After a full night’s rest Luon was completely ready to meet Belle, or so he thought, but in reality, he had only slept for a few hours as he spent the entire night consistently fighting against his excitement.
Luckily his mother is a very attentive woman. She had noticed Luon reveal minor signs of fatigue at breakfast and gave him an energy pill to help him last throughout the day.
Energy, a difficult to determine form of power as it comes in many different forms. With more of it, living beings stay more proactive, become more powerful, less hungry and more or less omnipotent.
There were many factors and different levels of energy, the most well-known ones were: Mana, Qi energy, and the type of energy which helps ordinary people go about the day.
Sleep provides an effective method to fill the energy capacity that the people can have, like a battery charged with an adapter the living can function better near full.
Brimming with energy from the pill Luon had eaten he thanked his mother, and left the house while constantly checking the meetup time he had arranged with Belle.
Rina was watching Luon leave in such a fashion had her sixth sense activate, her intuition has led her to think that Luon may have already made some friends around the neighborhood, and it’s more than likely a girl.
She wanted to tail him to find out more but ultimately decided against it so as she turned to face an untouched breakfast plate on the table.
Rina sighed as she dealt with the other empty plates on the table and while doing so, she cast some magic to wake up her dead drunk husband who was nodding off at the breakfast table.
‘I have to make sure Luon stays away from alcohol when he grows up, such a waste of money for a brief amount of relief from everyday stress, only to feel even more stress while hungover,’ thought Rina as she began to think of how to manage her husband.
…
After Luon left the house with CITA’s instructions, he motioned himself towards meeting location.
Unhurried by any external factors Luon was utterly bored, so he started to evaluate his neighborhood environment.
It was a very clean street and not as busy as the plaza or terminal when he first arrived. This part of the city was more of a residential area, with a few people here and there it was almost empty.
Looking left and right Luon stared at the surroundings until he arrived at a small plaza.
In the middle of the plaza, underneath the post with a clock attached was Belle who was wearing something similar to what she wore yesterday.
Luon after giving a few glances felt that the color was a little brighter than it was before, but didn’t say a word about it.
After all, he thought she looked cute no matter what she wore, and rather than openly lust over things he instead admires silently.
Belle seeing Luon arrive smiled and waved at him, after giving a few minor greetings the two left the plaza.
‘I thought he would at least compliment my clothing just a little bit after all it does take some time for a girl to decide which clothes to wear,’ thought Belle as she felt a little disappointed at how insensitive Luon was.
To get rid of her bad mood she began to explain their destination today.
Belle had arranged Luon to take the Engineering License Lv 1 Examination at the Novera Corporation Engineering Association. The powerhouses under the Alliance that often trade their technology with each other. In the Intergalactic Federation that Luon was a part of, Novera Corporation was not only the founder of space technology but also the number one institution for engineers to be working at, or at least they used to be.
To be openly fair of technological advances – the Alliance standardized and established the necessary evaluations of how good engineers should be by grading them from level 1 to 5. The level determines the authorized access level for the information the Alliance has stored.
All aspiring engineers would register in their solar systems technological branch to access the research documents.
Because how information was shared overall, the creativity of Novera Corporation over the years had deteriorated as other technological groups took advantage of their knowledge to close the gap.
In fact, they not only replicated the technology that Novera Corporation offered, but they also fix the defects using the trial and error data, and with an unending passion they continued to develop many innovative things.
After walking leisurely for an hour Belle and Luon were finally at the doors to the Novera Corporations Engineering Association building. They could have arrived much faster if Belle didn’t stop every so often to do some minor window shopping.
Although Luon was a little dissatisfied in his heart, he couldn’t bear ruining her mood which he thought became gradually better just so that he can arrive faster.
Without any hesitation at all, Belle urged Luon into the building giving him no time to evaluate and admire the structural design and defense mechanisms installed outside.
Inside was a spacious lounge filled with many kinds of people moving around the place.
Dragging Luon along Belle went to talk to the male receptionist at the front desk.
At first, the receptionist indifferently spoke to the two giving a very unwelcoming mood.
The receptionist was a trainee engineer who had spent five years trying to obtain a Level 1 Engineering license, but for the last few years, he had no luck at all. The receptionist took the job of operating the front desk to make a living while hoping that one day he might achieve it.
And now seeing two younger and ignorant students he couldn’t help but vent and lecture them, stating that they are too young and should study more.
Looking at the age of Luon and Belle this could, in fact, be very true. However, this engineer had completely forgotten that in the Nexus solar system every single person had experienced around 170 extra years of life, and a select few of those people were completely abnormal.
Belle dissatisfied with the receptionist secretly messaged someone, and after a few minutes during the receptionist’s lecture, a group of people came to escort him elsewhere replacing him with an aesthetically appealing female receptionist.
Luon couldn’t help but sigh in admiration, this world that he had woken up into had too many beauties caused by the proper nutrition and sleep from being incubated.
Belle looked at Luon grudgingly as who was ogling at the new receptionist. After the examination test was arranged, she wished Luon good luck and left immediately.
Unknown to them in a room somewhere in the building someone was laughing at the scene as they watched it over a camera.
After Belle left Luon at the front desk, the new receptionist lady brought him down the halls and into an examination room.
She guided Luon to an empty white room with a table in the center, several tools on one side and a couple of pieces of materials on the other.
“The rules for this examination are simple. You were selected to craft and refine a single object in which we randomly choose for you to do. The aforementioned object for this task is a hand-made energy generator from scratch. As for what type of energy you produce that choice is up to you.” The female receptionist said.
She then continued “You are only allocated two hours and time starts once you pick up a piece of material, you are free to arrange the tools on the side before you start as well as take some time to think about how to do the task. However, we prefer it if you take less time to do so and your grade may be effected on how long you take.”
“All actions in this room are monitored so there is no cheating allowed, if you need something or wish to give up please say so out loud, well then excuse me.” And with those words, the female receptionist left the room.
Luon alone in the room looked around a bit, then turned to check the condition of his tools and workstation.
After confirming everything was in order, he closed his eyes for a moment and mentally recreated the steps he would need to take to create such an object.
A few minutes pass, and he opened his eyes, he turned to face the materials on the table, now it was the moment of truth. Time to take some action.
…
In a room somewhere at Novera Corporation Engineering Association, two females were talking to each other.
“Was what happened at the front on purpose?” said Belle slightly mad.
“Well we were looking for a good opportunity to get rid of that trash wannabe anyways, him making such a scene was a perfect chance to do so,” replied Belle’s friend.
Her name was Shizuka Ichihara, a descendant of the developer of Novera Corporation. Her family for the longest time was all engineers who made many contributions to the Alliance.
Shizuka, in particular, had the exclusive opportunity to learn and experience crafting at its finest in both simulation and real life, she is an unprecedented prodigy that appears every few hundred years in the family line.
“Then what about what happened next? Did you send that security group and the female receptionist to blow things up and slowly gloss it over,” replied Belle as her mood softens an inch. She didn’t like that wannabe as well.
“Are you concerned about me blowing things out of proportions or are you mad because I sent a beautiful receptionist to please the public, including your little boyfriend,” teased Shizuka
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a… that’s right a fellow schoolmate who might be in the same class as me.” Belle flusteredly replied to Shizuka’s teasing.
And before Belle could get angrier at Shizuka for teasing her, Shizuka said, “Come on now calm down, look he’s about to start.”
The two turned and started to watch the screen.
