Caden woke up bright and early the next morning. He wasted no time to get prepared. He decided to wear a fancy black suit today with a black tie, used some colone and walked out of his room. He managed to sneak his way out of his mansion and into the city streets.
Once outside he started walking down the street for a few minutes, took a few turns and after walking for almost an hour, he found himself standing in front of a gigantic five floor building.
The building was made of some of finest metals ever discovered by humanity. It had an amazing sheen to it but other than that, the buildings intricately designed pattern made it literally undescribable.
All that could be said about it was that it was a large, tall majesty. Caden walked through the sliding glass doors and into the main hall where he saw hundreds of people gathered within doing various things.
The hall was filled with various small shops that lined up the sides all the way to the back with evenly distributed space and intervals for people to just chill around if they weren't interested in shopping.
Caden ignored and avoided everything until he got to the Elevator at the back, where he saw a beautiful clerk in her small booth attached to the elevators side.
The clerk looked up and smiled as he approached. Caden got there and greeted the smiling clerk.
"Good morning sir, how many I be of help to you." The clerk asked respectfully.
"Good morning miss, I came for an evaluation." Caden said with a confident smile.
"Ok, well then, please head to the last floor, they'll be someone waiting for you there." The clerk said while maintaining her smile.
Caden walked into the elevator and tapped the fifth floor button while the clerk took out the company phone to make a call.
After only a few seconds, the elevator door opened as Caden was greeted by a burley man wearing a suit. No words were exchanged as Caden followed the man's lead into a room nearby which was filled with various different equipment and three men in lab coats, one of them with a notepad in hand.
"Welcome to the assignment room, my name is Dr. Ben and I will be the one overseeing this evaluation. The man to my left is Dr. Lu and he is in charge of the equipment and to my right is Dr. Kolten who is in charge of taking records and the man who led you here is Leo." One of the men stepped forward and introduced everyone.
Caden was led by Dr. Ben to a tube like device and he stepped into it.
"This is the most basic of tests. It is to check for a soul core and if you have one, it'll artificially activate it so we can see the power output and requirement of your potential trait." Dr. Ben said as the device was activated.
Something akin to a blue transparent flame engulfed the entire tube and for a second there was no reaction, then, an eerily black orb outlined in Caden's chest as the flame quickly stabilized to fill the tube itself.
The energy that formed the flames stabilized itself into the cylindrical shape of the tube before getting corrupted by the orb and turning black. The energy begun condensing until it was no longer transparent.
"Alright, let's move to the next test." Dr. Ben stated as the energy was dispersed and the tube deactivated.
Caden was led over to a pentagon shaped small arena where a test dummy was at the center. Dr. Lu quickly brought out a special made kind of gun and handed it to Caden.
"In your hand is a special made energy pistol. It taps into your soul core and drains a bit of its energy to fire a condensed bullet of your energy. We use it to measure your offensive capabilities. Just aim and shoot." Dr. Ben said to Caden.
Caden did as he was told and squeeze the trigger on the pistol. It was a strange feeling, as if someone reached into his heart and pulled something out of it, something he hadn't quite grasped yet and a small dark bullet shot out of the pistol and into the dummy's chest as a tiny explosion took place at the point of contact.
A fist sized hole was left in the chest of the dummy as Dr. Kolten started clapping his hands.
"Now that's some good firepower." Leo said for the first time.
Caden blushed at the compliment as a small hatch opened beneath and above the dummy. The old one sunk while a new dummy dropped from the above, this time, it had a gun of its own.
Dr. Lu quickly took the gun from Caden and replaced it with a bracelet which he slipped into Caden's hand.
"On your hand is a bracelet with a similar technology to the gun. It taps into your soul core and drains its energy but instead of firing a bullet, it condenses the energy into a shield to defend against the dummy's attack. This is to test your defense capabilities, endurance and recovery rate." Dr. Ben stated.
Just like before, the uncomfortable feeling of being drained took place and a totally black transparent energy shield appeared around him.
"Is the black a cosmetic choice?" Caden asked.
"No, the energy belongs to you so whatever colour it takes is the colour your ability is going to take so get used to it before the test is over." Dr. Ben replied.
Caden saw something move from the corner of his eye and turned around just as the dummy fired a shot from its gun. The condensed energy bullet struck the shield around Caden but it didn't shatter, the shield didn't even crack.
"Wait, do that again." Dr. Ben instructed.
The dummy fired again and the energy bullet struck the shield as before but there was no reaction.
"Interesting."