The mech was the first thing he saw as he stepped into the room. It loomed overhead, more than two stories tall, making the cavernous room feel almost cramped with its presence. Jonathan was familiar with its form from the holovids. The Oritech model 37A, it was a few years past its prime as a front line fighter but still an impressive machine.

"Applicant ZRC300492, step forward."

Jonathan took a step forward. At the same time, he dragged his eyes away from the mech looming overhead to observe the other person in the room with him. Seated behind a simple folding table, the middle-aged man wouldn't have stood out in a crowd. He was going grey at the temples and his gaze seemed to have some extra weight to it, but that could have been Jonathan's nerves talking.

Next to him, there was a holographic window projected above the table. The window was subdivided more times than Jonathan could count. Each of those tiny little windows had a pair of eyes peering out of it. On a remote planet out in the middle of nowhere, the mech academy recruiters couldn't be bothered to come in person.

"State your name."

Jonathan cleared his throat. "Jonathan Cross."

He didn't understand why he'd been reborn with his memories intact. He didn't know just how far in the future he was compared to his first life on Earth. He did appreciate, though, that he had received the same name to begin this new life.

The same face, too. Had anybody who knew him in his previous life seen him, they would have recognized him right away. Although there probably would have been some surprise at how much better he looked now that he was in shape.

"Your guardian's approval?"

Jonathan reached into his pocket and removed a letter stamped with the seal of the orphanage that had been his home for the last sixteen years. The director's approval should be in the electronic file, but it made sense to be doubly sure of that kind of thing before he was allowed to make a military commitment. He set the envelope down on the table in front of the examiner. A flicker of emotion passed through the man's eyes when he saw the seal, but it was gone before Jonathan could even begin to puzzle it out.

"Reason for enrolling?"

"Mech piloting is the only way for me."

Ever since he'd been old enough to realize that the holovids were showing him newsreels and not science fiction, Jonathan had known that he would be taking this path.

If Jonathan had one complaint about his second chance at life, it was that being reborn in the future had made most of his practical knowledge useless. Know the recipe for gunpowder? Great, you might catch the eye of some historical reenactors. Printing press? You can go find one in a museum, maybe. The recipe for mayonnaise? Nobody knows it off the top of their head, but they can go look it up on the net if they decide they don't want to buy it off the shelf.

If he had a second complaint, it was that the future wasn't the sort of peaceful utopia that so many had imagined. The Orion Star Kingdom was home to technological wonders, yes, but its ordinary citizens had only tenuous shelter from the dangers of a hostile galaxy. Mechs were the strongest weapon in the kingdom's arsenal. A great pilot could provide a safe haven for an entire star system. Of course, Jonathan had a long way to go before he would reach that level.

"The weight, please."

Jonathan nodded, then turned. Off to the side of the folding table, a little ways in front of the mech, was a weightlifting bar. He didn't know precisely how much weight was loaded on each end, but it certainly would have been enough to shatter the world record for the deadlift back on earth. He moved to stand in front of the bar and took a deep breath.

This new life had its good points. One was that citizens of the Orion Star Kingdom could learn how to cultivate internal energy in order to surpass the limits of the human body.

The way the natives approached cultivation reminded Jonathan of how kids had treated piano lessons in his past life. Overbearing parents forced their kids to train so they'd have an advantage later on. The kids put up with it in order to make their parents happy. If you did well at the lessons then you had something you could show off at parties.

Something you could show off once or twice. Any more than that and people might start to make fun of you. After all, pushing your strength past the human limits might help in a fight, but it was hardly enough to put you above the law.

Jonathan put those thoughts to the side and focused on his breathing. He bent his knees and took a grip on the bar, making sure to keep proper form as he circulated his energy through his body.

He threw himself into the lift, marshalling all of his strength and grunting as he felt the weight leave the ground. He kept pushing until he managed to lock out his knees. He grit his teeth and held on until he heard the examiner's acknowledgement, then dropped the weight to the ground with a great crash.

Jonathan had been something of a cultivation prodigy at first. After all, he'd been mature for his age, and the idea that working out would let him gain superhuman abilities had given him plenty of motivation to hit the gym. Unfortunately, he'd been stuck at a bottleneck for years, unable to break through to the next stage. Still, he'd progressed just far enough to be allowed into a mech.

"Proceed to the synchronization test."

Jonathan nodded, then approached the mech at the back of the room. Part of him wanted to run a hand along the side of the metal leg in front of him, but he repressed the urge. He already faced an uphill battle as a recruit from the backwater planet of Matoug. He didn't need to rack up any more strikes against himself with frivolous behavior.

A lowered platform was waiting for him in front of the mech. As soon as he stepped aboard it began to rise, finally coming to a stop in front of the mech's stomach. A moment later a hatch popped open, revealing the mech's interior. A small room stood in front of Jonathan, mostly filled by a coffin shaped device lying lengthwise on the floor.

Jonathan shucked off his clothes, revealing the short-sleeved wetsuit he was wearing underneath. It wasn't the military grade suit that real mech pilots would wear as they went about their work, but it was good enough for a basic test.

He stepped inside the mech. The metal coffin in front of him hissed open, revealing the smooth surface of the dark liquid that filled its interior. Jonathan tested the temperature with his hand. Lukewarm.

He'd never done this before, but he knew what to expect. A mech's operating pod was essentially a sensory deprivation tank. When a pilot synched their senses with the mech, sensory feedback to their flesh-and-blood body could disrupt the connection. More advanced operators didn't need the help, but the mech academies were showing some mercy towards beginners in the face of such an important test.

All of the other tests were mere window dressing compared to this. You could disqualify yourself from consideration if you were too stupid or too psychotic, but really what the mech academies wanted to see was whether you had any potential as a pilot.

Anybody who could cultivate at least had the ability to synchronize with a mech. Personal talent and good fortune would determine just how well.

The quality of the first sync was the key measurement. Jonathan was hoping to score at least fifty percent. That was the threshold for the local academy on Matoug. Every percentage point past fifty would open the doors to more prestigious institutions, or at least qualify him for more financial aid.

At the very least, he was hoping to score the thirty-five percent that would let him train to operate logistical support mechs in the field. It wasn't something that allowed the chance for much glory, but he'd still be able to pilot mechs for a living.

With such worries weighing him down, Jonathan had to force himself to slow down and appreciate the moment. For the very first time, he would be linking his mind up with a mech. He'd been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time.

Jonathan fixed the strap of the ventilator around the back of his head and took a deep breath. Good, the oxygen was flowing.

He climbed inside the pilot's pod. The lid hissed closed automatically as soon as the sensors detected that he was inside. Jonathan was alone in the darkness, floating in the neutral buoyancy Iiquid. It was a good thing there was too much adrenaline coursing through his veins to allow him to fall asleep.

Once the initial rush of excitement had passed, Jonathan focused on reaching out with his spiritual sense. At his level of cultivation, his ability to sense anything without using his ordinary five senses was truly weak. Under normal circumstances, he'd be hard pressed to detect anything that was more than a few inches away from his own body.

Here, inside the pod, he could feel a beacon hovering just above his navel. He poured his consciousness towards the light. A heartbeat later, he found himself stuck in a standing position.

He couldn't move his arms and legs. For a moment he started to panic before he realized he was looking down at the examiner's table. Of course. The mech provided for applicants was restrained from moving in order to prevent any accidents.

Just as he was beginning to get his bearings, an electronic "ding!" went off next to his ear. At the same time, Jonathan felt the flow of his spiritual energy shift, just a little.

At his level of cultivation, his body routinely circulated a small thread of spiritual energy from his core out to each of his limbs and back. Now that he was synced to a mech, he was in touch with a much larger version of the same process. Spiritual energy was pulled from him, at the core of the mech, then fed into the mech's spiritual reactor. The resulting bonanza of energy was distributed out to the rest of the mech, readying it to leap into action if it hadn't been shackled into place.

Now, that flow of energy had changed. A thread of the generated energy split off and began to loop back towards Jonathan. He'd done enough reading to know that experiments with that kind of thing had always proven fatal, but Jonathan wasn't able to do anything to stop the stream of energy as it moved towards him.

Much to his surprise, when the energy made contact with him it did not rampage through his body and start blowing up his internal organs. Instead, it felt almost soothing as the energy moved through him and began to fill his internal energy well.

Topping off the internal energy well was the key to advancing past Jonathan's cultivation bottleneck. All of his past attempts had seen his carefully hoarded internal energy vanish to no effect, but now the well was filling rapidly. When it was completely full, another "ding!" sounded and text appeared in his vision.

[Divine Mech Piloting System is online! Would you like to open your welcome gift?]