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n“No, hold off for now, Brance; you and Benny go over by Gabby; the podium had a set of coordinates, and it looks like if we follow them, we will find three other desks that have buttons in them. The following button should be 13 away from Gabby in any direction.” Cynrik explained his findings, and the other two boys set about looking for the following button, and about 30 seconds later, it was Brance who found it. He was 13 desks away to the front of Gabby.

nNodding at Brance, Cynrik and Benny started searching 22 desks away from Brance. Finally, after a couple more minutes, Cynrik and Benny found the last button and positioned themself in a way they could quickly press it.

n“Alright, there are only two ways to do this; we either push them at the same time or in order. So let’s put it up to a vote.” Passing off the responsibility in case something went wrong, Cynrik left the final decision to the rest of the group. After a short conversation, the decision was made to push all four buttons on the count of three.

n“On three. Three, two, one push!”

nClick

nThe four children pressed the buttons simultaneously and were bathed in bright white light, teleporting them out of the room at the exact same time.

nTwo seconds later, the four of them were sitting side by side, in an exact replica of the last room, only this time, nearly all of the seats were packed with children. All around them, over a thousand other children close to their age were chatting happily about passing the previous test.

nCynrik looked over at the Sanfords and nodded while putting his finger to his lips to tell them to stay quiet before looking at the front of the room where a red-haired, middle-aged woman in a pencil skirt and glasses was standing at the podium silently observing the group of children.

nTsk, **ing already started with the dumb puzzle games. Cynriks eyes flickered around the room as he counted the empty desks.

nLooks like we were kind of slow; there are only around 40 open seats. If we were any slower, it’s safe to assume we would have flunked.

nSeems like the teacher lady is eyeing us like a hawk, Cyn. Brance too noticed the silent red-head across the room and spoke up about her.

nEither she’s just keeping count, or there’s another BS filter being applied to kick out people. Just stay quiet for now, and do the little good child act you always do. Cynrik scoffed internally, picking up on the nervous tone Brance had used.

nTime moved on slowly as small clusters of new kids would appear in the empty seats. Each time a new batch showed up, the teacher would check her Watcet before clicking her tongue and scanning the crowd again.

nEventually, after 30 minutes, the final seat was filled, and the Red-Head cleared her throat loudly, causing the noisy children to go silent.

n“Welcome, and congratulations. This classroom holds exactly 1600 desks, and there are seven more just like it. This means, of the initial 183,200 applicants, only 12,800 of you completed the qualifying assessment to take the Written Exam.”

nCynriks pupils shrunk to pinholes as he realized this first little puzzle had eliminated nearly 93% of the people who applied. If they had only been a few minutes slower on solving it, they would have been part of the over 170 thousand people eliminated.

n“Now then, in five minutes, each of you will receive a prompt on your Watcets, giving you access to the testing program. You will have precisely 2 hours to complete the multiple-choice test, and you must score at least a 90% to advance to the 2nd Phase of the Exam. The program will be directly sent to you through a neuro-link, so only you will be able to see the questions, and it only takes a simple thought to fill in the correct bubble and move on to the next question. Using this method also means there will be no way of cheating.”

nHehe, unless you’re us and have a Divine blessing from two Gods. Cynrik snickered in the mind-link forcing Brance to frown and ignore him.

n“If there are any questions, now would be the time to speak up, as there will be absolutely no talking while the Written Exam is being administered.” Finishing her statement, several hands rose up to ask questions, and the Red-head, picked on a couple of them one at a time. Most of the questions were simple clarifications about what she had just gone over, and Cynrik tuned them out. That is until a relevant question was posed.

n“Ma’am, once we pass the Written Exam, when will we know the start time and contents of Phase: Two?” A brown-haired girl around Brance’s age asked nervously.

n“If, and ONLY IF, you pass the Written portion, you will have 48 hours to prepare for the next phase of the exam. Only those who pass today will find out its contents.”

nWelp, small blessings right, 48 hours is plenty of time to power level our Affinities. But…

nCynrik was cut off by the Red-head who’s next statement was a bit shocking.

n“One more thing, the 100 people who finish slowest but still score a 90% or higher shall be eliminated. Now then, everyone sits quietly until you receive the prompt to begin the test.

nThere it is. Of course, they’re eliminating people with poor times. With his mouth closed, Cynrik ran his tongue over one of his molars while thinking.

nI guess we have to speed run this **. I’m a bit worried about Gabby since she’s not the brightest apple in our group; I mean, she’s sooo madly in love with you after all. Snickering internally, Cynrik tried his best to ignore the howls of anger flooding the mind-link from Brance.

nLuckily, he didn’t have to do this for long, as just when Brance was starting to pick up with his insults, his Watcet vibrated, and a notification popped up on its display.

n-You have been granted access to Written Exam

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