Chapter 969: Star Core Plaza 1

"Good day sir, to where are we headed?" Asked the driver as he squeezed over, looking particularly brawny.

Garen looked at the filthy street around him, it was completely unlike the urban main city which he imagined, instead, it felt more similar to the time when he was going to the train station during the New Years back on Earth.

The street ahead of him was an unorganized mess. It was completely fenced up by a light silver metal bar, forcing those who wished to leave the street to go through two big inspection gates.

All the people within the fence were seemingly squeezing against each other. Shoulder-to-shoulder, Garen was completely surrounded by the crowd. It wasn't just the energy machinists who had come out, but also a lot of taxi drivers who squeezed their ways in along with them. These drivers were abnormally passionate, some even doubled as a tour guide.

The man on his left was excitedly and loudly introducing the attractions of the city while simultaneously guaranteeing that he offered the best prices around as he pounded his chest.

However, there were multiple others doing the exact same thing all around the area, all with the same weird accent, as if they were reciting a badly translated script.

The comparably wider street ahead was even more chaotic. There were some people frantically sorting out their luggage, some holding their children's hands outside while waiting for someone. There were even a few of them speaking on the phone through a holographic screen projected right in front of them.

The people in the crowd were moving all around, most of them were using a hovering trolley to port their luggage. Some had a scrolling screen floating above their heads as they moved, exhibiting some seemingly illegible red texts.

A cacophony of shouting could be heard. They were shouting out names, calling for their family members, yelling to maintain the order of the place, and much more, all blending together to form a disorderly mess.

It gave off the feeling as if he had arrived in a distant world.

Garen narrowed his eyes. Leaning on the door as support, he narrowly avoided being squished by the moving crowd.

"Bring me straight to the Star Core Plaza."

The burly driver nodded, revealing a bright smile.

"Star Core Plaza? You must be one of the people taking the Selection Test, right? Coincidentally, I am going to bring two others just like you over there. Follow me, dear customer, we can take the express pathway over there."

Garen followed the driver as they squeezed through the crowd, swiftly maneuvering themselves through the masses, exiting the street over the gap in the metallic alloy bar. There was an old-looking taxi parked over there. The car did not have any tires, but it was visibly spurting out a white flow of particles.

The driver opened the door and sat in the driver's seat as if it was his second nature, Garen followed suit as he opened the door to the backseat. As he motioned into the car, he saw two others already seated inside, they were a boy and a girl. Both of them looked very young, looking no older than 20 years old.

The boy looked seemingly average. He looked meek and wore glasses, giving off a nerdy and frail vibe, despite having a more tanned skin tone. He seemed to be the introverted, silent-type.

The girl looked even younger, she was at most 17 years old. She looked extremely pretty and had a thin, lovely figure. Wearing a female white silk T-shirt, a micro mini skirt, and a pair of high denier black leggings, her chest perked up into two bulges under her shirt. Along with her pale and blemishless face, and her clear, watery eyes, she gave off the impression of a pure and beautiful young girl.

Looking at Garen who just sat in the car, her eyes suddenly brightened up. Quickly tidying up her hair, she had her hair styled in a short ponytail and long arched bangs that dropped down to her chin level, making her appear even more charming.

Without a doubt, even if Garen's hair was even messier, his well-toned body figure and sharp facial features would completely blow the other guy out of the water. In addition to that, in this world, Nono was barely in his twenties, he was still extremely young. His neat combat attire only served to complement his charismatic aura.

He immediately gained the attention of the girl.

"Since you're all going to the Star Core Plaza, y''all don't mind if I grabbed one more passenger, right?" The driver chuckled as he turned his head over to the passengers in his backseat.

The three of them had no objections.

Once again, the driver left the car and started soliciting for customers. It seemed like he tweaked the translation system, for the language in which he was shouting happened to be one which Garen could not understand.

After a brief moment, he brought over a bespectacled girl. This girl did not utter a word, she merely looked at her watch and moved to the front seat of the taxi without even glancing at the three other passengers seated behind her.

"Alright, let's head out!"

As the driver went back to the driver's seat, he turned back and said out loud, "Let's just get this out of the way, I'll charge all of you a fixed price of 2 crystals each for the one-way journey."

"No problem." The glasses girl nodded, while the other two agreed as well, implying that the price seemed reasonable. Naturally, Garen nodded in agreement as well. Based on the reactions of the other passengers, this was a normal rate.

As the car slowly started to move, the green symbol next to the drivers' window turned red, signaling that the taxi was no longer accepting passengers.

"The distance of the trip is 442 km. The fare is monitored by Flying Traffic Management. Please direct all complaints to the company support site along with the number plate of the taxi." A sweet sounding female voice rang out loud.

Garen looked out to see the buildings they were passing by. Most of the buildings were constructed with a combination of light-yellow bricks and metal. As they moved further and further away from the volcano station exit, he could only see the vague shape of the huge volcano and the light pillar coming out from it.

Along the way, no one spoke a word. The girl was fiddling around on her phone, whilst the guy was doing some light reading.

As time passed by, they started to feel sleepy, all of them started to yawn. Only Garen was still completely energized, showing little to no sign of fatigue.

Bang!!

The car suddenly started to shake violently. A strong magnetic field suddenly passed by, one strong enough to disrupt the willpower energy field of the passengers.

In the midst of the screams, the passengers in the car got knocked into each other.

The people in front weren't affected too heavily. The bespectacled girl knocked her head on the car door, causing some slight red flushing on her face.

Unfortunately, the people in the back were not so lucky. Garen was still fine, even if he lost control of his willpower, he still had his abilities as a martial artist. This amount of disruption and shaking was not enough to knock him off balance. However, although he maintained his balance, the girl by his side desperately grabbed on to Garen as a pivot point. Pulling his wrists with both her hands, her entire body limped onto Garen.

As the car stabilized, the driver in front started apologizing to his customers. He said that it was due to the magnetic storm in the air, he had no way of avoiding it. It was a natural disaster that would range from a few days to a couple hours. It was a very common occurrence in this area.

"I'm sorry..." Realizing that her body was stuck onto Garen's, the girl suddenly flushed red in with embarrassment.

"No worries." Garen gently smiled.

The girl let go of one of her hands, her face still blushing. Looking like she was still a baby, she frantically used her free hand to tidy up her mini skirt, whilst still holding on to Garen's wrist tightly with her other hand.

Just as she let go of her other hand.

Clang!

With a loud sound, the car started to shake again once more. It was a second wave of the magnetic storm.

The inside of the car suddenly fell silent.

The girl screamed out once more. This time, Garen did not manage to maintain his balance fully. The magnetic storm seemed to affect a human's balance as well. If he was alone, he should have no problem maintaining his balance, but now, one of his arms was being pulled by the girl, throwing off his center of gravity. With a tug, Garen felt his body being dragged off-balance to his right.

Garen exerted strength with both his arms, but he noticed that his muscles were losing strength. Looks like a magnetic storm was not something to be underestimated, it did not merely affect one's willpower. However, as he started to lose strength, his life secret technique started to kick in within his body. His arms suddenly felt a surge of strength, flailing around looking for their respective centers of gravity, stabilizing his body at once.

"Ahh!" At this moment, a feminine moan sounded from his side.

Garen felt something wrong. Looking to his right, he immediately felt embarrassed.

As it turned out, while trying to maintain his balance, his right arm, still being held tightly by the girl, fell directly onto the girl's thigh right below her mini skirt. He could feel the gentle warmth her thigh was emitting. As that was happening, the girl frantically pulled onto her skirt with her other hand, trying to push away Garen's hand. However, unexpectedly, as she was trying to cover herself, it made it look like Garen had reached his hands under her skirt, touching her between her legs.

"Err..." Garen quickly pulled back his hand. As someone who has lived as long as him, this was the first time he had accidentally taken advantage of someone else in this manner.

No one noticed the scene that just happened between the two. Everyone else was busy trying to sort themselves out. The silent bespectacled boy was in a corner holding onto his head in pain, panting out loud. The driver in front was swearing out of frustration. The bespectacled girl took out a hand mirror and was touching up her make-up.

"Sorry...," Garen muttered softly.

"It... It's okay." The girl shyly lowered her head.

After those two incidents, the trip continued on without a hitch, the four passengers also found a common topic of discussion. With the topic of the magnetic storm in mind, the four slowly started to open up and chat with each other.

A round of self-introduction occurred. It turned out that, save for the bespectacled girl in front, all three of the backseat passengers were here to participate in the Selection Test.

The girl's name as Liz, the bespectacled boy's name was Accord. They didn't state where they were from, but from the looks of it, they were both at the standard of a Level 3 energy machinist. However, that was normal, participants in the Selection Tests were most commonly Level 3 energy machinists, Level 4s would be considered rare, and Level 5s were almost never-before-seen in these tests. All Level 5s who were aged below 30 would have no doubt gotten themselves a guaranteed entrance, they did not need to bother with these sorts of selection tests.

"There are a lot of participants for the selection every year, but I heard that the judges this year were all veterans of void battlefields, they are from the standard Actual Combat Faction. They most likely will put more attention towards the actual combat prowess of the participants." The bespectacled guy frowned. "My weakest area is actual combat, this is not looking good for me."

"I think most people aren't that well-versed in actual combat either, so we're all essentially in the same boat." Liz seemed to have recovered from her flustered self earlier. She continued, "Looking at the past few years, the tests were largely focused on the participant's abilities in calculation and analyses. From my perspective, a greater emphasis given to actual battles might even make it easier. After all, most people have trouble with actual battles... Most of the participants of the selection test are energy machinists from the theory faction. If we do engage in actual battle, we'd all be on even playing grounds."

"Logically speaking, that would be the case. It's just that my Flowerbird's Prison is still far from perfect yet..." The bespectacled guy said, rather regretfully.

"It's the same for my Rainbow Chicken as well. How many of us Level 3 energy machinists do you think have fully developed a skill perfectly?" Liz comforted him; it seemed like she was a pure-hearted young girl with a kind and gentle personality. "Don't worry too much about it. There's probably some guy out there who's even more worried than you. Don't you think so too, Big Bro Garen?"

Garen nodded.

"Actual combat isn't actually as hard as you guys think. However, if you lack the actual experience, you have no choice but to compensate for it with a stronger concentration. As long as you're not the one making a mistake, you will win. It's a slow process, don't rush it."

Out of the three, he had the greatest stamina and also a great physical condition. His physical appearance had utterly overshadowed the bespectacled guy. He spoke with sheer confidence, giving people no reason to doubt his words and easily managing to convince others.

"Big Bro Garen, can you give us some tips on which areas we should pay attention to during an actual battle?" The bespectacled boy softly, but sincerely uttered.

As he brought up this topic, the girl Liz also shifted her gaze towards Garen. Although she was still slightly blushing from the incident earlier, it seemed that she had calmed down a lot.