"Choices are locked," Rowan said, his voice snapping the room back to attention. He didn't give them time to process the shift in atmosphere. "Don't get comfortable. Report to Training Dome 3. Now."
He turned and walked out the side door without looking back, expecting to be obeyed instantly.
The class scrambled. The contemplative silence was replaced by the hurried scraping of chairs and the rustle of expensive uniforms. Vane stood up, feeling the phantom weight of the spear he had just claimed. He had chosen a weapon he had held maybe five times in his life, and always with his Authority moving his arms for him.
He fell in with the stream of students heading for the transit tubes.
Valerica walked ahead of him. She didn't rush. The crowd naturally parted around her, giving her a wide berth. It wasn't out of politeness; it was the instinctual reaction of smaller creatures stepping out of the path of an apex predator.
They arrived at Training Dome 3 in minutes. It was a colossal, reinforced structure made of transparent aluminum and kinetic damping fields. The air inside smelled of ozone, heated metal, and the faint, coppery tang of old blood dried in the floor mats.
In the center of the dome was a large, circular combat ring containing several heavy-duty training dummies made of reinforced wood and iron. Waiting in the center were two men.
Instructor Rowan stood with his arms crossed, a data tablet in hand. Next to him was General Kael, the Head of Combat Praxis. Kael was a Beastkin, towering over Rowan, with the head and mane of a lion and arms thick as tree trunks. He wore a modified uniform that strained at the seams, and his presence was a physical weight in the room.
"Line up on the edge," Kael growled, his voice like rolling thunder trapped in a cave.
The twenty students formed a perfect line at the edge of the ring.
"This is a baseline assessment," Rowan announced, his voice cutting through the vast space clinically. "There will be no magic. No Authorities. No Skills. We are not testing your power output. We are testing your structure."
He gestured to the racks of standard-issue training weapons along the wall.
"When called, grab your declared weapon. Show me a standard offensive stance, a defensive guard, and a basic strike against the static dummy. I want to see your footing, your grip, and your kinetic linking. I want to see what your body knows without your Authorities holding your hand."
Kael grunted. "Anyone pops a learned Art, they get a zero and a week of latrine duty. Aurelia. You're up."
Anastasia stepped out of line. She didn't walk to the rack; she glided. A faint sigh escaped her lips, a subtle expression of profound boredom at having to perform parlor tricks for grades. She selected a training rapier with disdain, holding it loosely.
She approached the center dummy.
"Stance," Rowan commanded.
Anastasia dropped into a perfect dueling crouch instantly. Her profile narrowed, her off-hand tucked behind her back for balance, her leading foot aligned perfectly with the target. It was textbook flawless.
"Guard."
Her wrist flicked. The rapier tip traced a tight, defensive circle, covering her vital lines with minimal movement.
"Strike."
She didn't lunge; she extended. The thrust was so fast it was almost invisible, a blur of steel that struck the dummy's heart marker dead center with a solid thwack. She recovered instantly to her guard.
"Acceptable," Rowan said, making a note. "Next."
Anastasia racked the weapon and returned to the line, looking like she wanted to wash her hands of the mundane experience.
"Sol," Kael barked. "Unarmed."
Valerica stepped forward. She walked to the heaviest dummy—a massive hanging sack of dense sand meant for ogre-kin.
"Stance," Rowan said.
Valerica didn't adopt a martial arts pose. She just planted her feet slightly wider than shoulder-width and settled her weight. It was the stance of a mountain deciding to exist.
"Strike."
She threw a right cross. No glowing mana, no gravity manipulation, no explosive effects. Just raw, Awakened physiology pushing mass against mass.
She stepped into the punch, her hip turning, driving her dense fist into the bag.
THUD.
It wasn't a loud noise; it was a deep, heavy sound that vibrated through the floor. The heavy bag didn't just swing; it folded around her fist, the chains holding it to the ceiling groaning under the sudden strain.
Rowan nodded. "Good skeletal alignment. Pure kinetic transfer. Next."
Valerica stepped back to the line, her expression unchanged.
The assessments continued. The other nobles showed solid, disciplined form born of expensive tutoring. They weren't all perfect, but they all knew how to hold their weapons. They had foundations.
Vane watched, his stomach tightening with every competent display. He was surrounded by people who had been training since they could walk.
"Vane," Kael called, reading the list. "Spear."
Vane stepped out of line. He walked to the rack and pulled down a standard training spear. It was seven feet of ash wood with a blunted steel tip.
It felt terrible. Too long. The balance point was awkward. His hands, used to the intimate, close-range weight of daggers, didn't know where to settle on the shaft.
He walked to the center dummy.
"Stance," Rowan commanded.
Vane tried. He really tried. He remembered the posture from the [Gale Thrust] skill animation—left foot forward, knees bent, spear held loose.
But without his Authority guiding his muscles into place, his body reverted to what it knew. His feet instinctively shifted closer together into a tight, balanced crouch, ready to spring backward or sideways—a knife-fighter's stance, completely unsuited for a long weapon. He held the spear fiercely tight, knuckles white, like a baseball bat rather than a precision instrument.
He looked like a man trying to hold a coiled snake.
Rowan stared at him for a long, silent moment. "Strike."
Vane lunged.
It was pathetic.
Because his stance was wrong, he had no leverage from his hips. The thrust was all arm strength. The tip of the spear sailed slightly wide of the heart marker, glancing off the dummy's wooden shoulder with a weak clack.
Because he was leaning too far forward, the missed thrust threw him off balance. He stumbled, his back foot coming off the ground, and he barely stopped himself from tripping over the back end of his own spear.
"Stop," Rowan's voice cut through the air, sharp as a whip.
Vane froze, breathing hard, tangled in his own weapon, surrounded by the elite of the Empire.
Rowan walked over to him. He didn't look angry. He looked clinical.
"Your grip is choked," Rowan said, tapping Vane's white knuckles. "Your back foot is floating. You have no kinetic chain."
He stepped back, looking Vane up and down.
"You are trying to fight a polearm duel with a dagger stance."
Kael stepped up beside Rowan, his massive shadow falling over Vane. The Beastkin sniffed the air dismissively.
"You chose a weapon of war, Rank 1," Kael growled, his voice echoing in the silent dome. "You hold it like a thug in an alley who found a stick on the ground."
Vane stood up straight, pulling the spear back. There was nothing to say. The evidence was right there in his hands.
"You have zero foundation," Rowan said, marking a brutal zero on his tablet. "You are building a castle on mud. Fix it, or change your discipline before you get someone killed. Probably yourself."
He gestured to the exit with his stylus. "Get out of my ring."
Vane walked back to the weapon rack, his footsteps heavy on the mats. He could feel the eyes of the class on his back. Anastasia's silent, vindicated disdain. The confusion of the nobles who couldn't understand how this was their top-ranked student.
He racked the spear with a clatter. His hands were shaking slightly, not from fear, but from the sheer, humiliating weight of exposure.
He had the rank. He had the uniform. But in that ring, stripped of his stolen tricks and forced to show the basics, Vane was exactly what they thought he was.
A fraud.