena Team for the past three years since he was a freshman!"
"Greenwood High?" Listening to the introduction, John subtly turned to Rory for information. An action that only yield him a simple shrug from his fellow scout.
"Must be some small unknown school."
"...Haha, what that guy meant to say is, the school might be one that has yet to rake in enough achievement to be well-known in Battle Arena."
John tried to smoothen the blow of Rory's comment with his own. But Althea who had inevitably heard it herself was feeling somewhat downcast as she replied with a small, "Yes..."
Knowing that the participant had come from some no-name high school. Both John and Rory had quickly inferred that Irvine might be someone who's lacking in skills despite his seemingly great peak Stage-1 physique.
'3 years of career as a starter and still a no-name player, this is gonna be tough on him...' John shook his head feeling somewhat of a pity.
Althea was still looking down, feeling regretful of her own choice of words.
'Have their evaluations of brother gotten lower? Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned his experience or even our school at all...?' She blamed herself for her poor communication skills.
"Hey, my comment still stands. If he keeps his current pace, it wouldn't be a problem for him to get an offer or two from some colleges after this is over. Right Mister Smith?" John comforted.
Rory affirmed his words with a nod. In his mind, a high school student with a peak Stage-1 physique was rare anywhere in the world.
Although colleges like Verdante or Ravenville wouldn't accept someone with inferior skills in Arena even if he had a great Physical State, there were still many Tier-2 or below colleges who'd be interested in developing such a talent.
"Well, he has a peak Stage-1 body. It won't be a problem for some colleges even if he was less skillful overall." Rory pushed his glasses up in a rare moment of consolation from him.
"Eh? Um, but my brother said that he was at 17.5 Muscle Strength. Won't that count as a later Stage-1 rather than peak?"
The term peak would usually refer to the last one point of a Stage. For Stage-1, it would be from 19.0 to 20.0 points.
This was the realm where it would be possible to get another Genetic Enhancement and increased the cap of one's Muscle Strength by another 10 points.
"Wait... What?" John who had been feeling just the slightest bit bad for the young teenage girl was suddenly jolted awake by the statement.
Even Rory stopped watching the ongoing third test for a moment to look at Althea.
.
"I'm sorry?"
"?" Althea herself was not made aware of the changes she had brought with her words at that time.
"His Muscle Strength. It's at 17.5 when he told me yesterday." She reiterated.
""...""
"This..."
"What's your first estimation on his Muscle Strength Smith?" John spoke to the man beside him, not even bothering to hide his astonishment.
"About low 19 points, high 18 at the most..." Rory's face had also turned serious at this moment.
"Pretty much the same then. A talented person could probably get by with his scores by having around low-to-mid 18 points in Muscle Strength, but..."
17.5!
To achieve higher athletic capabilities with a lower amount of Muscle Strength would require a person to possess one thing.
That is a good muscle coordination!
This was something that every OPL athletes were required to learn to have. Which was also the barrier that differentiated them very much from even the best of college athletes.
The reason why military personnel or professional athletes could achieve a far greater results in physical tests than regular amateurs with roughly the same amount of Muscle Strength was precisely because of their muscle coordination.
But the conditioning and application of one's muscle coordination would only start during one's professional career for both military personnel or Arena athletes.
They would need personal guidance from professionals on the field, so that their performance wouldn't end up getting worse from trying to adjust to their new forms.
Some people; were born naturally gifted with the sense on how to utilize their body more efficiently. And THIS was the most sought after quality in a player for college Arena!
Of course, Irvine was not one of those people by any means.
In the past, he had gone through the same conditioning for bringing out one's Muscle Strength more efficiently with the guidance of a coach during his time in the Pyro Red Dwarf.
He had learnt it slower than many of his colleagues, proving once again that he didn't have the natural sense for it.
Even after returning, he had needed more than a full week to recondition it to fit his weakened Physical State by himself. Currently, his present state was still not done with this process.
But in the eyes of Rory Smith and John Lambert, what he had shown was exactly the talent of someone with the natural sense for muscle coordination!
'Is it really that sort of talent...?' Rory was looking at the distant Irvine with an inquiring look and a new sense of curiosity.
.
"Excuse me, is there anything else?" Althea was finally noticing the surprise looks on both the scouts' faces when she had mentioned Irvine's stats.
What she wasn't sure of was whether those looks were of good news or bad news for her brother, so she tried to ask.
Unfortunately,
"No comment."
"Me as well, no more comment for now I'm afraid."
Both of them had straightly refused to make further speculations on this number #038 examinee.
Assumptions were one thing, but they still needed to see the extent of his talent and skills to judge their next course of actions.
Yes, skills.
'If what that girl said is true, that means his better-than-average records are not achieved through raw powers but techniques...' John thought to himself.
The other reason that the two of them had decided not to speak anymore was because there's an actual real chance now that Irvine might fit the bill to be an invited student athlete for their schools.
Which means, there's also a chance that the two of them would once again be competing for the same talent.
'Oops, I'm getting too ahead of myself.'
.
.
After that little talk, Althea had no other choice but to leave the two of them to continue her rounds with other scouts. There were still many people that she had yet to approach.
The time slowly ticked away for the 2nd batch of participants who were doing their exam.
For the rest of the tests, Irvine had kept his pace stable, always staying in the middle of the rankings for every category.
But with each test he'd done. The atmosphere amongst the rest of the scouts were becoming more and more restless.
Althea kept on going with her effort. In fact, she had picked up her pace to cover more people in a shorter time frame as her nervousness slowly subsided.
With the passings of time, the conversation with each scout had also gotten longer and longer. With more of them asking follow-up questions regarding Irvine towards her.
Irvine's worst performance was on the bench press when he had gotten 11th place on the rankings, not managing to beat any of the college players. But even then, he'd still managed to create a considerable margin between him and the rest of the high schoolers on the batch.
'65...? No, 68. He would have no trouble getting 68 points.' The whole time on the seats, Rory had been estimating in his mind, trying to calculate the possible final scores for Irvine.
The more tests he'd completed, the more commotions there were on the scouts side of the seats.
Whispers regarding Irvine's records were passed frequently between one person to another. This was someone who had stayed in the lower-half of college average records despite the age and Stage differences!
'68 points... He's on track to become a Starseed. God, I hope he's as good in Arena as he is in this Physicals!' Not knowing when it started, John had also stood up from his seats, waiting for the final test with excitement.
His estimated scores had been the same as Rory even though the two hadn't talked to each other ever since.
The Practical Exam tomorrow would be the final hurdle to decide whether Irvine would be worthy of being invited to a Tier-1 college or not.
From the physical aspect, his 17.5 Muscle Strength was well above average for a high school senior. It could barely make it into Tier-1. But the records that he'd achieved with it...
*Hiss*
Currently, John had assumed that only he and Rory were privy to the information regarding his Muscle Strength. But even without it, his overall records were already enough to turn all the heads around him.
On principle, top Tier-1 schools like Verdante and Ravenville, wouldn't actively invite a student solely based on his/her physical merits.
They required their invitee to have a certain standard in their Arena skills as well.
But through the information that they'd currently had, Both John and Rory thought that Irvine had lowered the bar for that aspect by quite a lot.
'I never thought that I might actually need to invite a prospect today...'
.
.
On the field.
*pant* *pant*
Some pantings had begun to become audible around the examinees.
Irvine's breath had also quickened a lot since the start of the tests. The amount of concentrations he'd expended to pull off all those records was more than just a little.
*Huff*
'But now, there's only one more test...!'
The full-minute dodge test.
This was the test that Irvine was most confident about in this whole Physical Exam. And that's because, this was the one test that took the least physical effort and more experience into account.
When his turn finally came up, Irvine slowly walked into the large portable glass box in the middle of the field.
The pillars and frames of this transparent glass box had several holes on them, with fixed intervals in-between one another.
Those holes would act as the nozzles to shoot-out mini-sized rubber balls from multiple directions towards the interior of the box.
Irvine stood silently right in the middle of the glass box, waiting for the starting cue of his test.
.
*BEEP*
When a beeping sound resounded from inside the box followed by a red light indicator on the door, Irvine opened his eyes reflexively.
*POP*
The first rubber ball shoot out diagonally from one of the frames on the floor behind him!
When Irvine didn't see any changes in his line of sight, he decisively performed a wide side step to one of his sides, trying to escape this unseen ball.
*BUMP*
The ball failed to hit its target and flew across the room hitting the glass wall in front of him.
'That's one.'
But the next ball came immediately after without any warning!
*SWOOSH*
This time, the ball was released directly in front of him, flying dead center towards his abdomen.
Irvine turned his body sideways in response, missing the ball by a hair's breadth.
*ssst*
'That's two... What nasty combination from the start!' He complained in his mind.
The two balls' trajectories had been too close for his comfort.
The timings and trajectories of the ball was always random in these tests, hence the reason why many people had said that luck also played a large part in it.
What was fixed however, was the 1-minute time limit for the test along with the total number of the balls being released. It was the only reason that Irvine had been silently counting up in his mind.
.
.
The test went on, and the 1-minute time limit slowly flew by for Irvine inside the box.
'10 more seconds...!'
Within, Irvine could be seen dodging another 2 balls coming from the left and right corner of his position by deliberately falling to the floor.
By now, the floor inside the box was already laden with dozens of balls being strewn about everywhere.
The hit would only get counted if it successfully reached the target in its first trajectory, so the touches that he had gotten from a bounce or the balls on the floor was safe for him.
On the floor, Irvine coincidentally saw that the next one was being loaded up inside one of the nozzles of the upper section frame,
"!!"
*BOOM*
He rolled in time towards the side, avoiding that one as well.
'5 seconds! 4...!'
Irvine was about to stand up after that roll when the next ball unexpectedly came from the hole beside the previous one.
"Damn!" He shouted, but it was too late.
*BAM* The rubber ball hit his body right on the waist.
Balls that were shoot out from the upper frame had the highest velocity because of the gravity's effect on it.
Irvine had been lucky in dodging the first one because he'd seen the nozzle getting loaded up with the ball. But when the next one unfortunately arrived from beside it, Irvine had had no time to properly respond to it.
*BEEEEEEP*
Eventually, the second and longer beeping sound was blared from within the box, indicating the ending of the dodge test for him.
*SIGH*
'2 Hits...' Irvine carefully stood up from his prone position and headed towards the exit of the glass box.
During that 1-minute test, he had been hit twice by the balls. Once in the middle of the test because of a miscalculation, while the other one occured during his final seconds of it.
'What a pity...' Irvine had felt that had he not rolled towards the wrong side in that last moment, he could've kept his 1 hit score.
He came out of the enclosed glass walls just in time to see the monitor getting updated once again.