I tapped away at my response to a letter the Scholarium had sent me. They had responded to my application and had invited me to an upcoming evaluation for entrance into the officer’s school. Obviously, they had to verify that I was actually Bronze and not merely faking as I was sure many elite families had tried to pass off their children as on the off chance they could get in. Then, as they told me, they would be evaluating my Foundation, personality, and intellect. They wanted the best of the best, the cream of the crop. It wasn’t enough for the Scholarium to populate their student body of potential officers with Bronze Imperators, they had to be the best possible Bronzes in the Apollo system. Our cognitive and physical abilities and temperaments had to be superior to every other applicant. They would weed out candidates with written and verbal tests, duels, experimentation and measurement and trials to be accomplished.

Thank you, honored Dean for viewing my letter of application. I wrote on the electronic tablet. I intend to present myself at the appointed time and hope to also bring along another candidate should he advance in time.

I answered some basic questions that had come with the letter about my biometrics and then reviewed my writing. Judging the paragraphs I had written fine, I sent it off to be delivered electronically light years away to the Scholarium on Iulius.

“Are we leaving soon?” Livia asked me, sitting on the side of the desk.

“Yes. A little over a month and then we’ll have to leave in order to get to the Scholarium in time.” I said.

“What do you think it will be like?” She said.

“Backstabby and passive aggressive half the time and brutally and physically aggressive the other half of the time.” I said.

“I’ve heard lots of nasty things about Iulius.” Livia shivered.

“Same. Everything points to the capital being a piece of work. And the Scholarium is going to concentrate the wealthiest, most determined, most vicious and prestigious families of the Apollo system all into one school.” I said.

“Will we be safe there?” Livia asked.

“You’ll be okay as long as you keep your head down and don’t leave the Scholarium grounds. You should be beneath the notice of the other students as long as you don’t catch their attention intentionally and the other Servi will answer to me if they mistreat or harm you.” I said.

“Will you be safe there, Adrias.” Livia said pointedly. She took my hand. “You know I worry about you.”

“I know.” I looked down. I didn’t want to lie to my friend. “I don’t know if I’ll be safe there.”

“Do you have to go?” Her brown pupilless eyes met mine. “Can’t you just be the big fish in the small pond here? The only Bronze in Sunburst Station isn’t a big enough role for you?”

“I want to be Gold.” I said. “I need to be Gold. My family’s dead, it’s all I want now. The Scholarium will be dangerous, yes, but it’s necessary to advance further in Rank. It’s not really any different from the arena. You watched me walk into battles to the death against both man and Beast many times.”

“You had to. How else is a familyless Imperator supposed to earn money other than doing something ludicrous like pretending to be a Golden Servus and joining a gladiator ludus?” Livia said.

“I’d have done it even if all my needs were met. It’s just what’s in me.” I said.

“Just be careful then.” She said quietly.

“I will.” I promised. “I won’t do anything stupid, only what’s necessary to push forward each day.”

Antonias strode into the guest bedroom without knocking.

“It’s time to get going.” He said to me.

I stretched. “Alright. Goodbye, Livia. I’ll see you later today.”

“Goodbye, Adrias.” She said.

I walked out of the room with Antonias. We walked through his mansion and down the stairs towards the main entrance, leading out to the main grounds in front of the mansion.

“I heard back from the Scholarium.” I said to my friend and pupil.

“Will they take me?” He asked eagerly.

“They’ll test any Bronze young adult for appropriate physical and mental fitness for admittance. You just have to make Bronze in time and then meet the requirements for entry.” I said.

“When do you think I’ll make the next Rank, anyways, Adrias?” Antonias said.

“Hard to say. You’re getting a more direct, intentional, and vigorous condensation of what I went through in the arena and in the ludus. A couple more weeks?” I said.

“I’ve looked more into it, by the way.” Antonias said.

“Into what?” I replied.

“The Voice.” He said.

I sighed. “What have you heard?”

“It might be you aligning to the wavelengths of the celestial realm. I think we should talk to the Oracle one more time before we leave.” He said.

“Alright, we can do that. We have time.” I said.

Antonias’s training had gone well as it could be said to be. He grumbled and groaned and complained, but in the end, he complied with everything I had asked of him, no matter how painful, strange or brutal the request or task. To start, I had continued training him multiple times a day in the dueling ring in the estate’s concrete bunker. We would go five rounds of him pushing himself to the brink of self-destruction while I practiced restrained defense and limited offense against him. We continued high speed sprints on the lawn which angered the groundskeepers, as well as hypoxic training underwater via breath deprivation, long swims in the pool, and more of our ground to roof box jumps. I also added in new things as well. We went to specialty gravity chambers with internal gravitational generators so that we could lift weights at many times the Terra constant that the ring station kept most of the population at.

I got footage from my old master Gaias of old fights in the arena to teach from and analyze together with Antonias to improve his form and technique. I also took Antonias to the Brazen Chains ludus to match blade to blade against Velias and Turias and Krixas and others. They were his superiors and he learned much from them. I prescribed to my pupil experimental adjustments and procedures like inserting a metal obstruction into Antonias’s heart as he fought and worked out to simulate fighting with a stab wound to the heart. I also had him sprint while wearing a mask that spewed carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. Next, I had Keenblade sharpened spikes inserted by a Medicus doctor into nerve points and then had him shocked to build pain tolerance. I was told by the Medicus that all of this was highly unethical. I told Antonias to give the good Doctor a bigger tip and told the Medicus to mind his own business.

Then I had Antonias do things like heal from diamond grit sandpaper abrading his skin off and fistfight me with an active concussion and walk on the bottom of the pool with weights on. All these things to build his pain tolerance, endurance, skills and strength.

More than training, I had instructed him in other matters. We had to repair his Foundation and boost it to a higher level. A strong, healthy Foundation was the kindling that the spark of emulating your Path ignited and was necessary if Antonias ever wanted to move on to Bronze Imperator. We were slowly and painfully solving his hedonism. I had persuaded him that he could go back to indulging in food, drink and intoxicating and stimulating substances when he was Bronze Rank and that he only needed to put it aside for a short time as he either joined me in Bronzehood or was left behind when I left soon for the Scholarium on Iulius. This was the impetus he needed, he bemoaned my treatment of him in training and the idea that it would all be for nothing, all the pain and struggle and intensity wasted, if he didn’t get his act together caused him to go sober.

Now he ate and drank and slept on my command. He got nine hours of sleep whether he liked it or not with me sometimes having to drag him away to his room at night and sit outside of his bedroom listening until he went to sleep and often having to rouse him vigorously out of sleep. I had enlisted Junia in this and she refused to sleep with him unless he adhered to the sleep schedule. I instructed his cooks to be prepare simple fare with balance macronutrients and micronutrients and forbade him to drink anything but water. Shine and other drugs were similarly off limits. His cravings for rich food and the growing pains of the initial weaning off of substances were substantial but I threatened to take him down to the concrete bunker for additional lessons in combat if he relapsed or indulged on my watch.

Still, physical conditioning and proper nutrition and abstinence from drugs and alcohol was only enough to prevent further damage, not truly regenerate all the damage that had been done of his own free will to his body for the cause of pleasure and hedonism. Perhaps he still might have made Bronze with my work, but not as fast as we needed and it all didn’t matter if he wasn’t strong enough to meet the Scholarium’s examinations and requirements to get into the officers’ school. Thus we needed a miracle. A scientific one, not a divine one. I’d take the blessings of the gods but Olympas so far had not answered our pleas. Instead, using Antonias’s parents’ vast wealth we had located from a reputable manufacturer and purchased a pair of Refounding pills. One pill was worth more than the entire estate we were on. Those pills restored his Foundation from any negative effects or harm back to his pristine genetic natural state.

We were going outside of the house to the main lawn because I had asked Antonias to invite a number of his Imperator peers that he thought might be receptive to my words. We needed them for Antonias to feed his Path with victories over peer and superior opponents. We had to get them to agree to be used in such a way though, so I was phrasing it as me teaching and overlooking all of them as prospects for Bronze Rank and advancement from Copper Imperator. I would demonstrate to them how much my assistance had improved Antonias, who had very much been average in combat abilities for an Imperator among them, to a certified warrior and deadly martial artist as well as show them in person the power of a Bronze Imperator. Thus, impressing them on my power and the skill of my pupil, I would open up a challenge to them to see who would attempt to join me on my journey to the Scholarium.

Antonias walked out the front of the house through the main doors and Servi servants closed them behind us.

There were four groups of Imperators sitting before me on Antonias’s estate’s lawn. They had naturally clumped into groups, moving the chairs the estate’s Servi had set out for our meeting into separate areas and defined themselves as individual sections. The first group was Caesia, Cornelias and Artoria. Caesia was expected, as even if she wasn’t as obsessed with advancing as Antonias and I were now, she was friends with both of us and had an existing relationship with me. She would at least come to the meeting out of politeness. Cornelias though was a surprise. I was a little shocked that Antonias had thought to invite him and even more shocked that Cornelias had still thought to come with how things with us went last time we were near each other. Artoria was once of Caesia’s friends who had been there at the party.

The second group was Julias, Aemilia, Fabias and Florias. Aemilia, Fabias and Florias were also from the party, but Julias I had last seen at the fire at the theatre Antonias had burned down. The third group was Kato, Claudias, Markas, and Valeria. They were all new to me. The fourth group was Bantias, Cassias, Bruttia and Karias. This group also was a novel experience.

Servi brought out platters of meat, bread and cheese, as well as drinks of sparkling wine and fruit juices and ice-cold water. I noted that most of the Imperators favored sparkling wine, with a few of the girls, Bruttia and Caesia, drinking fruit juice. Half of the Imperators didn’t touch the appetizers at all and the other half heavily indulged. Bantias was stuffing himself. Fabias was pouring a flask of clear hard liquor into his sparkling wine. Several of them were passing around electronic cigarettes. Markas was attempting to stealthily snort a line of shine off of one of the tables the Servi had brought out onto the lawn to carry the appetizers and wine bottles and fruit juice pitchers. I sighed. I don’t know why he bothered to try to hide it when it was so damn obvious. Most of these children would not be advancing to Bronze.

“Welcome,” I said to them. “I am Adrias Lucion. As many of you know, I have achieved the Rank of Bronze Imperator through victory and domination in the field of battle in the Red Sands gladiatorial arena. While some of you may find my actions beneath my station, know that I did it because it was the only way to accomplish my goals of advancing further in Rank on the Path of the Emperor. To you, it may sound like the hubris of a lunatic, but I must admit to you that I aim for Gold Imperator.” I paused.

This caused a stir, but no one challenged me. Indeed, I didn’t see doubt in their faces only unease at the thought of being near someone who dared to shoot so high and brazenly.

“The next stage of my journey is to go to the Scholarium on Iulius to train as a Bronze officer of the Apollo system’s Solar Guard. However, I do not wish to go alone. I have been training Antonias in the hopes of making him Bronze and I offer this to all of you as well. Fight against each other under my instruction and you will grow immensely. It is my firm belief that we will conjure forth several more Bronzes under this method as some find victory over others. Fear not, even if you are not one of the crop that joins me for this semester at the Scholarium. My work on you will put you far above the rest of the young Imperators on Sunburst Station. Continue to face them after I am gone with those lucky to advance and you too will find your way to Bronze in time.” I said.

“Now then,” I said. “Antonias was hardly the best of you when you knew him last. Behold now how far he has come under my watch.”

Antonias and I faced each other and took up stances in front of the Imperators.