As Ning and Parima were talking, they heard footsteps and turned around to see a large man with a beefy body walk in.
On his chest was the small badge that told the two that he was in fact a Lieutenant.
Ning and Parima imdiately saluted the man who entered.
"At your seats, Cadet!"
As Ning and Parima sat down, two more people walked in behind the lieutenant, each one a Chief Officer.
The man arrived at the front and looked at both Ning and Parima. "Which one of you is the Connector?" the man asked.
"I am, Sir!" Parima spoke, standing up imdiately.
The lieutenant nodded, and one of the Chief Officers behind him moved toward Parima, sitting down beside her.
"Then you must be the Converter," the man said, talking to Ning.
"Yes, Sir!" Ning answered.
The other Chief Officer went over to Ning and sat down beside him. Ning looked at the woman who sat beside him and saluted her as well.
"The two Chief Officers beside you will test your current proficiency at your powers. You will do nothing but train with them for the next few days until they sign off on how well you can do."
"Make sure to learn it and make the best of your ti."
"Yes, Sir!" both Ning and Parima answered at once.
"I'll take my leave."
The Lieutenant left, leaving Ning and Parima alone with the two Chief officers.
"I am Chief Officer Berraine, and I will be teaching you the ins and outs of what it ans to be
a Converter," the woman beside Ning said. "To start, have you practiced your power before today?"
Ning nodded. "I have been practicing it for the past few nights on my own, Ma'am," he answered.
"How good would you say you are?" she asked.
"Good enough, but I could definitely use training, Ma'am," Ning answered again.
"You don't have to be so formal." The girl reached for sothing in her pockets and brought it out. As it was brought out, Ning could hear the soft clinks and clanks that ca from inside the pouch that the woman had brought out.
Ning could tell just from the sound and the bulging grape-like shape of the pouch that it was a bunch of marbles.
Ning was right. It was a bunch of marbles, but he wondered if these people didn't call it that. To them, it could just be simple spherical glass that held no aning to it.
She began pulling out the spheres onto the surface of the wooden desk they were on, letting the sowhat large spheres of glass gather around.
Ning helped a bit to let the spheres stay in place and while he did that, he also counted just how many spheres there were in front of him.
There were exactly 100 different spheres; the number got him curious as to just what it ant. Was the woman trying at sothing?
The woman then handed over a small vial of Spark full of the sa liquid that Parima drank earlier.
"You ntioned you've converted before. What could you turn things into?" the woman asked.
"tal, Stone, air, water, a few other things," Ning answered.
The girl nodded. "I want you to drink this vial of Spark and then try to convert all the marbles you see in front of you into stone. Do you understand ?"
Ning nodded. "Yes I do," he said and took the vial.
Before he drank it, the girl stopped him. "Rember, this is a test, so the better you do, the better the outco will be for you," he said. "So don't waste any Spark. Start imdiately." Ning nodded and downed the vial of Spark, leaving nothing behind. Unlike pure Spark, the liquid-covered Spark didn't imdiately turn into a mass of energy inside of his body, seeking a way out.
Instead, it slowly gathered, like trickles of water gathering in a bucket. The bucket was going to fill up for sure, but it was going to take quite a bit of ti.
Still, even at a trickle, the bucket would start drying up imdiately. He needed to get to work. Without waiting, he used what little power had gathered inside of him to turn the first marble into stone.
The glass sphere crackled a little as it began petrifying, slowly decreasing in size as a rock was slightly heavier than a glass, and thus contained more mass in a smaller body.
As soon as Ning was done with the first glass sphere, he moved on to the second one as the energy inside of him piled up.
The woman to his side watched the petrification of the first glass sphere with a smile, and her eyes lit up when she saw the second sphere beginning to petrify as well.
It was always good to find Cadets who didn't need multiple tries to do the things that they were asked to do.
The third sphere began and then the fourth one.
The woman nodded with great appreciation as Ning continued to turn one sphere after another, turning them all into rock.
Berraine was here to test two things precisely. One, she was to test the new Converter's ability to convert, with how accurate or how versatile he was.
Versatility mattered little at the start, and neither did accuracy. However, it was good to have a Converter who didn't need to learn a lot before he could start working for the military. The less Spark they had to waste during training, the better it was.
The main thing, however, that she was here to test was to see his affinity and efficiency with the Spark.
Seeing how many of the spheres the Cadet could turn into rock with the amount of Spark they were given gave a very accurate understanding of just how good of a Converter one was.
After all, the more efficient the Converter was, the less they would need to provide him with Spark. Wherever they could save on Spark, the military did.
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