Standing third in Alice's queue, Bryce lost all reason as he reached the moment of truth. All the confidence that he had suddenly got was being washed away by the second.
All or nothing! He had swallowed the Awakening Pill with such a mentality, but he was currently having second thoughts. While getting his special ability was worth over 10 celebrations, was there any guarantee that he would pass?
Let alone getting his ability tested at the assessment center, Bryce couldn't afford to pay the basic Exos testing fee. The only clue that reassured him of his awakening was the strange incomprehensible voice that he heard along with something familiar willing up within his body…
The only thing that got him this far was hope and excitement, but his mind was extremely chilled being faced with the actual situation. The stress reminded him of his lacking 30 points of Capacity that he had tested a while ago. Although his situation wasn't as bad as Chrome's, he was bound to become a laughingstock at this rate.
"Hey! He already finished his turn. Either get in or get lost." With Krig standing right behind him, Bryce wasn't given the chance to recover his bearings!
However, the aggressive tug on his shoulders made him face the harsh reality easier. Getting scared now wasn't going to change everything. Once again, this was an all-or-nothing attempt!
"Tsk, what a coward," Krig added, snorting as he watched Bryce climb into the capsule. Deep inside, he was looking forward to the wimp's big failure. Different from Fred's targeted bullying, Krig simply enjoyed oppressing the weak.
The capsule opened up again, revealing Bryce's nervous frown, intensified by the laser scanning that he had just undergone. He really wished that the screen would glitch away his results before they got displayed, or so he thought.
"Is this capsule bugged or something?!" As the first to glance at the result, Krig couldn't stop himself from blinking several times in surprise!
"Wow, are these values for real…?"
The values that appeared on the screen were…
[ 99 l 8.08 ]
A 99 Exos Capacity Rating!
The whole crowd of students and teachers froze, staring at the numbers in disbelief, including the owner of these values, Bryce himself!
"Wew, a Physical Awakened right off the bat followed by an Exos Generator? This year's batch is really interesting…" Taking a deep look at Bryce, the Supervisor mused as he broke the ice.
"He is an Exos Generator?!" Jack dumbfoundedly questioned. Just how were the other two schools sending one irregular after the other?
He was at the peak of satisfaction for having as many awakened students as the two other schools combined. Everything was going his way when Crow pulled out the magic card of a Physical Awakened. To make matters worse, Link's group had shown nothing but fraudulent results to this moment.
He hadn't even had the chance to show due to Crow's presence. What he believed to be his greatest opportunity was quickly turning into his worst nightmare ever!
"What… Is an Exos Generator?" Being at the epitome of confusion and disbelief, Bryce couldn't help questioning the situation.
The laughs and insults that he was prepared to hear didn't come, and everyone was looking at him with the same amazement they directed toward Fred and Alice. At this point, Bryce was contemplating giving himself a slap to the face to make sure that this wasn't just a dream.
"Let me give you a brief explanation, Bryce. An Exos Generator is a title used when referring to those whose special abilities are related to boosting their Exos capabilities, parallel to Physical Aspect Awakeners who get their physiques enhanced. Thanks to that, your ratings spiked past the norm and reached the first threshold, congrats!" Serving his role as a teacher, Link elatedly cleared Bryce's doubts. Just like its name, their school's future was truly bright!
In order to convince the school to act as the Special Class's patron and provide them with the chance of their life, Link had to fight the blatant refusals using every favor and resource at his disposal. If this ended up as a failure, he would have had to bear a part of the responsibility.
Everything had two sides to it. The Special Class was but a mix of students with good grades and high Exos ratings, so giving everyone a chance wasn't an easy decision considering the low returns. However, if it really worked out, then it would be a whole other story!
While the Extra Academy had been founded quite recently, its background was much stronger than it appeared to be. Only a select few knew of it, but the number of awakeners provided to the Academy by each school largely decided their resource distribution!
Although he didn't do it for the credit, Link was happy that his career wouldn't be sabotaged by his choice of action. The two who had awakened in advance were another story, but just the appearance of an irregular awakened thanks to the decision that he pushed for guaranteed his standing!
Nonetheless, all of that paled in comparison to the importance of the main task that he started everything to support, if only…
'I really hope he will perform well…'
Thanks to the latency that Bryce caused in his queue, the students in the other queue were already done with their tests, leaving the whole capsule for Chrome to use.
'It's the moment of truth…' Chrome sighed deep inside.
Obviously, being one of the last few wasn't a good thing as it meant that all eyes would be focused on him, especially when considering the three anomalies that shared the same school with him. Chrome was just as surprised as everyone when Bryce turned out to be an irregular as well… Didn't too many people fit into the protagonist template on this side?
'Whatever! Let's just do it!' Waiting any longer would only increase his agony, so Chrome waited no further as he slipped into the capsule. Perhaps he could get ignored by the others if he did it quickly while they were still distracted!