I take the test in a bright room, around me sit gold children from powerful and weak families alike. The test itself is not too hard, mostly logic-based questions and stupid riddles. The only thing that throws me off my game is the scrawny boy sitting to my immediate right. He keeps muttering to himself, thinking about his answer out loud. I set my jaw and turn to him, glaring daggers at him. At first, he tries to ignore the hairs rising on his nape, but eventually he turns, and flinches as he sees me staring right at him. Quickly muttering an apology under his breath, he returned to his test. "Pixy." I hiss under my breath as I refocus on my current question.
I quickly finish the test and stretching, look around the room. I only recognise one of the other children, Hesperus au Speranta, a boy I used to go riding with. Smiling brightly, I stride across the room, joining him at the door where he's having a deep discussion with another gold.
I only recognise the other boy as I join them, "Julian?" I ask surprised, "I thought, your mother would enter you as a Premier?" The smaller boy smiles at me widely, "Olympia, how are you?" and embraces me. My eyes go wide in surprise, before they soften and I gently pat him on the head. "Father said that I have prove that I am worthy of entering the institute. He's right of course, if I'm not good enough to enter on my own merrit then why should I enter at all."
I grin at him, "Prime luck then." Hesperus smirks, and looks around the room, "I honestly don't think you'll need it, most of the others here are pixies. No name families, no connections, not a single peerless in their entire bloodline."
A passing boy overhears his words and glares at us. I sneer, "What are you looking at bronzie? Want to loose an eye?" He opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it and stormes away. Hesperus lets out a bark of laughter, "If that's our competition we'll be peerless in no time."
I sit naked in an armchair in a white room as the Copper testers of the Quality Control Board watch me through nanoCams. A Brown worker comes in and applies a pinch to my nose.
I am instructed to hold my breath as long as my lungs will allow. Fifteen minutes. Afterward, the Brown removes the
clamp and leaves. Next, I'm to take a breath and exhale. I do and realize there is suddenly no oxygen in the chamber. When I start to tilt in my seat, the oxygen returns. They freeze the room and measure how long it takes for me to shiver uncontrollably. Then they heat it to see when my heart begins to struggle. They amplify the grav in the room till my heart can't push sufficient blood and oxygen to my brain. Then they see how much motion I can take till I vomit. They measure the flow of oxygen to my muscles, the beats of my heart, the density and length of my muscle
fibers, the tensile ratings of my bones. It's like a walk in the park after the long hours I've dedicated to my martial prowess.
They have me throw balls, then line me up against a wall and ask me to stop small balls that they shoot at me with a circular machine. I roll my eyes, this is how they test us? With balls, no faster than an arrow. I easily beat their machine, so they bring in a Green techie to adjust the thing till it's shooting veritable rockets. It takes ages till I'm hit. I do my best not to wince as it impacts my shoulder. They measure that too.
An eye, ear, nose, and mouth test later and I am done.