Chapter 253: 251 – The Candidates

First on the list was Mata Gano - about as easy to pick out of a crowd as she could’ve been, despite her relatively diminutive stature. Zel found her exactly where the dossier had stated she would most likely be, at one of the markets halfway across town, in the middle of a makeshift fighting ring. She was currently in the process of struggling against a fat, old, and incredibly strong-looking man, one whose face Zel vaguely recognized from the fighting pit.

The spectators parted at Zel’s arrival, allowing her to approach the edge of the ring unimpeded. Just as during the vetting trials, Gano exhibited impressive agility and acrobatics, her kicks and strikes were polished, as was her form - she was simply too small to contend with someone a head and a half taller than and twice as wide as her. 

Her opponent was covered in the imprints of her fists and feet, his skin reddened by the Islander’s naturally superhuman body heat, but he didn’t seem to have any burns. This, combined with the dossier and the fact she had not used anything overtly pyromantic in the trial, suggested to Zel that Gano either didn’t exploit her body’s natural affinity for Ignis or wasn’t willing to do so lightly. Zel considered whether Gano was just in the limbo between peak human capability and cultivation, where even slight body mass differences could be a major advantage, but that postulation was soon proven to be incorrect when the larger man went for a haymaker.

Gano ducked his punch and grappled him in such a way that the massive pile of fat and muscle was standing one moment, then writhing on the ground the next, struggling against a weird pretzel hold. The faint sound of sizzling flesh could be heard, to which the Islander suddenly let go, reaching out to help the man up and apologizing in a thick accent, “Oh no, goodness, I did it again! Please do not be burned, I did not mean it!”

“It’s just a little scald, I’ll forget about it in a bit,” the large man chuckled, taking the help offered. While Mata hadn’t noticed Zel until now, what with her attention being turned in the exact opposite direction of where the amazon stood, Gano’s apparent sparring partner very much saw her as he stood up, adding, “...But that, I won’t forget.”

He glanced at the small islander, grinning as he turned her around on the spot, “”They’ll just pass me over for some birdman,“ was that what you said? Well here’s your opportunity, just don’t get eaten alive while I get something to drink.”

Leaving the frozen-stiff Islander just standing there, the strongly-built man walked off, loudly murmuring to himself, “Fuck me, playing punching bag for a walking furnace is thirsty work…”

Islander by the name of Mata Gano, an Ikesian called Fendas, and a Kargarian named Vaceran, noted to have no arms.

“I uh-” the islander began, but struggled to find any words. 

Zel chuckled, “You wanted to join the Newman Family, no?”

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At the islander’s reluctant nodding, she added, “Welcome aboard, then - you already know where the sect is.”

With that said, she just turned on a heel and walked off, waving to the islander as she did. As she walked away, she yelled, “Wait until tomorrow to come around, just don’t make us wait too long!”

There was no point to stretching it out any longer than was necessary - Zel had wanted to get a good look at the candidates, to judge them up-close in person, see whether they were merely capable, or if they really did have that something extra. Gano didn’t have the most imposing presence and wasn’t the strongest of the candidates, that was clear, but just one look at her made it obvious that the girl had the will to go far.

She came upon the remaining candidates that she had planned to meet in unsurprisingly mundane circumstances. Spending time at their favored establishments, working mundane jobs - one of them was a training instructor in the Willowdale militia, another, a tankman-in-training in that self-same militia. As it turned out, those two were close friends. 

The standout candidates were mostly non-Ikesian, this was true, but it was so because they were such a minority and thus stood out by that virtue, when in reality the majority of applicants and thus suitable candidates were pale-as-plaster Ikesians, with Grekurians being second. Going through the dossiers yet again as she went, she noticed a few documents about Pateirian “defector” applicants, labeled with “PENDING THOROUGH SCREENING - CONTACT EZARYL KRISHORN FOR FURTHER INFO”.

The last one - the one she had left for last, that is - had his expected location at this time of day listed as an abandoned barn several kilometers from the edge of the city. Of course, there was a warning just below - “CAUTION - POSSIBLE AMBUSH”. Nevertheless, Zel took this as an opportunity to go for a run, spending a few minutes to stretch and “rev up to speed” so to speak once she got outside city gates. Even this benign act got some weird looks, expectedly so, being that it looked like her heart might explode out of her chest any moment by the time she was ready to run. And run down one of the dirt roads which branched off into the fields, she did - for a few minutes at a speed rivaling a supply tractor gunning it at full tilt, consciously counteracting the rapid buildup of lactic acid in her muscles as a fun distraction. 

Being that the barn in question was abandoned, its surroundings told the self-same tale, the road having been mostly overgrown by weeds - a narrow desire path through the greenery now led to the building, which Zel followed. It was at the absolute edge of the forest, the treeline within walking distance. What sounded very much like someone kicking wood cut through the sounds of the wind blowing through the branches and a small stream flowing somewhere out of sight, but this sound ceased abruptly as she neared the barn; coincidentally, at that same moment the feeling of impending danger churned her stomach. 

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