Aldric Thorne stood at the Shroud extraction point, scanning the casualty reports with a face built from years of practiced neutrality.
Twenty-three confird dead, he logged. Forty-seven injured enough to need dical intervention. Twelve ergency pulls for critical collapse. Out of five hundred first-years deployed.
4.6% fatality. 9.4% serious injury. 13% total casualty rate.
Inside acceptable thresholds for a Tier Two exposure.
Around him, the other administrators wore the sa expression—not cruelty, not indifference, but the emotional distance of professionals who had done this too many tis to react like civilians. Instructors, d-officers, evaluators. People who understood the Academy’s ugly arithtic.
Pressure made elites.
Pressure also made bodies.
"The reduction in student numbers is expected," Instructor Vex observed, reviewing his own tracking data.
This was a learning institution, yes. But first of all, it was a military academy. They needed strong soldiers to serve the Republic. Not the Republic getting saddled with weak leaders who compromise operations through their inadequacy.
"Agreed," another instructor said. "Better to identify breaking points here—inside a controlled Shroud with oversight and extraction protocols—than on an active front where one weak link costs an entire unit."
The nobles in the Academy received slightly better treatnt—not because of their nas or titles, but because of the powerful figures anchoring their houses, the pillars whose strength still carried weight beyond the campus walls.
Likewise, a noble house without a strong protector was a house already halfway to ruin—existing on borrowed ti until rivals noticed the weakness and moved. A title without strength behind it was just a delay before reality corrected the imbalance.
Expert families held Expert-grade lands and authority. Champion houses ruled Champion-grade territories. That hierarchy wasn’t ceremonial—it was power made visible, an admission that land could only be kept by those capable of defending it.
Nobility in this sense was an expression of power to the masses. A Statent that says: "Here I’m strong, so I have control over this, and you can’t do anything about it." Might makes right condensed into an organizational frawork.
Protecting noble students was not because their birth deserves so misguided type of special treatnt, but because their families’ guardians might retaliate if they we’re careless with the investnts they’ve made for their next generation.
It was a pragmatic calculation, not an ideological commitnt. Recognizing that so powerful houses could punish the institution once it hard their interests.
But still, even that protection had limits. Noble students still died in deploynts, and powerful families accepted casualties as the price of forging heirs through real pressure rather than sheltered theory.
Otherwise, what was the point? If a noble candidate couldn’t survive a controlled Shroud exposure, they wouldn’t last in actual military service. Better that weakness surface now than during an operation where failure costs more than a single life.
The Shroud’s ti limit drew close—six hours nearly gone, candidates about to be forced back into normal reality whether they’d excelled or rely endured.
"Prepare extraction teams," Thorne commanded. "dical personnel ready for casualty processing. Docuntation teams prepared to record the performance assessnts. This deploynt ends in ten minutes."
Let’s see what we actually have, he thought. Who improved. Who just survived. Who cracked. Who didn’t make it back.
Whether this batch holds real potential—or just another line of competent, forgettable officers.
Ti shows the truth. It always does.
-----
The Shroud started ejecting candidates with cold precision—spatial displacent unwinding the entry sequence and dropping drained students back into a normal reality at the extraction zone.
They ca out in waves: so sprinting from their last fights, others limping under stacked injuries, a few looking almost untouched by the six-hour deploynt.
Bessia materialized with an expression of fierce triumph that transcended her physical exhaustion.
She broke through—Instructor Vex caught it instantly, his perception registering the shift in her essence structure as he scanned returning students and their changes. Initiate rank during deploynt. Good. Pressure works. Sustained combat forces growth faster than comfort ever could.
Bessia on the other hand stood still for a second, absorbing the change, feeling her power settle into a new balance.
She wasn’t the weakest in the group anymore. Not the one trailing while others advanced. She’d caught up. Proved that her healer specialization wasn’t a slower growth—just a different curve.
She’d hit the peak of Fledgling during the plaza defense—felt the barrier to Initiate crack, then splinter, then give way as the new rank settled in mid-combat.
Bessia headed for the dical processing area—not from injury, but because protocol demanded every candidate undergo post-deploynt checks.
Initiate, she thought. Finally. About damn ti.
-----
Bright erged looking almost unbothered—Absolute Void Physique had turned the deploynt into a routine rather than a trial, his abilities far exceeding the Shroud’s threat.
After the spider fight, he’d rested a bit, dispatched a few Crawlers to test his technique limitations that were masked by his power, then spent the remaining ti simply navigating as there was no real engagent needed.
The gains from killing Tier Two Crawlers were minimal compared to the effort. Marginal improvents didn’t justify sustained hunting.
He needed harder trials. Opponents who would push him, not just confirm what he already knew.
For now, though, the imdiate concern was procedural—post-deploynt processing, dical exams, and collecting the Academy rits for his successful completion.
He joined the dical queue, spatial awareness cataloging conditions of other candidates—who advanced, who survived, who barely made it.
-----
Adam erged with his group—seven had entered, five returned, their faces marked by shock and grief over lost comrades.
Randomness of the Shroud, Adam thought, recalling the mont when corrupted roots had seized one student, dragging him into darkness before anyone could react.
They never saw what claid him. They didn’t try to. Stopping ant becoming targets themselves. They just kept moving, accepting the loss as part of survival.
The group dispersed toward dical processing—bonds forged in shared survival already unraveling under institutional pressure as candidates were sorted into individual assessnt tracks.
Temporary alliance had served its purpose, Adam noted. The group had provided combat support he couldn’t achieve alone and offered insight into human behavior. There was value in maintaining the connection, but not enough for a deeper investnt.
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