..Shit.
[Enigma Specialization: ..Utility]
0.2% percent? Is that even possible? Huh?
A wave of silence followed after the robotic voice, no one dared to say anything.
Yoel himself looked as if he had seen a ghost. His already pale skin had become even paler, some could argue that it looked gray or white..
A fate like this, it was worse than death, almost. At least the group knew of that, so they kept quiet.
Yoel, feeling cold sweat rolling down his cheeks simply turned around.. paused.. then walked back into the crowd of teenagers.
The teenagers made way for him, as if some invisible barrier has been erected ever since the announcement of his chances of awakening.
Lady Fate, was indeed cruel as she could be. Her tapestries have been revealed to be cruel for Yoel, and only for him.
The teenagers pitied him, while the new replacement of the guide meanwhile.. looked quite puzzled.
Nobody could discern the expression on his face. Disappointment? Confusion? Whatever he felt when he saw that, he clearly didn't let it show on his face.
Instead, he spoke in a loud voice, the reason why was not known, but they'd like to believe that he was covering for the poor kid.
"Alright.. That seems to be about everyone. Now that you've gotten your readings and near accurate assessments of your control over Avon, and a future designation type of your Enigma.. we can move onto the truly dangerous stuff."
"I believe you all know you came here to take some kind of test to be enrolled here, no?"
He did not wait for an answer. This person seemed very hasty, unlike the one before.
"Right. This 'test' you will be taking will actually be split into different parts, we call them trials. You will be given time to prepare before each trial. Each one represents a quality one of our prestigious students must possess. Furthermore, there is no discrimination, whether poor or rich, you have come here to broaden your scope of knowledge and to simply grow stronger, one way or another. I do not care if you have 0.2% awakening.. or 99.9%."
The man spoke, although the last bit he spoke with a less loud voice than before, even he couldn't just move on from that fact, as easy as it felt it was to him.
The man, afterwards made a gesture with his hands, and a handful of apartment keys materialized on them. He then gestured for the group to come closer.
"These here are your dorm keys. You will be assigned into the trainee dorm, as the first trial will begin in about a month. The type of trial will be announced 5 days before it begins."
"I won't go into much detail as we mostly let those partaking in the trials figure it out themselves, but pay special attention to your dorm rooms. Also, the men's and women's dorms are separated, obviously. Do not try anything funny. I hope you all have the intelligence and control to hold your inner desires back."
The man then began to call out names one by one, and they were given their dorm keys, with their name written on it and the room that was supposed to be their dorm.
Yoel, the last one to pick up a key, heard an almost inaudible sentence escape from the man's mouth.
"... sorry."
Was all he could make out. The man pitied him. It irritated him to say the least. He came here to change his life, but he was going to be treated like this here too?
Before he could continue down this spiral of thoughts however, a beeping noise abruptly began to sound from his key.
Yoel, disrupted by the sudden beeping noise, turned to look at the key. He watched as the key manifested a small hologram.
The hologram was but a simple arrow, which pointed him to a specific way. The design wasn't too crazy or anything, just the basics.
Yoel was confused for a bit, then thought that technology, empowered by Avon was advancing quite swiftly, and that he didn't expect holograms could be fit in such a small item like a key.
Out of simple curiosity, he followed it. He walked for a bit until he found himself standing infront of the dorm building. He had a slight suspicion where this was taking him.
He walked into the building, then up the stairs and reached a room in the corner of the building. There was a sign on it that read "J-78", Yoel looked down and read the dorm room written on his key, and it read the same thing.
Obviously it would, dumbass. Where did you expect it to take you? Idiot.
Yoel tried to forget about his blunder, and simply opened the door. It turns out that there was no need to unlock it the simple way, as a mere flick of the wrist could open the door for him.
Walking inside, he immediately spotted that there were quite a few rooms in it. To his left side, there was a bathroom that was quite spacious. It had a bath and a lot of other essentials needed to take a bath, such as soap and whatnot.
There was a single in the main room, and across from it was his desk. On the desk was a peculiar device.. or at least looked like one.
Yoel reached out to touch it, although very cautiously.
Once he gave it a small boop, the once cube looking device expanded and shone with a blue light. Then, it spoke.
Do all things have to speak in this damned academy? The hell?
[Welcome, participant. I am a device that you may browse to learn different skills from, ranging from combat specific ones to useful survival ones. Or you could simply learn about this academy and it's training facilities.]
[As we do not discriminate between participants, you have all been given a balance of 160,000 digital points. You may spend these as you see fit, to learn a more in-depth style of combat or other useful techniques. Your balance will be updated by 30,000 each day, so spend your points carefully. You are also required to feed yourself, and you may only do that with these digital points. So once again, make sure to not waste them.]
Yoel looked at it for a few seconds, studying its features, then spoke out loud:
"What is this place?"
The object lit up with a green light, then went back to its usual blue one.
[Lannister Academy. Further information however is not allowed to be disclosed until you have passed your first trial.]
..I guess these guys really don't know how to entice people into enrolling here, huh?
Yoel thought as he ignored the beautiful view outside his window, and the many buildings that stood next to his.
He quickly moved onto his next question.
"What is the most important skill for the first trial?"
The robotic voice spoke back:
[Figure it out.]
Yoel at that point, was beginning to get annoyed. But I guess whoever made this knew what they were doing. You can't seem to bypass any information here.
Once again, he spoke out to the device. This time, he was given an actual answer.
["Combat Techniques" search begun. . .]
Afterwards, a hologram popped up, this one looked like a shop one could browse from.
Yoel looked at it with curiosity, then he looked at the various categories he could scroll through.
[Body Strengthening Techniques. . .
Mind Clarity Techniques. . .
Weapon Techniques. . .
ERROR. PARTICIPANT IS UNQUALIFIED TO VIEW THE FOLLOWING.]
Yoel shrugged off the error message, then looked at the "Body Strengthening" category.
[Basic Body Strengthening]
[A foundation usually recommended to newbies, trains your body to undergo the awakening of an Enigma, while normally strengthening your body for your everyday life. May be useful for your trials.]
[Cost: 50,000 DP.]
(Digital Points will now be referred to as DP for the sake of the story)
Yoel was about to buy it, but then decided to scroll through everything else before he fully made his choice.
He pinpointed the most interesting body strengthening techniques, and then he compared them all.
[Basic Warrior Body]
[Train yourself in the art of an ancient warrior. Become able to exert brute strength and rampage through an enemy's defense easier than before. Beware however, there are several drawbacks to this technique. Show true dominance to your enemy.]
[Basic Guardian Body]
[Train your body to become an unyielding mountain. Be able to take on attacks twice your size and be unharmed. Your limbs and organs may fail you during your training, it is extremely risky to practice this style. Watch your enemies despair as they try to bring you down, and fail miserably.]
..There were a lot of other styles Yoel had seen, and it had honestly begun to overwhelm him. The fact that he still has 0.2% chance to awaken was still weighing on him heavily, and he has a mostly miserable vision of the future.
He had a lot of things to go over, especially if he wanted to pass whatever this first trial was and even have a chance of passing this thing as a whole.
The weight of the truth had begun to hold him down.
He did not wish to give up but at the same time, it felt so tiring to move forward.