Chương 111: Registration (2)

Luna and I approached the association building. Wearing a mask is nothing strange, especially since some awakeners come in directly after completing a request, gate, or floor, so, I didn't get any strange or curious looks. The inside of the association was no different from the last time I came here. People were still huddled around in groups, enthusiastically sharing their exploits; The request board was still filled with requests and people debating whether or not to take them.

I barely got to look around and listen in on conversations before someone approached us.

"Hello, Ms. Luna, and Ms. Bin? I presume?" He looked at both of us respectively with a tired look in his eyes. It was a middle aged man with black hair—though I could see it starting to gray. He had a 5 o'clock shadow and bags under his eyes. He wore a suit and had an association badge that read 'Level 5 Access' on the lanyard he was wearing. Has this guy not slept for weeks or something? This was probably the guy who the association said would be waiting for us. I almost feel bad for wanting to mess with him.

Almost.

"Huh? Who's that?" I asked, tilting my head, "I'm CauldronBro, and this is Juxtaps." Luna didn't say anything and just quietly observed.

"No, Ms. Ra-" He paused, "Ms. Bin, the association has assigned me to help you register…We have already confirmed your identity; The last time you entered, it was with Ms. Luna, and…Well, that mask you're wearing isn't exactly the most concealing."

"Hm…" I tapped my cheek in thought, "How can I believe that?"

"Perhaps introducing myself would help you trust me more, please, follow me over here beforehand." He started walking towards an isolated area in the lobby. Luna and I looked at each other before following. When there was no one nearby, he stopped and a slight blue barrier surrounded us. I recognized this as the isolation barrier Luna had shown before. Except, this one felt…More secure? The mana surrounding us was more complex, that's for sure.

"Ahem," The man cleared his throat, "Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Nero, the person assigned to help you register today. I am a team leader, specializing in finding awakeners, I was actually assigned the case to locate you, Ms. Raccoon." He said, his voice growing more tired near the end, "In fact, we had actually nearly located you before the Tawer posts about you visiting the association were released."

"I see, I see," I nodded.

"If Ms. Luna would be so kind to confirm that my badge is real with her awakener's card, this will confirm my identity." He removed his lanyard and held it in front of him. I looked at Luna and she nodded before pulling out her awakener's card. She tapped it against his badge and her card lit up.

"It's legitimate." Luna said. Huh, that's a neat feature. I thought.

"Okay…So, Nero mister." I said, "So, what I'm understanding is that you were the person paid to stalk me and find out who I was?"

"No, Ms. Raccoon, please understand-" Nero looked genuinely flustered. But, before he could explain himself, Luna cut in.

"There's no need to explain," She said, "This is just Bin's way of joking. She's just making things hard for fun."

"Hey! Why tell him!?" I pouted, "I could've gotten another post out of this!"

"Uh…Haah…" Nero quietly sighed, "I understand." He said to Luna. Turning to me, he continued, "Ms. Raccoon, do you have any further doubts about my identity? If needed, you can confirm directly with the Awakener's Association Official account you've been messaging."

"Nope~ It's okay, I've believed you since we walked in here."

"…I see." Hehe! I'm starting to feel a little bad. Just a little.

"Then, if everything is fine, let's make our way to the registration area."

"Okay~" The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Nero led the way as Luna and I followed him. On the way, Nero started to explain,"Registering is very simple," He said, "Right now we're just going to confirm your mana signature which will begin the whole process. After that, we'll have you use a few machines to determine your basic specs. I. E Strength, agility, mana manipulation, mana strength, etcetera."

"Understood!" I said, "So, question."

"Yes?"

"How exactly did you find me? Before I posted that I visited the association?" I asked.

"Hm…Well, I guess I can tell you." He said, "First, we started with purchasing a potion you had sold. From that, we found your mana signature; Without that, we couldn't have found anything else."

"You can extract my mana signature from that?" I asked.

"Yes, someone with analyst skills or an analyst-type class can do so." He said before continuing, it's almost like he wanted to explain it as a bit of pride mixed into his tired voice, "After we had your signature, we had to search all over the place for a match. Honestly speaking, without you having gone to that arcade and using the alchemy lab, we would have never narrowed down your location to Florida."

"Mhm," I nodded, prompting him to continue.

"After that, we went on a drought. You barely post anything on Tawer unlike other awakeners and you've always had the full silhouette mode enabled for your clear videos. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. And when you finally did post something: That…" He shot me a look, "Bouncy ball video…" Pfft! Another one trolled!

"Showcasing your bouncy bouncy potion," He continued, "We couldn't gather much info other than your skin color and estimated age."

"My age?" I asked.

"Analyst class." He said, those two words seem to explain everything, don't they?

"What a broken class." I muttered.

"So, we knew we were searching for an estimated 18 year old girl with a short stature and long hair in South Florida." He said, "We also saw that your hair was blonde due to strands being captured in the video."

"Oh, you found more than I thought you would at that point." When I said that, his back seemed to straighten a little,"Well, it's my job." He said. A job to stalk people…? Should you be proud of that? I didn't say these thoughts, since I was feeling a little bad for him.

"After that, you went on a no-show for three months. No sales, no clears, no nothing. In hindsight, we know that's because you were preparing for your fifth floor clear, but at that point we could only assume what had happened." He said, "When you finally returned, it was with historical news. Congratulations for that, by the way."

"Oh, thank you." I nodded.

"A little bit after that is when we finally found more information. We found traces of your mana signature in the sewage pipes."

"…What?" I said. Um…Ew? And, what the heck is this guy talking about?

"Presumably, you were flushing failed potion experiments down the drain, which allowed us to get an estimate of the general location you were in." Well, I guess that makes me feel better that he wasn't tracking my pee or something.

"Oh," I nodded. That was probably from the failed free alchemy training, no? Come to think of it, I haven't failed to make a single potion other than when doing free alchemy since I started, huh? I'm pretty impressive, aren't I? I nodded to myself, satisfied.

"All that was left was to search through cameras for a public appearance of what you could have looked like, and locate your signature through mana waves."

"Mana waves?" I asked.

"Think of radio waves, how they emit information. We'd send out a pulse of mana through your general location and search until we found your signature react."

"Wow, scary…" I mumbled. Looks like even before my theme park date with Luna, they'd have found me sooner or later. I was literally running on borrowed time, except, I got to decide my reveal on my own terms. I'm quite proud of myself for that.

"Anyways, we're here." He said, "We're in a private registration area used for high-profile awakeners such as yourself. No visitor has access to this area at this time." We were standing in front of a large machine. It looked similar to the one at the theme park, but bigger and more techy.

"This machine will record your mana signature, it's also what's used to print out your awakener's card at the end of registration."

"Quite big for such a simple machine…" I commented.

"It records everything to the minute detail." He said. Um…Should I be worried about that? Could they make like an Anti-Raccoon weapon with my mana signature or something?

"Please hand me your ID, it'll be inserted into the machine temporarily until you finish your registration. When complete, it'll be here with your awakener's card."

"Okay." I handed him my new ID.

"Do I just hold this stick-shifty thing and imbue mana into it?" I asked.

"Yes." I glanced at Luna and she nodded. Grabbing the handle, I started to imbue mana into it.

"You can stop once a green light flashes." Nero said. I nodded and a few seconds later, the green light flashed. I let go of the handle and looked at Nero. He nodded, "The next thing to test is your strength." He said, leading us to another machine. This one had another handle to hold.

"You're going to pull the handle the hardest you can until the green light shows. You have three attempts, please don't actively use mana to aid you." He said.

"Got it~" I nodded and grabbed the handle. After a moment, I started to pull!

"Ngh!!!" I grunted, but the handle wouldn't move at all. I mustered all the strength I could gather and pulled. A moment later, the green light flashed and I stopped.

"Haah…" I panted, a little out of breath.

"…189, E grade strength. Would you like to try again?" Nero asked. I looked at him and then the machine, then returned my gaze to him.

"Let's just move onto the next one."

"Understood." While Nero had his back to us, Luna gave me a teasing look. I head butted her shoulder grumpily as we made our way to the next place. This one wasn't a machine, rather, a simple 40 meter dash.

"Start on this end and once you begin running, the timer will start. It'll stop when you reach that line over there." He pointed to a white line at the end of the 40 meters.

"This is for agility?" I asked, "It seems pretty crude. Isn't this just testing your top speed instead of agility as a whole?" I asked.

"This is just part one of the agility test," Nero explained, "Part two will involve you dodging, and part three will test your reaction time."

"Oh." Luna gave me an encouraging nod as I lined up at the start. I got into a sprinter's position, took a deep breath and!

"Huff!" I bolted forward. After what felt like an eternity, I passed the white line and a green light flashed.

"Huff…Haah…" I panted, resting my palms on my knees. I ran pretty fast there, what's the time? Three seconds?

"…10. 84." Nero said. The timer on the wall said the same thing. It must be misaligned.

"…Would you like to try again?" Nero asked.

"… Let's move onto the dodging." After that, I went from test to test, expertly passing all of them with ranker standards. Huh? Don't believe me? Any result I get is ranker standards since I'm practically already a ranker. The final test I had to take was for my mana purity. This one was extremely simple just like all the others. All I had to do was imbue my mana into a glass square. I held the glass and imbued my mana. Slowly, the glass started to change colors from clear to be more murky.

The green flash came and I handed the square to Nero. He inserted it into a machine and a number appeared, counting upwards. 100… 200.. 300… 400… 800… 1, 000… And finally landing on 1584.

"Wow," for the first time, Nero let out a surprised sound. A good surprised sound.

"Ehehe," I smugly grinned, looking at Luna. She also had slightly widened eyes. She looked at me and gave me a nod that said 'impressive'.

"You have B+ grade mana purity," Nero eventually said, "That's really high for a new awakener."

"Well, of course." I nodded as if it was obvious, "I'm the more pure and innocent person out there."

"…That's not what mana purity means." Nero said quietly.

"So! What's next? Do I get my card?" I asked. Nero sighed and nodded, "That's right. What's written on it is your alias, title, association rank, and the results of the tests you took today. This card can also act as an ID if you desire." We approached the machine I used at the beginning. It had already spat out my ID and awakener's card.

"Hehe," I giggled, inspecting my new card. Raccoon, the Little Bomber. Strength - E Agility - F+ Endurance - E Mana Capacity - C+ Mana Manipulation - C Mana Strength - D+ Mana Purity - B+