Nero was seated in an improvised classroom. Clare was at the front of the class, in front of a blackboard, studying the twenty youths in front of her. After a couple of seconds, she started to speak.
"Every one of you here today has listened to the Calling, some of you know exactly what that means, and some of you don't, my job today is to explain what you will go through and answer your doubts."
'I guess not everyone here comes from one of the Slums'
"First of all, I will explain one thing, every one of you will go through something different today. When you receive the Calling, you gain the ability to enter paradise, but it's not for free, every one of you will pass what we call the assessment and it´s different for everyone, so we will leave the explanation of that to the administrator."
One of the Listeners raised his hand.
"Who is the administrator?"
A light smile appeared on her face.
"You will know when you touch the gate."
Nero scoffed.
'We will know it when we enter paradise? She just said that every one of us will see something different, how does she know?'
She turned to the board.
"As I said, every one of you will experience something different, but that doesn't mean there are not some common factors in all of the assessments. These factors are split into universal and specific ones. There are only two things we are certain will happen to all of you, the assessment will serve as both a teaching experience and a life and death struggle."
Nero could almost feel the somber atmosphere rise when Clare stopped speaking. He looked around the tent at every other youth, all of them had the same desperate expression on their face, and at the same time, they all had focused looks in their eyes like everything Clare was saying might save them inside the Gate.
'For all I know it really can. I bet if someone looks at me, they will see the same exact expression in my eyes.'
He looked at Jake and saw him whit his eyes closed. Type two Listeners always had it hard in the briefing tent, imagine trying to pay attention to a teacher while two of your classmates were screaming directly in your ears. It was not an easy task.
On the other side of the coin, Nero was having an easy time. It was like the closer he was to the gate, the stronger he felt. His hunger had disappeared and an energized spirit replaced the previous half-asleep state, all colors in his vision seemed to be brighter, and the red, silver, and purple spots had duplicated in quantity.
While he was looking at Jake, a shy-looking jittery girl raised her hand.
"Soldier Clare, what do you mean by a teaching experience?
Claire turned to the young girl.
"The assessment, while deadly most of the time, is there to teach the young ascendants how to use the Essence. As you all know, the Essence is originally from paradise, and all ascenders are attuned to, at least, one type of Essence. The assessment will teach you how to transform the atmosphere's essence into the codex, the true power of the ascendants."
She paused and looked at the class.
"This is where the type of Listener you are will affect your assessment. About 90% of ascenders are type one and will receive the easiest trials, in exchange for the least amount of benefits. Type one Listeners are only attuned to one form of Essence, and that form is a common one.
'There are rankings in Essence types?'
"Type two Listeners are way rarer, consisting of about 9% of ascenders, and are normally attuned whit a rare form of essence. They will receive harder trials, but these are easier to predict, normally having something to do whit learning about the Essence usage of beasts."
"Beasts!?"
Jake shouted from fright.
"Not that type of beast, the beasts outside the gate are referred to as corrupted beats and use corrupter essence to form their habitat and codexes. Inside the gate are another kind of beast, one that uses normal essence and is way better than humans at doing so, type two Listeners normally will try to imitate their methods to form codexes since your form of essence is special"
Jake was as pale as a ghost.
"Type three Listeners are the peak of the Listener realm, said to be loved by the essence and constitute about 1% of the ascender population."
Claire looked at Nero.
"Your trial will be to comprehend the essence of a natural disaster."
"What!?"
Nero was shocked. A natural disaster? That was a suicide mission!
Every single youth in the tent was looking at Nero, or so he thought, after a couple of seconds he noticed that some of the gazes were directed at the girl seated by his right.
She had a terrified look on her face, just like himself. Golden hair fell down her hair and her deep green eyes had tears at the corners, she wore good and clean clothes, meaning that she didn't belong to one of the slums.
'For her to be so shocked shows that she didn't know about it before. Probably the daughter of a rich city merchant instead of an ascendant clan'
"That concludes the briefing I was asked to give you, follow me to the gate now. Good luck to you all"
Clare left the tent and started to head to the gate, stopping just before it. Every youth following her outside stopped and looked at the gigantic structure, dread was the only thing passing through their minds.
"Young Listeners, I wish you goo-"
Suddenly one of the Listeners sprinted to the gate and launched himself at it. As soon as his hand touched it, his whole body disappeared.
Clare laughed.
"I guess he was in a worse state than I thought, let's skip the usual procedure, just go."
The group advanced until everybody was at an arm's distance from the gate.
'If I manage to come back, that bitch Samantha is fucked!'
Nero touched the gate, and his body entered paradise.