The next test was a room with one person tables and a chair set for each. On the desks was a box that had sprouting mechanical tentacles coming from it. Three of the tentacles had cameras or sensors on them and the fourth had a circular saw. There were two other people in the room about to start whatever procedure was involved.

“This test will observe your powers of regeneration from cuts in comparison to other candidates with the testing equipment making identical cuts on each of the one thousand and thirty-one others and watching the wound seal closed and timing the completion.” The monitor said.

I thought about the test carefully before sitting down. I needed to do better than this than others, but I did not actually think my healing was out of norm for Bronze Imperators. Most likely, I would get a Satisfactory rating, maybe less, maybe more. I could not simply just will myself to heal faster in the same way I could endure pain or exhaustion to get a higher ranking and hopefully get into the three hundred that would go to the Scholarium. I could not use willpower to push my way through this, but maybe I could be smarter than my competition. More devious. More sly.

I looked to the two other Bronze Imperators, a boy and a girl, and studied the exact place that the machines were placing an identical line on each of their right arms. An idea occurred to me. It was indeed clever but would also require a bit of pain tolerance which I had in spades and a willingness to self-injure which I was all for if it got me something I wanted.

A quirk of our regeneration was that wounds would heal faster if the place they were in was near another wound that had healed in the past few minutes or was still healing. It was kind of like how increased blood flow sped the natural recovery process of a human, but I was led to believe it was something of a more spiritual than biological nature. If I could damage the skin around where the cut would be carved, it would heal faster and put me further ahead. Problem was that I did not have any implements to injure myself with, we were not allowed to bring anything in and nothing I could fashion from the room around would be sharp enough to cut my skin or hard enough to penetrate it without breaking or deforming. I needed something supernatural and atypical to do the job.

With that in mind, I happily lifted my forearm to my mouth and started chewing through my flesh around where the cut was going to be made.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The girl said, with her violet eyes wide.

The boy was done with his test but had not left the room yet, instead he was also staring at me like I was insane.

I let go of my right arm with my teeth so I could talk but kept my work from sealing shut with two fingers from my left hand.

“Injuring myself. So that I get heightened regeneration.” I replied in explanation.

“But why are you doing it?” She asked.

Was this girl stupid? I just said why I was doing it.

“I’m injuring myself so that I get heightened regeneration… so that I can get a better time at wound sealing.” I said.

“You are literally chewing your skin off so you can get a marginally better time.” The girl said in disbelief.

“Yes.” I said. Perhaps she was just jealous she had not thought of the brilliant idea.

The other boy left, shaking his head.

“You understand this is just a stupid test that everyone’s families forced them into. None of us want to be here and none of us normal people are going to be one of the three hundred. The odds are against us.” She said.

“Speak for yourself.” I said in reply.

Her eyes narrowed as if she had realized something, an ugly expression crossed her beautiful Imperator face.

“Bloody arrogant High Iulians.” She sneered at me. “You must think you’re so much better than the rest of us just because we’re not all psychotic power-hungry bastards like you.”

Ah, she thought I was from one of the Great Iulian Houses, the families that owned massive estates and plots of land that could be seen from outer space.

“I’m from Lavinius, actually.” I said, knowing she would never believe me in a thousand years that I had come Apollo system’s planetary equivalent of a slum.

“Yeah right. Go step out an airlock.” She said, stalking off.

I went back to chewing on my arm.

“Candidate Lucion, please proceed to the cutting station.” My wristwatch reminded me.

“Mhm.” I said through a mouthful of damaged flesh. I had eaten a full circle around where the line would be placed and had gone around several times to keep all the wounds fresh.

I sat down at a seat and presented my healing arm. The tentacles writhed into life and moved into action, pointing the sensors and camera at where the cut would be placed and the circular saw moved into position right above my skin. I saw the blurring effect of a molecular dissolution field activated on the saw and picked up the tiny black specks that showed a Thanatosian Particle generator within the tentacle was generating death god’s dust around it. In short, it was exactly like the Keenblades we used in the arena.

The circular spinning blade quickly cut a deep line into my skin with surgical precision and control and the sensors and camera shifted as they performed checks on the speed of my regeneration. The cut sealed up quickly, starting from the point of where the saw had begun because it was the oldest part of the wound and then finishing with the last section that the blade had made. Once, the Thanatosian particles that covered the instrument would have slowed my healing down for some time and made me bleed until my system purged the death god’s dust, but as a Bronze, in addition to my pre-injuring of the area around it, it no longer held the same destructive effect. I could only imagine how little such effects would do against a Silver Imperator like the Governor.

“Congratulations, your rating for the regeneration test is Exceeds Expectations.” The monitor said, almost a note of cheer in its voice.

“What does that rating mean, monitor?” I said. I had already gotten it once, and I would like to know with more certainty where that might place me for my ambitions.

“It means that you have surpassed the metrics for the model ideal minimum candidate but that you have not met the current recordholder as an equal nor have you surpassed that present record.”

I continued on and found myself in a similar setup to the second test. There were rows of rooms on either side of me with large numbers marking each.

“Please go into Room Three.” The monitor told me.

As I walked over to it, the door descended into the floor so that I could pass. Inside it was a steel cylinder that was illuminated though I could see no lights within it to produce that luminescence.

“What’s this test going to be, monitor?” I asked it.

“This will be the vertical jump test. You will leap upwards as high as you can go.” It said.

I looked up at the ceiling, which was perhaps two feet taller than me.

“…how am I going to do that without flying through the roof of this room?” I said.

“This test employs spatial warping technologies to bend and warp the very fabric of space. If you are ready to begin, the transition will initiate.” The machine informed.

“Yes.” I said.

The ceiling suddenly stretched upwards, skyrocketing higher and higher. The length of the cylindrical room was now as gigantic as one of the mighty skyscrapers of Iulius. I stared upwards. This was another test that I could not just muscle through the pain or force myself to tolerate. I would have to be clever about it, just as I had been on the regeneration test. I studied the problem.

“I need to do better than most people… most people probably go right to jumping as soon as they get in the room so that they can get moving to finish the rest of the examinations…” I said to myself.

Most people did that, so I should not. I immediately started stretching, and hearing no objection or rushing to hurry from my monitor, I stretched and loosened up every muscle in my legs.

Another idea occurred to me.

“Does my first jump have to be the one you measure as the final one?” I queried the device.

It did not respond immediately to my request.

“Monitor?” I said, holding it up to my face.

“No.” It said finally. “A maximum of two test jumps may be undertaken.”

I took both of them eagerly, soaring a bit higher each time.

On the third I took a deep breath and launched myself even higher than before, levitating upwards at great speeds like I had a jetpack strapped to my back. When I landed the monitor told me that my result was Exceeds Expectations again and urged me onwards. Before the door out was halfway open, the spatial warping ended, and the ceiling was once again barely above my head.