Back in his dorm, Alex lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling in deep thought. The events of the day replayed in his mind like a movie on loop.
His recent loss to Nikolas still stung, a sharp reminder of his shortcomings.
However his feelings on this matter were vastly overshadowed by another event that took place. One that was much more important to him than his defeat.
His nearly 18 year long streak of being single had been broken!
That's right, he and Mira had made it official!
After Rowan's departure, they had found a quiet and secluded spot and had a heartfelt conversation, solidifying their feelings for each other.
By the end of it, they had confirmed their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, which left both of the youth's feeling giddy.
As he reflected on the day's events, Alex recalled the last topic he and Mira had discussed before parting ways: training together.
Mira's 'Call of the Void', although of a completely different element, had a similar sort of usage to Nikolas's annoying speed, making her the perfect partner to help Alex prepare for his next bout against Nikolas.
They had agreed that this joint training would be beneficial for both of them, but they needed to finish their assessments first.
The elemental assessment was the next hurdle they had to overcome, and it was coming up imminently thanks to Alex skipping over half the previous day to recover from his fight.
***
A few hours later, Alex had freshened up and arrived at the building where the Elemental assessment would take place.
It was the same building where the talent, rank, and energy assessments had occurred.
'Huh?'
To his surprise, the first thing Alex saw when he arrived was the complete lack of students lining up outside the doors of the building.
In fact, the number was so small that he thought it had ended already and he was too late!
Curious, Alex asked around and learned that most of the new students, averaging at Mid E rank, didn't have any elemental control and didn't want to embarrass themselves by showing up.
This was normal actually, as they would only really start to show any elemental control when they reached D tier, or E+ rank at the very least.
This meant that the students who actually showed up were most likely the most talented of the batch!
Slowly, a small flame started to form above his fingertips.
Before the woman could hurl out any more demeaning insults, she was forced to swallow her own words.
'How the hell is this kid so talented at everything he does...'
She felt a little jealous, but who wouldn't if they knew the extent of Alex's future potential.
There were talks that he would be one of the next S rank humans one day, which were some big shoes to fill considering there were less than a hundred of those in the entire federation!
This was also one of the main reasons why many women were annoyed that he had already been snatched up by another girl...
Alongside the small flame, slight disturbances in the surroundings, like objects in the room moving a couple millimetres, started to occur.
To the untrained eye, these movements would be negligible, but the woman had quite the perception.
'Space element!'
She realised where the source of these disturbances came from immediately.
Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, but she masked her reaction. She typed 'B-' on her communicator, signifying Alex's result for this assessment.
"Phew!"
When Alex finished, he was covered in sweat from head to toe from the intense concentration and energy usage.
'Who'd have thought that I'd get such an intense workout just from a little bit of elemental control!'
Satisfied, he looked towards his assessor in expectation.
"You get a B-," She informed him.
'Huh?'
Alex felt a pang of disappointment when he heard this. This was by far his lowest result across all of his assessments.
Even considering his defeat against Nikolas in the final stages of the combat assessment, he still managed to score an S+ result in that section.
"Don't be too upset, a B- is actually an outstanding result." But the woman continued.
It looked like there was more to Alex's result than he had thought!