In the tour of the examinees, who are both confident and crestfallen about their scores, the trio can see differing emotions that can be cheered up or not by listening to how their Pokemons of different types are getting care every day. They, however, felt refreshed for Anthony, Mary, and Andrew, as they were finally able to hear about all of these without needing to write down every single important thing and just admire how Pokemon breeders do their work whilst also realizing how important a license in breeding, when it comes to being a researcher, really is.
At one o'clock, on the dot, they left the touring area and went to a cafeteria near them in order to see the results that will be flashed on the TV screens across all cafeterias in the whole complex. While it will also be available on PC, they still wanted to see it in the cafeteria, primarily because mugs of hot chocolate are not allowed to be carried outside the cafeteria; thus, right now, alongside many other hopefuls packed into the cafeteria with people, most of them have hot chocolates or black coffees on their tables and in their hands whilst talking amongst themselves to ease their tension.
As Anthony, Mary and Andrew stared at the steam being released by their drink, the two can't help but feel awkward as they're the only ones that genuinely came here for a mug of hot chocolate and not having their breath abated by the results.
"I think it's very hard to celebrate here if we see our names in the passed list."
Mary nudged Anthony, who was holding his glasses to keep the steam in his lenses, and he nodded whilst looking around at people. This is Anthony's first time being in a place where the results of a licensure examination will be released since he didn't take one when he graduated college, so he doesn't know how to act around people who are doubting themselves, especially those that doesn't have the unfair advantage of being able to experience the questions inside the exam via the internship.
Well, Anthony also knew that it's not his fault that his mom and dad knew how the internship works, so he just slowly took a sip of his hot chocolate before sighing to feel the warmth in his body.
"We can't do anything about that, though; it's not like we didn't work hard for our unfair advantage. Well, I have retired researchers as parents, so I might've technically higher advantage than even the interns, but they're not really satellite parents and mostly let me do things my own way unless I make mistakes they have to correct."
It was already just 30 minutes before the said announcement of the passers, thus soon, the whole cafeteria went silent and started glancing more frequently and intently on the numerous TV monitors in the cafeteria. Even Anthony and his friends turned silent as they silently sipped and emptied their mugs of hot chocolate until after a minute past 4, the TV monitors flashed automatically with a short text saying: 'Goodafternoon aspiring breeders, I hope all of your are well, after this greeting we will be announcing the passers of the pen and paper test that will advance to the practicum stage of the exam tommorow.'
Anthony, Mary, and Andrew, alongside all the people inside the cafeteria, felt like all the air in the room just left as they waited for the name roll, and as the names of the top 10 topnotchers of the test slowly rolled onto the screen, the trio squinted their eyes before widening them in shock. The top 10 goes like this:
1. Samantha Stacy
2. Benson Hood
3. John Gustav
4. Anthony Dover
5. Andrew Moretti
6. Mary Hane
7. JJ Coleen
8. Anthony Stank
9. Benjamin Porker
10. Felix Todoroki
No, they weren't shocked about something as ridiculous as their standings; in fact, they are quite satisfied with these standings and felt like they rightfully deserved to be a topnotcher given the hard work they have put into their review. However, their furrowed eyebrows still can't be concealed.
"Hey, those 7... no, those 4... are our classmates during internship, right...?"
Mary leaned in front of the two boyfriends of his, who also looked at her at the same time and nodded.
"Yes... all interns... are topnotchers..."
Whilst Anthony replied, the 3 of them suddenly felt their phones buzzing with consecutive messages from their sms and online messaging apps.
_Right, I followed Prof. Oak on Pokegram, and my dad and I obviously are in my sms._
Thinking of this, Anthony stopped focusing on the TV screen and went straight to his phone; there are 2 people who have messaged him: Prof. Oak and Cynthia, congratulating him on his achievement of being one of the topnotchers of the pen and paper test. It seems like his mom and dad didn't have any privy to the results of the breeder's exams. Realizing this, Anthony promptly replied to Prof. Oak and Cynthia before going to the website of the Breeders' Association and looking for his results by entering his exam ID before screenshotting it and sending it to his mom and dad via sms.
After that, Anthony sighed and slumped into his seat.
_I need to review for tomorrow once again..._
As the yells and tears of happiness, as well as sobs of dismay, started to reverberate in the cafeteria, Anthony's phone vibrated twice once more.
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The passing rate of this year's pen and paper test is 67.67% or 6,767 people out of the 10,000 that took the test and reviewed for months or even years of their lives. Anthony, at first, thought that there was no way the daycare center could accommodate the individual tests of 6,700 people, like how they individually did for 10,000 people in their lodging, which turned out to be true, as they need to divide the remaining ones by 100 per group and make the remaining 67 groups up too for them to fit all of the passers in their biomes that would be the site of the test.
Right now, Anthony is once again alone and unable to be with his friends, Mary and Andrew, as he clustered with his other 99 groupmates that seem to have been awkwardly talking to each other; big eyebags can be seen on their faces. Anthony himself has big eyebags too, but that's because he had to talk to his mom and dad in a video call, drinking a scotch whisky until they were completely smashed to celebrate him being a pen-and-paper top-notcher, but when Hana and Ben started to use each other's mouths as shot glasses, he immediately turned off the video call and decided to review a little on how to groom Pokemons daily and how to treat them, among other things.
Though he focused on the former, as that's what was recommended by his parents and Cynthia Celestia. Anthony sighed as the vivid image of his parents seconds away from creating his sibling was still playing in his head, which he purposely suppressed by pushing his glasses closer to his eyes and listening to this day's proctor of his.
"Good morning, everyone. I'm Erika, and I will be the proctor of the flying type group 3 of all the passers."
Anthony's eyebrow raised for a moment as he wondered if Ma'am Erika was a sister of Sir Eric, but Ma'am Erika already continued with her speech.
"First of all, I would like to congratulate all of you in passing the pen and paper test. I know a lot of you here felt lucky ,that they passed since half of the exam yesterday felt very unfair. But you have to understand that you have to be very precise in your actions when tending to Pokemons to become even a rookie breeder; if not, and you make some cutting of corners, then you will surely endanger yourself and the Pokemons you were tending to at the same time."
As Ma'am Erika paused, she stepped aside and let the examinees see the biome they will be entering just a few moments from now. It was that of a rocky mountain over 100 meters in height, with trees around 10 to 20 meters tall surrounding it. These mountains are home to Pokemons that are yeeting their young off the cliff to make them learn how to fly and the trees are for the said Pokemons to sleep peacefully, as evident of the gigantic nests at the very top of the sparcely branched trees.
"This is especially so for what you have designated for: Flying Types. While they're not as intimidating as Psychic and Ghost types in terms of myths about them or their kill counts in cities, Flying-types are known to be the most agile and frightful Pokemon types. If you reviewed this type last night, you will definitely see clips of Gust move suddenly being hurled by a Pidgey just because someone stepped on a branch, and while this is an isolated case and the Pidgey just have an agressive nature, natures will be errilevant in your job as you can't just leave an agressive flying type to die because survival manuals tells you to get away from them."
Ma'am Erika then gestured with her hands for the students to come forward with her as she started to walk towards the biome of the Flying-type Pokemon.
"This is what you will do: you will have to remove something that we put inside the bodies of the designated Flying-type Pokemon that would be your partners. You will have to remove those items marked with 'B' in them in all the 3 different stages of evolution of the staple Flying-type Pokemon of the Kanto region: the Pidgey Line. You will be graded through a rubric focusing on how fast you are, how precise you are, and how comfortable a Pokemon is with your touch, meaning you won't have a time limit and would be given a stopwatch to time yourself."
Ma'am Erika opened the door to the biome and started clapping hard, making the enormous Flying-type Pokémon like Pidgeys, Fearows, and Pelippers, as well as their offspring, back off, and only when the Pokemons retreated did she let the examinees in, who curiously murmured amongst each other as they took in the ambience of the sanctuary. It was very spacious and, like Anthony said, as big as their whole house, including the artificial biomes; furthermore, as Anthony looked around, it seemed like the staff was still somehow able to clean the place in time for this day out of poop despite it being ridiculously large.
"You will be given your stopwatch; however, the Pokemons that you will be tending with is tasked to see if you're cheating in any way or form. There are also cameras everywhere that would be giving all of your faces the priority to be scanned and monitored; any cheating that will occur will lead to your immediate disqualification and your total banning from ever becoming a Pokemon Breeder for the rest of your life. If you're a Pokemon trainer, you may also be recommended for being disbarred from training Pokemons completely."
Anthony and the others nodded, though Anthony felt like the laws for cheating in this world in terms of licensure exams are more severe than the ones in his previous world. Which actually makes sense, considering that the exam in this world is literal life that they have to take care of; if they can't be trusted with a stopwatch, how can they be trusted with a Pokemon's well-being, right?
As Ma'am Erika made all examinees get ready and mentally prepare themselves for 5 minutes, Anthony started to recall the information he had on taking care of Flying types.
_For smaller ones, one has to make sure that the bird is cradled from the back while they slowly caress the whole body and take note of any jerky movements of the Pokemon; if their jerking has become too intense, then they have to be released, or the breeder is at risk of being injured. For bigger ones, they have to be treated like an airplane in a way that the breeder has to guide the bird Pokemon by hand gestures to make sure that they need and want to be groomed; if they don't want to, then most of the time, it would be fine, but there are always cases where one needs to enforce their will._
This is what Anthony has perused in his brief last night, which he needs to apply today without hitches, or he would have a failing score and would be risking himself of injury. It's a good thing he has already practiced the procedure for 2 years and just needed to do the job as usual.
As Anthony was thinking this, Ma'am Erika finally presented the examinees with their stopwatches.
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Read my novel Sophia Demiurge, remove the open and close parentheses
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