“This will be the last of the physical focused body primary examinations.” My monitor told me as I laid down on what looked like an overengineered and advanced bench press. Rather than lifting plates on a barbell, the machine used pistons and mechanized gears to put an arbitrary amount of force and pressure pushing down on the Bronze candidate on the bench that they would have to attempt to lift. It could vary in effective weight from a grain of salt to ten bull elephants to a starship’s mass.

Strength was related to but different than speed for Imperators. Both were obviously expressions of muscular force, but our bodies moving their own mass quickly and repetitively was different from lifting great weight in the same way that a gun and a hydraulic press were divergent.

The weight started out light and progressed from there. By the fortieth time I lifted the bar, my bones were beginning to crack under the force of the machine and my muscle fibers were beginning to unwind and tear. I persevered and kept pushing, taking as long as possible of a rest period in between each time I raised the bar before my monitor told me to hurry up and do the next so that I could recover my strength and my body’s structural integrity through regeneration. Finally, when I could move the bar no higher than where it started, I released my hands with a grunt and yielded.

“Candidate Lucion, you have earned the marker of Exceeds Expectations. Please proceed onwards to the mental examinations.” The monitor said to me.

Thus far everything had been strongly related to the body. There were mental and emotional and willpower elements to it, of course, especially things like willingly enduring your own funeral pyre, but the Evaluation Committee had divided those previous things into the physical category and what came next would have to do with our cognitive capabilities.

The next station was another large room set up for the whole group that had been at the gene testing to come in and sit down at one of the desks available. I took a seat as more candidates filed in behind me. The desk contained a holoprojector and a keyboard, as well as a crown of black metal wire and blinking blue lights. When I sat down an obscuring bubble formed around my desk that blocked out sound and blurred the outside. To prevent cheating, I presumed.

“What are the rules of this one?” I asked my wristwatch. “What are we doing here today?”

“This combined mental exercise will test your cognitive faculties under stress. Using the holoprojector, you will answer questions and accomplish tasks on screen while the dream diadem manipulates your emotions and senses in an attempt to confuse and unsettle your thought process.” The monitor said.

“Not very fair, is it.” I commented to the device, though it said nothing in reply. This test would weed out people who were legitimately brilliant and suited to be officers but lacked the ability to focus under torturous psychological pressure.

“So much of these tests are physical or willpower based that it selects more for skilled warriors and brutal killers than competent and well-reasoned commanders.” I added on.

“Strategoi of the Solar Guard lead from the front. The same qualities that make them masters of other superhuman cultivator soldiers make them ideal special forces and duelists against other rival officers. The Scholarium will make each and every student that enters its halls and classrooms into capable tacticians and strategists ready to lead and administrate, but the nature of the role requires candidates have a strong martial bearing and combat background. The Evaluation Committee has prioritized certain qualities because it cannot teach biological superiority in the same way it can impart knowledge, train skills, and offer experiences to its students.” The monitor said, surprising me with its openness.

“I see.” I said.

“Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes.” I replied.

“Please put on the dream diadem then and we will proceed, Candidate Lucion.” The wristwatch said.

I put the crown of black wire on my head. It tightened around my skull, pressing inwards on me. Nothing happened. I waited a few moments more, but I felt the same as ever.

The holoprojector switched on and a series of words appeared on screen. Illusion-Cuprate-Idol-Supernova-Lithosphere-Dance-King-Monkey-Arrogance.

“Please memorize this string of words. You will be asked to repeat it later in the correct order.” The machine said.

“Got it.” I said, staring hard at each one. “Illusion, cuprate, idol, supernova, lithosphere, dance, king, monkey, arrogance.”

The holographic screen changed to show seven circles, scattered randomly on the projection. On each of the circles was a number from one to seven. The screen fritzed and the numbers disappeared.

“Tap on the circles in the order of the numbers that had been previously shown on them.” The monitor ordered me.

I touched each one, bouncing around in a back-and-forth fashion as I got each of the out of order circles.

I heard a whisper in the back of my mind. A woman’s voice, faint and distant and murmuring.

“Please solve this equation.” The monitor said as numbers appeared on the screen.

11.14*5.76*99.387*24.3*121.84=???

I stared at it uncomprehendingly. I tapped on the keyboard and the projected screen, trying to work the problem out.

“Uh, do I get, like, a place to write it all out so I can solve it?” I asked the monitor on my wrist. “Or is someone going to bring me paper and a pen or something? Or a datapad and a stylus?”

The whispers in my head intensified and I grimaced as I tried to ignore them. The dream diadem’s mind altering effects were evidently starting.

“Calculations are intended to be done in one’s head without external aid of a calculator or written work.” The robotic voice informed me.

“I can’t… how am I supposed to do this all in my head? I can’t…” I said.

“Thirty seconds, candidate.”

11.14*5.76*99.387*24.3*121.84=???

The numbers stood out on the screen, almost mockingly in the face of my inability to compute them on my own. I made a go at trying to go through with it, but I could not keep all the numbers straight in my head.

“Time elapsed.” My wristwatch said.

“Wait-“ I said.

“Question unanswered and forfeited.” It announced.

I ground my teeth in frustration. Was I going to miss my chance because of math?

Squares with numbers appeared on screen, twenty-seven of them, similar to the seven circles that had also been numerically marked. The numbers disappeared and I went through it carefully and methodically, making sure I got every one right. I had a good memory for visual things.

“Ten to five can be analogized to thirty and what number?” The monitor said.

“Fifteen.” I said. Both were half of the previous number.

“You must be so happy we’re dead, aren’t you, Aydee?” I heard the whispers in my head resolve themselves into my mother’s voice. Aydee. A nickname that had come from my little brother when he was very little and had been unable to pronounce my name. It had stuck around within my family, something privately shared amongst my loved ones.

I ignored the illusory voice.

“You are, aren’t you, Aydee?” The false voice of my mother continued. “You finally got your wish. You’re special and you got to wash our filthy Servi blood free from your veins.”

“Shut up.” I growled.

“Please calculate the following.” My wristwatch requested.

8.91*55.3*12.7*44.81=???

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Pass.”

I was not going to figure it out by brute forcing it before the thirty seconds were over.

“You left our bodies, Aydee. Did you ever wonder what happened to them? If they were buried or just left to rot and be devoured by vermin and insects? Couldn’t you have stayed long enough to give us a good burial?” My mother’s voice said. “Why did you leave Lavinius, your home, like it was nothing, why did you flee so quickly?”

“Please recite the list of words given to you at the start.” The monitor said to me.

I chewed my lip, thinking, trying to get it exactly right.

“Illusion, cuprate, idol… supernova… lithosphere, dance, king… monkey and arrogance.” I said.

“Correct.”

A hundred tiny triangles appeared on the holographic display, each marked from one to one hundred.

“Damn.” I said, my eyes wide. There were so many.

“Aydee, listen to me. Aydeeaydeeaydeeaydeeaydeeaydee-“ My mother’s ghostly voice generated by the dream diadem said to me, hissing into my mind.

“Monitor, how does the dream diadem work?” I said.

“The diadem stimulates portions of your brain that relate to fear, anxiety and the subconscious mind to create illusions and hallucinations.” The wristwatch said.

I heard my little brother laugh and then beg for his life and then start screaming like a strangled cat. I felt sick.

“It’s fake, it’s all fake.” I told myself. I tasted my brother’s blood in my mouth and smelled the smoke of my childhood home in the air. When I closed my eyes, I saw Gavias Cantion’s gleeful face.

I heard Tullia Cantion’s voice over and over again, saying the same thing ad nauseum. This form suits you, Adrias. It is as cold and hard as you are. Like a statue.

"I'm not a bad person." I muttered to no one in particular, speaking into thin air.

The rest of the test on a whole was pretty rough. I did well on pattern recognition, logic games, and visual and verbal memorization, but calculations and science-based questions I almost inevitably passed on. It got worse and worse when I started not just hearing the voices of my dead family, but seeing their rotten, dismembered corpses crawl around me and writhe on the desk as they begged me for help or accused me of forgetting and abandoning them or mocked me for my ambitions.

When the combined test ended an hour later, I could not have been happier to rip the dream diadem off my head and banish away the dark thoughts and images of my family.

“You have made the ranking of Underachieving, Candidate Lucion. Please proceed onwards to the final test, the starship commander simulator.” The monitor said to me.

“Almost done.” I said to myself.

I did not feel good about my reaction to the hallucinations, but looking around at the others, I did not think any of us had done well in response to the dream diadems’ wicked work. Some of the other Bronze candidates looked on the verge of tears.