Everyone froze while looking at him and the girl with the spatial distortions around her yelped. This time the man named Mark didn't stop her." I am one of the few S rank explorers and one of even fewer with the special privilege to be a talent scout this year." he looked around at the students who were still frozen in fear."I know almost none of y'all noticed me but that is what my core does so don't be afraid."
"Sir, I was barely even able to notice you that was amazing is there anything else you can do?" Eram looked at him with awe and amazement. He was grateful at being recognized for noticing him but even still he only caught him by chance but wasn't fixing to tell Mark that.
Mark looked at him satisfied but knew he couldn't tell the young boys whose name he didn't know yet."Ha, I appreciate the flattery it is nothing but a mere parlor trick, though you haven't yet told me your name?"
"My name is Eram Shibo" he barely managed to squeeze out as he could feel the other students glaring at him.
With a glance from Mark, all of the students looked away from Eram pretending not to have done it in the first place." Well, it's nice to meet you, you passed and you will be going to a high school of your choice, though I still want to see what else your core can do and to see how much more talented you are." he then looked at the girl that made the dimensional sphere and said, " You pass as well, So with that being said any questions?"
Many kids yell "Wait what we didn't get an hour to practice what do you mean?" and other statements similar to that. The students were frantically looking around trying to figure out what to do.
The man looked at all of the students and coldly declared "Life doesn't wait on you to get ready. You at the front of the class please show me what you can do" The student looked at him terrified and slowly walked up to the front of the class and got ready to show his ability. He approached the podium in the front of the class quivering and slowly lifted his hands all of the utensils on the desks started to float up and some of the students noticed they felt a bit lighter "Amazing! Just spectacular that having the ability to reduce gravity and even slightly reverse it for lighter objects is simply something necessary and extremely useful for explorers! What's your name boy?" Mark exclaimed with excitement in his voice similar to that of a child getting candy.
The boy almost passed out from shock" I am Gunther sir. Wha…What do I... do now?" he said stuttering from sheer terror at all of the envious gazes at him feeling what Eram felt.
"You can sit down thank you, everyone who passes will follow me after class so just state your name and use your ability and I will tell you whether or not you pass next," he said while pointing at the student behind him.
The girl behind Gunther stood up and walked to the front. At first, she walked slowly but slowly she built her confidence up by putting Gunther and Eram down in her head thinking she was better than them. The girl stated her name and proceeded to make a small flaming wisp that had the eary feeling to make people look towards it however it was a very poor core and the teacher responded:" Sorry you failed, though your core looks good on the outside and not only that youll need government assistance to make your core useful, it lacks substance and not only that your core burns too much fuel I'm sorry." the girls color drained from her face, she then fell to her knees crying, then passed out.
Mark felt bad so he gave the class a short explanation to try to ease some nerves." ok so as you can see she failed but it's not over for her she has a good core it's just not good enough without outside help. If I pass her and she goes to an Explorers school she'll just fail there and by some unfortunate circumstance she barely passes she'll immediately get herself and her team killed she needs to go to a government-endorsed high school where she can sign contracts to get what she needs and I'm more than willing to help her get there." he looked at the class with a regretful face and then he pointed at the next student who reluctantly got up and moved to the class like a robot.
" My name is Shiella and here is my core ability" She opened her mouth and made a void in her mouth and anyone who looked at it immediately got dizzy" She was scared due to the fact she didn't understand her ability and what it could do.
Mark learned from his previous mistake that he shouldn't get excited because it might just tear the next student down. He simply smiled and said," Pass next."
He then pointed at the next student who then failed with his ability being the ability to make tiny sparkles of light in the air. And the next who also failed with the ability to make himself slightly float in the air "Sorry failed, next."
Many students came up to the podium and tried their best but didn't pass the first half of the 30 students only 6 passed and the latter half were going to be tested after a short bathroom break. The 9 that didn't pass were balling their eyes out upset over their missfortuions
Eram got up looking at his competition knowing that when he got back there would only be one more person before him so I talked to the girl who had she shimmering sphere around her. "Hey, what is your ability"
She looked back thinking about how to respond "Well I'm not too sure how to describe it. When I think hard I can make a sphere around me that protects me."
"Sounds cool mind if I see how strong it is," he asked expecting his request to be denied.
Not knowing any better she obliged and proceeded to make the protective sphere around here and then shook her head once it was ready. After receiving the nod Eram had the bright idea to stick his whole arm in there and then the light shimmered and his arm fell off "Aghh!" Eram's arm felt like it was on fire.
The girl was almost brought to tears seeing her classmate's arm fall off, quickly shutting off her ability" I'm so sorry I..I.. didn't mean to." but then Eram did something that caught her even more off guard. He bent over and picked up his arm and most of the blood that came out of his arm crawled up it and went back into it and he simply put his arm back on as quickly as it came off.
Eram was gritting his teeth from the pain but luckily it was a clean cut "No, I'm sorry I wasn't thinking clearly. That burned and I would like to not experience that again. By the way I can heal easily so it no big deal." he looked at her with a neutral expression not showing any emotion but then noticing how upset she was hit her with a smile bigger than that of his dads.
The girl looked at him with the goofiest and dumbfounded expression she had ever made and simply turned around and walked back into the class feeling like a train wreck. Eram noticed she went inside but still had to use the bathroom so he walked there and after he was done came back to the class.
"When is this bathroom break going to be over It has already been 15 minutes?" one impatient student said from the latter half of the class getting bored of waiting to see if he passed or failed while some other students who already failed were agreeing with him.
Mr. Longly looked around at the majority of gloomy students and decided to let the children know where the talent scout went" Give Mark a little bit he is making a call to his higher-ups letting them know of the already outstanding results and is requesting 13 school boards due to the outstanding amount of talent in my class." he was about to continue when the first girl who had failed interrupted.
"How is there a lot of talent when it's projected that most of us are going to fail anyway?" she said with her head on the desk barely a whisper due to crying for a long time.
"Well it might not seem it, but usually about 10 students pass out of a 200. So 13 out of 30 is a legendary feat. There are about 16 billion people alive right now so that should give you an estimate of how small that is. There are about 8 million kids born every year and that means that only a hundred thousand pass the initial screening and more than three-fourths fail within the second year and that only leaves about 12 thousand that pass every year. So please don't feel down.
Everyone looked at the door as Mark walked in with a sly smile on his face." looks like I get a bonus this year."