The heat increased again. I was finding it mildly uncomfortable to breathe in the scorching air, was sweating heavily to the point that my white hair was drenched and droplets ran down my back, and was shifting from foot to foot as the floor seethed with thermal energy. I did not really know exactly how others would do at this. It was not even worth it to consider a Silver Servus, a Gold Servus would be a charred body on the verge of death, a Copper Imperator would likely be overheating and close to passing out.

I breathed in and out slowly. I could do this. I needed to earn the points to make up for only being satisfactory in my body scan. Everyone else, save my friends, would likely be far beyond satisfactory on such things. To catch up with the pack and beat out at least over seven hundred highly qualified candidates I needed to go beyond the ordinary limits of an Imperator. To get a good score amongst the three hundred chosen for the Scholarium and there by earn prestige and additional resources at the officers’ school, I needed to push myself right up to the point of no recovery. I would need to make a calculation, getting as far as possible to exceed my rivals while still not compromising my body by overtaxing it to the point I would not recover in time for additional tests. Theoretically, one did every test until they finished, no matter if they were the best of the thousand plus or the worst, but in practice one could injure themselves to the point that they would be disqualified for not moving on quickly enough.

“You got this, Adrias. No fear, no weakness. Push it.” I said to myself.

The temperature cranked up again. My body was dry again, my sweat being evaporated faster than I could produce it or alternative homeostatic functions could cool my total temperature down and keep the sweat from dissipating into steam. My hair was bone dry, my gown was as arid as a dying man’s resting place in a sunbaked desert, my back was like a dried up river valley. I considered the article of clothing I was wearing that did a so-so job at covering my body.

“What are you made of?” I wondered as I pinched the fabric and ran my thumb over the material. My body was not ash yet because of my innate superhumanity and acquired inhumanity, but this for all intents and purposes appeared to be ordinary cloth. It should have set on fire early on in the very first setting.

I looked to my monitor. I had found over time spent off Lavinius and on more advanced locales that most computer systems was responsive, like how Antonias and I had figured out that the left thrustor gun we had used in the our game of beam tag in the Skyfather’s Glory’s zero gravity room could be addressed and would respond to requests such as sending help to get us out of there when we were stuck floating aimlessly after our tanks ran out.

“Monitor. Can you answer questions for me while I undergo this task?” I said, holding the wristwatch to my mouth. My throat was parched and it hurt to swallow. My eyes stung, tears coming to them that rapidly evaporated off.

“If it is within the boundaries of the examination process and the answers are not privileged or restricted information.” It replied.

I closed my eyes, trying to keep them from being so irritated. I could feel my feet reddening and beginning to form blisters as they pressed against the scalding material.

“What is my gown made of that it doesn’t go up in smoke?” I asked it.

“A cotton polyester composite threaded with nanorobotic cooling systems and heat distributors.” The monitor replied.

I chose my next question carefully, this time one specifically relevant to my tasks rather than idle curiosity like my asking about the gown.

“I am on the third stage of the heat test. What stage would the theoretical ideal candidate make it to before they tapped out?” I said.

“The selected difficulty to meet the standard is to reach the seventh setting of thermal intensity and make it over sixty-five percent of the time allotted to that stage and then either willingly end this section or this unit registering your vital signs as incapacitated or near death.” The machine told me.

The temperature rose again, making this the forth stage, and I began to feel a bit woozy. My head pounded and my body swayed. Every time I moved on and off of my feet when it became too much for them to press against the floor, I had to rip my foot off the ground, leaving behind shriveling, blackened strips of skin from the bottom of my feet. It smelled disgusting.

I bent over painfully, coughing like I had an infectious disease of the lungs.

“Wh-what’s the b-best score someone’s ever g-gotten at th-this?” I forced the words out of my poor lungs and past my cracking tongue. I started coughing again like a dying man and I spat a glob of bloody saliva out of my mouth. Even bent over closer to the ground, the liquid water had evaporated and the organic matter in the spit had turned to smoke before it could reach a quarter of the way to the white fabric floor.

“Answer restricted.” It said unhelpfully. I ground my teeth together in frustration and tried to rephrase it.

“Wh-what’s the high… hi… highest someone fr-from our group of ca-candidates has re-reached today?” I said, almost tilting over. I just needed a good target to try to exceed or match so that I was in the running for the top of the pack.

“Answer unavailable.”

There was a whirring and a click, and the fifth stage started.

I groaned both in pain and in annoyance. The smell of cooking and searing Imperator flesh from the bottoms of my feet grew nauseating. I tried to suppress my enhanced sense of smell in a similar, modified way to how I used the sounds of a storm to dampen my hearing, but I was either too mentally out of it or the smell was simply too close and too ripely potent. I felt the taste of salt rise in my throat and spill over into my mouth, coating my tongue, and I clenched my fists as my body convulsed and shook. Vomit shot up my throat and out my mouth, blood mixed with stomach bile mixed with the partially digested remnants of my last meal.

The liquid content left this bodily fluid too before it touched the ground just as my bloody spit had. The solid portions went up in blue flames about three quarters of the way down.

“Would you like to end this first half of the temperature resiliency test? This monitor is detecting heightened stress levels, elevated heartrate, severe dehydration, and physiological burden on major organs compared to your baseline body scan.”. The monitor on my wrist queried me.

I shook my head hard. No. No, I would not tap in this easily and doom my chances.

“This unit requires a verbal response.” It said.

I struggled to form the words but the only thing that came to my addled mind was swearing at the damn thing.

“Fuck you.” I hissed at it.

“This is not a valid response. Please try again. If you do not respond within the next ten seconds, this test will automatically cease in lieu of an active concession.” The monitor said.

My head pounded like a drum and scarlet ichor ran from broken blood vessels in my nostrils.

“I! Want! To! Keep! Going!” I hammered each word in as clearly as I could with all of my determination and force of will.

“Acknowledged.” The sixth stage begun. I staggered backwards, painfully ripping off more skin from my feet that had fused to the floor.

My mind raced. I needed to plan this better or I was not going to be able to make it to the seventh stage, let alone pass the sixty-five percent of the seventh, or even dare to dream of making it to the eighth. What could I do, what could I do? I looked down at my hospital gown and furrowed my brow. What was it about the gown? I couldn’t remember, couldn’t think, couldn’t process anything at all. Every damn thing just hurt.

“G-g-gownnn…” I stumbled over the word, something about it seemed important but I could not fathom what. I swayed again. I needed to sit down, get off my damaged feet and keep myself from falling over and succumbing to unconsciousness. I couldn’t, I told myself, I just absolutely could not sit down because I would burn a larger portion of my body and that would only hasten my failure.

I looked down at the gown again and frowned, my eyes so blurry it looked like a blue and white cloud. Thoughts trickled through my brain. I could not sit on the ground because I would burn… but this gown did not burn no matter what I put it through because of the nanotechnologies hidden in it. Presumably unless they expected the outliers to go naked the rest of the way, this gown was rated for the highest setting of heat. I… burn, but… the gown… does not…

Inspiration struck my addled, heatstroked mind. I stripped off my gown and laid it on the ground and sat on it. It was still incredibly hot, to the point of pain, but my ass and legs were not being burnt to a crisp. The gown was protecting me, and I did not have to stand anymore.

The seventh stage kicked in. I no longer tried to breath despite my body’s increased oxygen demands. The feeling of my lungs smoldering within me from lack of breath intake hurt far less than trying to breath the air in the room.

“Would you like to end the test?” The monitor spoke out.

“No.” I pushed the denial out of my body and vocalized it.

“Acknowledged. Testing will continue.”

Time passed. I could not say whether it was a few seconds or hours because it felt like both at the same time, but I just continued to sit with my head in my hands. My hair and eyebrows had lit on fire and I was left bald. My fingernails were blackening and falling off and there was dried blood all over my face, leaking from my mouth, ears, eyes, and nose.

“Congratulations! You have reached the time and temperature ascribed by the theoretical model. Would you like end the test?” The monitor said.

I was tempted. I was so, so, so damn tempted. I wanted to give up. Maybe I could really dominate other portions of the course, I told myself. Maybe it didn’t matter at all, and I should just fail out and not try anymore. This was hell. Why had I wanted to do this? I should just go back to Sunburst Station or Lavinius and live out the rest of my life. I wanted to give up on Gold. Why, why was I subjecting myself to this torture?

“A verbal response is required within the next ten seconds. Would you like to end the test?”

Yes. Yes, I would bloody like to end the test.

I opened my mouth to say yes but another word slipped out.

“No.” I said. My body shook and evaporating tears slipped out of my tear ducts. Please. Please. Why could I not let go?

The eighth stage started, and I burst into angry flames. I screamed silently at the ceiling of Room Five.

“Significant tissue degradation and extreme core temperature excess detected. It is highly advised that you cease. Would you like to end the test?”

“No!” I roared at the wristwatch, my skin burning away leaving bone and muscle exposed. I was blind now, in complete darkness.

I felt like I was in the core of a star. My senses detected the ninth stage activating and I reeled from that knowledge, I had not even felt the time passing. There was only pain, an eternity of it. Agony was my one true master and anguish was my only companion.

My muscles started igniting in earnest.

The tenth stage started. Oh gods, the tenth stage. Skyfather strike me down. End my suffering. Kill me. Kill me. Kill me! Killmekillmekillmekillmekillmekillmekill- I begged the heavens. My mind was an ocean of chaos and torment.

“You have reached the tenth stage and have exceeded the results of all other candidates tested so far. Would you like to end the test? This course of action is highly recommended.” The monitor said.

“No.” I said with a strange calm, speaking with lungs that should not be able to work anymore but somehow still did.

By the time the eleventh stage came around, almost all the muscle on my body had burned off. I was a skeleton filled with charring organs. The monitor did not ask me this time if I wanted to stop. Good. I would have taken its offer up if it had.

How much longer could I go? A few seconds? Half a minute?

An absurd, hubristic thought occurred to me, one that I really should have taken as a sign that I was going mad. Twelve Olympians, twelve Teitans, twelve labors of the Champion. I thought. Twelve. Haha. Hahahaha. Ludicrous. Insane. Arrogant.

I waited and waited and waited, and when the twelfth stage came on, I barely felt it because my nerve cells were so damaged.

“Would you like to-“

I passed out and darkness took me.