It was a funny question to me. I mean how could one decide who they respected the most just in a couple moments, so I would never judge someone based off of who they chose. So I just went for the most neutral answer in "That's cool."
Clearly bothered by his neutrality, Valerie rolled her eyes and focused on the track. Right around then, the names were getting close to where hers would be called. She stood up, saying "See you soon then." and walked towards the entrance to the track.
Valerie was definitely, unique among the crowd. Though it was close to an even split between male and females, most were muscular and were of taller stature. Valerie was shorter and much more lean. Maybe that was to her advantage in this task though.
Soon enough, her name was called and she went up to the track, along with a few other people. Everybody got into their positions at "Ready", leaning their bodies down, in ideal runner fashion. However, valerie was just calmly stood upright among them. Though some
other people did scoff at her confidence, most just ignored her antics.
Amitav keenly looked on, hoping to see what she could do. The start sound went off and the racers were off.
A gust of wind blew through the whole training room at the same time. Everyone shielded their eyes and a couple seconds later, looked back towards the track. Most of the runners were still around the middle of the track, which was pretty average. Amitav looked around though, and couldn't see Valerie anywhere. As he slowly panned his eyes across the track, he saw her leisurely standing at the other side of the finish line.
Too shocked to process most of what he was seeing, he slowly looked towards the timer which would show how fast she had completed her run. And in big almost tauntingly bright numbers the timer showed "7.23". That was a world record. She had done it, easily.
And easily would be the word to describe how she would tackle the rest of the course as well. No obstacle seemed too difficult for her, even the ones that required some heavy lifting. It seemed like she was well ahead of everyone else in the room, and her posture showed the same. Effortlessly confident, she jumped off the track and headed towards where Amitav was.
It was strange at first, nobody else had reacted. But soon enough, the room erupt in a series of murmurs and conversations all centred around the one person that had just broken all the records in one go. The crowd made way for her as she continued to walk.
"So recluse, you impressed now?" said Valerie as she sat down adjacent to him. "Can't pretend like I'm not." He truly was impressed, but she was entirely too confident for him to feel comfortable adding onto.
Amitav looked towards the leader board at the time and Valerie had the top score by 4 or 5 seconds. Which is an eternity in a sprint race. It didn't make sense, but he had a theory. She must have figured out a way to bring her powers into the real world. It seemed impossible for a normal human to just break a record so easily, but no one here was normal. They had all received attributes. Though it was still possible that she was just that fast, it was extremely unlikely.
Amitav did think about asking her but, he also realized that it would further inflate her ego if she thought that was unique. Though she probably knew already.
Time passed quickly, as the rest of the candidates went through the tests individually. There were some standouts, reducing the distance between Valerie and second place to 2 seconds but, most of them were average. Eventually, everyone gathered up in front of the stage where the trainer was waiting to begin his adressal.
"Well done everyone, you will now be placed into initial groups based on the scores you have achieved in the test, you will be able to change these groups the more you grow, so don't worry too much. There will be no more training today, you are free to do so if you would prefer. Otherwise, you can head to the canteen for dinner." the trainers voice reached everyone in the room.
There wasn't much to think about in Amitav's eyes, he just headed towards the training gym. Valerie shouted as she left towards the cafeteria "Trying to catch up?" Rolling his eyes, Amitav continued on his way.
'Seriously though, I really do need to catch up' thought Amitav as he realized that most of the people here were more physically fit than him. He had worked out a bit before so he just went through the most basic exercises. There were some other people, but most had gone to the cafeteria. After an hour or so, he would join the others.
It was around 9 PM at this point so the café was still lively, most people were still having their meals. Amitav entered, looked around for a while and eventually found a nice secluded area to have his meal. It was pretty normal food, it seemed like they had just got a few restaurants to make some food and didn't have their own chefs. After picking up some fried rice and a soup bowl, he sat down and quickly finished his meal. He just wanted to go to sleep ASAP.
After finishing his meal, he made his way back into housing, where he cleaned up and went to hit the bed. And soon after, he awoke in Domus.
For the past week or so, he had been training and working in the labs, following his schedule. Today though, was a pretty important day. Raven would be here for the weekly training session, he hoped to get more information about the war while she was there. Information was really important in any competition, and he wasn't willing to fall behind.
First thing in the day was some work in the labs though, and he was just going to clean some apparatus today. He still thought the work was good though, he was able to at least try to grasp some knowledge the other scientists were talking about. Sometimes, Jeff would humour him and try to teach him some basics. Until now, he had just talked about some of most important inventions and discoveries that had been made in the world. The main one that Amitav had focused on was the fact they had been able to sucessfully hold a nuclear fusion reaction, giving them the capability to have much larger sources of energy. They had also been able to harness their star's energy by using something called a Dyson sphere, but that was much harder to understand so he only caught the name. Other than that though, the lab was just magic to him. After reaching the lab and just going about his errands, he had the opportunity to talk to Jeff.
"Your work is satisfactory." Jeff said plainly. "Thanks, I just hope that I can help in some way." replied Amitav. "Your work is helpful." Well at least he agreed with that. Seeing no further conversation from Jeff, he went on "So, I was wondering how this city was made? As in like the technology behind it and stuff." Jeff seemed to be processing the question as he didn't speak for the next minute or so, but eventually he would speak up and he started with "It will take too long for me to tell you all of it, which part would you like me to focus on?" I thought for a while before answering, "I have always wondered how the upper discs were able to fly?"
I just asked the most obvious thing to ask hoping that I would be understand it. Jeff processed the question for a bit before answering "It relies on certain principles of electrodynamics for starters. Specialized voltages repel the discs against each other without affecting the other surroundings. There are some quantum principles involved in pairing the materials of the discs. The general idea is that the discs are naturally repelled by each others atoms. You will learn such concepts eventually." Though I did know some of the words he had said, most of it didn't make sense to me. Jeff did try to explain a deeper level of the concepts but I quickly reminded him that I couldn't understand him. I thank him before heading back to training centre. It was time train with Raven.
After walking for a while, I reached the training centre, where Raven was already waiting inside the room. It seemed like she was looking at her communicator. I walked up to where she was and waited for her to say something.
Raven wasn't the most talkative of people so I would have to wait for 5 minutes before she finally said, "Well, just get done with your basic stretches. I'll brief you in a bit." I complied and went about my general warmup that lasted for about 10 minutes or so. I ran laps around the facility before doing the average stretching routine. I also pulled the trishul for a few swings to see if I had any tension in my arms.
Once I was done, I went back towards the side where Raven was and told her that I was done. She nodded as she turned her head towards me, before clicking a few buttons on her communicator and looking towards the wall nearby. A projection of her communicator showed up on the wall.
"I've been researching a couple of attributes which seem similar to yours to have a better idea of what to train you with. And this also gives me the perfect opportunity to walk you through the basic types of arts and attributes."
She then pulled up my profile with all my attributes and arts.
Name : Amitav Reddy
Age : 16
Race : Human
School : Fighter
Arts :
- Clarity (level 1) - your mind remains clear.
- Weapon Summon - summon your weapon to you.
- Dance for the Gods - you can perform a dance to please the gods themselves
Attributes:
- Charm of the Truthful - you are truthful, and people are attracted to you for it
- Shiva's Disciple - the lord shiva favours your soul.
- Strength of the Destroyer (level 1) - you possess the strength to destroy those that dare to sin
- Better Half - your physical and mental features change to adopt the better half that you possess within
- Hair Longer Than Life - your hair is your matted and long, it contains the unruly part of your mind
"There are a few things that are commonly seen across all blessed. For you, this would be the Weapon Summon, Shivas Disciple and Dance for the Gods. Though they are unique in
their specifics, they all are responsible for establishing your connection with your god and developing it more, the more you utilize them, the stronger your connection"
"As for your school, Fighter can be quite varied, but most agree that it is the School with the most offensive capabilities, alongside Hunter. It can also be said that the school focuses on the art of frontal war. It is quite commonly seen in the military."
"The other abilities have the database stumped though, not much like it anywhere else. There are some that vaguely resemble them in name, but the descriptions differ completely. Especially the strength of the destroyer and clarity ability. It is a levelled ability, which can be upgraded through proper use. Though other people have had levelled abilities, nothing quite like yours."
"So for now, lets focus on the other ones. You have already been working on your weapon summon with your normal training. As for the other ones, if you have already used them, feel free to utilize them in this facility, to ensure no side effects."
I took a bit to process everything she had said, and felt embarassed that I would have to dance just in the open like that but I had no other choice. I kept thinking about how that would work before realizing that I hadn't asked about the fact that I had met my god, and that I could speak to my weapon.
I was going to speak up, but just as I was going to the trishul's voice sounded in my ear "Not sure you should do that." I really didn't want to listen, but before I could choose not to, Raven went on, "Also once you go through a couple more weeks of training you will get your first actual assignment, so be ready." Then, Raven turned to leave.
As she walked away I wondered what the assignment might entail. As Raven reached the door though, she turned around and said "Oh yeah, if you feel that you are strong enough, you can ask to start making contributions to the war."