Constitution and intelligence

  A deep male voice greeted him as he walked in. “Greetings, acolyte. I see you’ve decided to forego the easy route.” The voice chuckled.

  Kato looked around. The speaker wasn’t here, just his voice. ‘Not this guy again. ‘Shouldn’t he be dealing with that demon or something?’ Kato thought mournfully as the crazy tester continued to speak.

  “Just like I, in my youth, decided to do the same.”

  Kato politely smiled. ‘I did this because I had to. You did it because you were crazy!’

  “We are so very similar, you and I. Yes, indeed.”

  Kato fought to leave his expression unchanged.

  “I knew that because of your disposition… you wouldn’t choose the easy route.” The voice chuckled again as if sharing an inside joke between them.

  Kato’s face burnt. He absolutely did not choose this route for the reasons this crazy person kept implying.

  “Which brings us to the here and now. Where you challenge the gauntlet and who just so happens to run the constitution test…” The tester paused as if waiting for a response.

  Kato didn’t answer him.

  Brushing past Kato’s non-compliance, the tester pressed on. “That is right. It is I – Ignis.” The voice announced, and with a thunderous boom, pillars of fire erupted diagonally along the long grey corridor where Kato stood. He flinched involuntarily. ‘Please do not have the test be me running through fire.’

  Unfortunately, for Kato, it was worse.

  “Your challenge if you choose to accept it, though it should be noted you can hardly back out now. It is an ingenious challenge of my own design. I call it the beep test. It is a simple test to measure your approximate constitution level. Have fun.” The voice crackled out.

  Kato looked around, confused. ‘That explained nothing.’

  The voice crackled back to life. “Forgot to tell you the rules.” They paused. “A beep will sound, and you’ll run to the other end of the corridor. Reach it before the next beep. Then run back. Repeat this until the test is complete. Fail to do so and you’ll be engulfed in fire.”

  With a second, thunderous boom, pillars of fire erupted along the corridor once again. ‘He really loves fire, doesn’t he?’

  Kato chose this moment to finally speak. “I understand.”

  “Good. Then you may begin.” The voice crackled out of existence once again.

  Beep! Kato ran forwards, reaching the other side in mere seconds. ‘This is easy,’ he thought as he waited for the second beep.

  Beep! It came moments later.

  Kato ran back.

  Beep! It was getting faster. The voice hadn’t mentioned that. Kato gritted his teeth and didn’t question it. There was no use stopping to complain. He couldn’t afford the time to, and as much as being engulfed in flame sounded really fun, it actually didn’t.

  Kato continued to run back and forth. He was on level fourteen and getting progressively more concerned. At this point he was now sprinting back and forth and making it to and from the ends with mere milliseconds to spare. His legs were getting heavy, and his limbs moved sluggishly as they fought against his failing body.

  Desperately, he fought against his body’s urges. ‘I can get to fifteen. That’s the last level… Yes. Most definitely,’ he thought between ragged breaths, but he knew in his heart that this was unlikely to be true.

  Kato stumbled, a foot catching against the ground. Swiftly righting himself, he leapt forward, calling on any last vestiges of power that still flowed through him.

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  Beep! The sound rang out the instant he crossed the line. Without further thought he turned to run back. His vision blurred, black dots danced across his vision, but still he pushed himself. He made two, three more steps before collapsing, unable to move his body an inch.

  ‘Get up! Get up now!’ Kato’s thoughts screamed at him. He would not be engulfed by flames. With shaky hands, Kato pushed against the floor, and by sheer force of will, he forced himself upright, legs trembling. With a stumbling stride, he took a step forward.

  Beep!

  It wasn’t even close. Fire sprang from the ground, curling around Kato’s trembling form. Kato flinched, staggering backwards. He slammed back into a wall. ‘No!’ he thought, impassioned as he stared fiery death in the face.

  So lost in his determination and will to survive, Kato overlooked the fact that the flames were not burning him, and apart from the splitting pains that ran up his upper body, he was not in pain. He blinked wearily as he waved an arm in front of him to bat back the flames.

  He didn’t stop. Batting again and again, as he refused to acknowledge that his clothes didn’t burn.

  “Are you quite done?” Ignis’s voice broke out once again.

  Kato ignored him. He couldn’t afford to spare the crazy person a second. He continued to bat at the illusionary flame he still thought was real. This would not be his end! The flames continued to coil around him. Kato pressed himself further to the wall. They wouldn’t stop.

  Ignis, finally seeing the problem, spoke again. “Those flames aren’t real. You can stop.”

  Kato pushed the evil tempter’s words to the side. He wouldn’t be conned into giving up. He would fight even against something as incorporeal and unrelenting as fire itself. Kato lunged forward, battling the roaring inferno with precise strikes, but it was to no avail.

  Ignis sighed, and a moment later all the flames were extinguished without a sound.

  ‘Victory’, Kato thought, bedraggled, as he leant on the wall for support.

  “Well done, Initiate. You overcame the… flames.” Ignis tossed him a bone. It had been a rather embarrassing display. Unfortunately, your efforts in the beep test were lacklustre, to say the least. Fifteen levels only. Well, that just might be the worst performance I've ever had the displeasure of watching.” He sighed slightly. “I had such great hopes for you too.” The voice crackled and left a moment later. Disappointment tinged the air.

  Kato took ragged breath after ragged breath until his breathing stabilised. ‘Fifteen was a bad performance? There’s no way.’ As much as Kato might want it not to be true, it hadn’t sounded like Ignis was joking.

  He propped himself back up as the strength returned to his legs. A pale, wooden door at the end of the corridor was beckoning him. It had been lit up and illuminated the words ‘Test of Intelligence’ above it.

  ‘At least it’s a mental challenge,’ Kato thought relieved. He loved puzzles.

  Kato pushed the door open. The number seven flashed once in an ethereal silver. He glanced at it briefly. He had no idea what the number was supposed to mean. For all he knew, this door just did that each time it was opened.

  Kato entered the intelligence testing room. This one was strikingly different from the ones that had come before it. The entire room was bathed in a clinical white light, and the walls had been painted in silver hues. Kato glanced around.

  A small wooden desk with a rickety chair lay dead in the centre of the room. On the desk a metallic arm held a scalpel. ‘What is that?’ Kato walked closer to the centre. They were the only things in the room. ‘Presumably this is some type of puzzle or something?’ He asked himself. He had been prepared for a tough mental challenge. But looking at this foreign contraption, he didn’t even know where he would start.

  He walked forward and sat on the rickety wooden chair. Its rough texture dug slightly into his back, but he paid it no mind. Kato leaned forward, examining the metallic centrepiece, before recoiling. It had a strong chemical scent that immediately assailed his senses.

  He leaned back. ‘Maybe the test is don’t mess with random things you know nothing about. That is probably the smart thing to do.’ Kato looked back at it again. For all he knew, this device and how it worked was supposed to be common knowledge. He couldn’t take the risk that it wasn’t, even if that decision made him appear to be a fool.

  Kato stood back up. The chair creaked under his weight as he examined the device from all sides, looking over its rivets and curves in intricate detail. It had been designed with stunning precision. He had never seen anything come close to it in skill of craftsmanship. It was exquisite. His eyes narrowed. It was beautiful, sure, but that observation helped him very little. Kato kept examining it, but nothing called out to him.

  He looked under the table, searching for a hidden clue in the grain of the wood, but there was nothing. He returned to the device and reached out a hand, running it softly over the top.

  “Ahh!” He cursed in pain as the scalpel swiftly turned without warning and cut into his palm. A drop of blood ran along its edge. Kato stepped back, wary.

  On the far wall. A wooden door lit up, revealing the words ‘Test of Will’ carved above it.

  Kato blinked, confused. ‘How is a drop of blood supposed to determine my intelligence?’

  A faint vibration ran though the metal arm as the blood was absorbed. Something shifted in the air as a quiet click echoed within the mechanism.

  Kato’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the scalpel for a long moment, unsure of what just happened.

  With no answers and no reason to delay, Kato walked through the door. The number twelve flashed once in a pale silver as he passed.

  Chapter 1

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