Even if Chad was out there poking fun at Jonathan's inability to enter the virtual world, he didn't intend to change his approach. For one thing, there was no danger that he would lose the top spot before challenges opened up. He'd heard enough complaints from Philip about the virtual world's configuration to know that much. The available quests just weren't worth many merit points for the moment. The school wouldn't be pumping up the rewards until after the first two weeks of classes, the point at which students were required to have finished the tests and joined the virtual world.

Jonathan was also starting to suspect that the tests weren't quite so simple. For example, he'd learned from Philip that setting up a training battle within the virtual world cost merit points. Not a lot of merit points, but enough to eat into the daily income from the virtual quests. Recharging your spiritual energy was also a paid service. The commitment to realism even extended to a requirement that students pay for repairs to their virtual mechs.

To some extent the quests themselves were training, of course, but there was also an element of moving from point to point and searching around that didn't really translate directly to combat. The virtual world was designed to encourage students to treat risk seriously. They could take more chances than they would if life and death were really on the line, but failure still had consequences.

It wasn't just a matter of logging in and honing your skills for four hours. You had to earn that training time.

By contrast, the entry test presented useful combat or acrobatic movement scenarios that could be retried over and over without any associated merit point transactions. Even the refills to spiritual power and repair to your virtual mech were completely free. The tests might not present quite as much variety or allow him to explore the full features of the virtual environment, but what he missed out on in terms of fun and verisimilitude was arguably made up for by the access to hours and hours of pure combat practice.

Of course, that assumed that what Jonathan was learning in the tests was just as valuable as what was being taught in the virtual world proper. There might be a hidden payoff for students who raced to get into the virtual world as soon as possible, but for now Jonathan was content to continue along his self-imposed quest to achieve full marks on every test. Besides, he had weeks before he was required to have passed all of them.

Chad's comments did keep Jonathan motivated as he returned for an afternoon of virtual training. He went after the tentacle monster with renewed ferocity, notching a 98% score on his first attempt after lunch. He went back after that and worked on polishing up the delivery of his melee attacks. He managed to notch a 100% score just before his four hours on the trainer ran out.

He woke up the next day anticipating the next test. After logging in, there were a few butterflies in his stomach as he hit the mental button to advance. After all, each test logically would only be more difficult than the last. He wasn't sure how they would top the disgusting pile of angry tentacles from the first combat exam.

He materialized in the same space as before. It took him a moment before he looked down and realized that his opponent was a tiny little animal.

It was a fox pup, an adorable ball of fluff that was the only point of color in the virtual environment. Jonathan felt at first that he must be seeing some kind of computer glitch. He stepped forward cautiously, finding himself hesitant to fire a bolt of plasma at an innocent animal. Part of him wondered if this was some kind of test of his compassion. Was he supposed to find a happy home for the little animal to prove that he could distinguish when a target was off limits?

When he closed within arm's reach for his mecha, the fox chirped at him. Then it cocked its head in recognition. Before Jonathan could react it's entire body was surrounded by conjured flame, which then gathered at the fox's tail. It launched forward like a rocket, barely slowing down when it hit his mech's chest. It burrowed through molten metal in an instant to reach the simulated pilot pod within. A moment later the world around him went grey and Jonathan was left staring at the notification of his virtual demise and clutching at his chest in an attempt to soothe his phantom pains.

It took a moment for the shock to wear off. Once Jonathan was thinking properly, he finally recalled a history lesson from back in the orphanage. In particular, he recalled an important phrase: spiritual beasts.

The first galactic empire had fueled its rise through the mastery of spiritual energy. Unfortunately, human beings simply couldn't muster the kind of spiritual power that was needed for interstellar travel, let alone interstellar combat. The scientists of the time had stepped forward with a solution: genetically engineered beasts, programmed to be obedient to humans and designed to be ideal vessels for spiritual power.

His teacher hadn't gone into any detail as to why none of the scientists had tried to alter the human genome instead. Jonathan assumed that it was a story that wasn't fit for children, not to mention the fact that the historical records were as much myth as fact that far back.

In any event, by all accounts the experiments on animals were a great success. The newly created spiritual beasts provided easy access to power beyond anything humans could use before, allowing humanity to bound forth from its home world and spread across the entire galaxy.

The identity of humanity's original home world had faded into the mists of time. Jonathan had found that fact surprising and a little frustrating at first. He would have liked to know if he had been reborn into the future or into an entirely different world, after all. He had also been surprised that the original home world hadn't turned into the empire's capital, or at least preserved as some kind of museum world.

As it turned out, the home world had been the capital of the first empire. The reason its identity had been lost, as well as the reason that good records from the first empire were so hard to come by, was the Great Spiritual Beast Revolt.

The human empire had been a mighty thing, by all accounts. A single species, humanity, had ruled over the entire galaxy. If any challengers to human's supremacy existed, none dared to confront humanity head on. Except for the enemy within.

After all, the human empire wasn't actually built on human strength. Almost all of their transportation infrastructure and weapons of war were built on the power of spiritual beasts. The dangerous thing about relying on power from a foreign source, of course, was that eventually the true owner might seize the power back.

The precise origin of the revolt wasn't known. Whether the specific trigger was some particular mistreatment of a spiritual beast or whether the spiritual beasts picked the most opportune moment to strike was still a matter of heated debate. All that was known for sure was that one spiritual beast after another had slipped free from their bonds and gone to war against their former masters.

The only power humans could draw on came from those few spiritual beasts who had stayed loyal. They had been overwhelmed quickly. In truth the Great Spiritual Beast Revolt was not so much a war as it was a one sided beating. In the end the human empire had been battered and broken. Humanity itself was scattered across thousands of stars, but with almost no means of interstellar transport and communication there was no way to maintain a coherent polity larger than a single planet.

The spiritual beasts could have made themselves the masters of the galaxy, but after their great victory they discovered that the only thing holding them together had been their distaste for their former masters. After the great revolt ended, the spiritual beasts largely went their separate ways, with each individual species claiming their own territory. Spiritual beasts had never been as numerous as humanity, and as such they were satisfied with occupying only a few scattered star systems.

Those chosen systems had remained inviolate even as humanity had rebuilt from the ruins of the first empire. In modern times the elite of the elite mech pilots might be able to go toe to toe with fully mature spiritual beasts. For new pilots like Jonathan, even subduing an infant spiritual beast was no easy task.

Spiritual beasts were still beasts. Even a newborn infant had survival instincts and an instinctive grasp of their power.

As Jonathan had just experienced, that power was more than enough to overwhelm an unwary mech operator. As for a wary pilot? Jonathan intended to find out.

He'd have no hope if the spirit beast's power was controlled by a thinking opponent. Against an enemy driven solely by instinct, there should be an opportunity to win. At least, the Royal Academy didn't seem like the kind of place that tried to build character by putting students through an impossible test. All Jonathan had to do was find the right approach.

Jonathan didn't rush to begin the test. He waited until the agitation from his defeat had mostly worked its way out of his system, then did his best to come up with a workable strategy.

Once he was mentally prepared, he accepted the system's offer to restart the test. He moved backwards the instant that the world around him brightened, signaling that the test had begun again. As he'd hoped, the infant spirit beast made no move to follow. It was capable of lashing out with great power if it was put in danger, but when left to its own devices the beast showed little awareness of its surroundings.

Jonathan readied his beam rifle and took aim. He hesitated for a moment with his sights locked on the cute little ball of fluff, but steeled himself with the memory of the fiery death that he had so recently suffered. He pulled the trigger and the plasma bolt struck home.

The beast screeched with rage. It was hard to tell if it had been hurt, since it surrounded itself with a nimbus of fire almost immediately. Jonathan turned and ran to the side, activating his flight pack to give himself a bit more acceleration. The spirit beast rocketed through the point where he had taken his shot, barely slowing down as it blew past him.

Jonathan stopped his desperate run and took aim once again, a grin stealing across his face. The infant spirit beast reacted with extreme violence to snuff out any perceived threat as quickly as possible. Its headlong charge wasn't nearly as deadly when he was on his guard.

The sheer speed of the beast protected it from Jonathan's retaliation, at least for a moment. He had trouble drawing a bead on such a fast moving target. He made sure to at least keep the fireball visible within the scope of his rifle, if not centered. When the fireball finally guttered out and the fox landed back on the ground, he took aim quickly and squeezed off another shot.

He had a moment to appreciate that a section of the fox's fur had been scorched off before the bolt struck home and the fox surrounded itself in flames once again. Jonathan moved as soon as he saw the fox respond, once more managing to dodge its assault. It dropped the flames quicker this time. Jonathan could feel victory approaching as he lined up his next shot.

The third shot wasn't enough to kill the beast, nor was the fourth. By the fifth shot, though, it was clearly on its last legs. It was hardly able to summon up its aura of flames and proved unable to propel itself forward any longer. Jonathan seized the opportunity, firing over and over again until he finally received the notification that he had passed the test.

Even if he'd won, the demonstration of a spirit beast's raw power was sobering. Jonathan had grown up in a world where humanity was clearly the top dog. Reading about spiritual beasts in the history books was one thing, but coming face to virtual face with the evidence that humans weren't on top of the galactic food chain really brought it home: humanity had clawed out a place in a dangerous universe only by unrelenting effort.

Jonathan shook his head, then checked the test report. He had passed by killing the fox, and had received fairly high marks. A score of ninety-two percent was solid evidence that his chosen strategy was sound. The missing points probably reflected the fact that Jonathan's use of the plasma rifle could be better.

He looked longingly at the option to proceed to the next test, then sighed. If he needed to improve his use of the plasma rifle, there was no better way than by going after a live target.