Chapter 44: The Agility Matrix

The hydraulic machinery beneath the western side of the parade grounds groaned to life.

A deep vibration rolled through the ground as massive slabs of polished industrial granite shifted apart, each section locking against the next before descending into the staging pit.

Then, with a heavy metallic roar, something began to rise.

A sixty-meter track emerged from beneath the ground.

Two towering walls of dark titanium alloy flanked the course, each standing five meters high. Between them stretched an eight-meter-wide corridor packed with obstacles designed for one purpose that was to push every student’s reflexes to their absolute limit.

Thousands of tiny apertures lined the walls.

Behind them waited micro-aperture ruby lasers, pneumatic deflection ports, and rotating kinetic ball-cannons. One by one, their systems came online, accompanied by the faint hum of capacitors drawing auxiliary power.

A thin mist spilled from the base plates, carrying the sharp smell of ozone. It drifted across the starting line.

Above the track, the digital banners that had displayed the students’ strength results flickered once before clearing themselves. The previous numbers vanished, replaced by a clean field of pale amber.

The students grew quieter.

Whatever had happened during the strength assessment was over. This was a different test.

The chief examiner stepped onto the raised metal catwalk overlooking the entrance of the course. Four adjutants followed behind him, taking their positions without a word.

He rested both hands against the cold steel railing.

"The Agility Matrix."

His voice came through the throat mic, rough and powerful enough to cut through the humming machinery below.

"Sixty meters."

He paused.

"Active suppression."

A murmur passed through the students.

The examiner’s scarred face remained expressionless.

"This assessment measures four things: reaction speed, footwork, rotational control, and your ability to recover while under attack."

His gaze swept across the assembled candidates.

"Don’t mistake this for a race."

He leaned slightly forward.

"Once you enter that corridor, the track will fight back."

The machinery behind him gave another low mechanical hum.

"Lasers will force you to change direction. The deflection ports will disrupt your movement. The kinetic cannons will punish hesitation."

His fingers tightened slightly around the railing.

"Your goal isn’t simply to reach the other side."

His eyes hardened.

"Your goal is to survive the journey without losing control of your body."

The examiner straightened.

"Anyone can run when the road is clear."

A cold smile touched his lips.

"Let’s see how many of you can move when the road wants you dead."

"Two hundred high-frequency tracking lasers will sweep across the corridor at different elevations. Break a beam, and five points will be deducted from your base performance index."

The examiner’s voice remained cold and steady.

"At the same time, eighty compressed-gas cannons will fire vulcanized rubber rounds at speeds between eighty and one hundred and forty meters per second. Every direct hit costs fifteen points and will be recorded as a fatal trauma hit on your digital record."

He paused, letting the information sink in.

"Do not enter until your identification chime sounds. The clock will stop only after both heels clear the terminal pressure plate."

His gaze swept across the assembled candidates, lingering for barely a second on the students in the front row before moving on.

"In the wild, an Otherworldly Beast won’t announce itself before striking from the bushes."

His voice hardened.

"A severed carotid artery won’t care how hard you punched an iron pillar. If your spatial awareness is poor, you’ll be dead before your spiritual energy even finishes circulating."

He straightened and pointed toward the starting area.

"First squad. Take your positions!"

A wave of nervous movement passed through the ranks.

Several boys hurriedly tightened the Velcro straps on their combat boots. Others rolled their shoulders and stretched their arms, trying to release the tension building in their bodies.

No one was laughing anymore.

The massive obstacle course ahead had a way of making even confident students reconsider their courage.

"Candidate 019, Vance Branch, Marcus!"

The automated announcer’s voice rang across the grounds.

A thick-set youth with short, bristling hair stepped toward the intake gate.

His broad chest was protected by a padded combat vest, while his jaw remained locked in a firm line.

He stopped at the starting position.

Beep.

The identification system confirmed his entry.

A second later, the starting gate began to retract.

Marcus leaned forward.

Then he exploded into motion.

His boots hammered against the composite floor as he charged into the sixty-meter corridor without hesitation.

Instantly, the quiet corridor erupted into a storm of crimson light and sharp mechanical snaps.

Pshew! Pshew! Clack-clack-clack!

Thin red beams sliced across the track in erratic geometric patterns, forcing Marcus to constantly adjust his path. Two meters ahead, three pneumatic ports rotated into position before firing in rapid succession.

Black rubber spheres screamed through the air.

Marcus dropped low, throwing his upper body to the left to slip beneath a horizontal laser. His movement was fast, but his rotation was too clumsy, and he failed to regain his balance in time.

Thwack!

A vulcanized round slammed directly into his right shoulder, twisting his torso violently off-axis. His left heel clipped a diagonal laser near the twenty-meter mark, triggering a sharp digital alarm from the nearby scoring post.

Penalty: 15. Penalty: 5.

Marcus gritted his teeth and pushed forward. With only ten meters remaining, he abandoned all pretense of elegance and threw himself toward the finish, practically sliding across the terminal pressure plate on his elbows.

The display flickered.

"Candidate Marcus. Run time: 9.42 seconds. Laser breaches: 4. Kinetic impacts: 3. Final Evaluation: C+."

A few students exchanged uneasy glances.

That result was far worse than Marcus had probably expected.

"Next! Candidate 031, Lin!"

A slender girl stepped into the corridor. She specialized in light blade arts, and unlike Marcus, she moved with almost effortless precision, her footsteps light and controlled as she slipped through the first thirty meters.

For a moment, it looked easy.

Then the pneumatic cannons synchronized.

Past the halfway point, their firing patterns merged into overlapping cross-grids, turning the corridor into a maze of incoming projectiles. Lin’s rhythm finally broke as she twisted sideways to avoid one volley.

She wasn’t fast enough.

Three rubber rounds struck her thigh and flank in rapid succession, forcing a sharp gasp from her lips. She stumbled, recovered her footing, and limped across the finish line with her expression tightly controlled.

The evaluation screen flashed.

"Final Evaluation: B-."

One candidate after another entered the field.

Some relied on speed.

Others tried to predict the laser patterns, while a few simply charged forward and hoped their reflexes would carry them through. But as the trials continued, one thing became increasingly clear.

The Agility Matrix wasn’t testing how fast they could run.

It was testing how well they could think when everything around them was trying to make them fail.

The Agility Matrix quickly lived up to its brutal military reputation. For students who had spent their entire senior year training in comfortable high school gyms, the transition from static target practice to a pressurized kinetic maze was merciless.

Of the first thirty candidates, more than half ended up in the medical recovery bays, nursing deep purple welts that had already begun swelling across their ribs, shoulders, and shins. The average score stubbornly hovered between C- and B, with only a handful of exceptional Martial Warrior Stage 1 candidates managing to scrape out a B+ through sheer physical toughness.

In the waiting paddock, however, the eastern clan scouts were becoming increasingly restless.

"The footwork of this graduating class is atrocious," a representative from the Black River Logistics Group muttered, tapping his stylus impatiently against his tablet. "They pivot from their shoulders instead of their hips. They watch the laser emitters instead of reading the trajectory patterns."

He shook his head.\

"Put any of these children inside a Blood-Claw Viper pit, and they’d be stripped to the bone before they could take a second step."

"It’s the pills," the old instructor beside him replied.

He folded his arms and watched another student stumble out of the course.

"They fill their bodies with medicinal essence just to inflate their strength numbers for their parents, but their nervous systems have never been tempered through actual life-and-death combat."

The old instructor gave a quiet snort.

"Speed isn’t something you can buy from a pharmacy."

"Candidate 004, Eric Vance!"

The metallic voice of the announcer suddenly cut through the murmuring crowd.

In the waiting bullpen, Eric Vance’s head snapped upward.

The humiliation that had remained plastered across his face since the strength assessment vanished almost instantly, replaced by a surge of aggressive, desperate pride. He rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms, his fingers curling into tight, claw-like shapes.

Several of his lackeys immediately stepped aside.

Eric walked toward the starting threshold, his eyes fixed on the obstacle course ahead.

This time, he wasn’t going to embarrass himself.

Not in front of everyone.

Not again.

"Young Master, show them!" one of his retainers called from behind the rail, his voice filled with excitement. "Let them see the explosive velocity of the Fire Lion!"

Eric didn’t bother looking back. His eyes remained fixed on the far end of the sixty-meter corridor, while his breath escaped through clenched teeth in short, controlled bursts.

Six hundred kilograms.

The memory of that number still burned inside his head, made even worse by the comparison to Evelyn’s nearly two-ton strike. The humiliation had dug deep into his pride, and now he desperately needed to erase it.

He needed a run so violent, so overwhelming in its speed, that no one would remember the hollow sound of his punch against the strength pillar.

Beep—!

The starting signal flashed green.

Eric didn’t run.

He erupted.

ROAR!

For a brief instant, the phantom silhouette of a crimson-maned predator appeared behind him. Scorching heat rolled from his body as the unrefined spiritual energy from his hastily condensed Spiritual Seed surged into his quadriceps.

His heavy combat boots tore against the composite floor.

The force launched his entire body forward like an artillery shell.

Ten meters.

1.1 seconds.

"Fast!" a teacher in the bleachers gasped. "His initial acceleration has already crossed thirty meters per second!"Eric’s eyes widened. He had built up too much forward inertia; his boots were sliding across the polished floorboards, incapable of executing a lateral pivot.

"Out of my way!" Eric bellowed, throwing his left shoulder forward to brute-force through the gap.

Snap! Crack!

A ruby laser sliced cleanly across his collarbone sensor, flashing a brilliant red. A millisecond later, two heavy rubber projectiles slammed into his ribs and the meat of his left bicep with sickening, hollow thuds.

Oof!

The air was violently driven from Eric’s lungs. The kinetic shock derailed his balance, causing his right boot to drag heavily. He stumbled, barely catching himself on the palms of his hands as another low-slung laser swept across his shins.

Penalty: 15. Penalty: 15. Penalty: 5.

Red warning lights bathed his path in ominous crimson. Enraged and humiliated, Eric scrambled back to his feet, ignoring the sharp, throbbing ache in his cracked rib. He abandoned all semblance of evasive technique, charging forward like a wounded boar, throwing wild, clumsy swerves as projectiles pelted his thighs and back.

He crossed the terminal plate with a desperate, lunging roll, skidding four meters across the tarmac on his stomach before coming to a halt in a cloud of dust.

He scrambled to his feet, chest heaving, his face dark with sweat and rage as he whipped his head up to the digital board.

"Candidate Eric Vance," the automated tone chimed flatly. "Run time: 6.81 seconds. Laser breaches: 3. Kinetic impacts: 4. Final Evaluation: B-."

A low murmur spread through the bleachers.

A B-minus evaluation.

For any other student, completing the Matrix under seven seconds would definitely be seen as a solid achievement.

But Eric Vance?

He was not an ordinary student.

Young Master Vance. An awakened B-Rank, one of the finest in his entire age bracket.

To him, this time was an absolute embarrassment.

And yet, this was what he had managed to produce.

The penalty deductions had piled up one after another, dragging what should have been an A-level speed down into a painfully average score.

"Damn it!"

Eric kicked a loose piece of rubber against the barrier. It bounced away with a sharp crack.

His fists tightened at his sides, trembling with anger. He could feel the other students watching him. Nobody said anything, but he didn’t need them to. Their looks were enough.

Eric slowly raised his head and glared toward the starting line. His jaw tightened.

He clenched his teeth so hard that the inside of his lip split.

A thin line of blood slipped down the corner of his mouth.