The cadet with the ponytail spoke as he walked toward Tianlei, the card pinched between his fingers.
"But you are the team leader. If the team leader goes out, then so does everyone. It's a lose-lose game," he said.
"That means one of us has to take the club card," the other cadet chimed in.
The cadet with the ponytail didn't waste time. He grabbed the club card from Tianlei.
"What are you doing?" Tianlei asked.
"I have spent five months here trying to prove myself so I can be admitted into Golden Earth Academy, but in all that time, I have never been promoted. Maybe this is fate , I am meant to keep losing but that doesn't mean we all have to fail."
He grabbed Tianlei's hand and placed the spade card into it.
"Do you know why I chose to follow Tianyu? I tried to show bravery I didn't have, but chickening out is what made me remain in the game."
"I trust you will win. Being promoted to provisional executor in the first four days means you are not ordinary like me."
He walked to the slot In the door, placed the club card inside, then stepped onto his platform.
Tianlei looked at him. He was reminded of the day he entered that death match just to be noticed. People in this world did crazy things to be seen and appreciated, but more often than not, things never went the way they hoped.
He exhaled, placed his card into the slot, and returned to his platform.
The magnetic force held them tightly. Then the platform clicked, and the ponytailed cadet fell along with it.
Tianlei shifted his gaze from the small open pit to the door. It didn't open.
"Fail. Please try again."
"What the heck," the other cadet cursed.
Tianlei picked up the two diamond cards and handed one to the last cadet remaining.
"One member of the Black Team has been eliminated."
The voice repeated the same sentence again—this time for another person, not the ponytailed cadet.
"One member of the Black Team has been eliminated."
Then, after a second:
"One member of the Red Team has been eliminated."
He didn't feel sad about the Red Team losing a member. After all, he had already lost too many of his own.
"In this round, one member naturally had to be eliminated," Tianlei said.
They inserted the cards into the slots, repeated the procedure, and the door slowly opened, revealing a well-lit room.
The doors sealed behind Tianlei and the remaining cadet with a low hydraulic sigh, the sound rolling across the chamber like a closing ledger.
The space ahead was long rather than wide, a corridor expanded into a proving ground, its end marked by the core hovering behind a reinforced barrier.
Between them and it lay the hundreds of tiles on the floor.
Perfectly square, perfectly aligned, stretching from the threshold to the cannon stationed directly before the core. Each tile was engraved with a number.
The cannon rotated once .
Tianlei felt the pressure immediately not killing intent, but something closer to judgment.
A voice activated overhead.
"Cognitive-Step Trial initiated."
The tiles flickered.
For a fraction of a second, one tile—somewhere ahead—flashed green.
Then it vanished.
The cadet beside Tianlei swallowed.
"One second," he said. "Maybe less."
Tianlei exhaled. "That's generous."
The voice continued.
"Incorrect selection will trigger corrective force."
The cannon shifted.
"Begin."
The tiles surged with light, rearranging, rotating positions without moving an inch. The floor wasn't changing physically; the information was.
The green flash appeared again but then after a half a second ,it was gone
Tianlei stepped.
The moment his foot touched the tile, the cannon fired.
The impact didn't explode.
It crushed.
Force slammed into his chest, bypassing armor, bypassing muscle, rattling his organs like loose components in a failing machine. His vision fractured into white lines. His knees buckled, but the tile held him upright, refusing collapse.
He tasted blood.
The cannon powered down.
"Incorrect."
The cadet stared at him. "That wasn't even close."
Tianlei straightened slowly, breath shallow, body buzzing like it had been struck by lightning and left alive out of spite.
Another green flash appeared again then it was gone
They moved again but Tianlei hit the wrong tile again.
The cannon fired.
This time the force was worse, shaking Tianlei so violently his bones screamed. Something in his shoulder popped.
The cannon powered down again.
They advanced in silence , absorbing punishment when they failed. Each shot left Tianlei slower, vision lagging, thoughts dragging as if moving through mud. The tiles never stopped shifting.
After the fifth hit, Tianlei dropped to one knee.
The cadet caught him before the cannon could interpret it as a fall.
"Listen," the cadet said quickly, eyes locked on the floor. "The flash isn't random."
Tianlei looked up through blurred vision. "Everything here is random by design."
"No," the cadet replied. "The pattern is."
Another flash of green appeared on tile thirty-seven.
The cadet inhaled sharply.
Tianlei forced himself upright. "You can read it?"
"I can," the cadet said. "But only if I don't move . I possess the genes of a talon hawk so my vision is stronger ."
The cannon rotated again, recalibrating.
The cadet stepped forward, deliberately placing himself one tile ahead of Tianlei.
The green flash appeared.
"Forty-two," the cadet said instantly.
Tianlei stepped where he indicated.
The tile accepted him.
The system adjusted, aggression spiking, tiles flashing faster now, the green barely visible, the numbers distorting more violently. It had identified the exploit and moved to close it.
They advanced one tile at a time.
"Eighteen."
Step.
"Sixty-one."
Step.
The cannon fired anyway, not at Tianlei, but at the cadet.
The force struck him from the side, hurling him against the floor. He slid, gasping, but didn't lose focus.
"Keep moving," he choked. "It'll stop if you hesitate."
Tianlei hesitated anyway.
The cadet looked up at him, blood running from his nose, eyes sharp despite it. "This is still a win condition," he said.
The tiles accelerated.
The flashes came faster, overlapping.
The cadet stopped moving.
"I'll stay here and show you where to step," he said calmly.
Tianlei understood immediately.
"But if you don't move you'll take every shot."
The cadet nodded once. "Well I am a 7 star soldier class master , I am much stronger than you think "
The cannon fired.
The force slammed into the cadet, bending him backward unnaturally. He screamed this time, but his eyes stayed on the floor.
"Twenty-nine!"
Tianlei stepped on the tile
Another shot fired towards the cadet
The cadet coughed blood.
"Forty-three!"
The cannon's firing rate increased, each blast leaving the cadet less human and more broken shape clinging to consciousness through sheer will.
"Why?" Tianlei demanded, voice raw.
The cadet laughed weakly.
" You have to win this . I am tired of this military branch ,I always dreamt of Golden Earth Academy and if we don't win ,my chances of admission will reduce "
Another blast.
"Sixty-eight!"
Tianlei moved.
The cadet's voice dropped, barely audible. "Final stretch."
The green flash appeared one last time.
"Three," the cadet whispered.
The cannon fired continuously now, force pinning the cadet in place, body shaking violently, bones cracking audibly.
Tianlei stepped.
The floor stabilized.
The cannon shut down.
Silence crashed over the hall as the core descended .
Tianlei caught it.
"Core claimed. Black Team has passed the second test."
The floor beneath the cadet dissolved and he fell .
" Destiny star , heal him "
Light began peeling away from stone, systems disengaging now that the outcome was finalized. Tianlei stood alone, core burning steadily in his grasp, body wrecked but stabilized .
A light shot up from the ceiling and enveloped Tianlei
He vanished from the hall and emerged from another hall face to face with someone he hated.