021 WHOSE PHONE IS MINE?
Dan stepped into the testing booth, unaware that Lander and Dorin were monitoring his every move from the control center.
The machine humd to life, scanning his body with ticulous precision.
Yet the scan lingered longer than usual.
"Is there a glitch? Why is it taking so long?" soone muttered.
Dan's eyes narrowed.
"This isn't a coincidence," he thought, a flicker of unease crossing his mind.
Finally, the results began to appear—first, Strength.
"Strength: 10.0."
"Impossible! How could he have a Strength of 10?" Miss Poney shrieked from her stage, and the murmurs quickly spread among the students.
"Sothing's wrong with the machines!" so shouted, panic and disbelief mingling in their voices.
"Stop the machine now!" others clamored.
But Principal Dean remained calm, rising to his feet. "There is no problem with the machines. The test will continue."
The second parater appeared:
"ta: 10.0."
The hall erupted. "10.0 in ta? How is that possible? Did he reach G-class in a month?"
"Is that score even possible for a middle student?"
Even Miss Poney's glasses slipped down her nose, her mind montarily blank. She couldn't process the writing on the board—was it shock, or her farsightedness?
Principal Dean, however, bead. "Fantastic—a genius has appeared in my school!"
He was also not surprised by the result. "Ah… no wonder. The son of the city's twin Superheroes could be nothing less."
Principal Dean recalled checking Dan's parents' Heroes dals during the mock test.
"The dals are genuine," he rembered. "This student is a prodigy. I can brag about this for months at the weekly principal's golf et now."
Miss Poney's emotions were conflicted.
She loathed Dan for defying and humiliating her during the mock test, yet his unprecedented score would lift her class's average.
She sank back into her chair, carefully masking any outward reaction. Neither excitent nor anger touched her expression as she processed the shock in silence.
-----
As shocking as Dan's results were, Lander and Dorin in the back of the hall hardly reacted. To the average person, a perfect 10 in Strength and ta was extraordinary—but in their world, geniuses like this were not unheard of.
And there were many such people in this world… their ta scores could grow at rates that were extraordinary and shocking to most.
Many of these people went on to beco Heroes, even Superheroes.
What caught the duo's attention wasn't Dan's aptitude score—it was his psychic energy.
The machines had been modified for this test: they asured not only basic aptitudes, but also psychic output. They were testing him to determine if he was a psychic.
"Why is his psychic energy only 0.2?" Lander asked, frowning. He had been almost convinced Dan was the serial attacker.
"The readings aren't wrong. I've double-checked the machines. Everything is functioning perfectly," Dorin said firmly.
Dorin was an investigator at the Superheroes Intelligence Agency (SIA), but her specialty wasn't fieldwork or deduction. She was the agency's chanic—the mind behind the machines.
If she confird the readings, they were reliable.
Lander studied the data, his mind racing.
"Have we tested everyone in the hall yet?" he asked.
"There are still a few students who haven't been scanned," Dorin replied.
"Test them," he ordered, eyes fixed on the charts. "The psychic energy in the room is still elevated. He's here… sowhere in this hall. I have to find him."
------
Despite Dan's perfect result, the hall offered no applause.
Shock and disbelief hung heavy in the air. A few students—too prejudiced to accept the impossible—whispered among themselves, their mutters edged with resentnt.
Dan didn't care.
He walked straight toward Mikey. "My phone?"
Mikey handed it over, frowning. "Here it is. But seriously… why did you even bring it into the test hall? The signal from a phone can interfere with the machines."
Dan accepted it with a faint smile. "I don't have a locker to keep it," he replied simply.
Before stepping up for the test, Dan turned back and placed the phone into Mikey's hand. "Hold onto this for ."
Mikey was confused, but took it.
Before the test Dan was terrified. He had a bad feeling about the test.
The devices lining the hall were far too elaborate—far beyond anything he'd expected from a school exam. A sliver of caution crept in.
If there was even a remote chance this was a trap ant to expose the powers of his mining app, he couldn't afford to be careless.
And then it struck him.
His phone.
As long as the phone remained on him, there was a risk, however small, that the powers inside could be discovered.
He saw only one solution. He handed the phone to Mikey.
With the phone no longer in his possession, whatever secrets it held, they couldn't be uncovered if the device wasn't on him.
Then he returned to Mikey.
"By the way, middle school's over. You should return the school phone and get a new one," Mikey reminded him.
"Damn it… I forgot the phone is not really mine," Dan muttered.
He couldn't keep the school's phone. It was school property, not his.
Then a solution struck him. "I'll claim I lost it and pay for the replacent. The school can't force
to hand over my own phone
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