Chapter 29: Paperwork

Chapter 29: Paperwork

After the initiates gathered at the Verdant Oak hall, the faculty segregated them into groups of ten. From there, an examiner led Erec's group to a small classroom filled with wooden desks.

It was barren, likely disused. A chalkboard with a half-erased equation displayed on its surface completed the room. Erec was unhappy that Garin got split off into a separate group, but at least he had Olivia.

The examiner told them to pick a seat, leave an empty desk between one another, and remain quiet. Shortly after, a Knight Errant came into the classroom with a stack of papers, pencils, and small little white erasers.

Within a few minutes, the instructor finished distributing the tests.

Erec leaned down and took in the exam. He did a brief skim of the questions. He'd studied the general history of the Knight Orders and specific details of Armor repair—even wildlife in the wastes. Yet those questions only amounted to around sixty percent of the exam—a barely passing grade.

The first questions to give him pause related to advanced math, which wasn't his strongest subject. Despite Boldwick telling him 'fancy arithmetic didn't matter,' the test disagreed. There were questions about Rifts, wasteland features, and wildlife he'd only read about. Erec thought he knew the answers but wasn't sure.

What bothered him the most were the questions regarding court etiquette and traditions.

His pencil hovered over a hypothetical question. It described a scenario where a Knight was five days away from the Kingdom. During this made-up voyage, their Armor gave a critical error code. How would he patch the Armor?

I know this—

[Discharge the core, rerun cabling to the power chamber, and reroute power surplus to essential systems.] VAL chimed in within his head.

Erec’s pencil hovered over the blank space waiting for the answer. He’d come to a similar conclusion, yet, VAL just cheated.

He whispered. Really quietly. “This is to test my knowledge, not yours.”

[Intern, at what point in the near future do you plan for us to separate? By transitive property, my knowledge—that which I chose to share and not confidential information—is your knowledge. Now write the correct answer down. Or would you rather answer incorrectly out of spite?]The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

It annoyed Erec that he’d known the correct answer, but VAL wouldn’t believe that now. He even considered writing the wrong answer but dreaded the annoying lecture VAL would give in response. In the end, he’d only be hurting himself.

The next question was a complex math problem. VAL solved it in a second and shared the answer. Erec hesitated, then wrote the answer down and began to flip the page. VAL forced him to stop. Then made him go back and inscribe the mathematical work to get to the solution because leaving a blank number was ‘incorrect’ and ‘lazy.' It took five tedious steps to get to the result.

Then a question came that only VAL knew, which, at this point, Erec had committed and just wrote the machine's answer down.

VAL had made a point. As long as the two remained bonded together, then he should take all the benefits from it he could get. He reframed it in his mind as payment for letting VAL rent space in his body. A tiny voice in him cried out against cheating... But, for those born naturally gifted like Bedwyr—wasn’t that cheating too? Was it fair they had an edge by virtue of being themselves? At least he’d paid the price.

Erec finished the exam before everyone else. So he took the chance to scan the room.

Most of the initiates were hard at work, one or two’s eyes had glazed over with boredom, and a girl in the corner looked near crying.

Olivia was staring at him. The moment their eyes met, she gave him a small smile, then dropped her attention back to her test.

[She was cheating.]

What?

Erec nodded his head and took a deep breath. At least they wouldn't be using real weapons. If this were to fail, dealing a fatal injury would be impossible. And the rewards were enticing. If he figured out how best to apply this ability, he'd soar to success; there wasn't a better opportunity.

With a shaky breath at what he was about to attempt, he made his way to the tent. The check was relatively brief—though invasive. As the priest used a prayer, it felt as if something were peering into his skin. After a minute, the priest composed a list of his Virtues and requested that he check them over and sign them.

Erec called upon his Blessing to confirm.

Name: Erec of House Audentia

Health: 100% | Mana: 100% | Stamina: 100%

———————————————————————

Holy Virtues:

Strength: [Rank E] | [Tier 6]

Vigor: [Rank F] | [Tier 9]

Agility: [Rank E] | [Tier 1]

Perception: [Rank E] | [Tier 1]

Cognition: [Rank E] | [Tier 3]

Psyche: [Rank F] | [Tier 7]

Mysticism: [Rank F] | [Tier 1]

Faith: [Rank F] | [Tier 1]

———————————————————————

Divine Talents:

Fury

Everything was there on the sheet—aside from his Divine Talent, which the prayer would not have been able to reveal. Erec hesitated, before disclosing that on the official Academy form. If things were going to spin out of control due to his failed experiment, he’d rather they knew why and didn’t accuse him of hiding information.

All of his cards were on the table for better or worse.

[When will these spars start? Science waits for no man!]

Erec felt a shiver go through him. Bidding himself not to forget that there really was little he knew about VAL and Vortex Industries.