> We have six different sets of exam depending on which district the exams are held in. In Northern districts like Euvenia, participants may expect to fight against an Occus Hivemind as part of their coordinated Teamwork test, but in seaside Southeastern districts, they might need to solve riddles and pass through jungle traps. This means the participants have to learn the local rulebooks and practice on entirely different fields that they might not have access on if they are based in another district. This ridiculous discrepancy is unprecedented and is not observed in any other kingdom.

Excerpt from "A Case for the Standardization of the Socenian Promotion Test"

Eugene De Lavet

Did she just ask me to be her partner? A guy who never practices for exams, of all people?

"Why me?" I scratch my head, playing with a pebble in my hand. "You know full well I never want to be a part of any test. I don't need another piece of paper slapped in my face, telling me how flairless I am or how I've failed Theory."

She picks up another pebble and throws it. "Hey. You're just gonna do Teamwork with me, and nobody is going to judge your performance. C'mon, it will just be like throwing rocks. You just need to make it bounce a few times."

"Dude, you know this is your test right? I don't even remember the terrains they use in the Teamwork test. If I mess up then you mess up."

"It's my test. That's why I want you as a partner. We've been partners for ten years. You know when to rush the flanks when I stand guard and I know when to cover you. Why should I trust anyone else?"

I put my hand on my chin. It's not like she doesn't have a point. She was the one who helped me pass my long overdue LV 50 test last time anyway. Turns out ticking YES in every Giant-related question and DO NOT PROCEED in every Cave Exploration ones was a valid advice.

"I guess I don't mind that much. . . but the test is tomorrow, and Tamara has probably locked the gate to the training ground already. I won't know what to do."

"Since when has a lock stopped me from breaking in?" She says with the smuggiest smug on her face before standing. "It's settled. To the field we go."

"You could've just led me there instead of walking here and back," I groan.

"You would've taken to your heels if I did." She ransacks her backpack and throws me an apple. "Here. Your down payment."

"Wow. How generous."

"You're kinda only worth that much," she snickers. "How's your cheeks? Feeling better?"

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"Good enough to munch on apples. Thanks for asking. It makes me feel almost as if you weren't the one who did this to me."

"The only reason I asked is so you don't use them as an excuse when you fail the practice test."

The walk to the training ground is a brisk one. Melodi has always walked quickly, as if she'll get a heart attack and die if she doesn't arrive five hours early to everything. About fifteen minutes later, we arrive at the gate of the training ground.

The entire construct is made of diamond—millions of microscopic diamonds to be exact—with the ground itself constructed within an ancient impact crater, or at least that's what Azra told me. It goes without saying that everything in this place with an ounce of diamond in it was built by General Rizeni. The gate glistens under the moonlight as we walk by, and with each step we take, another part of the glossy wall glitzes with azure-tinted light, like moonlight crumbling on the surface of a pond.

I knock on the huge steel lock in front of the gate. "It's funny how you can break the lock before you can break the door. Real talk, though, how do we get in?"

"You jump over the wall." She takes out her nunchaku and attach a hook on one side and a rope on the other. "I'll climb over it."

I glance at the thin rope she's holding. "Do you really think that thing can support the weight of your chest—" I take a punch on the cheek. "Ouch! Not that side! I just recovered. . ."

It takes another minute before we get to the other side. Faint light flickers from the torches mounted on the walls, their fiery sheen bounces off the diamond and illuminates a space as big as a coliseum I've seen in picture books. Melodi walks over to a corner where a humanlike automaton with a screen on its belly stand. She presses a few buttons, and its eyes light up, followed by the screen. Because the girl's obscuring the display, I can't see the letters running on it, but soon the electronic boards mounted on the four corners of the ground get booted up too.

"Leviathan made all of this by himself, with the help of Father for material, of course." Melodi starts talking even though I didn't ask. "Diamonds has the second best reflective properties for a simulator, just behind cobalt." She walks behind the automaton and returns with a pair of black nylon suits. "C'mon, put these on. Oh, I almost forgot." She removes her ring—the Lightforged Blessing—from her left index finger and walk back to the automaton, opening a drawer below the machine, and put her ring inside.

I ask as she walks back, "I thought you'd never remove your daddy's ring."

"Not like I want to." She sighs. "You can't equip any accessory with a rarity higher than Rare while in a test. That's a Fail by Default."

"You don't play by the rules." I furrow my brows.

"I don't fail tests by default, either."

I put the suit on. These tight-fitting clothes are enough of a nuisance on their own, and I have to wear a hood that sticks to my head like jelly. Both our suits have mini lightbulbs all over the places from our foreheads to our calves. These lightbulbs will light up whenever we let something in the test hits us. If a Giant smashes my head then the bulb on my forehead will flash, and I'll die. . . in the test, at least. All the monsters we're going to face will just be artificial hologram rendered by some really advanced projectors on the ground. In fact, the entire field will be rendered into a new terrain when the test commences. They look real enough that the first time I took a test, I had to stare at them for ten seconds to make sure they weren't actual, existing objects. Leviathan is a hell of a magic worker. Or a science worker, as he proclaims.

"This is kinda tight, aye?" I wince as I tap my finger on the bulb on the back of my hand. My suit will glow blue and Melodi's will glow red. I don't know if the luminescence inside these bulbs is from Soul Powder, or phosphorus, or whatever chemical I haven't heard of, but they interact with the holograms for some reason.

"Focus." Melodi pulls me to the other end of the training ground, past a red line painted across the field. It's the starting line. Only when we walk past it again does the practice test starts.

A line of text runs across the electronic board on the far right. It says:

Initiating Teamwork Practice, Section I: Overcoming Obstacles.

A few seconds later, the field is lit up and rendered. In front of us is the entrant to a dungeon that has just enough lighting for me to see pillars with spikes on one side, banging on the other side every few seconds, and axe blades swinging near the ceiling with no anchor points.

"Dang. Looks like someone has a thing for medieval execution." I turn to Melodi, who's holding a glowing ball on her hand. "What are the requirements again?"

She sighs. "You have to get to the other side in seventy seconds while not getting sliced to half more than once. You also have to pass this ball to your partner every time you pass a checkpoint. No weapon, no shield."

"Seems easier than the underwater one."

"I'd like to see you beat it." She turns to me and smiles. "Are you ready?"

I crack my knuckles. "It's showtime."