Room Five slowly warmed and with the returning warmth my body began to move again. Halfway through I started shivering again intensely but as much as I found it annoying, I knew it was a good sign that soon enough all would be well. Just like the first section with its skyrocketing temperature, my body would recover, would piece itself back together. My shivering slowed as the temperature stabilized to room temperature and during the fifteen minutes of recovery given to me, my left ear regrew, and my fingers and toes reversed themselves from black, curling claws threatening to snap off at the slightest movement back into their normal color and function.

I flexed them and they tingled. Cautiously, trying to avoid falling on my face, I stood and bent down to pick up my hospital gown. It was stained with dried blood and ash, but when I shook it all of that damage and refuse just fell off.

“Self-cleaning, huh.” I muttered. “I would have like to have this stuff in the Red Sands arena.”

I had ruined so many clothes with dirt and sweat and mud as well as innumerable cuts and slash marks that it was pretty much expected that every fight and a good number of training sessions I had fought as the mystery gladiator Commodas would result in either me or Gaias buying new clothes for me constantly.

I put the gown on and tied the knot in the back.

“Two minutes, Candidate Lucion.”

I was tempted to do something brash like telling the monitor that it could keep its minutes and that I wanted to go ahead now.

“That’s stupid, don’t be an idiot.” I told myself. “You have to take all the time they give you, Adrias.”

My regeneration was good, but I was really craving the offer of food and water that they were apparently holding up ahead. Even a Bronze’s healing would not restore one to perfection and their pre-incinerated and pre-flash freezed state this quickly. I needed fluids and organic sources of energy to push myself back up to prior to entering this chamber.

“Intermission period is over. Please proceed ahead.” The monitor on my wrist said.

The door of Room Five descended downwards into the floor with a hiss and I stepped over it and walked past the rooms in the opposite direction of where we had gotten our bodies scanned in the coffins.

“So what does Abnormal Primacy: First Class mean?” I asked the wristwatch as I paced down the hall.

“Abnormal Primacy is the achievement of a score beyond any other candidate tested in the history of the Scholarium. First Class entails doing so by a sizeable margin that puts you significantly ahead of the previous recordholder.” The monitor said.

“Who was the previous recordholder?” I wondered aloud, not really expecting the machine to answer. No doubt the information was “unavailable” or “restricted” or “needs higher access.” It had not answered my question last time about what the record was or who was doing the best in the current examinations, but now I knew who had the highest record: me.

“Governor Claudion in his candidacy process for admission. He reached the tenth stage and immediately requested a stop having achieved Abnormal Primacy: Second Class.” It said.

“What did he get in the cold test?” I said.

“Abnormal Primacy: Third Class. He achieved the high score, still the record today, but only slightly surpassed the previous record.”

“What did he get in the rest of the tests?” I asked.

“Answer restricted as it may give you undue information.” The monitor replied.

I tried something broader. “What did Governor Claudion get overall?”

“He was ranked 001 out of one thousand five hundred and twenty-three prospective candidates.”

I whistled in respect. “Sheesh. Where do you think I’m going to end up?”

“Answer restricted.” It said, rejecting my question.

“Okay, okay, I admit I did not expect you to really answer that.” I said.

I entered a room, one that reminded me very much of a cafeteria, but I doubted people actually used it outside of these tests. The was a counter where a smiling Servus woman waited, and there were some of my fellow Bronze Imperators sitting at various tables. Nobody talked to each other or even sat near each other or looked around like I was. Everyone was either closing their eyes in concentration as they refocused and regathered their strength and drive or they were eating slowly and methodically, consumed in the task.

I went to counter and smiled politely. “Hello. Can I get something to eat and drink, please?”

“Absolutely, sweetheart!” The woman said.

I liked this woman. She reminded me of my mother a bit. I felt suddenly sad. Not as empty and confused and enraged as I had been when I first came upon my family’s corpses, but I felt wearier in a way that getting cooked to a skeleton and getting frozen to the point body parts were snapping off and turning black had not managed to induce in me. It was a weariness of the soul, rather than the body. I would rather be tortured for a thousand years than to have to look at the terrified dead face of my little brother who had died unjustly as a result of my older brother, Flavias.

“What’s wrong, honey?” The Servus asked as she prepared a tray of food. “Your face fell.”

“Just a little tired. Thank you for your concern, it’s nothing.” I said.

“If you say so,” She said, placing a tray in my hands.

“Thanks.” I said. I started digging in, standing beside the counter. I did not think there was any rules against it that made you have to sit at a table and the other Imperators did not seem like they were interested in a conversation anyway. The tray had brown rice, and a fruit bowl of blueberries, strawberries, and pineapple, and a bowl of chili, and a cup of chocolate pudding. Along with the food came a bottle of water and a cup of flavored water that had sugar and electrolytes in it

I siphoned down the bottle of water and the cup of flavored drink quickly and then methodically worked my way through the food. I started with the fruit, and then the chili, and then the rice, and then the pudding. I felt much better after consuming everything. As I ate, I heard the other candidates’ monitors on their wrists telling them that their time refreshing themselves was over and that they had to move on. They were probably candidates that had entered the limited number of temperature chambers long after I started, but I had gone long enough that they were ahead of me in time. It was not a timed race, so it did not really matter, but I wondered how far ahead into the examinations the people who had gone with or before me into the temperature resiliency tests were now if they had gotten out at an earlier time.

Despite my enjoyment of the drinks I had been given, I still felt parched and a little dehydrated.

“Could I get more water?” I asked the Servus woman hopefully.

“Sorry, dear.” She said, her brown eyes looking genuinely apologetic rather than indicating her making some kind of farce. “They have cameras in here, you see. You would get severely docked in penalties and I would lose my job. And believe me, this is a cushy role to have for a Servus. I make more doing my job here in a short time than some Copper Imperators do in a month working high paying jobs.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s… substantial for giving us food for a few hours at most.”

“It’s the secrecy they swear me to and the maintaining of a security clearance that makes me more valuable than a street vendor in the slums, hawking rat cooked in gutter oil, even if the job is little different. I like to think I’m cheerier than such people though.” She said.

I smiled. “You certainly are. I hope the rest of your day is nice.”

I put my back against the wall next to the food serving counter and slid down into a crouch. New arrivals from the chambers looked at me strangely as they arrived, but I ignored them. I had earned Abnormal Primacy: First Class, I could do whatever I liked, including sitting on the floor when there plenty of seats available.

“Candidate Lucion, it is time for you to move forward.” The monitor alerted me.

I stood up. I turned to the café lady and waved goodbye. She put out a hand as if asking me to shake so I reached out and gripped hers. As I did so, I felt her slip the strawberry she was holding in her hand into mine, sneakily hiding it from the cameras. She winked at me. I pretended to cough and stealthily popped the strawberry into my mouth and tried to chew it slowly without making much movement that the cameras watching the rest area could observe. The strawberry tasted delightfully sweet, but it was the simple kindness in her trying to cheer me up that was sweeter still. I felt suddenly rejuvenated and ready to go, it was far more reenergizing for my spirit than one more cup of water would have been though the strawberry had very little caloric or hydrating value.

I waved on last time to her and walked through the doors onwards.

“Coming up on the right will be your next test. Here treadmills modified and rated for Bronze Imperators have been installed. You will run at increasingly faster speeds while this monitoring unit observes your heartrate, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, and other relevant data. Hidden sensors in various parts of the treadmill as well as above in the ceiling will observe your running form.” The machine informed me.

“Alright, got it. Just run until I can’t take it anymore.” I said, nodding. I liked this, it would just be another mind over matter tactic like I had pulled in the heat test, I would run until I was coughing a lung out.

“There is a qualification to that explanation of the task: to prevent unnecessary damaging of the testing equipment and room, shut off of the treadmill and control of its slow down is automated. Readings of your posture, form and ongoing biometrics are predictively analyzed as you run and if those predictions suggest that you are at your limit, shut down will occur.” The wristwatch said.

I resisted the urge to swear.

I entered the room on my right side and saw others were running at a row of treadmills, all of them moving at incredible speeds, dripping with sweat and breathing like asthmatics.

I got on one at the very farthest left and started walking as the treadmill started. It moved from walking speed to jogging to running speed quickly and then held at that for a minute. Then it increased again. I quickly saw that was the pattern, they would hold you at a certain constant speed to see how you fared and to record data, and then they would ratchet up the intensity. The others left in the room who had been there before me left and new ones came in after them.

I outlasted those newcomers too.

My heart pounded like a drum and my legs burned like fire. My hands shook so I gripped them into tight fists until they stopped. Each breath was a struggle and my heartbeat pounded in my ears. My vision was beginning to go red and focus into tunnel vision when the monitor spoke.

“Overexertion and degradation of form detected. Please be advised that the treadmill will be stopped in the next five seconds.”

“No!” I hissed, clenching my teeth. My thoughts raced. I needed to stop it from shutting off. How? It said the sensors were put there to detect when I was pushing myself. Okay, I needed it to think I was feeling this torturous run like it was a pleasant afternoon walk.

I closed my eyes and straightened my form no matter how much it hurt. I forced myself to breathe slowly and evenly even though I wanted to suck in each one like I was dying.

It must have worked because a period longer than five seconds went by and the treadmill had not shut down like the monitor had promised it would.

I managed another minute before black spots danced in my eyes and I almost fell. That would have been bad. I would have been shot by the treadmill through the wall and the one after it.

“Test ending now.” The monitor told me, with no room for argument.

The treadmill cranked its speed back to walking speed and then stopped. I staggered back, sat down, and lied on the floor of the treadmill room.

When I got my breath back, I questioned the monitor on my wrist about my results.

“How did I do?” I asked it.

“You have earned the marker of Exceeds Expectations.”

I wasn’t sure how good that was.

“At least it isn’t just Satisfactory.” I said to myself.