As Soren was holding himself from punching the man, his attention was suddenly grabbed Heiran's next announcement.
"Did everyone get a numbered piece of paper, yes?" Heiran asked with a causal smile, as he looked around slowly and waited for an answer that never came, only to continue as if nothing had happened:
"Well, since the teams have been formed, it is time to explain how this examination of sorts will work. And by examination, I mean it's going to be a full-blown showdown between two teams. Of course, it won't be a one-off kind of battle. I'm talking about a best of 3 battle, but with a few alterations. For starters, the victory or defeat of your team won't play as much of a role as you guys might think, since we will be observing through one session battles and won't be doing any tournament style examinations, due to the lack of time we currently have.
What we're going to be looking at are, your abilities, combat experiences, personalities, wits and potential. All those factors combined will give us a decent estimate of your current and future power levels, as well as allowing us to sift through anyone that could pose to be a liability or risk to our organization. After all, we can't exactly accept someone who is willing to betray his own friends, just so they can save their weak and sorry ass, only to die some random goblin the next day. With that quick explanation out of the way, it's time to get started with the matches."
After that explanation, Heiran quickly went to stand behind a podium that had suddenly appeared materialized out of black smoke that was coming from the backside of his black cloak. After standing behind it, he suddenly lifted his hand and quickly slammed it down the podium, only for it suddenly open up a hidden compartment with a weird device that had two black screens and a panel with a bunch of buttons and after clicking a few buttons, number from 1-18 had appeared on the both screens, before they got randomly shuffled into 3x3 boxes. After the numbers were shuffled into boxes, 9 colors had suddenly appeared into the tiny boxes that were suddenly being shuffled as well, similarly with the numbers from before and before long, the colors stopped shuffling. Once the colors had stopped shuffling, the boxes with the numbers and colors had disappeared and instead, showed this:
{Match Results:
Team 2 VS Team 9 (Red)
Team 17 VS Team 12 (Orange)
Team 6 VS Team 8 (Yellow)
Team 15 VS Team 3 (Lime)
Team 10 VS Team 18 (Green)
Team 7 VS Team 11 (Cyan)
Team 1 VS Team 16 (Indigo)
Team 13 VS Team 14 (Dark Blue)
Team 5 VS Team 4 (Violet)
Thank you for using the Matchmaker MK III v1.45.12}
Once the results appeared, Soren's expression had suddenly dropped and was showing a bit of disappointment, due to the fact that they were using a high end machine, for something that could have been easily done with just a box and a bunch of numbered balls. He just felt they were putting far too much effort on presentation, for what essentially was something that could have taken, at most, ten minutes. As he looked around though, he noticed that half the people were kind of amazed and interested on the machine itself and it did not take long for him for his disappointment to become immeasurable and for his day to become ruined, although it was ruined quite a while ago, at the moment he went through the secret passage.
"That's enough staring for now. Just go through the colored portals behind you, according to the color that your teams were chosen to and prepare for your battles." Heiran quickly grabbed everyone's attention, as he quickly pointed behind them and started putting away the podium, by engulfing it in dark smoke. As he was putting the podium away, everyone else saw that nine differently colored portals had suddenly appeared behind them, with each portal having a color unique color to itself.
'So those are the portals that we need to enter? Isn't anyone nervous about entering a portal towards who-knows-where?' Soren thought to himself as he was looking at everyone's serious expressions, but before he could make any more thoughts, he saw that everyone were slowly making their way towards the nine colored portals and decided to follow suit as well. After he entered the yellow portal, the scenery around him changed into a field full of grainy stalks, such as wheat and the sky took on a yellowish tint.
"A yellow portal leads to a yellow field. Was it really necessary to take things this far with the colors?" The red-haired man asked with a slightly annoyed expression, as he looked around and rubbing his forehead with one hand.
"It fits with the color of the portal and isn't this view beautiful?" A man with a black robe answered with a cheerful voice from behind him, before he suddenly moved away from him and added:
"Anyways, my name is Fifteen and I'm here to oversee your examination battles. Of course, the examination won't start until the stage has been set, so the big guy with the red cat ears and the blond human over there, I want you two to come and stand in front of me."
At that moment, the red-haired man and a short guy with blond hair suddenly moved forward and stopped right in front of Fifteen. Due to the height of the red-haired man Soren hadn't noticed that he had cat ears, so once he saw them being slightly noticeable from the back of his head, he couldn't help but feel amazed by the fact that those were so well-hidden. Aside from his cat-ears though, he also saw the other two members of the opposing team, those being a guy with lavender hair and a mask that covered only half of his face and the cyan-haired elf from before.
"Tell me your ideal combat arena." Fifteen suddenly requested with a happy tone on his face. The short blond man and the tall red-haired person on the other hand, were left dumbstruck from the sudden request, but it didn't take long for the red-haired man to answer:
"The Colossus Combat Arena in Basenalia, in the heart of the human kingdom."
"Oooh... You're quite the ambitious person, aren't you?" Fifteen asked in a sarcastic manner, beofre the blond man answered as well:
"The center of the Lugh's 7th Ancient Forgery."
"My, oh my. That is one of the very few Dwarven battlegrounds that are still rememebred to this day. I thought you guys would have already gotten over it. I guess you still won't be forgetting of the past, are you?" Fifteen commented with a slightly mocking voice, but the blond man's expression kept being serious.
"Fine, I guess no one is in the mood for jokes. Now, let's see what's the Creator's will for the first round's arena." At that moment, he suddenly took a coin and suddenly tossed it in the air and it didn't take more than a few seconds to land on his hand once again and yelled loudly:
"The first round's arena shall be the Basenalia's Colossus Combat Arena."