I woke to the buzzing and ringing of a preset alarm on my wrist communicator and sat up. Or tried to, rather. The instant I raised my head off my pillow my vision went black, and my ears began ringing. I slumped back down into my pillow, gave it three seconds and then made a second go at it. This time went better than the first and I manage to sit entirely upright without significantly risking blacking out though I felt dizzy as I did so. With shaking, trembling fingers that twitched with an involuntary tremor, I tapped the screen of the communicator and shut off the alarm.

In my master bedroom, my subordinates were getting off of their fabric cot bunkbeds and getting ready for the day, servants were coming in with clothes and either bringing the Bronzes food or taking their orders for breakfast to be served in the dining room or the kitchen.

Suppressing a snarl, I stiffened my fingers and clenched them into fists under my covers. The damage that Heracles’s fire had done to my body was still present, annoyingly so. I had suffered all kinds of injuries in the arena, had been burnt to little more than a skeleton in the heat resiliency test, had been slashed by the poisoned claws of a demonic Servus on the airship flight and yet this was the most prolonged recovery I had ever had as an Imperator. The weakness and fatigue lingered, clutching my limbs in its grasp, unsettling my nerves, aching my muscles, tiring my heart and lungs. It was getting better, slowly but surely, but it was taking as much time as it could latch onto.

I breathed in and out slowly. I had to get it together. Today was the first day of classes, and besides, I needed to project an image of strength and superiority to my Helots on my team as well as the other teams of first years. I took clothes that Livia presented to me and stripped and changed. Livia turned her back on me as I did so but no one else seemed to care. That was something odd and of mild interest to me that I had noticed. My fellow Bronze Imperators did not have the same sense of privacy and embarrassment when it came to nudity as I had been instilled with as a Lavinian Servus. I had first seen this at Examination Day when we had all been required to strip down and put on hospital gowns. No one seemed self-conscious or hesitant to remove their clothing, even though it had been a mixed gender group of their peers.

It was the same here. No one stared at each other as we collectively changed into our school uniforms that we were required to wear in the Citadel and during classes. The uniforms were formal wear, somewhat reminiscent of suits and partly of the dress uniforms of soldiers. They were white on the outside and a light sky blue on the interior of the clothing. The clothing had apparently been specifically tailored for us by using the body scan metrics taken during the examinations, which was good because Andarias would have never found a set large enough to fit his body. Our clothing had dark blue ties which both the boys and girls’ uniforms had, which I found interesting. There was a red sun with a gold capital S stitched right above our hearts on our white jackets.

I pulled on my new clothing, amazed at how well it had fit me like a glove even though rationally I knew it had been fabricated and stitched together with perfect measurements of my body. Primary white and secondary blue colors were the first year uniform and I had asked Justinias about the upperclassmen’s garb. He had told me that the second years could be identified with wearing primarily yellow with orange accents and the third years wore black with red accents. He also told me to steer clear of third years if I knew what was good for me.

Livia presented me with a gold and silver wristband marked with T-IX. Team Nine. The wristband was a marker as my role as Spartiate and leader of the team, while my Helots would wear bronze and copper version that also bore the insignia of T-IX. Putting on the wristband, I walked outside to the dining hall and ate my bowl of cereal and side plate of grapefruit. Or at least, I tried to. My fingers shook when I held the spoon, so I ended up picking up the entire bowl and drinking from it like it was a cup. Eating the grapefruit was easier, thankfully. I just took slices and popped them into my mouth.

Finishing up and checking my communicator to see time was running short, I rallied my team and drove them out the door of the II villa. To make up for lost time, we ran down the mountain. As funny as it might have seemed, one had to go down in order to go up and ascend to the Apollonian Citadel floating in the sky. Slightly higher than midway up the mountain of Tertius Mons and on the inward side facing towards the center of the three mountains and the Citadel, there was a carved-out terrace of land that we were all supposed to meet at. Speeding through the path that led downwards and then racing through the trails that led to the other side of Tertius Mons, we made it in time, though we were the last to get there.

With twenty-three of us lost to the terrorist attacks, rather than being in thirty teams of ten members, there were twenty-seven groups of ten and one group of seven students. I scanned the twenty-eight teams, most people I did not know, but a few I recognized. More of the people I knew personally had ended up the Spartiates of their teams due to me getting closer with the upper echelons of the Examination Day rankings. I saw Clodias as Spartiate of Team Three with Antonias as one of his Helots, Quartias Fulvion as leader of Team Two, and finally Caesia as leader of Team Fourteen who were the group of seven. Shocking, really. How had one of my friends, one of the dead lasts of the three hundred become the leader of their group?

I led my team over to her.

“Hey, Caesia.” I said to her as I approached.

“Hey, Adrias.” She replied.

“Not that I’m not happy for you, but how did you end up Spartiate?” I asked Caesia.

“The others all knew my low ranking so when we had to fight each other for the position they kept on leaving me for last, so that the winner could have me as a final easy victory.” Caesia said.

“Which obviously didn’t work out to well for them.” I said.

“No. The last guy was weakened from his previous fights, and I was able to eke out a win.” Caesia said happily.

Her team looked at her mutinously. If I was worried about showing weakness amongst my little tribe, I would be far more anxious if I was her and was sleeping in the same room of people who she had beat basically by technicality rather than actual physical merit.

“Be careful,” I warned her. “But congratulations.”

“Thanks, Adri.” Caesia said.

“No problem, Cee.” I replied.

“You keeping an eye on Kato?” She asked.

“Yeah. I’m going to talk to Clodias to make sure Antonias is settling in alright.” I said.

She shivered. “Aezion gives me the creeps.”

“He’s a nice guy, very helpful and informative.” I said, defending him.

“He sort of stares through people like they’re not really there. I don’t know. Something about him bothers me.” She said.

I shrugged. “Well, all I know is that from getting to know him is that he’s not all bad. Maybe try to get to know him better if he’s in one of your classes.”

“What’s your first class, Adrias?” She said.

“Cultivator Anatomy. And yours?” I said.

“Advanced Mathematics.” She said.

“I hate math.” I complained. “Really, it’s the worst subject on the-“

As I was speaking glimmering traceries of light and iridescent streams poured down through the air from the Apollonian Citadel above, descending towards us. The gleaming light and energy formed into a broad staircase. Some kind of forcefield. Team Seventeen got moving and the rest of us followed, walking up the stairs of light and color high into the sky to enter the fortress that was both a city and a castle where we would take our classes.

As we vigorously climbed together, I tried not to wheeze like an asthmatic or pass out, my heart pounding and my lungs burning. Damn these aftereffects. I was not able to call on the power of Heracles at will when I had reached for it again the previous night, but even if I was able to draw upon that divine energy and bodily might, I was not sure I would willingly use it. There were too many consequences and drawbacks to using it. Not only could I have died or killed Andarias if Justinias had not sapped the heat from my veins, but the usage was debilitating and exhausting. I had gotten used to the ease and comfort of an Imperator’s regeneration and healing factor wiping away the severest of wounds and injuries in a short period of time without even forming a scar.

Reaching the top of the stairs, we found ourselves outside of the white walls of the first tier of the citadel. The gates were made of a giant lion’s head carved into the walls and we passed through the stone beast’s maw as we entered the fortress city. The interior of the Citadel was packed, but not with Imperators besides my classmates. There were a lot of Militares and Venators, and of course a large number of Servi going about their day and doing menial labor and tasks.

Splitting up from my team, I made my way up to the second tier along a path my wrist communicators spatial locator feature was directing me on, pushing through the bustle of people and winding through back alleys. The second tier of the Citadel was filled with classroom buildings and official Scholarium facilities. Finding the hall where my Cultivator Anatomy class was taking place, I entered and took a seat in the amphitheater styled classroom. My fellow students were a size of twenty of us first years, but they were all from other teams. Many of them seemed to recognize my face though.

A female Silver Magister strode into the room and took the lecturer’s podium.

“Welcome, honored students to Beginner’s Cultivator Anatomy, where we will study and examine the bodies of all twelve of the subspecies of mankind.” She said.

I settled in excitedly. Math could go die in a fire, perhaps one that Antonias and I would set, but biology was fascinating to me.