Chapter 41: Strength Test (1)
"Woah, is that you Rohan?"
As soon as he stepped into the hall of the Awakened Association, a voice called out, stripping Rohan away from his thoughts.
His eyes glimmered in recognition after putting a face to the voice.
"Marcus." Rohan simply acknowledged.
"Wow, it really is you! What are you doing here of all places?" Marcus, a lanky boy sporting full combat gear and around the same age as Rohan, looked at him in surprise.
A few seconds of awkward silence passed by since Rohan declined to answer.
"Did you awaken?" Marcus asked, half jokingly.
"Since a few days ago." Rohan nodded, ready to walk right past the guy and find the nearest terminal.
Marcus’ eyes widened in surprise and trailed after him.
"Seriously? You awakened!?" He repeated, sounding as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.
"You must’ve done so in the third ceremony! Man, I’m so surprised. Those rarely ever produce any awakened after the first two failed attempts..."
Rohan kept walking and ignoring the guy, his pace neither too fast nor too slow.
He didn’t want to look like he was fleeing, but he also had absolutely no intention of standing there and chatting with Marcus like they were old friends catching up after a pleasant reunion.
They were not even close.
Marcus was one of the people most deeply involved in setting him and Joanna up, one of the masterminds behind the whole thing.
Rohan still remembered the guy’s smiling face back then, casually encouraging him, acting supportive, nudging him along, all while knowing Joanna was never actually interested in him and was part of some pathetic game.
The more he thought about it, the uglier his mood became.
’Of all the people to run into, it had to be this bastard...’
Marcus either didn’t notice Rohan’s worsening mood, or simply didn’t care. He kept his pace up beside Rohan.
"Damn, man, you’re lucky as hell. Third try too, right? What did you get, some decent starter gene? Or are you one of those unlucky awakened without one?" He leaned in slightly, voice lowering with that fake friendly tone Rohan knew all too well. "Come on, tell me. We go way back."
Rohan didn’t even glance at him.
"We’re not that close."
Marcus gave a short laugh as if Rohan had made some dry joke.
"Still acting all awkward, huh?"
Rohan’s brow twitched, barely able to stand the guy.
Marcus continued anyway, clearly deciding that silence meant he just had to push harder.
"So where are we headed? Registering something? Buying gear? Meeting someone?" His gaze moved up and down Rohan openly. "Maybe a new girlfriend? Hey, why don’t you introduce me to her!"
The guy was a complete wackjob.
Even now, Marcus continued with his ramblings.
"So whatever happeend between you and Joanna then?" He smirked. "Bet she’s regretting things now. Girls always do when status changes."
Marcus placed his hand on Rohan’s shoulder. Earning a cold look back from Rohan. He was fed up by this point.
With a blank expression, he grabbed onto Marcus’ hand and twisted it against the man’s own chest. Marcus shouted in pain.
"Lay a hand on me one more time and you’ll lose it."
Rohan suddenly smiled and let Marcus’s hand go.
***
Marcus didn’t bother Rohan again after that, leaving him ample time to find somewhere secluded to change his clothes and equip his newly purchased ski mask.
He looked rather silly wearing his new getup, but it was better than running the risk of gaining attention towards his real identity.
Once he was able to get to a free terminal earlier, it was easy for him to find out that anybody could enter the testing halls so long as they paid the required fee beforehand. It wasn’t even required to prove their identity. It was the perfect place for people like Rohan to go and test their strength discreetly.
The testing hall itself was what you’d expect from the Awakened Association. The entire floor was separated into individual testing rooms that offered privacy to everyone who used them. Each room there used top of the line technology to push Awakened to their limits and find out just where their strength lay.
This place was where the Association got their reputation for accuracy from.
"Which test would you like to perform first?"
The moment Rohan swiped his communicator and paid the exorbitant $5000 dollar fee, he was greeted by the voice of the AI that controlled the testing room.
"Strength." Rohan replied.
Before trying out the effects of his new gene combined with his Elite tier Spear, he wanted to test the most basic strength of his body without any enhancements.
’Let’s see what 7 days of absorbing Origin Crystals and absorbing an Elite tier gene did for me.’
As far as Rohan was aware, an unawakened person would achieve a strength score between 0 and 1, while an F rank Awakened with no gene could go as high as 10!
10 would be the strength of a Peak F rank Awakened who hadn’t absorbed a Gene.
The score of one who did could vary massively depending on the type, but usually capped out at about 30.
Though, Rohan now knew that there were levels even above that, since those results most definitely only took into account Normal tier Genes.
’I couldn’t find anything online about results of an Awakened who absorbed an Elite tier Gene...’
He had to upgrade his access if he wanted to dive deeper into more restricted information like that.
People who absorbed Elite tier Genes, or even higher tier genes, at F rank were likely sons and daughters of big shots in the Human race, so their backgrounds naturally limited the information available on them.
Cases like Rohan’s, where a nobody from nowhere obtained an Elite tier gene by chance, were few in comparison.
"Strength test commencing." The AI said, urging Rohan to prepare himself.
In the following moments, a machine rose from the ground beneath him, revealing what looked like a futuristic re imagining of a punching machine. This one would test the strength of both sets of limbs though.