Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

50  Is that it?

"Since I already told you about the strength of each rank, I may as well do the same with speed."

"F- ranks usually don't go above 10 m/s, though there are some exceptions. F ranks can range between 10 and 20 m/s, F+ ranks between 21 and 40 m/s. E- ranks range from 41 and 60 m/s, E ranks from 61 to 80 m/s and E+ ranks cap out at 100m/s."

"This might seem like a lot of information overload, but it allows you to put into perspective just how much of an anomaly you are. Realistically you should only be able to reach 60 m/s, maybe a little above, but not to the extent that you are near E+ rank speeds…"

Kyla seemed even more shocked at his speed test results than his strength test.

But since she had a job to do, she had to complete Alex's tests before she wanted to do anything like recruiting him.

"Let's head over to the final test."

Alex was happy to hear that he was finally moving on to the last test, ever since he had come back from the Primordial Expanse, all the procedures he had to go through were extremely tedious and he was glad to be rid of them.

"For this last test, all you need to do is dodge."

The explanation Kyla gave for this one was shorter than the previous two, and Alex had no idea what he was actually supposed to dodge.

He was inside a small 5m by 5m box with the walls being made out of some transparent material, allowing Alex to see Kyla standing outside the box with the tablet in her hand.

He looked at her and opened his mouth, asking what he was supposed to do now, but she was unable to hear a thing he said due to the wall blocking them

Instead, she ignored his attempts to communicate and tapped the screen on her tablet, which seemed to have awakened something in the box.

"Reaction test activating…"

"Level 1 begins in 10 seconds."

10…

9…

8…

Alex was barely given any time to comprehend anything before he was thrusted straight into the test without any prior warning.

He had no idea what level 1 entailed, nor how it was supposed to test his reaction speed but he remembered the sentence Kyla spoke to him before he entered.

'Dodge.'

Sure enough, just as the countdown ended, a laser shot right at Alex's head from the ceiling above him.

With the speed the laser was moving, it was no big deal for him to dodge it, but inwardly he was very confused.

'Is she trying to kill me???' n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Just from the energy he felt inside the laser, he realised that it actually had the power to harm him!

It wouldn't kill him, it would probably take hundreds of the same laser shot at the same time to kill him, but the fact he might get injured in this test didn't please him at all.

"Level 1 - pass."

"Beginning level 2."

Since he had dodged the first laser, the computer had judged that he passed the first level.

'I can tell the next few minutes aren't going to be fun…'

***

15 minutes later, Alex exited the reaction chamber looking much more red than when he first entered.

He wasn't embarrassed or anything.

He had just reached level 20 and was hit by 10 different lasers simultaneously. Dodging wasn't an option anymore, his limit had been reached.

Kyla looked at the frown on his slightly burned face and chuckled, prompting Alex to scoff.

"So how'd I do?"

Kyla took a few seconds to finish her chuckle fit.

"You tell me, you reached level 20. How do you think you did?"

Instead of telling him his results outright, she instead threw the question back at him.

"Lemme guess, I scored around high E rank, low E+ rank." Alex replied with sarcasm.

Since he had been around this level in the previous two tests, it was a no brainer that his results on the reaction test would be similar.

"Spot on! Who knew you could be so perceptive!" Kyla was clearly mocking Alex, since the answer was so obvious a five year old could figure it out.

"Enough of this already. I've completed all the tests, so shouldn't I be officially registered now?"

The atmosphere quickly changed to serious when Alex asked that question.

He wasn't interested in hearing how the results usually looked for each rank this time.

Kyla's expression also turned serious.

"You must be forgetting something. Something very important, Alex."

Kyla stood there waiting for Alex to reply, but no reply came.

Sigh

"You still have yet to take the test for any affinities. This is perhaps the most important test, more important than all the physical tests combined."

Alex's brows perked up in realisation.

He was so immersed in the physical tests that he had totally forgotten about the test for aptitude!

"Follow me." Kyla said.

***

A few short minutes later, Alex was led to a door protected by two heavily armed guards on either side of it, along with many layers of security checks such as retina scan, fingerprint scan and an 8 digit keypad.

'Seems a little excessive.'

Alex had no idea why so much security was needed to protect the room where aptitude tests take place, but he was sure Kyla would tell him the answer later on.

After going through all the security checks, Kyla pushed open the door with a click sound and hissing reverberating when the huge hunk of metal slowly swung to the side.

'A pressurised room?'

Alex's questions increased but he kept them to himself for now.

Shortly after the door shut with a heavy thud.

"This is the room where aptitude tests take place." Kyla spoke with a heavy tone.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions regarding the heavy security, but those can wait for after."

"First, all you have to do is move to the centre of the room and the process will all be over in a matter of seconds."

Kyla finished speaking and Alex looked towards the centre she was talking about.

It looked like nothing special to him, the entire room just looked like a box with some plain white walls and nothing else.

There was literally nothing in the room except for two of them.

When he moved to the centre, Alex looked back at Kyla and she operated her tablet once again.

While Alex was expecting for some sort of device to pop out of the floor or something, instead he felt the energy in the room become much more condensed for a few seconds before it disappeared.

'Is that it?'

"Your results are out! Come check them." Kyla spoke, not even trying to hide the excitement in her voice this time.