The recruiters led them inside the gate.
As soon as Alexis stepped past the threshold, he immediately felt the difference.
Whoa~
Even the other children realized the changes.
Although the place was still filled with buildings, it looked beautiful in their eyes, especially the bright lights everywhere...
There were also various machinery echoing around the place, and the air quality here was definitely a lot better than the outer zone, which was basically a garbage dump…
Perhaps this was still a military outpost, there weren't a lot of civilians moving around.
Soon, they were guided to a worn building, or barracks, and several faint red lights scanned the line of children as they moved.
The sudden red lights scanning them made them walk forward nervously. However, Alexis kept his eyes ahead as he didn't feel any ill intent from that red light…
After a short walk, they entered a huge chamber with a strange scent.
The recruiters then herded them all into a corner and moved away…
Soon, the floor hummed under their feet, and the lights shifted from white to blue.
Then, they heard a low vibration rattling the walls…
'Is it moving?' Alexis thought. He felt as if this place was alive, like a machine watching them.
Soon, the unnamed silver-jawed officer stood at the center.
"The Talent Assessment begins now…" He said with his cold voice.
"Three trials. Survival. Endurance. Compatibility. Each one will test what you could become. Not what you are now."
He scanned their faces for a moment. It was not a simple glance, as Alexis noticed that his glowing eye was pausing on each child in turn. It was as if he were recording something.
After that, he continued.
"Fail, and you will be dismissed. Pass, and you may enter Neo-Emerald's ranks. Good luck…"
Then, another officer came in… "The first trial is survival…"
'Survival?' Alexis frowned.
This was not what he had expected. After all, it felt as if there was a chance of death in this recruitment process. This recruitment wouldn't be effective if it were like that.
It doesn't make any sense since they should be assessing their future potential and not their current abilities.
'Something's off…' Alexis thought as he looked at the children.
Many of them were actually malnourished. It wouldn't be fair to be tested like this since they were in their weakest version… They wouldn't be able to find the best recruit that way.
However, there was nothing he could do for now…
The walls had already shifted. The metal plates at the center and the walls moved until they formed a vast dome.
The floor beneath them suddenly rippled like liquid glass, then hardened again.
Without warning, the environment around them underwent a sudden change. The floor turned into soil, and the terrain had also changed as if they had entered a ruined town...
Indeed, the walls dissolved into smoke, and suddenly, broken towers or buildings appeared.
Even the ceiling had changed into a storm-filled sky!
"Wh…what happened?" a younger boy muttered, clutching his shirt.
"We got transported so quickly?!"
"Where did they bring us?!"
"We're just in the barracks a few seconds ago! What's going on?!"
Before anyone could answer, something moved.
Dark shapes crawled through the grounds. Their eyes glowed red, and everyone knew about these beings… They heard stories about them from their seniors in the outer zone!
Phantom Constructs.
They were the same cybernetic horrors said to stalk the wastes between cities.
Their bodies looked like twisted frames of wire and metal, half-machine, half-human.
They heard that they were failed products of the first human attempt to immortalize their bodies with machine augmentations!
"Phantoms?!"
"How can we survive that?"
"We're going to die here…"
The children watched the Phantom's limbs twitch with its hydraulic strength… Their claws could also be seen sparking against stone.
Their faces were masks of broken glass and glowing sensors, all staring at them as if they were food to be eaten.
Even knowing they had never been this close to the outer zone, the children froze. Everyone knew from the stories how these failed beings were unreasonable and could not be killed easily.
There was no way they could survive this without having advanced weapons!
"Trial One: Survival…" The silver-jawed officer's voice was heard above them.
"Five minutes. Do not fall... You were given some light armor so you don't die easily..."
The children knew that the armor that had suddenly manifested on their bodies wasn't enough...
"Are they being serious?" Alexis muttered.
'There's no way we can survive this at all. Five Minutes is already generous. We may not last three minutes.' Alexis thought as he felt that this assessment wasn't just about survival.
The examiners were definitely looking at other things.
Furthermore, there were still two trials… He believed that they wouldn't just let them die in the first trial, which could barely assess their potential.
'Now that I think about it… Is this an illusion?' Alexis mused as he recalled what had happened inside the barracks or the chamber they entered.
Lights were scanning them, and he smelled a strange scent inside the barracks.
After reaching this thought, Alexis smirked...