Chapter 15: At the Evaluation Center
He found out about the evaluations while having breakfast.
He saw it on a display in the main corridor. The screen showed academy announcements that got updated every Monday.
Monthly Evaluation: All enrolled students. Evaluation Center, East Wing. Attendance is mandatory.
He read the date and it was just three days away.
He also read the second part of the notice.
Output scores determine monthly stipend allocation. Higher demonstrated force output results in proportionally increased credits.
Current freshman baseline: 200 Vanguard Credits per month.
The estate was safe in the ordinary sense. It had high walls, secure doors, and a Prime Zone location with academy security on the on ground. Maeve was safer here than in the village Quarter.
But the academy had a particular category of protection called Wards. These were magic patterns carved into things that linked to a specific person or room. They could sense if someone shouldn’t be there or if someone was planning an attack. They were made to stop the dangerous things that regular locks aren’t built for.
Holden had looked up the ward prices two days ago in the academy supply catalog that was available in the archive reading room.
To get a ward just for yourself, you had to pay twelve thousand credits. To cover a whole building, it was thirty thousand minimum. To get the best safety for both, the price was about forty-five thousand credits.
His bronze chest credits plus everything he’d budgeted since the exam came to a little over six hundred.
But he needed forty-five thousand.
Higher demonstrated force output results in proportionally increased credits.
He closed the catalog and went back to his room.
The Evaluation Center was a large room in the East Wing of the academy. At the front end of the hall, on a raised platform, stood the monolith.
The display panel beside it was currently dark. A proctor sat at a desk near the platform.
The hall was filling up fast.
Most students arrived in groups. Second and third-years moved with the arrogant ease of people who knew what they were doing. First-years were also trying to look like they also knew what they were doing.
Holden arrived alone.
The process was simple. You stepped onto the platform, struck the monolith once with your strongest technique, the sensors measured the force output, the display panel produced a number and a tier classification, and then the proctor wrote it down.
The numbers he was seeing from the first-years were in the range of 300 to 600 units. The display panel showed a steady amber for most of them.
Holden watched and thought about his Asura’s Ignition and the Iron-Cleaver’s Ultimate framework, which had been built for a sword but the underlying form was transferable, the same principles of weight, chain and delivery that applied to any contact.
He thought about what those two things together would look like through his 100x multiplier.
His name was called.
He crossed the hall to the platform, stepped up, and stood in front of the monolith.
Up close, the sensor grid was more intricate than it looked from across the room, hundreds of thin intersecting lines covering every surface.
The proctor looked at him with mild professional attention.
"One strike," she said. "Your best output. Technique or unarmed, your choice."
"Unarmed," he said.
She made a note and sat back.
He turned to face the monolith.
He placed his feet into the Iron-Cleaver’s base position.
The Asura’s Ignition cadence was three steps.
He did the first one.
He felt the heat instantly. The familiar power moved through his body just like it always did. He ran the second step. The heat got stronger, flowing toward the point of output.
The third step.
The energy filled his arm and shoulder, flowing all the way from his foot up through his back. His body channeled the power just like a Star-Forged Blade was designed to do, but this time, he was releasing all that force through his fist.
He struck the monolith.
BOOM.
The sound hit the walls and came back.
A fracture line appeared in the face of the monolith, running from the strike point upward to the left.
The whole sensor system glowed bright all at once. Every part of the machine reacted instantly. Then, the display suddenly made a harsh buzzing sound.
Bzzt.
The display flickered as the numbers shot up way too quickly. It was moving much faster than the machine was supposed to handle.
Then the display showed: ERROR.
Almost everyone in the room started trying to hide their laughter at the same time. You could clearly hear them all giggling under their breath
Someone on the benches said, "Is that his score?"
Someone else said, "He got an error. He literally scored an error."
Holden stood in front of the monolith with the fracture line in its face and the display reading ERROR.
The proctor was looking at her private terminal.
Holden walked to the proctor.
Her glasses were slipping down her nose, but she didn’t even push them back. She was too busy staring at the information on her screen to notice anything else.
Holden leaned slightly and read the terminal over her shoulder.
The private readout did not say ERROR.
It said [Force Output: Rank 1 (8-Star) Equivalent. Measurement ceiling exceeded. Logging maximum registrable value.]
Under that, in the credit calculation box: [Monthly Stipend: 50,000 Vanguard Credits.]
She looked at him with the face of an expert who had seen everything.
"The display showed error," Holden said. He spoke softly so the people behind him wouldn’t hear.
"Yes," the proctor said, in roughly the same tone.
"Technical malfunction."
The proctor looked at the fracture line in the monolith. She looked at her terminal then at Holden.
"That happens sometimes, doesn’t it?" Holden said.
The proctor was quiet for a moment.
"It," the proctor said carefully, "does happen occasionally. With older equipment."
"So the public result would just be logged as inconclusive," Holden said. "And the credits will be handled privately, like usual."
The proctor looked at the terminal again and at the number in the credit field.
"Standard private disbursement," she repeated, quietly.
"If that’s the correct protocol," Holden said.
"It is," the proctor said. She pushed her glasses back up her nose, pulled the terminal closer to herself, and began typing fast.
"You’ll receive a credit token within the hour," she said, without looking up. "Disbursed privately, per standard protocol for inconclusive public readings."
"Thank you," Holden said.
He stepped off the platform.
The walk back across the hall was different from the walk to it.
Every pair of eyes in the room found him.
He found his spot along the left wall and stood in it, and waited for the hour to pass.
Across the room, near the entrance, he saw someone he recognized.
Draven.
He was standing with two others, looking back at him.
He whispered something to the person on his left, but he didn’t look away from Holden.
Holden looked back at him for a moment.
Then he looked away and thought about the route home.
He was going to take the long way, past the open ground and through the well-lit central path.
He was also going to collect his credit tokens and buy the wards tonight.
He got the credit tokens forty minutes later. it was a small flat card with the academy seal and a number printed on it in dark ink.
Holden pocketed it and stepped out of the evaluation center.
The academy grounds were bustling with people after the evaluations ended. Groups of students were moving together across the campus, while instructors hurried between buildings as if they were on a tight schedule.
He turned off the main path at the first junction, heading for the supply office where the ward merchants had their stall.
He was halfway through it when he heard the footsteps behind him.
Coming from two directions at the same time.