The chamber was silent.
Gaius stood still, his muscles tense, his breath steady. The metallic scent of the combat drone's shattered frame still lingered in the air, the faint hum of energy dissipating into nothing.
Yet the real test had only just begun.
The man who had stepped forward was not a drone, not a machine bound by programmed limitations. He was flesh and blood, and yet, there was something off about him. His movements were too controlled, his stance too perfect. His uniform was black, unmarked—no insignia, no rank.
Only his eyes gave him away.
They were cold, calculating—void of anything resembling humanity.
A soldier.
No, something beyond a soldier.
The kind of man who had been forged for one purpose.
To kill.
Gaius knew that look. He had seen it in the eyes of warlords, in the quiet moments before a battlefield descended into madness.
This was an evaluation of his worth.
The man did not introduce himself. He simply stepped onto the combat platform, rolling his shoulders once. His movements were fluid, efficient—devoid of wasted motion.
Then, without warning—
He attacked.
No hesitation. No announcement.
The space between them collapsed in an instant.
A fist cut through the air, fast enough to crack the sound barrier, aimed directly at Gaius' throat.
He reacted on instinct.
A pivot, a shift—his body moving before thought could catch up. The attack grazed past him, missing by mere centimeters, but the sheer force behind it rippled the air like a shockwave.
Too fast.
Too strong.
This man was not normal.
Gaius did not have time to process.
A second strike came—a sweeping kick, aimed low. Designed to break his balance.
Gaius rolled with it, absorbing the force rather than resisting, his foot barely touching the platform before he retaliated.
A sharp elbow to the ribs.
A feint, followed by a palm strike to the solar plexus.
A kill move.
Except—
It did not land.
The man caught his wrist mid-motion, his grip like iron. A flicker of amusement—cold, distant—flashed in his expression.
Then, he twisted.
Pain lanced up Gaius' arm.
Not enough to break it, but enough to remind him—
He was outmatched.
For the first time in the examination, he was facing something beyond his own level.
Yet—
That only made him move faster.
Pain was nothing.
Instinct was everything.
Gaius shifted his weight, allowing the momentum of the hold to carry him forward rather than resisting. The sudden movement forced the man to adjust, just enough for Gaius to slip free.
He landed smoothly, pivoting back into a defensive stance.
His opponent exhaled softly, his unreadable gaze lingering on Gaius for a fraction of a second.
Then, he stepped back.
The test was over.
Or rather, the real test had already been passed.
Gaius hadn't won.
But he had done something far more important.
He had survived.
The combat platform descended back into the floor, the walls of the chamber shifting once more.
The next test had already begun.
A thin, golden line of light scanned Gaius from head to toe, analyzing every muscle fiber, every fluctuation in Qi, every micro-movement in his body.
"Biometric evaluation—exceptional."
The words came not with praise, but with cold acknowledgment.
Not average.
Not gifted.
Exceptional.
A result unseen in centuries.
And yet, the test was far from over.
The walls reconfigured, opening into a new chamber.
This time, it was not a battlefield.
It was a world of equations, of shifting mechanical pieces, of intricate schematics projected onto vast holographic screens.
A laboratory.
A forge.
A control room.
The Imperium did not need only soldiers.
It needed engineers, scientists, blacksmiths, architects, commanders.
And so, it measured more than just strength.
Gaius stepped forward.
The air changed—not physically, but mentally. This was not a test of his body.
It was a test of his mind.
Before him, an array of challenges materialized.
A disassembled engine core, floating in pieces.
A damaged AI system, waiting to be repaired.
A field of automated drones, programmed with random errors, their code displayed like tangled threads of logic.
He understood immediately.
This was a test of problem-solving.
Of how fast he could adapt.
He took a breath.
Then, he moved.
He reassembled the engine first.
It was not a simple machine. The technology was intricate—Imperial war-tech, the kind that powered entire fleets.
A single mistake would render it useless.
But Gaius' hands did not hesitate.
He had spent years in the trenches, watching as battlefield engineers patched failing systems under enemy fire.
He knew how machines breathed.
Every piece was a pulse, a function, a necessity.
And so he built.
Quickly. Efficiently.
The pieces slotted together in perfect synchronization.
The machine hummed to life before the system even confirmed his completion.
Task completed.
He moved to the next.
The AI core was corrupted.
Its logic had been fractured, its commands conflicting with one another.
A mind that had forgotten itself.
Gaius leaned in, his emerald-green eyes scanning the shifting code.
To someone else, it might have been an impossible mess.
To him—
It was a battlefield.
And on the battlefield, patterns emerged.
Every soldier, every squad, every command had a purpose.
The AI was no different.
He removed the redundancies. Redirected the pathways.
Rebuilt the thoughts of a machine.
It took less than a minute.
Task completed.
The test moved on.
The final challenge.
A holographic war simulation.
Not a game.
A real battle, extracted from Imperial war records.
Gaius found himself standing on a command bridge, the tactical interface burning with live battlefield data.
A fleet. His fleet.
The enemy?
A force twice their size.
No chance of reinforcements.
No easy victories.
Only a hard decision.
The simulation gave him one minute to assess.
He only needed ten seconds.
War was never about strength alone.
It was about momentum. Deception. Will.
He issued his orders.
His fleet did not engage directly.
Instead—
He used the battlefield itself.
A nearby asteroid belt. A gravitational anomaly. The enemy's own blind spots.
He lured them in.
Let them think they had control.
Then—
He collapsed the battlefield on top of them.
Their fleet was crushed in minutes.
Victory.
The simulation faded to black.
The results flashed.
Tactical assessment—unparalleled.
He exhaled.
The testing chamber dimmed.
And finally—
The door opened.
Gaius stepped out.
The hallway was empty—for now.
Somewhere, in the other chambers, the rest of the examinees were still being tested.
Some would pass.
Some would fail.
Some would not leave at all.
But Gaius had made it through.
And as he walked down the corridor, his mind was not on what he had done.
It was on what would come next.