Leonidas awoke, his body was thin, his muscles wiry from hard labor. His stomach was hollow with hunger. He wore a rough wool tunic patched at the seams, and his hands were calloused from rope and plow. The air reeked of smoke, livestock, and sweat. Around him stretched a Spartan village—mud-brick huts, dry fields, men and women bent under toil.
The System shimmered before his eyes:
[Faction Selection Complete: Ancient Greece – Sparta]
[Status: Peasant | Age: 19]
[Strength: 2 | Agility: 3 | Intelligence: 9 | Endurance: 2 | Potential: A]
[Time Remaining Before First Wave: 24 Months]
Leonidas's chest tightened. He remembered the choice of factions. The others, smug and eager, had claimed empires at their height: Europe's armored knights, Asia's samurai, Egypt's pharaohs, Persia's Immortals. They had begun as rulers, seated on thrones with armies ready to march.
And him? He was nearly a man, already twenty, and nothing more than a starving peasant. He was at the very bottom of the ladder, with barely a year left before the agoge—the Spartan training system—closed its doors forever.
For a moment, despair clawed at him. How could he compete with kings and emperors when he was given nothing? But then, slowly, his lips curved into a grim smile.
They begin at the peak, with nowhere to go but down. I begin in the dirt. I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Desperation is sharper than comfort. Hunger drives harder than pride.
---
The days in the village were cruel. Leonidas labored in the fields until his arms trembled, ate barley husks while warrior sons feasted on meat, and watched younger boys drill with wooden spears. They were being molded into soldiers while he was left to rot in the mud.
He knew the truth: if he remained here, he would die in the First Wave. The only path forward was the agoge. But the agoge was for boys who began at eight and trained until twenty-one. Leonidas had missed twelve years of preparation. Even if the council allowed him to enter, he would only have a single year to catch up before being sent to the army.
The challenge was absurd. But it was his only chance.
---
The council hall loomed high, its bronze doors guarded by spearmen. Inside, scarred elders sat in a semicircle, cloaked in crimson. The overseer stood at their center, his eyes cold and sharp as iron.
Leonidas bowed low. His tunic was threadbare, his ribs visible beneath it. Yet his voice carried clearly. "Honored elders, I seek entry into the agoge."
Laughter erupted. "He's nineteen already!" one elder scoffed. "The agoge is for boys, not half-grown men."
Another shook his head. "He has no training. Two years won't make a soldier out of him."
The overseer sneered. "You are too old. Too weak. A peasant who should die in the fields. The agoge is no place for you."
Leonidas raised his head, meeting their scorn. "Yes, I am nineteen. Yes, I am weak. But that means I have endured more than these boys who entered at eight. I know hunger. I know pain. I have lived twenty years without privilege, and still I stand. If your boys are iron, I am stone—scarred, but unbroken."
He let the words hang, then added, "If I fail, you lose nothing. If I succeed, you gain a spear who has clawed his way up from the dirt. Let me prove it."
Murmurs rippled through the hall. The overseer's lip curled, ready to dismiss him.
Then Damaris rose. The old veteran's beard was white, his scarred face weathered but unyielding. He struck his staff against the floor. "The boy speaks truth. He is older, yes—but that means he knows hardship. Let him enter. If he fails, he dies. If he lives, Sparta gains more than it expects."
The chamber fell silent. None dared oppose Damaris outright. The overseer spat to the side. "Very well. Let him join. He will break within the week."
---
The next morning, Leonidas passed through the gates of the agoge.
The yard stretched wide before him: two hundred boys drilling with spears and shields, overseers barking orders, rods cracking across backs. Dust rose in choking clouds. Some boys were barely nine; others were nineteen or twenty, hardened from years of training. They moved like wolves.
Leonidas stood out immediately—older, leaner, weaker. He had no years of practice behind him, no reserves of strength to draw on. The younger boys looked at him with open contempt.
His stomach twisted, but his eyes burned with resolve. He had one year to climb where others had climbed for thirteen. If he failed, he died.
The System flickered before him:
[New Environment Detected: Agoge]
[Challenge Accepted.]
Leonidas smiled despite the ache in his body. He had nothing—but he had a path.