At the center platform stood Master Sato.
Calm. Hands behind his back. Watching one hundred students filter into position — S-0s and S-1s standing side by side. He waited until the last whisper died.
Then: "Suit up."
The assistive frames descended from the ceiling in controlled precision. Each one stopped exactly in front of a student. Mechanical arms unfolded, presenting a suspended combat suit layered in segmented black alloy and flexible woven mesh.
Sato stepped down from the platform. "This," he said, placing a hand against the chest plate of the nearest frame, "is not armor."
The students quieted further.
"It is a replication interface."
He tapped the collar. "Neural receptors line the spine and base of the skull. They do not control you. They read you."
He moved to the forearm housing. "Magic conductors sit along the ribs and arms. They do not generate power. They translate your internal output into stabilized projections."
He crouched slightly and pressed the knee plating. "Kinetic dampeners absorb recoil and redirect impact so you can operate at one hundred percent capacity without shattering your own bones." A few S-0s shifted nervously.
Rain's eyes sharpened. Oni didn't move.
Sato straightened. "In this system, you will fight exactly as you are capable of fighting, If you cannot perform an ability outside this dome, you cannot perform it inside."
He turned slightly, scanning them. "The suit will not make you stronger. It will make you measurable."
A screen behind him flickered on, displaying a skeletal outline overlaid with pulsing energy lines.
"When synchronization begins, your nervous system will connect to the interface through micro-thread contact along the spine lattice. There will be pressure. Possibly heat. That is normal."
A hand went up somewhere in the crowd. "What if we overload it?"
Sato didn't hesitate. "Then you will feel it."
A small ripple of uneasy laughter.
He didn't smile. "The suit records magical strain, reaction timing, structural stress, decision latency, and emotional spikes. You are being studied."
He looked directly at them. "Not judged. Studied."
He stepped back toward the center. "The environment you fight in is simulated, but your choices are not."
"The injuries you would have sustained are translated into system penalties. Your body will not break."
"But your weaknesses will be exposed."
Now the frames shifted open. One by one.
"You will step in. The suit will calibrate to your baseline. Do not resist the spinal alignment. Do not channel magic until instructed."
Rain leaned slightly toward Oni. "He basically said don't be stupid." Oni's gaze stayed forward.
The first students began stepping into their frames. The mechanical arms rotated inward, sealing plates along the shoulders, ribs, and thighs.
When Rain entered his, the collar locked first with a soft metallic click as neural threads aligned down his back. A faint pulse ran along the suit's seams. On the main screen:
RAIN — BASELINE SYNC: 62% … 78% … 100%
Oni stepped into his frame. The chest plate hovered half a second longer over the Mark of the Beast before adjusting. Sato noticed.
He didn't comment. Across the chamber, Elara sealed into hers smoothly. Nyx hesitated, then flinched slightly when the spine lattice pressed into place.
Sato returned to the center platform.
The dome began to close overhead.
"Full-dive synchronization will begin in ten seconds."
"This is a training environment."
"But treat it like war."
The arena lights shifted.
"Welcome to unrestricted combat."
The dome sealed completely. The arena floor dissolved into a neutral grid — white lines stretching infinitely in all directions. No terrain. No cover. Just measurement space.
Master Sato's voice echoed evenly:
"Phase One. Calibration Tutorial."
A pulse ran through every suit simultaneously. Oni felt it first at the base of his skull — a thin pressure like fingers aligning vertebrae. The Mark of the Beast reacted instinctively, heat crawling under his skin. The suit responded instantly, cooling the spike.
On the overhead screens:
EMOTIONAL VARIANCE DETECTED — STABILIZING.
Rain flexed his fingers. The Uzuka wasn't physically in his hand — but a wireframe projection of it formed, colorless for now.
Nyx blinked rapidly as translucent HUD elements flickered across her vision.
Sato continued, "You will now attempt basic output."
Targets formed ahead of them — floating circular constructs made of light.
"Channel five percent."
A few students immediately overdid it.
One S-1 launched a burst of plasma that cracked the grid beneath him.
SYSTEM RESPONSE: OUTPUT 18% — PENALTY APPLIED.
His suit stiffened momentarily, limiting movement. Murmurs rippled through the dome.
Oni raised his hand slightly — not casting a spell. He pushed. A pulse of raw force — not shaped, not refined — just compressed magical pressure.
The target didn't explode. It folded inward like it had been crushed by invisible gravity and vanished.
SYSTEM RESPONSE: OUTPUT 4.7% — STABLE.
Several heads turned.
Rain inhaled slowly. "Okay."
He visualized his Uzuka.
Blue flared first — sharpness modulation.
The blade formed mid-air, clean and humming. He adjusted it slightly — flicker of yellow through the hilt. Weight recalibration.
He flicked it forward.
The blade didn't just cut the target — it sheared through the space around it in a perfect surgical line, then dissipated.
SYSTEM RESPONSE: EDGE STABILITY: 93%.
Rain's mouth twitched.
Across the grid, Elara extended a hand. Light didn't explode from her. It threaded outward in layered ribbons weaving into a lattice before snapping tight around her target and compressing it from multiple angles simultaneously. Precision control.
Nyx hesitated. Her fingers twitched. The air around her distorted — not gravity, not force, distortion. Like the world misaligned by a fraction of a second. Her target flickered — then blinked out of existence entirely.
SYSTEM RESPONSE: SPATIAL OFFSET — UNREGISTERED VARIANT.
A few students stared.
Nyx looked down quickly like she hadn't meant to do that.
Sato's eyes sharpened. "Good."
The grid shifted. Terrain rose instantly — fractured stone platforms, suspended bridges, rotating vertical pillars. "Mobility test."
Students launched forward.
Kaito moved first — calculating. His ability manifested as mirrored afterimages that weren't illusions — each one acted a split second ahead of his real body, mapping trajectories before he moved. He wasn't fast.
He was predictive.
Theron stepped and the ground reinforced beneath him — every place his foot landed hardened into near-metal density. Defensive territory control.
Garek roared and his body expanded slightly — muscle density spiking as orange light flared briefly across his skin. Strength + weight amplification.
The sound of impact thundered when he landed.
Rain sprinted across a crumbling pillar — flicking Uzuka green mid-run.
Size modulation. The blade extended outward like a telescoping spear, anchoring into distant stone so he could vault across gaps with precision.
Oni didn't sprint. He disappeared. Not teleportation. Acceleration. The grid cracked behind him from pressure displacement alone. He reappeared mid-platform, stopping instantly the suit screaming: KINETIC SPIKE — WARNING.
He didn't seem winded. He barely blinked.
Master Sato finally raised a hand. "Tutorial complete."
Everything froze. The arena reset. "Phase Two."
The overhead display shifted to roster assignment.
"One hundred students. Ten at a time. Five versus five."
Names began scrolling. "Match One. Enter."
The first ten suits illuminated. S-0 and S-1 mixed. No rank separation.
Sato continued: "Team combat is not a spectacle. It is awareness."
The terrain loaded — a ruined floating city suspended over a void. Broken towers. Narrow sky bridges. Vertical combat space.
The rest of the students stepped back as the central arena sealed for the first rotation. Screens magnified every movement overhead.
Rain leaned slightly toward Oni. "You in first round?"
Oni checked the display. "Not yet second."
Rain smirked. "Good. I want to see how they panic first."
The horn sounded. Match One began.
One student opened with a shockwave pulse but an S-1 countered instantly by fracturing the ground beneath him, dropping him two levels down.
Another manipulated air density — not wind but compression pockets that altered projectile trajectories mid-flight.
A support-class S-0 extended thin threads of light between teammates — redirecting damage output so no single person absorbed full impact.
On the upper level, a blade-user shifted purple through his weapon — strength + sharpness — cleaving through a stone column and sending debris cascading.
The crowd reacted audibly. This wasn't weak magic. This was controlled devastation.
Down below, a defensive S-1 absorbed a direct impact — his suit flaring: CRITICAL STRUCTURAL STRESS — SIMULATED RIB FRACTURE.
He staggered. The system penalty reduced his mobility by 40%.
His teammate dragged him behind cover. Team awareness. Sato watched silently.
Data streaming across his lens.
After six minutes, Team B coordinated a vertical collapse maneuver — one shattered a support pillar while another redirected falling debris with kinetic pulses, funneling the enemy into a narrowing corridor.
Final strike.
Match end.
The dome opened.
Applause erupted from the waiting students.
Not polite. Genuine. Sato didn't clap. He spoke. "Victory achieved through coordination."
He glanced at the losing side. "Loss achieved through isolation."
The roster shifted again.
"Match Two."
Oni's suit indicator illuminated.
Rain's lit beside it. Across the arena, Elara and Nyx did too.
The remaining five slots filled with upper-tier S-1s and high-performing S-0s — students who had already drawn attention in prior rotations. The dome darkened. The terrain began loading. Not ruins. Not open grid. A vertical megastructure. A floating city core suspended over a luminous abyss. Rotating ring platforms. Fractured highways suspended midair. Magnetic rails running diagonally between skyscraper spines. Gravity is inconsistent in sections.
The crowd audibly reacted. "Oh—" "No way." "That's a multi-axis map."
Master Sato's voice cut through: "Urban collapse simulation. Variable gravity fields. Environmental volatility is active."
The suits pulsed. Rain flexed his fingers.
Uzuka formed — transparent at first.
Oni rolled his shoulders once. The Mark burned faintly under the suit. The system compensated instantly. EMOTIONAL VARIANCE — MONITORING.
Across the arena, Nyx swallowed.
Elara closed her eyes briefly. Then—
"Begin."
The city roared to life. Platforms began rotating immediately. A gravity shift ripped sideways across the battlefield. Two S-1s launched forward instantly — one generating crystalline spear constructs from thin air, not simple projections — but lattice-grown, branching, adaptive structures that changed shape mid-flight. The second bent trajectory fields around himself — not moving faster, but shortening distance perceptionally. Every step folded space by inches.
Rain moved first on Oni's side. Blue flared.
Uzuka sharpened to a surgical edge. Yellow flickered through the hilt — weight modulation. He hurled it. Mid-flight, cyan pulsed — sharpness + size. The blade elongated into a spinning rail-spear that carved through three incoming crystal constructs before snapping back to his hand.
The collision screamed across the arena. Oni vanished. Not teleportation. Acceleration beyond perception. The air detonated behind him in a concussive spiral. He reappeared mid-structure — fist already moving. He didn't cast. He compressed. Raw magical pressure condensed around his knuckles like a forming star.
Impact.
The opposing S-1's space-folding field shattered outward like broken glass.
SYSTEM WARNING: STRUCTURAL BREACH — MAP ADAPTING.
The building they were standing on fractured and began collapsing into the void. Students watching gasped. Nyx didn't move immediately. She blinked— and the air around her… skipped. A microsecond displacement. An incoming projectile passed through where she had been — except she hadn't "dodged." The world had misaligned around her. She reappeared three meters to the left, startled by her own movement.
UNREGISTERED SPATIAL VARIANT — DATA LOGGED.
An opposing student targeted her instantly — generating layered sonic crescents that didn't explode — they vibrated at frequencies designed to destabilize equilibrium.
Nyx flinched. Elara stepped between them. Not with brute force. She extended both hands. Golden filaments wove outward in expanding arcs, intersecting the sonic waves and harmonizing their frequency.
Instead of impact— The sound dissolved into harmless resonance.
Rain whistled under his breath. "Okay."
An S-1 from the opposing team activated something dangerous. His pupils were inverted black. The arena lighting dimmed around him. He wasn't manipulating the shadow. He was consuming energy output within a radius — siphoning ambient magic to amplify himself. Garek would have charged that. Oni didn't.
He stepped forward slowly. The siphon field reached for him and recoiled.
The Mark of the Beast flared under his chest.
Not visually. But the system screamed:
UNCLASSIFIED ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED.
The siphon user's eyes widened. Oni moved.
Faster than the system could simulate properly. For a split second—He was gone from every spectator screen. The cameras struggled to track. He reappeared behind the siphon user, palm open. No spell. No incantation. Just raw beast-enhanced force released in a contained directional burst. The siphon field imploded inward.
The student crashed through three levels of structure before stabilization protocols froze him mid-fall.
ELIMINATED.
The crowd erupted.
But the fight wasn't slowing down. Rain was already engaged with two opponents. One manipulated vector redirection — every strike Rain attempted curved away at impossible angles. The other altered friction coefficients on surfaces — making the terrain beneath Rain unpredictably slick or adhesive. Rain adjusted instantly. Green flared — Uzuka resized into dual shorter blades. Purple flickered across the edges — strength + sharpness. He didn't fight the vector redirection. He exploited it. He angled his strike intentionally off-target—The opponent's own redirection field overcorrected.
Rain twisted. Orange flashed — strength + weight. He drove a downward strike that carried unnatural momentum. The redirected force rebounded into its owner. Impact. Simulated rib fracture. Second opponent attempted a friction spike under Rain's feet—
Rain snapped dark blue through Uzuka — magic + sharpness.
He sliced the friction field itself. Not the ground. The manipulated magical layer.
It split cleanly. The audience went dead silent for a second. That wasn't a beginner technique. Above them, gravity inverted.
Half the battlefield flipped. Students screamed as they were thrown upward toward a rotating ceiling platform.
Nyx panicked—and the world blinked again.
This time not just her. Three teammates shifted position simultaneously by half a meter. Micro-realignment.
Unintentional. She covered her mouth, horrified. Elara grabbed her wrist mid-air as gravity normalized. "It's okay," she said calmly.
Oni landed hard on a fractured spire. One final opponent remained on the enemy side — a high-tier S-1 who hadn't revealed his full ability yet. He raised one hand. The skyline around them… segmented. Buildings didn't crumble. They separated into layered slices — like reality divided into stacked frames. Time wasn't slowing. It was desynchronizing locally.
Oni felt it instantly. Movement resistance.
Decision lag. The opponent stepped freely between the segmented layers. He aimed for Rain. Oni didn't think. The Mark flared fully.
For a fraction of a second—His eyes glowed through the visor. He moved inside the segmented layers. Not because he understood the mechanic. Because his body refused restriction. He intercepted the strike mid-phase. The collision sent a shockwave through all layers simultaneously. The segmentation shattered.
Every floating structure within a 200-meter radius collapsed at once. System alarms blared.
SIMULATION STRAIN CRITICAL — CONTAINMENT ENGAGED.
Dust. Silence. When visibility cleared—
Oni stood at the center of fractured terrain.
Breathing steady. Rain at his side. Elara is still holding Nyx's wrist. The final opponent was immobilized by containment restraints.
Match over. For three seconds—no one spoke. Then the dome exploded with noise. Not just cheering. Shock. Excitement. Fear.
Master Sato had not moved the entire time.
But now— He smiled.
Across the viewing screens, one line blinked beside Oni's data feed:
UNLIMITED POTENTIAL CLASSIFICATION — CONFIRMED.
The arena did not immediately reset.
Dust still drifted through the suspended air as containment fields reassembled fractured architecture in shimmering geometric layers. Platforms slid back into place. Gravity stabilized. The luminous abyss below dimmed to a low hum. The system was repairing itself, but the silence inside the dome wasn't technical.
Students weren't cheering anymore. They were studying. Oni stood in the center of the reconstructed platform, chest rising slow and controlled. The suit's inner lining pulsed as it recalibrated around him, feeding combat metrics across the upper ring displays. His acceleration spikes were off-chart. Energy output readings were flagged three times. The Mark's flare had been logged but not categorized. The system had tried to name it and failed.
Rain rolled his shoulder and glanced up at the metrics hovering overhead. "They're definitely going to restrict you next round," he muttered.
"They can try," Oni replied evenly.
Elara released Nyx's wrist only when she was certain the younger girl's breathing had steadied. Nyx's eyes were still wide, but not afraid. Processing. That micro-displacement she triggered twice had been subtle, involuntary, and dangerously clean. The system had logged it as an anomaly. She had felt it as panic.
Master Sato finally stepped forward. He didn't clap. He didn't praise. He observed.
"That," he said calmly, his voice carrying through the dome without amplification, "was power without structure." The words landed harder than applause would have. Several students straightened. Sato's gaze shifted across all ten of them. "You reacted well. You adapted quickly. But you did not command the field. The environment dictated your rhythm. That is unacceptable." The arena floor shifted again, but this time it flattened into a wide, circular platform. No vertical terrain. No gravity distortions. Just open space beneath a vaulted projection sky.
"Next rotation," Sato continued, "will not reward individual dominance."
The screens updated.
Match Three: Tactical Suppression Scenario
Objective: Territory Control
Time Limit: 12 Minutes Ten students again.
But this time, Sato pointed deliberately. "Oni. Elara. Nyx. Mina. Theron."
He paused. "Opposition: Rain. Garek. Kaito. Valen. Huck." The energy in the room shifted instantly. Rain grinned. "Oh, this is evil." Oni didn't react outwardly, but something sharpened behind his eyes. This wasn't random pairing. This was intentional fracture. Strategy against instinct. Discipline against improvisation. The arena pulsed and five glowing capture pillars erupted from the floor in a pentagonal formation. Each one radiated fluctuating energy fields that could only be stabilized through sustained magical synchronization. Master Sato folded his hands behind his back. "This is not elimination. This is control. You win by stabilizing three of five pillars simultaneously for thirty consecutive seconds. If all members of a team are immobilized, the match ends. Full-dive restrictions remain lifted."
The dome sealed again. "Begin."
Rain moved first, of course. He shot forward toward the nearest pillar, Uzuka already splitting into dual blades as green and yellow flickered through the metal. Behind him, Garek didn't sprint. He stomped. The arena floor cracked under each step as kinetic reinforcement surged through his legs. He wasn't trying to be fast. He was trying to be unstoppable.
On Oni's side, Theron extended one hand and a translucent geometric lattice expanded outward from his palm, mapping terrain lines and probable movement vectors in real time. "Left flank," he said calmly. "Rain will bait central conflict. Garek will push right pillar aggressively."
Oni nodded once. "Nyx, stay midline. Don't force it. Mina, disrupt."
Nyx swallowed but nodded quickly. Mina was already tapping her gauntlet interface, suit amplifiers projecting thin bands of scanning light across the nearest pillar. "Their capture frequency is harmonic-based. If I invert the resonance curve, I can slow stabilization."
"Do it," Oni said. Elara moved with him toward the central pillar.
Across the field, Rain reached the first pillar and slammed Uzuka into the ground beside it. Cyan flared along the blade's length and a slicing shockwave rippled outward, forcing Theron to redirect his lattice shield to absorb it. Garek barreled toward the right-side pillar, colliding with it like a meteor. The ground around him cratered as he planted both hands on the structure and began flooding it with brute-force magical pressure.
The pillar flared red. Stabilization climbing.
"Twenty percent," Mina called out sharply.
Oni didn't hesitate. He vanished forward in a compressed burst of acceleration, reappearing directly in Garek's path. This time he didn't strike with overwhelming force. He pivoted low and redirected Garek's forward momentum sideways, using the giant student's own weight against him. The collision with the arena floor sent a tremor through the dome. But Garek laughed.
He rolled up instantly and slammed both fists down. Shockwaves radiated outward in concentric rings, destabilizing two nearby pillars at once.
Rain saw the opening and launched Uzuka overhead, activating purple and orange in tandem. The blade multiplied mid-arc, splitting into three rotating constructs that rained down toward Elara and Mina.
Elara stepped forward and extended both palms. Golden threads expanded rapidly, weaving into a dome of harmonic filtration. The blades struck the barrier and screeched, their kinetic force diffused through layered resonance instead of brute resistance.
Nyx flinched at the impact—and the battlefield skipped again. This time it wasn't subtle. Rain's second blade phase-shifted slightly off trajectory mid-flight, as if reality itself had misaligned by inches. The pillar he was stabilizing flickered violently. Everyone felt that one. Rain's eyes snapped toward Nyx.
"Oh," he said softly. "That's new."
Kaito, who had remained strangely still until now, finally acted. He raised two fingers and the air around Oni thickened, not with gravity, but with cognitive pressure. It wasn't a physical restraint. It was predictive inhibition—forcing Oni's body to respond milliseconds slower by flooding his neural field with false anticipatory signals.
For most fighters, that would have been crippling.
Oni's jaw tightened. The Mark stirred. The suit tried to compensate, but the pressure wasn't external—it was internal manipulation. His next movement lagged by a fraction of a second. Garek saw it. He charged.
Theron intercepted at the last moment, his geometric lattice condensing into a solid, crystalline barrier that absorbed the impact but shattered in the process. He slid back several meters, boots carving lines into the arena floor.
"Three pillars at forty percent!" Mina shouted.
Rain disengaged suddenly and sprinted diagonally, shifting tactics without warning. He wasn't playing brute force anymore. He was playing tempo "Valen, now!"
Valen extended one calm hand and the air around two pillars began smoothing, stabilizing turbulence and reinforcing their harmonic alignment. It wasn't flashy. It was precise.
On Oni's side, Elara stepped closer to the central pillar and closed her eyes. Instead of projecting outward, she synchronized inward. Her golden threads didn't form shields this time—they wrapped the pillar gently, tuning it like an instrument. Its red flare softened to blue. "Stabilized at sixty," she breathed. Nyx stood frozen for a second longer Then she did something different. She didn't panic.
She looked at the battlefield not as chaos—but as layers. Her vision blurred slightly as her ability engaged intentionally for the first time. Instead of shifting herself, she nudged positional alignment around the leftmost pillar by less than a centimeter.
It was enough. Rain's footing slipped by a hair. His blade struck a degree off-center.
The pillar destabilized instead of climbing.
Mina's head snapped up. "Nyx, do that again." Nyx nodded shakily and adjusted again—tiny corrections, micro-misalignments, almost invisible. The tide shifted. Oni felt the cognitive pressure from Kaito tightening again, trying to predict him, trying to slow him. He exhaled. Then he stopped reacting. Instead of fighting the prediction, he broke pattern entirely. He didn't accelerate. He walked. One step. Then another. Kaito's predictive model stuttered. It expected violence. It expected explosive force. Oni reached the nearest contested pillar and placed one palm against it.
The Mark flared—not in aggression, but in assertion. Raw, primal magical density poured into the structure in controlled compression.
The pillar didn't explode. It bowed. Stabilization surged past eighty. Rain lunged to interrupt—Theron intercepted him mid-air.
Lattice versus blade. Impact cracked like thunder.
"Three stabilized!" Mina shouted. "Hold for thirty!" The entire arena erupted into desperate movement. Garek charged again. Valen reinforced. Huck redirected trajectories from the backline. Kaito pushed cognitive suppression harder.
Nyx adjusted alignment with trembling precision. Elara held harmonic flow steady.
Oni stood at the center pillar like an anchor driven into the planet itself. Ten seconds.
Fifteen. Rain broke free of Theron and hurled Uzuka in a full-power spiral, every color flaring in rapid sequence. The blade screamed toward Oni. Twenty-two seconds.
Oni didn't dodge. He caught it. Not the hilt. The blade.
Energy tore across his suit, alarms flaring in warning red. Twenty-seven seconds. He twisted. Redirected.
Drove Uzuka into the arena floor beside the pillar, locking it in place.Thirty. The dome flashed blue.
MATCH COMPLETE.
Silence fell again, but this time it wasn't shock. It was recognition.
Master Sato looked across the field slowly, eyes lingering on each of them.
"Better," he said. But his gaze rested on Oni, then Nyx, then Rain.
And he added, quieter: "Now we begin."
A few students shifted.
One of the S-0s near the viewing platform frowned. "Begin what? We just finished."
Sato turned slightly, as if he'd been waiting for that.
"You finished an introduction," he replied calmly. "You tested synchronization. You learned the limits of the suits. You learned the limits of yourselves."
He let that settle. "This semester culminates in the Inter-Division Combat Tournament."
The room stirred immediately. Not whispers — energy.
"The tournament runs every six months. All divisions participate." He gestured upward. The arena projection shifted, displaying tiered brackets in the air. "S-3 through S-A divisions. A-3 through A-1 divisions. Each year competes within its own class tier. First years face first years. Second years face second years. Third years face third years."
He paused. "No cross-year mercy."
That drew reactions.
"Winning teams are elevated in rank," he continued. "Individual standouts are granted elite mentorship assignments."
Now that landed. Everyone knew what that meant. Elite tutors didn't teach classes. They forged weapons. They took one student and broke them down until something terrifying emerged.
"Rank promotion alters dorm privileges, mission priority, resource access, and instructor allocation," Sato added evenly. "Mentorship alters trajectory."
He looked directly at the S-1s. "You are not training for grades. You are training for position." Rain's jaw tightened slightly.
Nyx stopped fidgeting. Oni said nothing — but something in the room shifted around him anyway.
Sato turned toward the central console.
"Today was calibration. Next session, tactical adaptation. Dismissed."
The dome unsealed. The arena lights dimmed. Students began stepping out of their suits, systems disengaging with soft mechanical releases. But the energy wasn't fading. It was building. Because now they knew what this semester was. Not classes.
Not simulations. A ladder, and someone was going to climb it.