The Alpha Ascension Trial schedule hung on the Obsidian Hall board like a death sentence dressed in official parchment.

Three stages over six weeks. Beginning next Monday. Stage One: Leadership Assessment. Stage Two: Combat Evaluation. Stage Three: Strategic Dominance. I'd been preparing for this since my first year at Dominion Academy.

Memorized every requirement, every expectation, every benchmark they'd use to measure me. I'd run the scenarios in my head a thousand times, visualized every ...