"Welcome to your new home, this ring is where you all will live for a quite a while."
That was the first thing I heard after walking into the room.
My resulting thought was of course 'What the hell is this'. I had been pulled here for something but all I had been told was the time and the place, nothing else.
'No no, let's think logically here. This was the day after they tested my roh capacity, which probably means this is...'
A dawning realisation came
'I'm in the cadets to be one of the divers. Oh I am so very dead.'
Though despite my thoughts having turned towards my impending death, I really didn't seem to actually care that much, I was hardly living a life anyways. I was seventeen by now but all I had going for me was working slave hours as a mechanic or in production in the outer rings. Death might actually be preferable to rotting slowly until I'm worked to death.
I didn't have anything anyways at least here I had a chance to actually do something. Looking around at all the other children here, all of which were my age. My thoughts went to just how sad they all would be. sure I was in the same situation but they actually had families, I was just some person from the outer rings with nothing. This was actually more of an opportunity for me then it was anything else, to them this was just a death sentence despite this not a single one showed emotions of fear or even apprehension.
My attention was quickly turned to the burly old man who had welcomed all of us in as he began to speak again. "You will be handed out ID now, these are both your keys and your identification, these will contain your designation".
Another man walked around handing out the ID, which were linked to a chain and were by all means dog tags.
'Another promising sign' I thought to myself sarcastically.
After being handed my ID I noticed how little it actually had engraved on it
-
Corps: 053J
Designation: 4
-
"I will be your primary instructor for the next year, you will call me Axmon."
'He has a name?'
"Lastly, you will be given your own rooms with your designation on them. I expect you to keep them clean and tidy. That is all, go to your rooms until called for. Dismissed"
My thoughts rushed past what he had just said and went to the fact he had a name.
'Names were banned, every kind of identifier apart from your temporary designation were strictly prohibited. Even making nicknames could land you in some pretty deep punishments.'
I realised I was too deep in my thoughts, so I quickly turned to leave. I was nearly the last one out the door despite how close I was to it.
As I walked down the hallway I noticed many others trying to make friends with those around them but I just walked forwards making sure not to talk to anyone. I just focused on getting to my room and situating myself.
The lecture room we had just been in was at nearly the opposite side of the ring as my room, it being in between designation twenty three and twenty four.
'That means there are nearly fifty people here with me. I wasn't expecting this many in a single ring made for divers in training.'
I walked down the hallway in the heavy direction, which was a phenomenon created due to how artificial gravity works. I had lived my entire life on this satellite so the stories of some magical force pulling you to the ground seemed ridiculous but I knew that it actually did happen on earth. Instead out here in space we used the laws of physics to our advantage, creating spinning rings to make gravity.
This ring was very noticeably smaller than the massive rings I had been used to experiencing my whole life. Not only did the floor curve up very quickly, the weight increasing effect of going in this particular direction was hard to ignore. The smaller the ring the worse the artificial gravity became due to this exact effect.
Arriving at my room I noticed the ones going around the light direction start to pass me to get to their own rooms. I understood why they took the long way, they would travel further to get to their rooms yes, but it would be much easier for them then going around the heavy direction despite the longer distance.
Pressing the ID against the door handle, after a delay made a click and opened the door slid to the side, welcoming me in.
It was a nice room, even bigger than the one I had shared with four others just the night before. A large space in the middle with a desk and a nice bed. I'm sure the other kids would be annoyed by what is here compared to their lavish lifestyles but honestly this was almost heaven for me compared to what I was used to. The one thing that piqued my interest was a pod which rested next to my bed.
'Why have two beds?'
I sat down on the bed and began to reorganize my thoughts. I started by listing all the information I knew about what happened recently.
First, yesterday after working in production I was called to take the mandatory roh capacity test which all those who are seventeen and above are required to take. This was my first time doing it and it seems I was then flagged as someone with high roh capacity, high enough they think I am an atlas system carrier.
Second, this morning I was woken up with a message on my tablet that I was to arrive at the 053J ring in the lecture hall within half an hour, which I barely made it in time for because I was on the opposite side of the damn station.
That was about it, I honestly thought I would have a bit more information but there honestly wasn't much.
'How high must my roh capacity be if I was flagged as an atlas carrier. Considering I've never heard the atlas whispering in my head but I was flagged anyways must mean my capacity is insane.' I felt excited by the thought. 'Do I actually have potential that high?'
This was the only logical thing that could be the case, but also meant a major problem.
'All ability holders receive the atlas system, which is some mythical creation that implies it comes from 'The Great Tree' and those that have it can get information about plenty of things along with unique rewards but at the cost of doing missions or killing monsters. People without abilities can receive the atlas system but are unable to understand the written language. They can only understand the initial speech when receiving the atlas then anything after that is completely unintelligible for them.'
Not having an ability in a situation like this is not good, considering all the others will have ones. This was even worse than just simply not having an ability, being blessed with an ability also increases your talent in pretty much everything, especially in the usage of roh.
'Why did this have to get so complicated so fast'
Axmon's voice boomed in the speaker above my door. "Attention, go to training hall B immediately."
I looked down at the dog tag I had yet to take out of my hands before deciding to wrap it around my neck.
Opening my door I looked to see training hall A just a few doors away from my room, but of course I wasn't going to training hall A. I was going to training hall B which as luck would have it, was on the opposite side of the god damn ring.
'I hate this already.'
While walking in the light direction this time over to training hall B I walked by a girl who had just left with faint char marks on her arms as if the hair had been singed off her arm. As she looked at me in return I noticed how her blue eyes looked as if it were sparking, a pattern of flowing electricity in her eyes that was almost hypnotic.
'What the hell am I walking into.'
The door to training hall B opened as I approached it and inside was just a large white room with a pedestal and a ball in the middle. I just simply walked in and the door closed behind me.
'Another roh test?'
It looked very similar to the room I had been in just the day before while taking the roh test.
I heard Axmon's voice through another speaker above the door again "This is where your roh is accurately tested, unlike the test you have taken before this will push your body to the limit of what it can achieve. Now, put your hand on the pedestal."
I followed what he commanded, trying not to seem apprehensive. After a moment or two I felt a weird sensation, it was like water was rushing through my arm all throughout my body and as more and more of what I presumed to be roh passed into my body. The roh quickly began to heat up, making my body feel as if I was being pumped full of boiling hot water.
fans started up all around, cooling down the air to far beyond freezing but despite that my body was still burning. Despite the feeling of being cooked alive I wasn't even able to take my hand off the pedestal, It was as if glued. The pressure kept building and building endlessly.
The pain was going to make me pass out, in fact I hoped I would just for a reprieve from the horrifying pressure and heat. Mere milliseconds before I would have gone unconscious the pain suddenly stopped rising. My mind slowly adapted to this new state of pain, alleviating the worst of the pain.
Axmon's voice resounded again saying. "The test will now begin, The roh which has been put into you has put your body to the maximum limit it can handle and now we will test how much there is by syphoning it all out of you."
'Let me guess. This is going to be painful isn't it?'