“Now if there are no more questions, let’s head to the second part of the interview,” Sheila said as she got head from her seat and began to make her way towards the door. Seth followed her after grabbing his things. He was led further down the hallway, and they soon entered another room.

Seth was caught by surprise on how different the new room was. The first room was a conference room. The new room was several times larger. It took up at least two floors and was large enough to put two of his houses in it. The room was barren except for a few noticeable parts. There were no windows, but there was small balcony used for viewing which Seth was currently standing on. A pair of stairs were attached to the balcony connecting to the bottom floor.

“Welcome to the training facility. This is where the practical part of your interview is going to take place. If you need to change to more comfortable attire, there are locker rooms further down,” Sheila said as she pointed out two doors on the balcony. “Once you’re done changing, just come out and wait for the person who will be testing your abilities.”

Seth nodded and said “ Thank you.” Following Sheila's instructions, he heads for the locker rooms. The first door he saw had the male symbol on it, indicating for Seth it was the right one. He pushed his way in and saw a typical changing room. There was rows of lockers and a shower room attached. There were a few benches in between the lockers. Seth put his backpack down and began to take out his training cloth.

Seth wondered what kind of person would be testing his skills. Hopefully it wouldn’t be Mr. White. That would make the second part terribly short and an instant failure. According to Sheila, it seems unlikely that Mr. White would take part. However it didn’t hurt to be mentally prepared. She mentions that Mr. White held a high status in the Federation, so he shouldn’t have the time to be running around and testing a teenager like Seth right? Besides wondering about his future tester, Seth went over what he learned during the interview.

The Federation was very thorough in checking his background.

There was a chance to find out more information about the Bastion of Heros in the Federation database. The Federation has a public site that he had checked before, but now he had a chance to check more classified information. He wondered how much information was hidden away. Of course, that was assuming he got pass the interview.

Sheila had remain neutral the whole time during the interview. Seth could not tell if he weas doing well or failing when he was answering the question. It was even more nerve wrecking when she jotted down some note on the documents and he could not read them. That only fueled his uncertainty even more.

There was one other thing he learned today.

I'm a Martial Artist huh? Seth had never known what exactly to call himself. He knew he wasn’t an Awaken. His master was an Awaken. His abilities to control darkness was a superpower that only an Awaken could have. Strictly speaking, Awaken abilities could not be pass down on a whim. There were cases of people of the same family awakening the same or similar powerset. Scientist explained it had something to do with DNA, but Seth didn’t understand the details behind it when he read the scientific papers. What his master taught him was something was completely different.

Master had use terms such as cultivator before. However, when he had search the net using the particular term, a lot fantasy related novels and comics came up. There was no actual information that would help him with forming a core. It did give him ideas about trying to recreate some moves from the novels. Who wouldn’t want to do superpowered moves? Unfortunately, most of the impressive techniques were out of his reach. He didn’t have the chi to empower such techniques. His Master had scoffed at the ideas he wanted to try, but humored him and allowed Seth to make the attempt. Most attempts ended in failure.

That was the reason why forming a core was so important to Seth. A core would allow him to store chi, strengthen his body even more and be the next step in allowing him to perform some truly amazing feats.

Seth soon finished changing and left the locker room. He didn’t bring a lock so he bought his belongings with him. He figured he’ll just leave his things to the side and pick it up. The locker room was empty and it didn’t look like anyone would steal his things, but it was better safe than sorry. This is his first time here.

When Seth exited the locker room, he found Sheila along with another person standing there. The person was dressed in a silver bodysuit with protectors on his arms and legs. There was a helmet on the person covering his face. Even without getting the full view of the person, Seth already knew who he was.

Sheila spotted Seth walking over and said “Seth, this person next to me will be your tester for the next part of your interview.”

“My name is Slipstream, if you don’t know that already,” the silver figure said as he motion for Seth to follow him to the bottom floor. “Let’s get this over with.”

Slipstream. The fastest Awaken in the city. Arguably the fastest in the world.

And now Seth would have to face him in the test.

It might be better if he had faced Mr. White for a second time.