"Are you the level 2 cryo elemental spirit from before?" a person asked from the crowd and stepped forward.
He had gray hair, one that was slightly black and similar colored eyes. Just looking at him reminded people of the eccentric and dark people in movies and animes, they usually held big roles in the works.
"Yes" the girl said and squinted her eyes, "You're the dendro one?"
"Ah, you caught me. I want to ask however, how did you manage to identify me? It shouldn't have been easy" The boy replied.
"The mark's and your auras are similar" The girl casually replied and then pointed at her eyes.
"I see" The conversation wasn't long but it showed that the girl was willing to talk to him, instead of just ignoring him. This showed that she has accepted his abilities and deemed them worthy enough for her to talk at least.
"The first part of the National Test of 10049 has ended. Those who haven't failed can go outside and enter one of the three busses to get to the stadium of Mappa; however, those that had failed in the first or the second stage, don't enter the buses. Whether you had failed or not has already been decided by us, you don't need to question it. But before that, get your badge and go to the receptionist, you will get your verification status and name there"
The instructor instructed the crowd of people. Seeing from most of their expressions, they were rather relieved or just normal while it was obvious those who had not so good of an expression knew they had bad performances.
After walking to the receptionist and queueing, it was my turn after a few minutes.
"Name?" one of the adults that were beside the door asked. He now had a table, laptop and another printer-like machine in front of him. He was currently looking at the laptop screen while awaiting my answer.
"Kirt Kouteli" I replied before handing my badge to the person.
He took it plainly and then pushed it into the printer-like machine. After typing in my name, and scrolling through something, the sound of the machine working sounded out before it stopped; once it did, the person clicked on a button and my badge came out.
It was just the same as before except there was his name "Kirt Kouteli" on the top of the badge, clear to all; along with that, there was also a green dot on the bottom of the rectangular white badge. It probably indicated that he had passed the first part of the test successfully.
"Passed"
After receiving my badge, I turned towards the door and headed out; there were indeed 3 buses waiting outside that hadn't been there before.
They were similarly faint-black colored, gray, and were huge; they had different numbers in front of them and just from the outside, one could see the buses could contain a lot of people inside them.
Since the instructor didn't say anything about them, Kirt chose the rightmost bus that had the number 87 on it.
This meant there were at least 87 buses like this, considering how it had been chosen as this year's Nation Test's participants' transport vehicle.
...
The inside of the bus was indeed huge, there were 15 sets of seats, so it meant that there could be 30 people inside of it.
Not long after, they were already near their destination - The Mappa Stadium.
It was a place especially built by the government ten years ago for the National Test's second and third stages, but when it isn't being used, it also served as a training ground for other people.
Kirt had come to this place before, to view that year's National Test's second stage. In fact, he came here two times in total; one when he was a little kid, around the age of 8, and another when he was 13, just last year.
The students participating in it couldn't be said to compare to the grown ups but since he can't afford to watch them in real life, he came here last year, to make notes. Before that, he didn't really want to or couldn't come here.
However, he did see that the one on 10047, two years ago when he was 12, was a brilliant one. Many prodigies and talents surfaced and due to the level of it, and so did the second stage's rules change to become more exciting.
Many children from powerful families participated in it so it had been advertised heavily earlier, resulting in quite a lot of people coming to watch it; and the people who did weren't left disappointed.
Maybe he also should've watched it, but, he was busy learning coding at the time. His parents were busy too, they didn't watch it at all; as a 12-year-old kid, he didn't have the qualifications to go alone at the time either.
Watching it on youtube, he did feel a bit of disappointment for not going to watch.
Moving on, after the bus reached its destination, inside the Mappa Stadium, I stepped out of the bus and saw a dark and gloomy looking inside.
It was lit brightly but because of the colors used, brown and dark, it didn't make one feel good.
However, contrasting to the surroundings, the symbol of the Nation of the Phoenix, was crimson red, and radiated a powerful and bright scarlet glow. It was just a bit in front of them.
Surrounding it were other people, like them, who came by bus. They didn't have many things to do before the second stage officially started.
We were now free to do whatever we liked, so, I stepped out and came to the weapons section.
In front of me was a vide variety of weapons one can use. Honestly, I didn't need any of them as I didn't know how to use any of them. Besides, I am a long-range fighter, not a close range... there weren't any staffs I could find near.
After all, there were only normal cold weapons here, no magical or extraordinary ones.
The participants could also use their own weapons but those that are extraordinary can not be used.
"The second part of the National Test will now soon begin. The participants of each section will be divided into teams of 3 and it will be decided by the participants themselves. Rounds consisting of 5 teams will start and the teams who won will fight the other winning teams before only one team remain. That will be it for today and tomorrow, the 20 winning teams will compete with each other, deciding the ultimate 3 teams."
...
"Do you want to join our team? I am Elen, a geo esper with the power level of 3, and he's Bedwyr, a dendro user with power level nearing 3" after studying him for a while, two people approached him, inviting him to their group.
Kirt noticed them and started studying them too. So, the two of them had approached him after knowing he also wanted to get in a team.
"Sure, I am a pyro esper, Kirt. My pyro is of the normal type but I can control it well" In response, Kirt said to them.
"Mine is also of a normal geo. However, Bedwyr's is not of the normal type" Elen was a dark-haired girl with fair skin who wore a black tracksuit and appeared energetic. It was better to describe her as an extrovert.
While Bedwyr, the boy, he had brown-hair with some green mixed between them. A part of his frontal hair that was on the left side had become green, the color of a plant that has just budded. He was more of the introvert type if one were to say by just looking at his bearing and expression.
As for his clothes, he had a hooded sweatshirt and a normal training pants that were easy to move with.
For Kirt himself, he had practically the same clothes as when he had went to get his inheritance, the general black suit people of Nation of the Phoenix wore commonly.
Since he wasn't a close-combat fighter, he didn't need to wear a tracksuit like Elen.
"Rekla Dendro. One that is very versatile, and can defend and attack at the same time. But mine makes it so that its offense is lowered but its speed and damage taking ability is better, making so that opponents are unable to get rid of it easily." This was most likely to be the reason Elen wanted him.
After all, if she was a person with the power level of 3, she would also want a better team that had the power level of 3. Taking in Bedwyr, even if he had a power level close to 3, the team was taking considerable drop in score.
"So, with your pyro, the burn elemental effect can make great damage to the opponents while I can defend us from attacks. I can even go for close combat if the burn damage can distract the opponents"
It was clear Elen had already thought of the plan the team will take for the second part.
Elen will be the defense and also the close-combat offense of the team while Bedwyr and Kirt will be the long-range offense. They now just need a support but with the limited number of members allowed in a team, it wasn't possible.
"Great, then should we test our compatibility first? I think we should know ourselves better before we participate. I also don't know much about Bedwyr too" Elen suggested.
"But I think the time's up. I don't think the test's allowing us to know each other at all" Kirt had decided his team much earlier, but like most of the time, the separation of the participants into different sectors made it so that he can't team up with them.
As he saw it, he didn't see anyone he planned to become a team with at the moment.
"Ah, I see"
There were two platforms that the teams can come up to fight. They were large enough to comfortably fit in 5 teams within it and even fight it out. Since there were about 100 teams, it should roughly take 10 rounds before the next stage begin.
Since the strong opponents will be in the earlier rounds, they didn't think of participating in them at all.
'One of the people to first participate in the match seems to be that white-haired foreign girl?' scouting the people that participated in the first match, Kirt's gaze stopped on the girl who was the owner of the cryo elemental spirit from before.
She appeared very confident and her two teammates... one was the gray-haired guy from before and the other was a female with orange hair. She was currently chewing on a gum while the gray-haired one was looking at other people.
The gray-haired boy had the number 4.5 while the other girl had the number 5 on their badges. They were generally very strong, just seeing from their rough power levels; considering their uniqueness, their strength could possibly be more than that even.
Regardless, this one was going to be a good match, displaying the power of this girl and the gray-haired guy. Since Kirt and a lot of other people were curious about the white-haired girl's way of fighting, they wanted to know what kind of techniques she used and how she fought.
After all, they could see a glaring '6' on her badge...
That was clearly among the top.
As for the other participants except the white-haired girl, Kirt could see other powerful-looking people but he didn't recognize most of them.
Basically put, there were 3 top students with the power level of 6, 5 power level 5, and the rest with the power level of 3 or 4. Seeing the top people go up, the other prominent people became hesitant to participate, making them force out the weaker teams.