Chapter 133| Assessment Day

Chapter 133: Chapter 133| Assessment Day

Zane woke up clean.

That was the first thing he noticed. No stiffness in the shoulders. No accumulated weight in his legs from yesterday’s sessions. Just clean. Like someone had reached in overnight and reset the baseline to zero.

’Accelerated Recovery,’ he thought. ’First cycle.’

He lay there for three seconds running the inventory. Hands fine. Back fine. The specific low-grade tension that had been sitting in his left knee since the joint practically completely gone.

’That’s going to change things,’ he thought.

His communicator buzzed on the desk.

He reached over without sitting up and checked it.

[ALDREN ACADEMY — OFFICIAL NOTICE]

NSA Classification Assessment — Class 1-A

Venue: Arena One

Reporting time: 9:00 AM

Suit required. All students must present in registered hero gear.

He set it down and stared at the ceiling.

’Obviously,’ he thought. ’The school follows a prompt schedule.’

_ _

Dex was at his desk when Zane came out of the bathroom. His Laptop opened, a half-eaten protein bar on the surface beside it, looking entirely too settled for someone who hadn’t been in the room at 8:30 PM last night.

Zane looked at him.

"When did you get back?"

Dex didn’t look up from the screen. "Late."

"I thought you weren’t coming back last night."

"Changed my mind." He clicked something on the laptop. "Was just chilling with my chicks, you know? A man can’t be working all day."

Zane looked at him for a moment.

"Typical Dex," he said.

"Typical Zane," Dex said back, which didn’t mean anything but landed with the specific energy of someone who considered it a complete response.

Zane pulled the Code Zero suit from the compact unit on his side of the room. Dark green. Still carrying the faint new-material smell from Mori’s lab. He’d worn it once in the joint practical and it had done exactly what she said it would — regulated output, contained the visual signature, gave him something to stand behind when both Sigils were running at full ceiling.

Today was different from the joint practical.

Today was official.

He suited up without ceremony.

The system surfaced.

『 DAILY QUEST — Overdrive activation window reduction 』

『 Objective: 6 consecutive activations 』

『 Current progress: 1 / 6 』

『 Begin session? 』

’Later,’ he thought. ’I have somewhere more important to be.’

『 Noted. The quest window remains open. 』

He picked up his bag and headed out.

_ _

Arena One had a different atmosphere from Arena Two.

Bigger floor. Higher observation deck. The NSA insignia mounted above the main entrance in brushed steel — the same fist-in-circle from the academy gate, scaled up. Six assessment stations arranged across the floor in a wide arc, each one with a different measurement apparatus. Output panels. Resonance sensors. Velocity trackers. The kind of equipment that didn’t just clock what you could do but filed it into a permanent record.

Instructor Vael stood at the front with a tablet and the expression of someone who had run this process enough times that the nerves of the students around her registered as ambient noise.

"Line up by registration number," she said. "You go when your number is called. One student per station. Results are logged directly to the NSA database. What you produce today becomes your official first-year classification baseline."

The class settled into line.

Zane found his position. Around him — Theo up front with the easy posture of someone who already knew what his output looked like. Ryan two spots ahead, white hair, arms crossed, the focused stillness of someone who had been preparing for this since the assessment was announced. Maren four back, training gear swapped for the Stellar Blitz suit, hair tied back, assessment expression fully operational.

Their eyes met briefly across the line.

She looked forward again immediately.

He looked forward too.

『 System Note: The host is about to produce measurable output in front of NSA-grade equipment for the first time. The system notes that Code Zero’s suit compresses the visual signature. What the sensors log is another matter. 』

’I know,’ he thought. ’That’s the interesting part.’

_ _

The first few students cycled through quickly.

Output panel lit. Sensor registered. Instructor Varl logged it. Next, she said.

C-rank readings produced a modest amber glow on the panel display. B-rank pushed it into orange. When Theo stepped up and activated his A-rank Sigil the entire panel shifted to a deep red that held for the full three-second output window and drew a quiet reaction from the observation deck above.

Ryan went next.

Pressure Wave at full output. Concentrated. The resonance sensor on the far side of his station spiked hard and held. Vael logged it without expression but her eyes stayed on the reading for a full second longer than the others.

Then... "Calloway."

Zane stepped up to the station.

The assessment apparatus in front of him was a reinforced output panel — composite surface built to absorb and measure contact-based force. Exactly what Impact Breaker was designed for. Beside it, a velocity sensor track for movement-based Sigils.

He looked at the panel.

Instructor Vael looked up from her tablet.

"From our observation — you have an ability that enhances your physical output and produces some kind of concentrated force through your hands." She held his gaze. "Is that correct?"

Zane looked at her.

"I don’t really know yet," he said. "I’m still figuring it out myself."

A beat of silence.

Instructor Mori glanced up from the equipment panel beside Vael. White open-collar coat, tablet in hand, the same calm expression from the fitting room three weeks ago.

"Well," she said. "That’s what we’re here for. You’ll participate in both the compact force test and the velocity track. Get in position."

_ _

The compact force test was first.

Zane stood in front of the panel. Looked at it. Looked at the sensor apparatus beside it.

’Minimum output,’ he thought. ’Keep it C-rank. Nothing that flags higher than what they already expect.’

He activated Impact Breaker and pulled it back hard — C-rank ceiling, fraction of what the system had been running since Friday. The shockwave hit the panel clean and flat.

A modest reading. Amber on the display. Exactly what a C-rank contact Sigil was supposed to produce.

He glanced at Vael.

She was looking at the machine. Writing something down. Expression unreadable.

"Next," she said. "Velocity track."

_ _

The runway was a thirty-meter straight with sensor gates every five meters. Standard speed measurement. He’d seen second years run it in the joint practical footage Dex had pulled up once.

Zane stepped to the start line.

’C-rank Overdrive,’ he thought. ’Keep it consistent with the force test.’

He activated.

The surge hit — and he throttled it down to the floor. Minimum output. He moved through the gates at a pace that was technically above walking but wasn’t going to impress anyone.

Sluggish. Deliberate. Unremarkable.

He crossed the finish line and slowed to a stop.

Silence from the front.

Then Vael’s voice came across the floor, not loud, but carrying the specific weight of someone who had decided patience was no longer the appropriate response.

"Are you joking with us, Calloway?"

He turned around.

"No, ma," he said.

"The output you displayed in previous assessments and the joint practical." She set her tablet down. "What you just showed me on that track cannot begin to compare." Her eyes held his. "Don’t make me put you on my bad side."

Zane looked at the runway.

’Damn,’ he thought. ’Can’t even pretend in peace.’

He walked back to the start line.

Stepped into position.

Activated Overdrive — C-rank, 90% ceiling. Not B-rank. Not the full ceiling. But enough.

He moved.

The gates registered in rapid succession. The sensor lights firing one after another as he blew through the thirty meters with the specific quality of someone who had been running this Sigil at dawn every morning for weeks and had stopped thinking of it as borrowed.

He reached the end and stopped.

Walked back to Vael.

"Done," he said.

She looked at him for a moment. Then at her tablet.

"That’s more like it." She wrote something down. "And between you and me — you might have gotten away with the first run. If we still had our previous equipment."

He looked at her.

"This system," she said, nodding at the apparatus, "is an upgraded model. It doesn’t just measure what you produce. It captures the innate signature of an ability and files it accordingly." A pause. "Everything you showed us today is already logged. Properly."

The system surfaced.

『 Someone is about to be busted. 』

’Might be a bluff,’ Zane thought.

『 Soon enough we’ll find out. 』

He held Vael’s gaze with the expression of someone who had absolutely no follow-up and was comfortable with that.

She looked back at her tablet.

"Next," she called.