Mahon sat at his usual place in the classroom with Zac on one side and Allen on the other. Since that day, his relationship with the other roommates had become weird, especially with Wyrran and Kali.

The two men were strong and hardworking and after weeks at the institute, they probably had a similar view than Jorik voiced. They were still polite to him when they were all together, although more to give Zac’s face than to him. And if Zac was not around, they wouldn't talk to Mahon at all.

Allen was a bit different. His cheerfulness prevented him from truly hating someone, and he was too communicative to avoid sharing a joke when he could. But with how his relation with his duo, the beautiful Delphyn, was growing up, he had other things to think about.

All in all, lunch and evening had become a bit stranger but Mahon mainly spent his time with Zac anyway and everyone was focusing on the study so the change had not been that impactful in Mahon’s day to day. Yordar walking in the classroom with a dozen assistants broke Mahon from his reverie.

“Today is the day of the strategy test. We will evaluate your skills at what you learnt but also what you really understood and inferred. Do your best.”

As he spoke, Yordar’s assistants distributed sheets of paper and surprise turned to concentration on the face of the students. Once everyone had the papers in front of him, Yordar gestured for the student to begin.

The test started with Amentiae’s weak points, and it required to list a minimum of three weak points for a dozen different weapons. Mahon smiled at the exercise. It was the same stuff they had studied during hours with Yordar, but even without that, it was just too easy for Mahon. He had himself taught extensively on this subject in Nightmare. Whatever the weapon and whatever the situation, he knew how to best deal with his sworn enemies.

Mahon wrote a dozen weak points for the spear only and without pause he did the same for the sword, ax, mace, hammer, daggers, saber, shortsword, rapier, flail and more as the list went on. In minutes, he had noted more than a hundred weak points for multiple weapons without even forcing.

As he finished the first part, he flexed his wrist before diving again in the test. What followed was a series of one versus one situations against an Amentiae. Mahon filled the test at the same speed he had the first exercise. Sometimes he gave alternative answers when he couldn’t decide if he should emphasize on safety-oriented or speed-oriented solutions.

The exercises became more complicated as the test went on. He moved from one enemy to two, three and more. When he was in a situation he had to face five strong Amentiae, Mahon started to doubt. They had never studied such scenarios during Yordar’s lesson and it was obviously a test to know how they could extrapolate from their learnings.

For this one, the obvious tactic was to run away and nothing else. But only writing “run” on the paper seemed a bit inadequate. Did the examiner expect them to fight to the death the Amentiae? Mahon slowed his insane pace and stopped for the first time to think about a question.

What are they expecting here? Intelligent enough to avoid a lost fight? Brave enough to sacrifice his life for Ratho?

Mahon had no idea what he was supposed to do. Perhaps there was no bad answer, and they just wanted to see how they would react in such a situation. Without further context or objective, he decided to do what he would suggest his own soldier to do. Run. If there was some bigger cause or specific strategy, Mahon could understand the need to force the fight, but there was nothing like this in the scenario. Feeling a bit bad about the short answer, Mahon added advice to prevent getting in such a situation in the first instance, like staying close to his duo and his unit.

The next exercises were focused on unit versus unit fights, and Mahon came back to his previous momentum. He filled all the questions with ease. To him it was not some hypothetical situations, he had literally lived them all hundreds of times and more. Also, most of the situations were from Yordar’s lesson, so it was fresh in his mind. Until the final question, which was a battle between full scale armies. Again, it was not a scenario they had studied before and this time again, Mahon’s instincts screamed to run.

The human’s position seemed precarious and there were way too many Amentiae to do anything except retreat. But there should be more than that. The final exercise is a full scale battle, but you have to retreat? Surely, there was more to the eyes.

For the second time, Mahon paused and placed his pen back on the table. He looked intensely at the situation in front of him and his brain was going into overdrive to find something. Anything.

Could he try assassinating the general the way he did in Nightmare? Mahon gave the idea some thoughts but in the end rejected it. The elite Amentiae was well protected behind his units and it would be impossible, even for him. Maybe he had some special units that could provide him an answer? He double-checked and even triple-checked his army’s composition, but there was nothing hidden.

Ideas bounced in his head, but they were all rejected one by one. In the end, the Amentiae were too close to his own units and he couldn’t operate them in a significant way. Also, the Amentiae headcount was large. Too large.

Mahon sighed and resigned himself to write how the retreat should occur when he saw it. A slight imbalance in the Amentiae formation. Immediately, Mahon measured the distance and found out he was right.

There was an insignificant gap in the Amentiae formation. The left wing was a bit farther than the right wing. Maybe he could exploit that.

Isn’t it too minuscule to be noticed? Should we really be at this level of detail for the first test?

Mahon was unsure of how to act about it. Retreat was obviously the move and coupled with the previous question with the five Amentiae, it felt like the professor wanted the students to realize there were limits to their power and know when to play low.

But now that he had noticed this insignificant detail, his instincts screamed he could do something with it. And with how he had been treated by Jorik and the other roommates, it would feel good to prove them wrong on that test. Sure he was crippled physically, but he still had a fully functional Last Red commander brain. Thinking a bit more, he decided to go for it and started furiously planning again.

I have time to move this 28-men unit to this position and then… Hmm. No, it would be too short. But if I add this other...

Carried by his enthusiast, he did not ponder on how minuscule the detail he was working on was. He had found something and he could use it. Step by step, he imagined the main frame of his strategy.

Regularly, he had to drop a substantial portion of it because it was not sustainable. But he made progress and after he had revisited his strategy dozens of times, he connected all the dots and he found it.

The way to victory.

He leaned back in his chair, satisfied. The elegant solution he had found was staring back at him and the more he looked at it, the happier he felt.

“Last fifteen minutes!”

As Yordar announced the imminent end of the test, Mahon got back to work. He still had a lot to do. From the mainframe, he had to add all the little details that would make his strategy worth it. He wrote as fast as he could, in a desperate race against the clock. He didn’t have the time to reflect on everything, and he wrote some details as they passed through his mind.

“Drop your pen. The test is over.”

Mahon sighed heavily. It was not perfect, but he had written all he wanted. He had no time to check what he wrote, but it was decent, in his opinion. It was when he handed back his writings to a professor that it struck him. His strategy mainly relied on a heavy sacrifice of his whole right wing. It had not mattered too much to him while he had been too absorbed by the exercise.

But now he realized it. He had thought himself in Nightmare, where a sacrifice didn’t mean death. Close to, but not quite. Sacrificing soldiers had always been necessary to win against Amentiae in Nightmare. With such a difference in strength, it was their only option to grind the final victory.

However, he was in Ratho now. Death meant... death. And he had sacrificed half his army without another thought. Mahon calmed his breathing. It was just a test. Retreat was perhaps the best option, but he had managed to find an improbable strategy. Defying the odds. That would matter a lot for his results.

He had to be careful not to make the mistake again, but it was not too critical with imaginative soldiers. That was the school's main purpose, after all. He needed to learn and unlearn some things to evolve in Ratho. Having sorted his emotions, he was ready to stand up and leave when Yordar spoke.

“The first part of this test is done. Please refer to the board on my left to know with which professor you will do the second part.”

Having lost sense of time while he had fun completing the test, Mahon did not realize less time that he had expected had passed. They still had a full hour before the lesson was officially done. So he went to check the board, and he found his name among a dozen others under a column titled ‘professor Revalor’. He managed to find where he was supposed to go and joined other students in front of a small classroom adjacent to the main one.

A man, around three hundred years old and dressed as one of Yordar’s assistants, was counting the students in front of the class. Apparently satisfied, he instructed them on what would happen.

“Hello, I am professor Revalor. For the second part of the test, we will evaluate your ability in real time. One by one, you will join me inside and will be dealt an imaginary scenario. You will be asked to voice your thoughts while solving the situation.”

The students digested the new information and some even exchanged panicked looks. The professor summoned the first student, and he disappeared with him in the classroom. Mahon patiently waited to be called. In the meantime, he observed the people that left the class after the test. Some were out after a minute, whereas others stayed inside for ten times longer. However, judging by their faces, the duration meant nothing as most of them looked dejected anyway.

Finally, Mahon’s name was called and he entered the room. The professor was sitting in the middle of the class and gestured for him to come closer. He pointed at different places while talking.

“Come Mahon. Pick your subject here and read it aloud. After that, you can start to solve it. Make sure to speak what you’re thinking so I can follow your logic. You’re free to use the blackboard behind you to help your process.”

Mahon followed the instructions and picked a sheet randomly. He flipped it and read aloud the exercise he got. He was not even halfway through it that he already knew the solution. It was a full scale battle against Amentiae and the situation was even worse than the final exercise of the previous test. This time, there was no way he could manage to reverse it. He finished reading and pursued with his analysis.

“The ratio of humans to Amentiae is close to one to two. The strength of both armies being average, I would usually not ponder any longer on the situation and proceed to retreat as soon as possible. For the purpose of this exercise, however, we could try a few other strategies and see why they couldn’t work.”

Mahon then listed possible strategies, and why they would not work in this situation. He tried to be as thorough as possible, but there was not much to say. The enemy force was too overwhelming for the human army’s size.

Revalor listened to him attentively at first, but the more Mahon explained why different strategies would not work and how the retreat should be careful of this and that the angrier the professor became. Mahon was so focused on saying something in this straightforward situation that he missed the subtle shift. He was still listing alternative strategies when Revalor abruptly interrupted him.

“I heard enough. Go out.”

Mahon snapped back his attention to the man and only now did he notice the clenched jaws and the spark of anger in Revalor’s eyes.

What did I say?

Mahon was ready to apologize and go back on track, but the professor stopped him even before he opened his mouth.

“Not another word. Leave. Now.”

Mahon exited the classroom, disappointed, and the professor called another student in. While the process continued, Mahon tried to understand what went wrong. He was one hundred percent sure of his answer. It was so obvious that there was no doubt about it. So it must have come from his explanation of the different strategies.

He did spend a bit of time explaining why they couldn’t work, but Mahon found it natural to explain it as a way to justify his decision. Maybe the professor just wanted a straight answer, and he thought Mahon was showing off his knowledge.

Or perhaps it has to do with me not being a noble?

In the end Mahon shrugged and dropped the matter. What was done was done and even if he had screwed up some of the test, he was confident in his responses on the writing part.

Thinking about it, a smile naturally showed up on his face. He had felt like a senior being asked freshman questions. He had just steamrolled the test without second thoughts. And it was so pleasant to do something trivial after spending hard months trying to grow his muscles.

His smile did not falter as he exited the classroom and searched for Zac to know how his friend had performed.