I was so tired after the next day's workout that I wanted to scream. Jessie's energy had been burned off pretty quickly. It was pushing our contract to even use it, since it might theoretically give us an unfair advantage by healing us while we worked. Only the fact that exhaustion soaked most of it before we even started made it just within bounds. Of course, by the time we finished exercising, it was completely gone, and we were all left even more tired than we started.

There were, in my experience, levels of tiredness. There was basic tired, where you were about to nod off. There was extremely tired, where you were somehow TOO tired to sleep, despite needing it badly. And then, there was PAIN tired. Pain tired was what happened when you were so tired that your body was basically trying to shut down. Where your skin was one big bruise, and touching anything felt like sandpaper.

Mixing pain tired with exercise was a one way trip to hell, and we had already been on our way there yesterday. Now we were on the express route, and I was really missing all the pleasant stops from before as I hurtled headlong into the burning abyss of misery that was military training.

"Now." Said Hamill as he escorted us to a particularly large section of training ground covered with large equipment. "Yesterday, we took things easy. Since it was your first day, you were only expected to do basic calisthenics and conditioning exercises. Now that you've had a night to acclimatize we can move onto actual training. To that effect we have...this."

He gestured at that stacked high mess of wood and ropes and any number of other equipment. His pride in the...thing, was obvious, and at our blank looks, he puffed up further. "This." He said patronizingly. "Is the century course. It's a devlishly complex and useful device. In essence, it's a multi person obstacle course. You begin at the bottom, doing challenges and physical obstacles to reach the top. However, you'll enter it in groups of ten, and should one of you get further ahead by too large a margin, the obstacles behind will become more difficult."

One of the other cadets, a tall harsh featured man named Crallus, raised a hand. Nodding to him, Hamill accepted his question, something he did regularly and one of the things I liked about him best. Crallus cleared his throat. "Sir, does that mean that it's a pass fail exercise? That all of us have to make it through or none do?"

"Exactly so." Beamed the instructor. "Battle as a soldier, whether formation or pitched, depends entirely on the person next to you. Learning to adopt the pace of your weakest link, to remain cohesive and stable, is invaluable. We're not training warriors here. Being the best and getting ahead won't serve you well on the battlefield, it'll just make you an easier target. One soldier, no matter their talent, can't make a difference against an army of the same rank."

That was...kind of a good point. Even Abel, monster that he was, couldn't fight ten thousand F-rankers. Quantity had a quality all its own. The philosophy was interesting enough that it almost helped me focus past the agony I was in. Almost.

And so the training began. Ten at a time. I'd hoped that we would all be together, but we were clearly expected to reach this level of cohesion with any of the others, not just our friends. I did get lucky enough to get paired up with Benny, who nodded to me tiredly as we each climbed up onto the huge contraption that was the century course.

Stepping into the wooden...hallway, I guess was the best word, I followed it down the course to the first room. There were ten entrance corridors made of slatted wood with gaps between, and once I got into room one, I could see the others through the walls, able to spot flashes of them as I looked at the first obstacle. I couldn't see them well, but it was enough to pace myself a bit.

The obstacle itself was...weird. A large wall covered in multi colored protrusions, with a huge series of buckets at the top. Periodically, the buckets would tip, spilling scalding water down over the handholds. The sequence wasn't random, not after taking a few minutes to map it, but it was complicated.

I wanted to wait longer and figure out how to do it safely, but through the slats I saw some of the others already partway up. Grinding my teeth, I bolted to the wall, hopping up to grab some of the handholds and begin climbing. It wasn't so bad to start, a bit hard to pull myself up, but not terrible. At about the quarter way mark, I realized I was going to be under a bucket. I scrambled sideways, straining hard to get out of the way, and just barely managing to get to the next segment before the water poured down the face of the wall.

Flecks and droplets of hot water splatted onto me, my current armor not covering enough to prevent it from burning my skin. It wasn't enough to blister or anything, but it was fucking HOT. I gritted my teeth, climbing faster to try to avoid having to do that again.

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Scaling sideways to avoid the buckets was about ten times more exhausting than climbing up. I didn't know why, but it was. Finally, after getting burned and almost letting go twice, I managed to reach the top, slumping onto the ground and panting in pain. Looking around, I saw a few others through the slats. "Hey!" I shouted. "Can you guys see if the people on either side of you made it up?"

There was a pause, before the guy on my right bellowed back. "Looks like mine is there. He was about to start on the next leg. He says the girl on his other side had already made it to the third section he thinks, he didn't get a response." I groaned. That meant the next section would be harder for us.

Letting myself rest for a minute, I called out to the others to check if they were ready. After a particularly irritating back and forth between everyone, we got nine of us on board, and timed it so we'd all be going at once. Counting down, we all launched ourselves forward at the next obstacle at once. This one was a slightly different exercise, though in a similar vein.

The tilted wall we were climbing was lined with ropes and holes. We climbed the ropes, and every so often blades would pop out of the holes at random to cut the ropes (or us) and force us to fall. The only saving grace was the slight click before the blade popped out, enabling us to avoid getting pincushioned. Unfortunately, the blades did NOT pop one at a time, and the mad scramble to get up was frantic.

Avoiding the stabs was only part of it, if a blade popped and severed the rope above us we had to grab one of the nearby lines. The blades seemed to follow us at least, so all the ropes didn't get severed up top and make the trial unpassable, but they did pop like a foot or two above us. I had the sneaking suspicion this was the "making things harder" part that Hamill had mentioned, and I mentally cursed whoever went ahead.

Finally, after reaching the top with minimal holes poked in me (three, two on my arm and one in my calf) I called the others to check that they'd arrived. Everyone had made it, though several of us were injured. A small stab wasn't the end of the world for an F-ranker, and I assumed there was some scanning ability or something because none of us got stabbed in the eye or face. Still, damage was damage, and we all needed a minute.

"Anyone manage to get in contact with the one in the lead?" I called to the guy next to me. "Maybe we can convince them to slow down."

I didn't know how you could be stupid enough to ignore that big long speech Hamill gave, but nobody ever got rich betting on the limits of human stupidity. As Mad Scientists were fond of saying, there was no point in trying to idiot proof an item, because even if you managed, the universe would just Invent a bigger idiot.

His response was surprisingly positive. "Aye. Apparently the climber three down from me managed to catch her before she got past this section. He convinced her to wait at the top for us. He apparently said to pass a message along to 'that dipshit Solomon' not to ruin his hard work by going ahead like a big wooden faced showoff. Is that you?" His attempt not to burst out laughing was obvious in his voice.

"Yes." I said through gritted teeth. "And the moron in question was my best friend Clockwork. I, however, am far more mature and self possessed, and of course need not pass a message on to him through other people like a five year old. We should take a few minutes to heal up before the next section then. I'm Solomon, like he said, what's your name?"

"I'm Bill." He said simply. I waited for some kind of addendum or title but nothing came. Apparently some people just used normal names here. Weird.

After a second, I finally responded. "Hey Bill." I said uncertainly. "Nice to meet you. You get stabbed on the way up?"

There was a second of contemplation. "Aye. I was stabbed." He said as if he was talking about the weather. "Once in the meat of my thigh and once in the ankle."

"Ouch." I said sympathetically. "You going to be good for the next section? We'll wait at the top for you if you want." I was pretty sure we were losing points waiting. There was no reason to train cohesion if there was no way to improve. Chances were good there was a timed aspect as well, so cohesion could be refined by improving on your score.

His response was cut off by a call from the other side, where the other guy had apparently gotten the message to go and was passing it on. I shouted it ahead to Bill and got back at it.

The next section was harder. No stabbing or anything, this one we had to jump from beam to beam, using wooden perches that stuck a few feet out of the wall to leap further up. At random intervals they would be yanked back in, and I'd miss my footing, usually smashing ribs first into the next one down and having to scramble back up.

Jumping like that WAS possible for someone like me at high F-rank, or even for the others at mid, but it was an exhausting full body workout that was made even more difficult by our tiredness and all the exercises we'd been doing.

It took about thirty minutes for me to finish that one, and when I called around, several people hadn't made it yet. Those not all the way up could still hear us calling, as with those who had embarked on the next level, though past that it seemed to isolate our voices somehow. Either through magic or just distance, we could only communicate with each other when we were one ahead or behind.

And so it went, test after test, section after section, until we finally got to the top. Once we reached the peak, we were all in the same room, and Benny and I were too exhausted to even rag on each other. We all just silently dragged our battered bodies into a small wooden room in the middle that appeared to be some kind of elevator. I dreaded doing this again, but I was sure we would. Hamill hadn't been joking. Yesterday was the easy part. The real pain was just beginning.