The announcement came at dawn.
All cadets from Class 13-Z are to report to Tactical Testing Facility Gamma for immediate recalibration trials. Mandatory compliance.
Kael sat upright in his bunk, blinking away sleep. His muscles felt tight—not sore, but like a coiled spring had settled beneath his skin. Every day lately, he woke with more energy than he'd had the day before.
Too much energy.
He wasn't just getting stronger—he was building up pressure. Like something inside him was straining against the limits of his body.
How long until something gives?
Across the room, Dane groaned as he pulled on his uniform. "Another 'surprise test'? I swear, they're trying to kill us before year one ends."
"They won't kill us," Renna murmured, already dressed and calm. "Just keep poking until we break."
Lira stood near the door, arms folded. "This isn't a test. It's a response."
Kael met her eyes. "To what?"
"To you."
Tactical Testing Facility Gamma was a sterile monolith buried in the cliffs east of campus, normally reserved for high-level cadet evaluations. Most first-years never even saw it.
Yet here they were—Class 13-Z, standing in the white-lit lobby as biometric scanners hummed around them. Cameras blinked in every corner. No instructor greeted them.
Only an automated message:
Testing protocols will begin shortly. Do not resist. Disobedience will result in disciplinary override.
Dane muttered under his breath, "Yeah, this feels normal."
Kael wasn't surprised.
After his Wraith duel with Thorne, everything changed.
In just a few days, he'd jumped to #19 in the underground rankings. Cadets watched him more carefully. Some gave him space. Others looked at him like a threat waiting to be labeled.
And now the institute had taken notice in full.
Not publicly.
Not officially.
But here, in this facility built to measure things no one wanted to admit existed, Kael understood exactly what was happening:
The system was pushing back.
The first test was physical: adaptive resistance training.
Kael and the others were placed inside cylindrical chambers with high-gravity projectors. The goal was to withstand force equal to five times their body weight—while performing combat maneuvers.
Kael stepped into his chamber.
The moment the doors closed, the gravity increased. Slowly at first. Then suddenly.
His body compressed, every movement weighed down like he was carrying a collapsed building. He ground his teeth and pressed forward through the pain.
One step. Then another. A strike. A pivot. A fall—and a recovery.
But as the weight increased, something inside him responded.
His muscles didn't tear. They tightened. His joints didn't give—they reinforced. His heartbeat adapted to the pressure like it had been born for it.
The chamber AI beeped in confusion.
Anomaly detected. Subject Vire – weight resistance exceeded projected ceiling. Recalibrating.
Kael smirked.
You're going to need more than that.
The next test was neurological: cognitive overload simulation.
The cadets were hooked into sensory chairs, bombarded with shifting data feeds, combat scenarios, overlapping mission logs—all designed to simulate battle stress at an unsustainable pace.
Renna lasted nine minutes before her vitals spiked and the system shut her down. Dane cursed through most of his seven. Lira made it nearly ten, eyes twitching slightly as she pulled herself out of the chair.
Kael went last.
The moment the feed began, he felt his brain burn. Numbers, maps, decisions—all flooding in faster than a normal person could process.
He gritted his teeth, tried to follow the patterns, then let go.
He stopped fighting it.
And that's when it changed.
The chaos became rhythm.
The noise became signal.
His thoughts accelerated, breaking apart and reforming with clarity. It wasn't that the data slowed—it was that he caught up.
When the system tried to end the test, Kael forced his hand back onto the interface and continued.
Another minute passed.
Then two.
The monitors sparked. A warning flashed:
Override Limit Reached. Subject Vire Detected. Admin Authorization Required.
Kael finally let go.
His nose bled. His hands trembled. But he was smiling.
He wasn't adapting anymore.
He was consuming what they threw at him.
After the trials, the squad was escorted back in silence. No instructors. No reprimands. Just cold detachment.
Kael walked alongside Lira through the winding halls of Sector Theta, the others trailing quietly behind.
"You felt it too," she said without looking at him.
Kael nodded. "They weren't testing me."
"They were measuring the ceiling."
He clenched his jaw. "But I don't have one."
That truth unsettled even him.
How far can I go before they decide I'm too much? Before I cross a line even they can't tolerate?
Lira stopped. "You know what this means, don't you?"
Kael looked at her.
"They're not going to let you climb quietly anymore. Not after this. You've become too obvious. Too fast. Too strong. You're outside their framework."
He didn't answer.
Because he knew.
And that meant the time for staying under the radar was over.
That evening, Kael didn't return to the dorms.
He walked instead.
Through the outer edges of the campus, past the old towers where few cadets lingered. The night sky stretched above, filtered and artificial, but still vast enough to lose himself in.
His legs felt heavy—not with fatigue, but with pressure. Like his entire body was tightening.
He hadn't been injured, hadn't even fought today—but his body was changing again.
Hunger gnawed at his stomach. A deep, painful emptiness like he hadn't eaten in days. He'd eaten three full meals.
But it wasn't enough.
He sat beneath a broken observation pillar and tried to calm his racing pulse.
What's happening to me?
He closed his eyes.
He could feel it.
Something inside him was evolving.
But not like before—not subtle, not linear.
This was a buildup.
A charge.
A transformation waiting to explode.
Back in the command tower, behind encrypted layers of clearance, Commander Ryce reviewed the trial results.
Kael's biometric readouts flashed in red.
His reaction speed was now matching high-tier Rank A cadets. His muscle density had increased by 11% in the last month. His recovery time had halved.
The system marked it as impossible.
Ryce didn't argue with it.
She just watched.
"I want his dorm monitored full-time," she said to the aide beside her. "And restrict access to any gene-class instructors. If he's what I think he is…"
She didn't finish the thought.
She just stared at the screen.
Where Kael Vire's file pulsed softly with the tag:
Unranked – Evolving