It had been more than an hour into the yellow testing, a few hundred had shown their ability, on average each took three to four minutes to demonstrate. That also accounted for their arrival and departure from the stage, in truth, only about two minutes were allowed per participant to show their understanding of a random scroll.
Hana was in the final group to demonstrate, she wasn't quite feeling the pressures of a time crunch. She was still in amazement over Jeannies moderate transformation, it wasn't anything mind blowing but she had awakened her bloodline to at least 1%. If she hadn't she would not have had a visible change in her appearance. Jeannie's ears grew rounder, more full and her tail grew thicker, wider.
'Wild Red Heart,' Hana thought about it for a brief moment, then went back to studying. The Eagle's Eyes Pierces Rock technique was profound in itself, it was very hard for her to read. Mostly she felt that the scroll was toying with her eyes, focusing on the words was taking a lot of concentration.
֍ꟷꟷꟷꟷ֍
Another contestant came up to the stage, it was the child of an Esper Hybrid, He was covered in feathers with a snake head. He resembled a winged serpent but had a humanoid like body. As he approached the stage, all eyes were on him. The other three stages did little to gain approval of their abilities, small windows showed the scroll each participant was suppose to be performing to the judge panel.
The hybrid was named Geinse, he was performing a scroll called 'Weathered rock changes river.' It was an intermediate scroll that was rarely chosen and thrown down to the yellow rack to trip over.
He stood at the edge of the stage, as the child of an Esper, he already had some sort of magical ability. A bright fluid started to amass in front of him, he shot it outward and flashed to the to other side.
'He's quick' The Judges were keeping a close watch.
Once on the other side of the blast, he started waving his hands, a slow rolling motion. He was attempting to change the course of the blast, deflecting it or portions of it elsewhere. There was a cutting of the projectile, bits of the magic started to go into the crowd and the other stages. He had lost control, the projectile maintained its momentum and knocked him down, unconscious.
The Judges gave a thumbs down to all four participants on the stage, their time was up and unimpressive.
Jeannie sank back into her Wild Red Heart scroll, her group would be starting in less than an hour and she wanted to perform well.
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There were only five more participants from the yellow phase of testing, the number of Orange particpants was much less than the yellow phase. Once they were finished with the yellow round of testing, it was time to change the stages, the four smaller stages were traded for two medium size stages in the center of the Event.
People were really starting to cheer as the contestants started to come onto the stages.
The First up was another Esper, a Leonyan-Centauri Hybrid. He was performing 'Summers Breath makes me feel fine' It was a vocal transmission technique, using sound to calm the atmosphere. It looked and sounded a lot like singing but it had a special quality to it. As he roared, it sounded with a melody in the air and the crowd went tranquil.
Hana was lost in her scroll, she found herself very relaxed and in tune with her own consciousness. Control over her eyes became an easy matter, she started to memorize the contents of the scroll.
When the last word was finally memorized and repeated in her head like a mantra, her vision went berserk for a moment. Her eyes started to tremble, her pupils contracted to the size of a pin and the scroll shattered to pieces. It snapped her out of it. 'What? No... No...' She started panicking on the inside, Jeannie looked at the scroll chunks laying on the ground and gasped.
"What happened?" Jeannie was looking at Hana with pity in her eyes, "What happened?"
Hana picked up the pieces and tried putting it back together, but the scrollwork was blasted apart. She saw a piece a bit further away and went to grab it, her vision fired again.
The scroll spindle shattered further, it was now a pile of dust.
"Hana, what's going on?" Jeannie seemed concerned but Hana just started laughing.
"I get it now, I totally get it." 'Eagle's Eye pierces rock' Hana looked at the Elementium podium that the announcer had used at the first round of eliminations. A crack appeared.
She pulled back her senses and rested her eyes. She tried to get her mind off the technique and let her body settle down, she started to think about what she read in the Wild Red Heart technique that Jeannie was studying instead. It took her concentration away, her eyes felt like they were trembling less. As the tremors ended, she opened her eyes again and stared at the sky.
There was nothing to break in the sky. The Leonyan roared again as his demonstation time ended, it sent Hana back into a spiral of concentration. She was prepared to let her mind wander but the roar of 'Summer's Breath makes me feel fine' had driven her into another state of epiphany. The skimmed words of Wild Red Heart replayed in her mind, she started placing bits of her accumulated knowledge into the technique, what she knew from the books she had read and what she had seen from Jeannie's own transformation.
A golden fluid started to seep from the pores on her skin, Jeannie could see what was happening. The moment the Leonyan's technique sounded, she became despondent. 'Is that?' Jeannie knew that there was nothing normal about Hana's state. She collected some of the fluid and set it aside.
The fluid started to encase Hana, her skin started to shift and change. Hana's bloodline was revealing itself slightly, a majestic aura burst outward. The entire area stopped what they were doing and looked over at the transformation taking place.
Hana's wings grew bolder and burst into flames, black flames. A white aura surrounded her, her hair grew longer and fell to her side. A giant purple flash happened and then, like it was all a lie, the light was gone.
Hana opened her eyes, Jeannie was standing there. She had a look on her face like she'd been upstaged. 'Lucky, Lucky, lucky.. I will make sure that rubs off on me' Jeannie thought to herself as she helped Hana up. She saw that the rest of the arena had stopped what they were doing to look over.
"Umm.. Sorry! I didn't mean to interrupt everyone." Hana put her arm over her head and leaned to one side, trying to play innocent.
The crowd slowly went back to the performances.
"Are you nuts? What happened? You transformed, don't tell me you learned the wild red heart technique just by skimming it?" Jeannie's face twitched while Hana just nodded for a second.
"It wasn't my intent, I just wanted to get my mind off the Eagle's Eyes Pierces Rock technique and found myself in a state of enlightenment again. Its so strange, I don't understand it myself." She grabbed at her wings and inspected the Black Fire that licked from her wings. 'Darkflame, father's ability..' Hana wondered if she would be found out, but let it go when no one made the connection.
She sighed, there were not words to describe her elation. Her mother's light shined around her and her father's was on her back. She was surrounded by them, even now.