Chapter 26: Chapter 24: Qualifiers!

Ceres has never felt better, his body recovering much faster than expected over the last two weeks since he woke up. He was back into fighting shape and currently training for the competition, though slightly anxious about the three weeks that he had lost.

He still hasn't acclimatized to his peak NEIR of 1.8, where not being able to move properly at that level of strength wouldn't amount to anything when fighting.

It was a strain on the human body to remain at their peak battle ability permanently and it was the same for NEIR – instead of boosting it all the time, exosuit pilots could save their ability to engage in high intensity combat for a few short minutes, delivering maximum efficiency.

The longer Ceres was able to last at his peak, the better his combat ability in the competition will be!

He ramped up his training regime, feeling more determined and focus than ever before. Riding on the wave of emotions, he dived into his daily training more so than ever, increasing his load and forcing his hand speed and reaction timing to the max.

"Wow, this nutritional paste is absolutely amazing!" Ceres exclaimed while he was eating in the VIP practice room next to the VR pods with Erik and Ardan.

"This is probably the first time I heard you say anything that good about nutri-paste, are you sure you're recovered? You almost seem like you're getting extremely emotional over that lump of paste." Erik asked concerningly.

Over the past few days, he and Ardan have both noticed Ceres reacting much more heavily to even the most mundane stuff, fearing that his increase in NEIR level would result in a more emotional Ceres.

They didn't even want to recall Ceres' last rank match in Shattered Empire, where he basically screamed his head off for a good 4 minutes before devolving back into the generally docile Ceres, even scaring Ardan who usually does the same thing but for a much shorter duration.

Ceres was also continuously pissed at the jostling by other passengers, complaining whenever he took the looptrain, which Erik noticed that they didn’t care about previously.

"Am I going to be like that when I get my nerval jack?" Ardan wondered to himself, trying to reason why Erik and Braton didn't seem to have much of a change compared to Ceres who was overreacting to everything, almost bordering on being 'hyper'.

"Well maybe it's because of the rapid jump in NEIR that caused the coma plus this intense increase in emotions, you could say that he's more 'sensitive' now. Better not flame him anymore in Shattered Empire,” Ardan thought to himself.

Braton loved the new Ceres, continuously goading Ceres into fighting him over and over again by manipulating his emotions. He felt that Ceres was the greatest training partner for him now, seeing as Ceres continuously giving his all in every little thing, including unarmed combat.

Maybe he could finally convert him over to the good side!

"No man, I've always loved every single type of nutritional paste, except the black ones, they are ABSOLUTE rubbish!" Ceres slammed the table with one fist, causing Erik and Ardan to slightly jump in their seats around the dining table.

"Hey hey, calm down, you're not emotionally stable yet. why don't you take the rest of the day off?" Erik went over to pat Ceres on the back, but his hand was slapped away.

"No, I've got to make up for lost time. It's nonstop training till the qualifiers. It is only more than a month away! I've got no time!" Ceres suddenly jolted in his seat, immediately stuffing his supposed 'amazing' nutri-paste into his mouth and hopping into the VR pod to run another game of Shattered Empire.

As Ceres logged in, Erik looked at Ardan knowingly. "You sure he's alright? That's some mood swing there, he didn't use to be like this. Or at least he never vocalized it in this manner. I don’t think its anything to do with having a high NEIR level at all – even the inners who managed to hit the same range of 1.6-1.7 don’t have these kinds of issues. Chad Athen apparently managed to get up to a maximum level of 1.9 NEIR, bordering on 2, yet I don’t see any public news of him throwing a fit like this.”

"I'm 100% sure he's okay, the VR pod didn't sense anything out of the ordinary other than elevated blood pressure and intense emotions. I'm sure it would calm down over the next few days as he practices more. To be fair, his body is way more toned and fit compared to before the coma, not sure what miracle he encountered or whether the Emperor visited him in his sleep." Ardan said.

It was shocking to contrast how Ceres looked like right after he woke up from the coma, to when he got out of the hospital. He felt that something big was happening within Ceres’ body, but he couldn’t figure out what.

Nobody knew that the black goo was already present within Ceres’ already, slowly working!

"Ceres is good as he is now. I like him better this way. It's the mark of a better man to not hide your emotions. And brothers, come on, it's not nice to peek at medical histories of our friends." Braton shook his head in a mocking disapproval.

"Says the guy who's been trying to spike our drinks with muscle steroids.” Braton was taken aback by Erik’s statement, not knowing that he had been found out long ago.

"Look, more muscle equals more girls, I know math doesn't fail."

"Except for you, maybe."

The boys continued joking with each other, while Ceres was continuously running test after test on his NEIR level, trying to control the difference between his peak performance and idle state.

He should be able to hit 1.8 NEIR in the blink of an eye and remain at maybe 0.8 NEIR when idle, but right now he's been continuously at 1.8 NEIR when fighting, causing issues.

Ceres knew his emotions were running wild way more than they should ever since he woke up from the coma, but he had heard about such side effects before from installation procedures in the past, though not to such a great extent as he did.

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He too had been running medical checks to find anything foreign in his body and nerval jack, but to no avail. Ceres had no idea that a sizable chunk of black goo from the mysterious box was still running wild around in his body. Yet he didn’t have time to dwell on this too much – the qualifiers for the competition was coming up soon!

***

[Welcome all viewers to the annual Athen Graduation Competition’s qualifiers! Everybody wants to participate, but only the top 1024 students for each of the three categories of ranged, melee and exosuit repair planetwide can actually get into the main stage! This year, we have more than 300,000 students from all over the planet!]

The planet Athen was in a festive mood as it welcomed their annual event of the Graduation Competition! It was a big day for the 20-year-old kids around the globe, whether they came from New Saint or the mining villages and towns scattered across the planet, as parents prayed to every known or unknown possible god in the hopes that their child will get a good placement.

The ranking earned during the competition will directly affect their job chances, and naturally the bests were aiming to enter the most prestigious legion in this system: the Dest Legion! It was not as well-known as the Alpha Legion, which only recruited the best of the best empire-wide, but it was good enough to secure a great starting point and was the hope and dream of many commoners and outers.

Entering the Dest Troop Legion gave them the opportunity to distinguish themselves in service, potentially earning them a lesser noble title in the long run.

Even if they qualified to join the Dest Legion, yet didn’t, they would still be in the best position to take anything they want, having proved themselves in the competition.

The Loeric Empire was built on combat skill and wits – winning the competition meant you could almost take any course on Strathon, the main planet of the star system that Athen shared, being much more developed and having multiple universities that attracted talent.

[With the sheer number of students, this year qualifiers will be split into three stages, testing everything that the students have learnt over their education! The qualifiers format will be the same regardless of whatever category that you're participating in, only the group stage onwards will be segregated. This means that a potential 3072 students will be entering the group stage!]

[The first stage will be a simple theoretical exam! Obviously, you can't win the competition without some smarts, so the students will have to answer a series of never-ending questions that increases in difficulty over the duration of one hour!]

[Students will use the VR pod designated by the examination council at their nearest training center or within their schools. Seeing as the exam is done completely within the virtual server, there's really not much to watch other than the leader board updating in real-time, so please enjoy this one-hour commercial courtesy of Rawes Industries, a sponsor for the physical equipment for this competition!]

Ceres, Erik and Braton were all designated to take their testing within the orphanage, with VR pods provided by the Gladius thanks to the generosity of Vice-Manager Fye. They were the standard examination pods, which all students regardless of upbringing had to use.

Students were expected to answer the questions within the virtual server, allowing them to demonstrate their raw thinking and computational speeds with the nerval jack, a critical equipment in use for most jobs, especially on Athen which was a mining planet that placed heavy emphasis on large mining equipment and mining exosuits.

Erik was extremely nervous, still yet to figure out what he wanted out of the competition. Sure, they made a promise to try their best for the competition, and the four of them worked hard for it. Deep down, he only wanted to have a peaceful life, and hope the best for all his friends too.

He was thinking about perhaps even training to be a teacher again so he could take care of other orphans like himself, motivated by seeing the amount of effort that the orphanage director placed into Ceres' recovery, as well as the achievements of Henry Lesion. “Winning the competition may put me in a place of power where I can achieve much more, helping others!”

Braton was extremely nervous, but not for the same reason as Erik. He had hardly studied any academic subjects, continuously skipping school to head down to the Gladius to train more.

Sweat started to roll down his back and forehead. "Ohshitohshitohshit" repeated within Braton's head as his precious 'guns' failed to help him recall even the most basic details of the compulsory education subjects that he was supposed to know.

He looked to his friends for help, though he didn’t know what kind of help he was expecting either. If there was a drink that could give photographic memory, he would’ve gulped it in a second.

Praying to every known god that he read about in a history lesson in the hopes of something, the command from the examiners to enter the examination VR pods was issued!

They laid in their pods, waiting for the exam to begin. Examiners ran technical and medical checks on the various pods in the orphanage of which there were sixty, making sure nobody tampered with the pods.

They weren't so much as worried about someone modifying their own pod than they were about the students sabotaging other pods in a subtle way, which frequently happened amongst the inner students.

Ceres wasn't worried about being sabotaged, the sixty orphans taking the exam had no reason to pull down each other. The competition didn't limit the number of students who could reach the group stage per school so there was no need to fight for slots per say.

Anxiety started to build in from within as he recalled the almost disastrous coma of his that could've had caused him to default on the graduation competition if he was unconscious for only a few more days.

He felt a sense of appreciation for the people around him, especially the orphanage director for taking care of him so well and helping him recover his strength. The positive support from his friends and the legacy that Uncle Dawn had left to him had all brought him up to this point.

And with his newfound strength of a 1.8 NEIR, which was way above the cut-off requirement for the Dest Legion, he finally had all the prerequisites in place to stomp the competition! Not even Chad Athen was going to stop his rise to fame!

[The theoretical exam: first stage of the exam, begin!]

 

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