Nick started the first test of the economics group and immediately realized something.
'These questions aren't easy,' he thought, 'but that makes sense.'
'The tests are not made with normal people in mind but with the average trainee in mind.'
'I don't need to talk to the other trainees to know what kind of people they are. Since only one person per city can come here every three years, only the most powerful families can send their children here.'
'That means almost all of them have a high level of education but not that much experience.'
'If every test were created with the same complexity, 'unimportant' topics like math and physics would be unsolvable while everyone would get 100 points in economics. After all, all these people must have learned a lot about economics during their educations.'
The more tests Nick did, the more he understood how the tests were constructed.
'The first level checks academics and what you would learn during your education.'
'The second level checks the peak of academia. With that, I mean the peak of theory.'
'The third level checks if the person can actually use the knowledge in a real situation. In short, it tests someone's experience in the field.'
Nick answered the questions rapidly.
'91 points,' Nick thought. 'Once more, I don't know some of the terminology.'
After that, he took the second economics test.
'45 points,' Nick thought with furrowed brows. 'There is too much terminology, and there are way too many questions about avoiding taxes. I don't know a lot about avoiding taxes.'
'Well, let's see what the third level is like,' he thought as he started the hardest test of economics.
…or, as it turned out, the easiest.
Almost all of the questions were about how the populace would act with their money when laws changed or what the city should do in a given scenario.
These questions would be almost unanswerable by any of the trainees since people often acted counterintuitively in most of these situations, which often went against academia.
Yet, all of these questions seemed insanely easy to him, but that had been expected.
When Nick saw his final score, he raised an eyebrow. '98? I got one wrong? I'm quite confident in all of my answers.'
'Do they have a mistake in there?'
In the end, Nick just shook his head. 'Doesn't really matter. It's only one question. There's no reason to cause a scene over two points.'
'I got 98 points on the third level, which is already more than enough.'
As Nick went back to the menu, he looked at the last category.
Spectology.
Spectology was the study of Specters.
Their abilities, how they functioned, how they acted, and so on.
Nick had been a CZE for over a decade, and he had worked with over a hundred different Specters in his life.
Nick rapidly finished the first test and got a 96.
Then, he finished the second test and got an 84.
Finally, he went on to the third test.
'98 again?' Nick thought with a raised brow. 'Well, at least this time, I know which answer I most likely got wrong.'
The question established the attributes of a new Specter and asked the tester to classify the Specter.
The thing was that everything pointed to it being a Possession Specter but in the form of a human.
Nick hadn't seen a human Possession Specter yet, which was why he had gone with something else.
Was it possible that Specters could also possess humans?
Nick wasn't sure.
'Anyway, that's it, for now,' Nick thought as he added up all the Academic Points he received.
'140 Academic Points,' Nick thought. 'That's easily more than enough to stay here, but I still need the minimal points from the other three kinds.'
'Although, getting five points from each shouldn't be difficult.'
For the first time in several days, Nick left the room with the consoles and entered the main room again.
As Nick passed through the room, he met eyes with a couple of people.
"You want to exchange academics?" one of them answered as he approached Nick.
"Let me finish the other three categories first," Nick said.
"Oh, if I remember correctly, you only arrived here around a week ago. Were you busy with the Academic Points for the entire week?" the man asked.
Nick just nodded.
"Guess you were studying," the man said with a laugh. "People usually don't need more than a day to finish all tests."
When Nick heard that, one of his suspicions was confirmed.
'As I've thought, my scores are probably abnormal. The easiest tests alone take at least 60 minutes, and many of them take two hours. Ten tests in less than a day sounds realistic.'
"I can talk to you later," Nick said as he continued walking.
"Sure," the guy answered.
Eventually, Nick reached the room that tested fitness.
Nick found himself in a huge hall with ten big black cubes.
Each of the cubes was around 50 meters in dimensions.
'Those should be the testing halls,' Nick thought, remembering the manual.
Four of the cubes showed signs of being in use, but Nick still found a free one and entered.
The fitness test could only be taken three times per month, which was why they didn't need as many testing areas as in the room for academics.
Academics could be improved rapidly, while physical power needed a long time to improve.
After entering the cube, Nick found himself in a world of white.
There was nothing but whiteness in here.
"Speed test," Nick spoke.
The next second, two lines appeared on the ground, and Nick stopped in front of one of them.
There were two parts to the speed test.
Acceleration and top speed.
This was the acceleration test.
Nick took a deep breath and readied himself.
It was less than 50 meters to the other line.
He could start running whenever he wanted. The time would be measured automatically.
BANG!
Nick exploded forward and reached the other line in the blink of an eye.
'Pretty good, considering it's without my ability.'
Abilities were not allowed to be used during the fitness test.
Luckily, Nick's ability hadn't been active ever since he entered Aegis' headquarters.
'Explosive speed is one of the most important things for me,' Nick thought. 'I need it to flee, to attack, and to quickly get from cover to cover.'
A moment later, the two lines disappeared, and some kind of treadmill appeared on the floor.
Nick jumped to its middle and started to accelerate.
The treadmill kept him perfectly in the middle of the room, and Nick sped up more.
After some seconds, he narrowed his eyes and jumped forward with all of his power.
This jump would have catapulted Nick over kilometers of distance, but he didn't move at all on the treadmill, making for quite a bizarre picture.
The speed meter shot up for an instant before slowing down again.
Nick landed on the treadmill and continued running since the treadmill was still moving at insane speeds.
After a while, the treadmill slowed down, and Nick could finally leave.
The treadmill vanished, and Nick saw a console with the points he received.
'Seven points,' Nick thought. 'Seems about right.'
There were five categories, and one could earn up to ten points per category, making for a total of 50 points.
One would expect that the average would be five points, but that wasn't true.
According to the book, every point represented a drop of 50%.
100% of trainees could earn one point.
50% could earn two points.
25% could earn three points.
And so on.
With seven points, Nick was in the top 1.6% of trainees or something like that when it came to speed.
That was about what he had expected.
After all, Nick's body was about as good as it got.
He would probably receive similar scores in the other categories.
The only way to get even more points was to reduce one's points in other categories.
In order to increase his speed, Nick would need to lose muscle mass to reduce his weight, making the strength test much harder.
The same thing was true the other way around.
Essentially, Nick needed to specialize in order to get eight or more points in a category.
"Agility Test," Nick said.
The next moment, the terrain inside the white world transformed, creating walls in random places.
There were tight corridors that zigzagged, walls that blocked almost the entire width of the room, round tunnels, and so on.
It was a chaotic world with many obstacles, twists, and turns.
Nick saw a timer appear, which counted down from 30 minutes.
At the same time, Nick saw a yellow light shining through one of the walls.
The yellow light originated from the goal he had to reach, and it could pass through obstacles and walls.
Yet, instead of running right at it, Nick inspected the entire room.
The timer existed so that Nick could get familiar with the room's layout.
In 30 minutes, the real test would start.