"Alright, let's start with the first test." Mr Patti says. "Let's start from class D. Cristopher, you first."
"Alright." Cristopher gets up and walks to the thirty metallic poles stacked on sideways, on top of each other.
"What's his ability name?" Johann asks
"Arm." One of the test takers replies.
"That's the ability name?"
"Yes."
"What does it do?"
"His arm can do practically everything. Just watch."
Miso and his classmates hear this entire conversation. Curious, they watch Cristopher.
He stands in front of the stacked metal pipes.
Everyone outside the field, which is practically everyone from the school, watches him.
Cristopher raises his left arm and stares at it.
His left arm wriggles and a lot of snapping and squelching sounds can be heard.
SNAP
CRACK.
It sounds as if the bones in his left arm are breaking and rearranging themselves.
Something moves in his arm, it looks as if there are fish swimming under Cristopher's skin.
CREAK
SQUELCH
His arm starts changing "shape" and mutates into a better "arm."
Calling that thing an "arm" is like calling Berserk a "manga" or Shakespeare a "writer"
Cristopher's left arm has upgraded into a bigger, bulkier, more muscular arm with more fingers, bone-nails and bits of sharp bone sticking to it.
The crowd goes 'OOOOOOOOOOOOH'
"Holy shit." Wei Lim says, "That's pretty damn cool."
Cristopher looks down at the pipes, raises his arm and smashes through the pipes, "AARGH!"
His hands cleave through all thirty pipes effortlessly, through the table and slice through the ground, making a twenty centimeter hole.
"WOOOAH" The crowd is stunned.
"Damn." Ichika is surprised. "He's pretty strong."
Cristopher wills his left arm to turn back to a normal arm and walks back.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
"NICE JOB!"
"THAT WAS INSANE!"
The crowd cheers for him and claps.
CLAP
CLAP
CLAP
The audience is clearly impressed with Cristopher's ability.
"Nice." Mr Patti looks impressed. "Next."
The next kid walks nervously to the metal pipes, and breaks exactly ten with her bare hands.
The crowd laughs. She barely passed the first test.
She laughs embarrassedly and walks back to her seat.
"Looks like she has a basic strength increase feature." Johann says.
"Next."
…..
Most kids break up to 15 pipes.
Only Christopher broke all 30. The second highest kid broke 23 and earned a round of applause from the crowd.
"Next up, class A. You-" The teacher points at Ichika. "Your turn."
Ichika walks up to the pipes. She covers her hand.
Then she pulls her hand back into view….except it's not a hand anymore.
It's turned into a blade.
"HIYAH!" She cleaves through all thirty pieces effortlessly. She could have gone further, but she didn't really want to break the table.
All the sixty pipes now fall to the ground.
"WOOOOAH!" The crowd claps. She made the pipes look like butter. Why was breaking thirty pipes so difficult for the others?
She was the second person to chop through all thirty pipes.
"Hahahaha." The coach looks very impressed. "Nice! We have another genius hunter!"
Ichika smiles smugly and goes to sit down. She hides her blade-arm for a second and it manages to become a hand again.
"Next."
Johann's turn next.
The crowd heard about Johann killing a tiger-demon. They knew his ability was "complete blood manipulation." which was self-explanatory, but they still wanted to see him in action.
Johann walks to the steel pipes. But Johann looks…different.
His skin –from white- has turned blood red. Veins pop out and his eyes are bloodshot.
He stretches his hand out. Blood leaks out from his hands, and leaks out, and forms a spear.
"ARGH!" He throws the spear through all the thirty pipes. It breaks the table and embeds itself through the ground.
A very proud looking P.E teacher, and a loud roar of approval followed by clapping from the crowd.
"Next." Wei Lim's turn.
Nobody knew much about Wei Lim. But nobody really cared. Johann, Christopher and Ichika were the strongest. They didn't know why Ichika and Johann were –
WHOOSH!
A loud gust of wind is heard and Wei Lim is immediately covered in dust. The air becomes uncomfortably warm. It wasn't an explosion, just wind. And yet….
The dust fades away, and Wei Lim stands unscathed. Wherever the table was, is a small crater. The metal pipes have been broken to smithereens and look like something made it explode. But there was no explosion.
Wei Lim didn't just break, he annihilated.
The crowd is too stunned to speak.
"Uhhhh…"
Wei Lim walks back to his seat, next to a laughing Johann and a smiling Ichika.
Nobody spoke for a bit. It was as if an invisible hand crushed the table and pipes.
Finally, the PE teacher remembered that the test must go on.
"Ummmm….anyways... Next!"
Nobody gets up. Miso thinks, 'Which dumbass is next? Just stand up and do the fucking metal breaking thing.'
"You- hey kid. Hey!" The P.E teacher tries to get Miso's attention.
"Miso!" Ichika looks at him disapprovingly.
He's next?
"M-me?" Miso asks.
The crowd laughs.
"Yes, you. Break the pipes."
"O-okay." Miso gets up.
The crowd is watching him eagerly. He's the kid with no defense. Just like them. What is he going to do?
Miso touches his left wrist, and the hilt of a sword comes out of his skin. He pulls the longer one of his swords out. He has to admit, the swords look very pretty.
The swords resembled a 'shikomizue'. The blade of the sword in his right hand was about 1.5 feet long while the blade of the sword in his left was about twice as long (he had no idea how the sword could even fit inside).
The blades and hilt were made of bone, so they gleamed pure white in the sun.
The crowd goes "OOOOOOOOOOH" They're interested in him now.
Miso readies himself. He's going to use both hands on one of his swords to maximize the power. He raises his sword above his head, ready to slice through the pipes.
Ichika leans forward. She's slightly interested in Miso.
Wei Lim stares at Miso.
Miso has done this move many times. He doesn't have the money to afford items to cut through, but he's done the sword chopping motion a million times before.
He has strengthened his physical body so much that he's able to do 800 pushups in a row.
He can run 100 meters in 10.65 seconds.
For eight years. He's practiced with this sword for eight years. All for this moment.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGHH!" He chops at the metal pipes with his full force.
The sword cuts cleanly through all thirty pipes, through the table and embeds itself into the ground. The crowd screams! The PE teacher cries tears of joy, "You proved me wrong, son!" Ichika runs up to Miso, hugs him and french kisses him, Johann runs up to him and pats him on the back, Wei Lim smiles and….and...