Abe woke up with two thoughts in his mind.
'Visualization.'
'Ferrokinesis.'
He knew what that meant.
"I have my skills now?! Holy shit!" He exclaims.
He hurries to take care of his hygiene and get dressed. He grabs his wallet and catches the nearest bus to the Skilled Registry.
Ortina law dictates that once somebody gains their skills, they are to report to the Registry for filing. If someone not on the registry uses their skills, they are liable to be taken to court for terrorism.
About twenty minutes later, he arrives at the Registry. When he arrives at the door, he is stopped by two guards. They wore typical adventurer clothing, and had a sword attached to each of their waists. If that wasn't hint enough, the orange badge on their torsos lets the world know they are Physicals.
One guard speaks. "What business do you have?" He asks.
Abe replies with "I've gotten my skills and need to register."
The guards step back into position, and Abe walks through into the Registry.
As soon as he enters he sees the front desk. He walks up to it and the clerk says "Take a ticket. When we call your number, come back up here." So he does. His number says 112, and he goes to sit down. Before he makes it to his seat, Abe realizes that he has no clue what his abilities are.
Looking around he finds a lectern-like structure holding a tablet.
[Search For Skill]
Abe enters the words 'Visualization' into the search box, and the screen changes.
[Type: Magical]
[Summary: You have no problems with imagining things. Useful with summoning things or casting spells.]
"Okay so that works well with magical skills. Lets see if Ferrokinesis counts."
He types in 'Ferrokinesis' and this time, the result was a page with an error.
[I'm sorry, that skill is not in our system. However, as ferro is Latin for steel, and kinesis abilities are control-based, we have an assumption that, at low proficiency, the ability allows you to manipulate metals.]
"Does that mean I have a new ability?" Abe knows what this would mean. People that show development of new abilities are treated better by the system because if they die, or even worse, become a terrorist, that would be horrible for Ortina.
Before he can think more about it, the intercom dings and over the speakers a voice says "Number 112, please come to the front desk." A beep later and the intercom shuts down.
"Oh shit, that's me." Abe looks at his ticket and heads back to the front.
"Okay. You're here to list your abilities right? The man over there will lead you to a room and ask the questions. Depending on the abilities, you may be asked to demonstrate." The clerk says.
'Did I ever tell him why I was here?' Abe didn't think he did. 'Maybe a skill.'
Abe walks with the man the clerk pointed out into a room. The room had a few distinct features.
Firstly, there was a wooden table with a few sheets of paper and a sharpened pencil. On either side of the table were dark brown chairs lined with black cushions. On the opposite side of the room, across the table, was a blue button.
"Please, sit down." The man says.
Abe listens and chooses the seat farthest from the sheets. The man sits across from him and picks up the pencil.
The man starts. "So, first question. What abilities did you get?"
"Visualization, and Ferrokinesis." Abe answers. The man looks surprised, taps an earpiece that Abe had just noticed, and speaks a line.
"Look for skill 'Ferrokinesis.'" A few seconds go by, and the man speaks.
"So you manifested a new skill?"
"I-I think so, yeah." Abe stutters, which confused him. He'd never had an issue with stuttering before.
"Do you have an idea what it does?"
Abe says the information he got on the tablet in the main room.
"Okay, wait for a second." The man stands up and walks to the blue button. When he pressed it, a screen flips out of the wall. He inputs a few words, and then a few more.
Suddenly the wall opens to reveal a white pad. A second later, a thin sheet of metal appears on the pad in a flash of light.
'Teleportation… cool.' Abe thinks to himself.
The man brings the metal over and sets it in front of Abe.
"Focus on the metal, and make it do anything. Move it, break it, change it, doesn't matter. Just make it do something."
"How? I was never taught." Abe says.
The man sighs and mutters "Right."
"Okay. It would probably be easiest for you to point your hands at them. Then close your eyes and imagine it changing. Once you feel a difference, open your eyes."
Abe puts his palm facing the sheet and closes his eyes. He pictures the sheet in his mind, and does the simplest thing he can think of.
In his head the metal slowly becomes a liquid. Starting from the top middle, the melting expanded outwards until the metal was a puddle on the table. He suddenly felt as though his blood rushed to his arms, so he opened his eyes.
Sitting right in front of him was a puddle of silver liquid.
The questioner looks at the puddle in shock.
Abe gets slightly scared and asks "Did I do something wrong?"
The man reaches a finger towards the puddle, and dips it in.
"No trace of heat." He mumbles.
The man wipes his finger off and asks Abe to see if he could turn it back into a solid.
Abe closes his eyes again, but this time, he imagined the puddle. In his mind, the puddle formed into a ball of metal, and solidified. The waves caused from the movement of the metal were solidified into the ball as well. The blood rush appeared again, and when he opened his eyes, the picture in his head had been transferred to reality.
"Amazing." The man writes down everything in his notebook and takes the metal ball.
"Stay here for a few moments." He says before he leaves the room.
Abe decides to do a few experiments.
"Okay, so I can melt and freeze metal. Can I create it?"
He puts his palms facing each other, with them being 5 or so inches apart.
He closes his eyes and pictures it. In the middle of the space between his palms, a small droplet of metal appears. The metal grows at a slow pace. Once it was about the size of his closed fist, he pictured it solidifying into a smooth steel ball. The ripples fall into the ball, and no disturbances are found. The ball starts solidifying from the top, expanding downwards until the entire ball was a solid.
He opened his eyes as he felt a rush of blood, this time to his head as well as his arms, and floating there, in between his palms, was a perfectly smooth steel ball.
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