Cole raised his head slightly, looking towards the man in front of him, trying to glean any information from him.
But the man's eyes quickly returned to their calm state.
"Proceed," the man said curtly, leaving Cole quite stunned.
Though Cole was stunned by the turn of events, he didn't waste too much time and decided to leave the altar as soon as possible.
"What?!" A candidate exclaimed.
"How was he allowed to proceed? The crystal didn't even glow?" Another candidate said from behind him.
The man remained unmoved, completely ignoring their words, his eyes still trained on Cole's leaving body.
Seeing Cole finally leaving through the gate, he exchanged glances with Emily, who looked back with an oddly serious look.
They both nodded towards each other gently before looking back at the children.
The confusion on the children's faces deepened as they noticed the interaction between the two people on the podium.
"Resume," the man ordered.
Though not totally convinced by the decision made earlier, their fear for the man in front of them greatly overpowered their curiosity as they proceeded to get tested.
****Other side of the Gate****
"Why did that man let me through? I thought I completely failed and what the hell even happened in my body?," Cole wondered.
While being completely focused on his thoughts, Cole didn't even bother to check the details of his surroundings.
More and more children passed the initial test and entered through the gates to the location where Cole currently was.
About thirty minutes later, the last candidate finally entered through the gates.
Right behind the last candidate were Emily and the man. They quietly walked to the front of the crowd before saying.
"You all are now accepted students of the Spiriters Academy," Emily declared.
This declaration of hers immediately riled up the students, who were still mostly confused on how cultivation actually worked.
"Each glow you previously saw corresponded to each level of the dormant stage of Spiriters."
"Each stage is usually divided into early, mid, late, and peak levels, with the red glow corresponding to the early level, green corresponding to mid, and white corresponding to the peak level." She continued to say.
"None of you students in this batch was actually in the late level, which usually resulted in a yellow glow ".
"With all that being said, proceed to register. Classes begin in two days, take care" She said before leaving with the man in tow.
"Is that all she would say?" Cole asked, confused.
After the woman finally left their sight, Cole was finally able to take in the details of his surroundings.
Unlike the hall they previously were in, their current location looked more like the usual world instead of the ancient one.
They were high-rise buildings surrounding them all over, everywhere bustling with great activity; students wearing different uniforms kept moving about with urgency in their steps.
Cole suddenly realized the fact that they had all been standing there awkwardly earlier just waiting, and this seemed to have attracted the gaze of the students, who looked at them with very strange gazes.
"Why couldn't we see all of this from the other end of the gate?" Cole wondered again.
"Something special seemed to be in place," he realized.
The children began dispersing little by little, in small groups or lone figures. Cole was part of those who were left alone, as he didn't know anyone yet and he was slightly socially awkward.
Cole kept marveling at his surroundings; buildings in the slums weren't as grandiose as this, and he grew up with those throughout his life.
"Where exactly am I supposed to register?" Cole suddenly realized as he was aimlessly wandering.
Cole's body suddenly stiffened up, his hands and legs shivering with beads of sweat forming all over his face as an overwhelming danger crushed down on him
The feeling lasted for about thirty seconds before suddenly vanishing. After regaining his freedom, Cole frantically scanned his surroundings, trying to pinpoint the danger.
In a dark alley between two buildings, a man figure that could only be made out by his signature red eyes stared at the frantic Cole before suddenly vanishing.
His attempt ended up fruitless, as he couldn't find anything. Cole kept his vigilance up, though, as a sense of dread gripped his heart.
"Why is someone planning to attack me so soon? "I haven't even done anything," Cole thought.
"Could it be one of Doctor Thomas's people?" Cole wondered.
"I need to be careful," Cole decided.
All of these were going on while Cole still stood in a spot, his actions garnering the judging gaze of others.
Cole felt something soft hit him from behind, but instead of him falling, the thing seemed to have bounced back.
He suddenly heard a cry of pain from behind him.
Cole hurriedly looked back to check out the situation; behind him, on the ground lay a redheaded girl; beside her was a phone.
In the slum, owning a phone was almost impossible, especially for people like Cole. He had only seen it in posters and advertisements that were sometimes pasted in the slums.
The girl on the ground looked up at Cole, scanning him from his head to his toes.
"What are you staring at, peasant" She snapped with her face red with embarrassment
"How dare you? Who gave you permission to touch me?" She continued.
"I didn't touch you; you bumped into me, and I think you should apologize," Cole responded.
The girl opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't make out a sound; she just kept opening and closing it.
"Haaaa!" she screamed out in frustration before standing up and storming away.
Cole stood there shocked by what just happened as he stared at her receding back.
"Weird," Cole muttered before turning to continue his journey towards the registration building.
After wandering aimlessly for a while, Cole finally found the Registration building.
"Finally," he said, before heading into the building.
The interior had clean counters, patterned tiles and expensive furnitures.
Cole could see his fellow new students hanging around in different parts of the hall.
Cole could see a section that seemed to be where they were supposed to register, so he directly headed towards there.
On getting to the counter ready to register, Cole raised his head to look towards the woman sitting on the other side.
Cole immediately froze, a not too distant memory appearing again in his head.
Across from Cole sat a woman he saw every day for a week in the hall where he was tortured.
"Welcome," she said with a sly smile.