By the ti the 70th glass sphere was completely turned into stone, Berraine was simply in disbelief. She could not believe what she was seeing.
She had been a Converter for quite a few years and had helped test quite a few newbies as well. Among them all, the highest anyone had ever reached with the spheres was 43, which was considered incredible.
She herself had only reached 39 spheres, so that person had been way better than her. And yet, here in front of her, there sat a young man, a very inexperienced Converter who had managed to turn a total of 70 spheres, a record-breaking number never before seen in history. Today's events would certainly be propped up prominently in the Converter chapters of history. And Berraine had been here to witness it.
"I'm done," Ning said, letting out a large breath and a rather tired expression. "I'm done, Ma'am."
"Yes, you did good," the woman said. "You did great."
She quickly checked through the spheres, making sure that all of them were in fact rocks. It was easy to tell whether or not that was the case by simply checking to see the surface and then checking the size of the spheres.
After confirming that there were in fact 70 rock spheres, the jubilant emotions inside of Berraine returned once more.
"I can't believe you did it," she said. "70... 70! That's... WOW!"
She could barely form words. Even the non-converter Chief Officer was surprised, so it had to be a very big deal.
"I... I must tell my superiors now," Berraine said. "Please excuse . I must go find Lieutenant Franc right now."
Berraine left, leaping out of the room, unable to hide her emotions.
Ning looked at the leave and smiled. He wondered what she would do had she known that Ning had decided to stop petrifying the stones long before his energy from the Spark had run -out.
Given how much energy there was in his body at the mont, Ning was certain that he could turn the entire 100 spheres and then maybe even more.
'The best possible body for any energy is certainly very useful,' Ning thought and turned around toward the other two.
"My apologies. I must have interrupted your session. Were you two in the middle of a test as well?"
"Don't mind the interruption. I'm glad I got to see sothing this good happen right before ," the Chief Officer said. "As for the test, this one stupidly drank a bit of Spark right before we ca, so I had to wait for a bit for her energy to disperse anyway. For now, I was rely testing how well she could connect."
"I see. I'm glad I didn't disturb you then," Ning said.
The Chief Officer tried asking Ning a few more questions, especially about where he was from and who his parents were. Ning told him all the truths that were made for him by the system.
Realizing that Ning's parents hadn't been anyone special, the chief Officer didn't ask any further.
Large boot steps sounded from outside the room again as the beefy lieutenant from before returned to the room once again. He arrived before Ning and looked at the spheres that were gathered there.
"Have you counted them?" the man asked the male Chief Officer. "Yes sir, there are 70."
"And there was no shenanigan that happened here? He didn't take any Spark in advance?" the lieutenant asked Berraine.
"Not while I was with him," Berraine answered. "I cannot answer if he had taken Spark before we arrived, Sir."
"I see," the lieutenant said and turned toward Ning.
"Cadet, did you take any Spark before we arrived?" the Lieutenant asked.
"No, sir!" Ning said.
"Then you will have no problem with doing the sa test again, will you?" the lieutenant asked again.
"No, sir," Ning answered.
"Good. You'll be doing this again." The lieutenant turned toward Berraine and said, "Watch him until he recovers. Confiscate all that he has. I'll have soone else prepare the objects once again and send them here. I will watch this tie."
"Yes, sir!"
The lieutenant left, and Ning was forced to give up his half-full vial of Spark. He handed it over to Berraine who kept it. "I truly hope you weren't cheating."
Ning smiled. "I did not. I'll do it again, just wait."
Berraine nodded and waited.
The lieutenant arrived soti later with another set of the sa assortnt as before and sat on one of the free chairs.
"How do you feel?" he asked Ning.
"A little drained, Sir," Ning answered. "Like I just got done exercising for half an hour."
"Constantly keeping up the energy in your body is indeed hard. Once you try out more, your body will beco capable of handling more energy over ti. You'll improve into converting bigger and larger things soon enough."
Ning nodded.
"Let us know if you are ready. We will begin in an hour anyway."
Ning took so ti doing nothing and instead watched the Chief Officer test Parima instead. There wasn't much they could determine from watching the two Connectors chat with their mind, but the Chief Officer did let the others know how she was doing.
"She is an incredible girl," he said. "Not as good as that boy, of course, but she is better than most. She could easily beco a very good asset to the military in the near future. Maybe even
go on so asteroid missions."
Parima smiled wide with pride.
Ning's hour of rest was over, and it was ti for him to do the thing all over again. And he
didn't waste any ti.
He did it exactly as the first ti, completely turning 70 glass spheres into rock spheres by the
end of it.
Berraine was more than happy to see that Ning was not a fraud. Even the Lieutenant was quite surprised to see Ning do what he did.
He let out a low 'incredible,' as he realized that a once-in-a-lifeti talent had been born during his lifeti.
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