This time the auditorium wasn't squeezed together, and everybody could get around. The chairs had enough room to comfortably push down a cart with snacks with somebody passing by.
That was because it was much smaller, and only had enough seats for a kindergarten classroom.
Despite there only being 6 small rows of 5 chairs, the four-legged appliances still outnumbered the 32 people in the 1 room.
There were twenty students corralled into its claustrophobic walls, but they decided not to complain because of the twelve adults standing around the edges of the room.
The sixteen kids that awakened before me were already seated in the chairs in a way akin to a game of darts.
There were small groups formed by lucky friends, or popular kids and their lackeys, yet there were also the loners who left some space between themselves and the other cliques.
The loners had already taken up the back rows, and the others took up the middle two rows, so I was forced to sit in the front.
Surprisingly, when I sat down the Jessica girl decided to sit right next to me.
I paid it no mind because it was the second, closest seat to the doors.
There were no windows, and sadly there were almost a dozen adults positioned at the front with the podium.
The last two of the adults were at the door.
They looked to be of the Orange Grade, but I couldn't tell yet.
I still didn't even know my talent.
"Okay, you whippersnappers probably can guess why you are all here, right?" the burly man calmly spoke.
I still hadn't figure out how his voice resonated around the room yet.
He had no apparent sound amplifying device, but it still carried itself around the room and back.
The podium he stood also had no such device.
"If you can't at this point than I have no choice, but to have you thrown out," he threatened.
I heard a few extra breaths from behind me sucked up.
There was a reason I didn't associate with the people behind me.
He was here to find people with talent.
We were the ones with talent.
It was obvious that he was trying to recruit us before anybody else got to us.
"The simple answer is that I am here to simply administer the test," he clarified, "I also came here for a good vacation."
Huh?
What was he on?
Firstly, our town has consistently been ranked within the middle of cities ranking.
Everything here was average except for our dungeon outbreaks and tap water.
We had way to many dungeon outbreaks, yet we somehow had some of the best water in the world.
I was confident to say that we had somehow maintained top 10 in the tap water rankings since I was born.
On the other hand, our town had been subjected to twice the amount of dungeon outbreaks than a normal city.
Secondly, what do you mean you aren't here to recruit us?
You gathered us all for a lecture about how our town is a good place to get a tan?
I nearly had an allergic reaction because of how stupid he sounded.
"But," he paused, "I sadly have a job to do before I can go have some fun."
I knew that wasn't it.
He took a quick glance at our juvenile appearances, "You all have awakened a good talent level."
"You all know that you have too," he sharply inhaled, "Now you think that you can go anywhere, and become some of the strongest."
I started to get relaxed, and positioned myself to rest on my right hand.
I imagined some of the students smiling just from his comments.
The people in my row were slovenly gazing at the podium.
Those in the middle rows were probably dreaming of what cool powers they could use.
The people in the back?
I don't know, maybe there were imaging an anime girl for whatever desires they had?
"Guess what," the old man interrupted my thoughts, "You have just qualified to come to Bronzeheart Academy to pursue whatever it is you want to do.
"You can do whatever you want", he continued to promise.
"All you need to do is sign this contract," he teased, "It isn't anything hard, and it only says that you will commit to our school no matter what your talent is."
He put a stack of contracts on a table that came from who knows where and said, "Those who want to succeed in life can come sign this contract right now, but do know this will be your only chance."
The burly, old man in front of me was from Bronzeheart Academy which, despite its name, was a very good school.
You had to have at a minimum a Green Grade, and the facilities are known to all be wanted by many families and high end schools around the world.
They were known for making anybody with a Blue Grade stronger than some with Indigo Grade.
It was a great school, and anybody with Green or Blue would want to join it.
Should I have made myself a Purple Grade? I wondered.
A higher level academy obviously had lots of resources, so a prestigious one should have more.
I didn't want to settle for a high leveled academy.
I had chosen an Indigo Grade, and there wasn't anything I could really do to change that.
The only chance would probably be the second test, but I knew nothing about it.
Our teachers had only told us there were two tests, yet they told us nothing about the second one.
We were drilled with fun facts about the first test, but whenever we asked about the second test we were shot a glare, and told to shut up and sit down.
There was something I did figure out about the test.
We didn't figure out our talents from the first test.
Everybody with a talent does eventually figure out its identity, and it happened on the same day.
That means there should have been a means of finding out about it.
This second test was probably about testing what your talent actually is.
"Thank you all for your signatures," the old man continued, "I hope to see you this fall."
"For now, let's finish these stupid tests," he grumbled.
Nearly everybody had run up there, but a Blue Grade, the other Indigo Grade, and I stayed still.
It was funny to see kids my age run like it was some sort of super sale for a new Automatrix, when it was only to sign a piece of paper with their blood.
To sign the piece of paper you used your DNA because it was harder to forge than a signature.
"Come along now!" the old man yelled.
I calmly stood up and followed him into the other auditorium with the rest of the group.
"What is she doing," I was perplexed.
She had stood up to follow the group, but she was only standing behind me.
I had chosen to be in the back of the group because I didn't want to be line leader again, but she kept behind me like a robot.
The randomness left me confused because it was kind of creepy.
When we were sat down we both didn't even touch the shared armrest between us.
I did that because I thought it was disgusting, and I am pretty sure she thought so too, but this was beyond my expectations.
She had always hung around friends, and they weren't always the cleanest, but she stayed a respectable distance away from them when it happened.
Now she was exactly 46 centimeters behind me, and her stride was not faltering.
I noticed this peculiar behavior because I slowed down to avoid bumping into people whilst we converged into the small hall, and she nearly took off my shoe.
I looked back to make sure it wasn't the staff who were at the door, and it turned out to be her.
She quickly muttered something under her breath, but I couldn't hear her whispers whilst I readjusted my shoe.
After my shoe was fixed, I quickly walked faster to catch up with the other before they exited
And so did she.
As we entered the old auditorium, I noticed an astonishing amount of chaos.
The seating chart we had set up before was gone, and now everyone sat where they wanted.
Luckily the second row wasn't too full, so I quickly found a spot to sit, and focused my attention towards the podium again.
The old man had taken center stage, and gave a loud clap that hurt everybody's ears.
He quickly followed it with his booming voice, "Okay young folk, lets get started with the second test."
Suddenly the Obelisk began to change.
I could only describe its turning like the solving of a rubix cube, but if it was something four-dimensional.
At times a point would intersect with another, and pieces would just appear back in spots they were before, but nothing stopped its metamorphosis.
It turned inside out, and back again.
It's point had potentially stabbed the ground, and the box it stood on before had turned itself into a triangle, and after that a sphere.
It was trippy.
It was an optical illusion with no right perspective because when you found one you needed a new one.
What felt like a blink of an eye took nearly two-minutes, but it felt enlightening and confusing.
In the end it was still shifting, but it was doing so in a pattern.
It went from an obelisk, to a rectangle, to a sphere, to a hypercube, to a line, to a hypersphere, and finally repeated with an obelisk.
That doesn't even mention the weird lights coming out from them.
I couldn't see the lights, but when my eyes started to hurt from looking at it I can make a sound guess.
My eyes were feeling very strained, and there wasn't anything I could seem to do about it.
I had already clamped my eyes shut, and glued my hands to my sockets, but they still hurt.
I heard a few swears from other students, but it didn't hurt that bad.
It was just a mild annoyance
A little while after closing my eyes I felt someone grab my right hand, and stuff something into it.
It felt like some glasses.
I quickly put them on, and miraculously my eyes started to feel better.
The former obelisk hadn't had an looks change other than its shape continuing to remain undecided.
On the other hand, everyone was wearing glasses.
Everybody, including the staff blocking the entrance were wearing these special glasses.
They looked to be normal sunglasses, but they were from Bladecorp, so they obviously had something unique about them.
Bladecorp is never as bland as it seems.
There was one person not wearing the Bladecorp glasses though.
It was the old man.
Instead of being grumpy like in the beginning of the day.
He was slightly less grumpy.
His smile was strained and his eyes were slightly narrowed, but he looked like he was finally getting some amusement out of our pain.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the glasses, and my pain went away.
I turned to my left to look at the students and teachers were slowly passing out glasses to every edgy kid in the back, and those in the middle were still bent over from the pain even with the sun glasses.
I turned to my right to see the last of my class, and I saw Jessica immediately on my right.
I had sat four seats into the clump of seats because it seemed appropriate, and it would help discern her intentions, but it did nothing except confuse me further.
She was even doing better than other students because like me she was starting to observe her surroundings.
The rest of the students seemed to be in pain, but I recognized the people with Blue Grades seeminly struggling less, and those with Green Grades were also doing better than most.
It was obvious that our grades had to do with this pain, but what was even causing it?
The old man quickly called again to gather our attention, "Focus up whippersnappers! We have a test to conduct!"
As everybody started to focus on the old man, the teachers started to gather everybody into groups, and judging how Jessica and I were the only ones in our group.
We were sorted by Grade.
The one who had signed the contract were separated from their respective groups, and after all the Red Grades had gathered themselves they began the testing.