The quiz in the selection process was much more complicated than Klaus had expected. There were simple questions about mathematical formulas, basic biology, and even text interpretation, but there were also questions about the workings of quantum mechanics, string theory, psychology, and engineering. This program was definitely not for everyone.
Despite all this, Klaus was very confident that the answers on his exam were mostly correct.
Unlike him, most of the other Omega Group participants didn't seem so self-confident. Some of them could not keep their feet still, their hands were trembling, and others were even biting their fingernails with nervousness.
When Klaus finished the test half an hour before the one-hour time limit, he stood up with his chin up and looked at the proctor standing near the entrance to the room.
The examiner was a balding man with a rigid expression on his face, wearing a black military suit with decorative medals, and since Klaus was the first candidate to stand, the examiner thought he should treat him differently from the others.
Klaus walked up to the applicator's desk calmly, as if he were walking in the middle of a park, and his posture exuded so much confidence that he looked as if he could face any challenge that was thrown at him. He walked with steady steps, without hesitation, looking at the other participants with a serious expression.
Klaus handed his test to the examiner, who examined it in detail, comparing the answers with a tablet beside him.
For every five questions, the examiner only marked one answer wrong, and this continued until near the end of the test, resulting in a total of almost 80% correct. However, when the examiner began to correct the last five questions, which were about psychology, the man shook his head negatively several times and finally asked Klaus to escort him out of the exam room, leaving his assistants to continue watching the other candidates.
Klaus was confused, but followed the man.
Outside the room, the examiner looked at Klaus with a serious expression and said:
"You have a good technical knowledge, but your understanding of the nuances of psychology is deficient. Your answer on the penultimate question makes that more than clear." The man was frank.
Klaus looked at him strangely and picked up the proof to look again at the answer to the penultimate question. After he finished checking, Klaus stated:
"No, sir. I am sure I answered correctly. 'Educational psychology is a subfield of knowledge within psychology, whose function is the production of knowledge concerning psychological phenomena.' That is obvious."
The man looked at Klaus, looked at the proof on his tablet again, clicked his tongue and went back a few pages. "But what about question 87? You answered that forensic anthropology consists of the application of the knowledge of physical anthropology in an investigation of a forensic nature, whereas, in fact, forensic anthropology is a way of trying to establish a biological profile to assist in determining the cause of death and estimating the post-mortem interval."
The black-haired boy looked at the applicator, confused once again, and asked:
"Don't those two answers say basically the same thing?"
The bald man looked at Klaus with narrowed eyes and a calm voice. He then turned his head to the right and declared:
"You're really good. Anyone in there would have already admitted they were wrong even if they thought they were right. It's normal in a stressful situation like this for people to do things they wouldn't normally do, and yet you remained so convinced. Very well, you passed both the test and also my personal test, you can go on to the next and final test."
"What about the rest of my group? Won't I have to do it with them?"
"No, you will go on alone, and the possibility of you meeting some individuals from the Omega Group during the next test is small, as most will be dismissed after they turn in the test. However, you are different, and you must have realized that there are no really special candidates in the Omega Group. A few stood out, like you, and these were just the ones that were selected by Hónghé Holdings itself. In the end, this is no coincidence, because the groups were not chosen randomly. From the beginning, we, the applicators, considered that the Omega Group will be the least likely to pass candidates."
Klaus raised his eyebrows. "Why?"
"Because that's how the higher-ups have established for things to work. Separating the best from the worst so that the laziness of the worst wouldn't affect the best. The most promising candidates are in the Alpha group, and the least promising are in the Omega group. But who knew that even among the worst there would be someone capable of surprising me like you did." The applicator smiled and turned away to enter the exam room again. "Wait here. I will ask an assistant to guide you to the next room. By the way, I hope that besides surprising me, you can also surprise that guy..."
As promised by the bald applicator, a man in a white lab coat guided Klaus to the next test room. However, when Klaus entered the new room, he got a surprise.
The room mentioned was actually a large canteen.
The place was crowded, many men and women were sitting at the tables. Some of them were chatting, others were more secluded in the corners, but to tell you the truth Klaus didn't care about any of this. The moment he smelled the food that permeated the dining hall, he was amazed and mesmerized. He hadn't eaten anything since he left home and had to expend a lot of energy throughout the day.
To the left of the entrance to the canteen was a line for some employees to serve the candidates, and Klaus quickly joined this line.
He had no idea what was going on, but he thought it wouldn't hurt to take the opportunity to catch up a bit.
In front of Klaus in the line was a boy as tall as he was, with dark blue hair and several piercings in both ears. This boy had his hands on the back of his head and an excited look on his face.
When this boy saw with the corners of his eyes Klaus approaching, he immediately took his hands off the back of his head and held out his right hand to greet him.
"Nice to meet you, my name is Daniel Onus. What's your name?" said the blue haired boy, amiably.
Klaus found the sudden start of conversation strange, returned the hand greeting and stated:
"I'm Klaus."
"Listen, Klaus, you like sandwiches, don't you? Everybody does. They are serving sandwiches here, but I don't like them very much. What do you think about me giving you my sandwich and in exchange for that you give me your package of peanuts?"
Klaus looked at the other people ahead of him in line and saw that indeed the cooks were giving away sandwiches and, as travel snacks, peanuts. Since Klaus was not one of the biggest peanut lovers, he decided to accept the offer.
"That's fine with me. Let's make that exchange."
"Yeah!" Daniel Onus celebrated.
The canteen was indeed crowded. There were at least about three hundred people spread across a few dozen tables. The room was very vast and wide, and the sound of voices filled all sides of it.
Klaus and Daniel walked down the line, were served some food on each other's tray, and took everything they were entitled to, such as juice, milk, water, fruit, and so on. Klaus was really grateful that he could finally eat something.
As Daniel and Klaus made their way to the same table in the back area of the dining hall to make the exchange, the two saw how there were people so competitive that they looked at them as if they were wild animals.
Among these people, three in particular caught Klaus' attention.
The first was a man standing in a corner of the room. He had short black hair, a stressed look on his face, his eyes were red with anger, and he was wearing social clothing. This man stared at Klaus, who didn't stop looking him in the eye either until the man looked away.
The second particularly curious person was also a man, only this one was sitting with an empty tray in front of him, with no leftover food or leftovers. This man had pink hair that reached over his shoulder. His gaze was serious and calm, as was his erect position on the seat.
Finally, there was a strange young man at the same table Klaus and Daniel chose to sit at. This guy had blond hair, wore white robes, and smiled sympathetically at both of them when they chose to sit there. However, this blond guy didn't say a word, and this was not surprising, for it was enough for Klaus to look into this guy's eyes as he saw him smile for him to understand that this friendly smile was actually a warning for them not to get any closer than that.
"There are a lot of weird people in this place." Daniel said aloud as he sat down. He didn't seem to have any sense of inhibition.
Klaus didn't respond and went around the table to sit down facing Daniel, but before Klaus could sit down to start eating, the whole room suddenly turned red and fire sirens started blaring.
*Pammm~! Pammm~! Pammm~!
Most of the people in the dining hall immediately stopped whatever they were doing and, startled, stood up.
"What's happening?"
"It's the emergency sirens! A fire?!"
"Is that part of the test?"
For his part, Klaus was annoyed by the sirens, but he did not stop what he was doing. As Daniels stood up, Klaus sat down at the table.
"Oh, shit. This way I won't be able to eat..." Daniel said despondently and without appearing to be frightened. Then he looked at Klaus and asked: "Hey, what are you doing? We have to evacuate. That's a fire alarm."
"The exchange is still standing, isn't it?" Klaus inquired and pointed to the sandwich on Daniel's tray, who couldn't believe his eyes.
At the same time, everyone who was near the four doors of the canteen heard them being locked, and then a gas started coming out of the air pipes.
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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