"Well, here it comes." Lukas pressed on his keyboard and walked Emma over to the middle of the stage where a metallic apparatus was situated.
In the middle of the apparatus was a glowing crystal.
Lukas zoomed in with the camera view and marveled at the 3D model and lighting engine used to make it look sparkling like a real crystal.
He pressed on the keys and waited for the next interaction screen to load.
It had better be good.
He thought to himself silently while he saw the crystal give out a glow as lights beamed out from it.
"Impressive particle engine." Lukas mumbled, and another selection screen appeared.
<1. SSS Level Fire: Deal out wide area damage, low cooldown time.>
<2. SSS Level Ice: Flexible ability with its wide usage, middle cooldown time.>
<3. SSS Level Water: Lower damage initially, low cooldown time.>
<4. SSS Level Earth: Great for defense with lower damage, middle cooldown time.>
<5. SSS Level Lightning: High damage, high cooldown time.>
"Heh, at least it's not false advertising." Lukas read the description of the different abilities and saw that under the yellow HP bar at the lower left corner of the display, there was a blue bar for ability cooldown.
He thought about which ability to play with for a moment.
It would be best to go with the Ice ability with its flexible usage and not-so-long cooldown time, and also the Fire ability.
As for the Water and Earth abilities, he felt that they wouldn't satisfy his audience when he got to stream the game.
There was only one option left which he preferred.
Lukas had always liked to play his games with the highest damaging moves, and the long cooldown times didn't bother him much.
He was able to get so much content out of his 'accidental' deaths in the game while he waited for the cooldown.
It was a part of his stream which his audience enjoyed.
He would wager something with them, and when they won by betting on his character's demise, he would do some punishments set by them.
But when he won, they would shower him with gifts.
It was a schtick that he and his audience could never get tired of.
With this in mind, he selected the SSS Level Lightning option and pressed the enter key.
The staff on the stage couldn't believe it when he saw the words appear on the screen.
SSS Level Lightning.
He had to close his eyes, shake his head, and open his eyes again to confirm that he wasn't seeing things.
Emma had awakened an SSS Level ability.
Just as she had said.
The crowd gasped when they saw the words on the screen.
While her classmates were stumped.
Judy glanced at the others and said, "Wait... Am I seeing things..."
She held onto one of her friends and shook her.
Her friend tried to calm her down, so she cooked up an excuse and said, "I think it might be a malfunction of the awakening crystal."
The others nearby also nodded their heads.
It must be.
If not, how would they face the reality of Emma awakening an SSS Level ability.
Emma was always quiet and invisible to them.
But now, she was the center of attention instead.
Finally, the staff announced the result over the speakers in the stadium.
"SSS Level Lightning ability awakened by Emma Anderson!"
The crowd erupted into loud cheers, and Emma felt surreal with what was going on at that moment.
"Finally, we got an SSS Level awakened in Brentwood City."
"Yes, now I can stand proud in front of my relatives from the other cities."
"How rare is an SSS Level Lightning ability?"
"How rare? It's rare but..."
"But what?"
Lukas was intrigued when he saw the dialogue boxes that had popped up on top of the spectators.
The spectators continued their chatter.
"The Lightning ability requires a huge amount of energy with every strike, and so, even if the damage from the lightning ability is the highest, it isn't practical for many.
"Most that had awakened the lightning ability could only unleash one strike of their lightning within an hour.
"It is even worse for those with SSS Level Lightning since the huge damage required even more energy from the awakened."
The other spectators went silent when they heard about the downside of the SSS Level Lightning ability.
In this world, the only way to increase the energy level used for unleashing abilities would come from the demonic beast cores.
Which were dangerous and hard to obtain.
It meant that the awakened would have to risk their lives out in the wilderness to fight the demonic beasts.
Having more energy also meant that they would become more powerful and even change their abilities themselves with other attributes.
Emma's heart sank again when she heard what the spectators had said, reminding her of the fact.
They were right, as that was what they had learned in school.
It was just horrible and not a good day for her, she thought.
She might have to risk her life to get the demonic beast cores in order to become stronger from now on.
Judy smirked and couldn't hold it in anymore when she came to her senses about the SSS Level Lightning.
She burst out laughing and said, "She is a loner, and I don't think that she would be able to survive out there alone fighting the demonic beasts."
The other students who were jealous of Emma moments ago felt a sense of relief when they heard Judy.
It was a case of them being small-minded and unable to bear seeing Emma doing better than all of them.
"These developers are so careless..." Lukas exclaimed when he read all the dialogues that had appeared.
But he wasn't able to find any energy status or energy bar like the HP and cooldown bars.
Either they had forgotten about it or had decided to push it out for testing without any coding for it.
Lukas noted it down and took that as a minus point for the game.
And he was getting impatient with the lack of battle.