Unlike the previous testing stations, this one didn’t seem all that crowded. Not because there were more machines. In fact, as far as I could tell, there was only one machine. It just moved fast. Nearly as fast as the reflex station. Probably because the test itself was stupidly simple.

  A person would walk up to the machine and put their card into the slot before placing their hands onto the orbs built into the pillars on either side of the rig. As soon as that happened, the entire machine lit up. Moments after activating, a holographic bar flashed into being above the central pillar.

  A lime green color oozed its way along the bar as another section bled from white to a rather rich shade of crimson. And, sitting inside the bar, floating from side to side, was a black line. Judging by how the person with their hands on the test was jerking their head, they were trying to get it to move to a specific spot. It raced from one side to the other before finally settling inside the green space just in time for the bar to flash.

  With every flash, the red vanished as the green shifted. It moved from one side to another. Sometimes touching the side, while other times stopping somewhere in the middle. The green bar grew and shrank in an unpredictable pattern. But of course, no test would be without something to make it so much harder. As the test progressed, the speed at which the red section filled in increased.

  If I had to guess, one had to use their mana to drive and control the black line. To keep it inside the green section. But that didn’t explain how the machine tested one's output. Even as I watched test after test of people who were unable to get the bar into the green before the time was up, I had no idea.

  Guess I would just have to find out on my own. Something that came sooner than I expected as within ten minutes of getting in line, it was my turn. The moment my hands touched the spheres, the small voice in the back of my head returned. ‘Twenty-nine to sixty-eight, five units, ten seconds.’

  I am not ashamed to admit that I froze. The numbers meant nothing to me. Sure, the first two was a range, but what about the rest? And the time it gave? What was the voice trying to tell me?

  As I stood there, puzzling over the words, the first green bar made its appearance. It started a quarter of the way in from the left and ended a little under a quarter of the way to the other side. Its appearance grabbed my attention, causing me to spike my mana out of my left hand and into the machine. This resulted in the black line zipping across the bar to ping off the far right side.

  With a grimace, I jerked my mana back and the line meandered back to the center. It moved slowly enough that it nearly didn’t cross the divider between the green and red sections before the red completely filled in.

  ‘Seventy-one to one-hundred, eleven units, nine seconds.’ The last quarter of the bar filled with green as soon as the voice vanished. Mana surged out of my left hand as I tried to shove the line to the end of the display. Like before, the thing pegged itself against the far wall and stayed there until the bar flashed green.

  ‘Three to eighteen, twenty units, eight seconds.’ This time, the green appeared on the other side of the bar. Whatever part of my mind this was that was making a guess as to where the green section would go was a bit scary.

  As I pulled mana out of my left arm, I shoved it through my right, driving the small line to the other side of the screen. When the red finished filling in, the entire bar vanished, indicating that the test was done. A fact that confused me, as I was sure I had managed to get into the green section in time.

  A hand slapped me on my back as Bert chuckled. “If that is as far as you could get, then I have no chance at this test.” His words broke me out of my stupor. With my card in hand, I stepped to the side to allow him to take the test. The bars appeared and vanished as he drove the needle this way and that. At the fourth bar, Bert’s arms started to tremble. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he looked like he was struggling to lift a weight. Still, he kept forcing the needle into place. Finishing bar after bar only to fall short on the eighth.

  That wasn’t right. There was no way his control was better than mine. The guy was a musclehead. Hell, during every class we took on mana control, he simply muscled through. There was no way he had more control than I did.

  His face glowed as he stepped off the platform, but I ignored him as I turned toward the person monitoring the device. “Is there any way I can take the test again?”

  The woman shrugged. “There is no limit to how many times you can retry any of these tests.” Her answer made some sense, but I did notice that she didn’t mention whether the results would be counted or not. For all I knew, they could be averaged together. Maybe the first would be weighed more.

  Still, I didn’t care. I needed to prove to myself that I was better than Bert in at least this test. To do otherwise was to insult all of my practice. At that point, I might as well get a job picking up trash and let him work the repair shop.

  As I stood there, waiting for my second chance at the test, the line seemed to almost triple in length. There might’ve been others like me. Others who wanted to take a second swing. But most of the faces were strangers. Then again, all I had to look at was the mutations of some of those present. I could not recall any one of those in the written test having a single beast type mutation, yet there were a few such mutations in the line behind me.

  That isn’t to say the mutation was overly rare. If anything, the change was pretty common. It was the parts that were changed that differed. A person with a power that specialized in defense and had some sort of beast mutation ended up being built with a larger frame. Well, that and they were typically a bit hairier in various places. The ones I had seen had more hair on their arms and legs, but rumor had it that it wasn’t the only places affected.

  Of course, that was only one type of power and mutation. It wasn’t even the most well-known beast mutation. Hands down, that honor went to the scouts with beast ears and senses. Especially after a famous scout found a monster nest just before its population popped, thus preventing a monster horde from charging toward the city.

  It was thanks to my roaming eyes and jumping mind that I nearly didn’t realize I was next until the person behind me hissed. “Get going.”

  Up until that point, I had been a little nervous. After all, the only reason one tried a test a second time was to get a better score. How embarrassing would it be if I failed to do so? I would be mortified. That nervousness redoubled as I realized just how many people were watching me. People who would see me succeed or fail.

  My card slid into the slot with no issue. The interface lit up as my hands took their place on each of the orbs. Just like last time, the odd voice returned. ‘Twenty-six to seventy, four units, eleven seconds.’ Most of the display turned green. A small black line appeared the moment I pushed a tiny trickle of mana through both of my hands.

  I worked to keep the flow even between the two hands. Almost no resistance kept the mana from cycling through the machine. As the mana entered the opposite hand, I looped it back and around. A second loop formed going the opposite direction.

  With the mana looped, there was no chance that I would drain myself, and it would give me the best control over the output sent into the machine. After all, if I needed to increase the speed in one direction, I just had to drain the mana out of one loop and transfer it to the other.

  It took all of a second to even out the flow and make sure everything was stable. With the loops set up, my mind focused on the black line in the middle. It didn’t jiggle. It didn’t twitch. It merely sat there, as though it was waiting for me to do something, anything.

  Before I knew it, the red section filled in and the voice spoke. ‘Ten to forty-nine, six units, ten seconds.’ The mana that flowed from my right hand increased while the mana from my left thinned to nearly nothing. The black line shot to the left, almost as though it were tied to a string that my mana pushed and pulled on. Within a fraction of a second, the line smacked against the far left side of the screen.

  I narrowed my eyes at the line as I changed the amount of mana flowing through the machine. Slowly, the line moved to the right. It reached the green bar just in time for the red to finish filling in and the next bar to appear. ‘Sixty-seven to ninety-one, eight units, nine seconds.’

  Instead of throwing all my mana into one stream and draining the other, I eased into the change. As a result, the line slid smoothly to the right. That was great, but the best part was that I could control it.

  A little more mana from the left and it would speed up. A little less and it would slow down. The opposite was true with my right hand. It was as though the line was a stopper and the mana was the pressure used to push it around.

  ‘Thirty-nine to sixty-two, nine units, ten seconds.’ Now that I knew how this test worked, it was fairly easy. Almost too easy.

  ‘Seventy-four to ninety-seven, fourteen units, eight seconds.’ Okay, the flipping from side to side was getting a tad annoying. Especially since I couldn’t just peg the line against the wall and call it good.

  ‘Five to twenty, twelve units, nine seconds.’ Why was anyone having any issues with this test? Actually, scratch that. Whatever it was in the back of my mind telling me where to go, it didn’t seem normal. The idea that it might be power-related popped into my head, only for me to toss that idea out. There was no power that allowed one to hear a voice in their head. Well, mostly. I doubted that I had some form of telepathy. Especially as the test was being run by a machine.

  ‘Forty-eight to sixty, nineteen units, seven seconds.’ Oh, damn. That explained the unit bullshit. I didn’t really notice it until the sudden jump, but the amount of mana I needed to use to push the line was somehow related to the units. Mana flicked out of my left hand as I shoved the line to the right. I only managed to make it into the green section just as the red finished filling in.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  ‘Ninety to one hundred, eight units, three seconds.’ The mana flowing out of my left hand was still higher than the amount flowing from my right. With the sudden decrease in the units required, the line shot to the right edge.

  ‘Zero to seven, twenty units, six seconds.’ Fuck. Not only was the green zone on the other side of the screen, but the unit number spiked even more than before. I didn’t even try to finesse my mana. I just pushed every bit I could through my right hand while killing the left. The line zipped across the bar, smashing into the other side. Not that I had the mental power to notice. Every bit of my focus turned inward as I tried to keep control over the suddenly pissed-off mana stream.

  Sure, most people would just vent the turbulent mana into the atmosphere. Not only was that the easier solution, but it was safer. There was less chance that something would go wrong. But that was a huge waste. Especially when the mana could be returned to the place it came from and used again. And, as a person with a fraction of the mana of most powered people, every bit of mana was precious to me.

  ‘Twenty-eight to seventy-seven, twenty-nine units, seven seconds.’ When I came back to the world, I nearly missed the values for the next section. While I managed to send the line flying in the opposite direction, it took everything in me to stop it before it went past the other edge of the green section.

  ‘Fifty-five to sixty-five, twenty-four units, six seconds.’ God, no wonder everyone who took this test had been sweating by the end. Still, I didn’t give up. My mana kept gushing from one side to the other as I kicked, pushed, and shoved the line from one end to the other.

  That is, until the test started to throw me curveballs. ‘Ninety-six to ninety-eight, twenty-two units, three seconds.’ A sigh erupted from me as I made it just in time. ‘Sixty to seventy-one, forty units, eleven seconds.’ I nearly cried as the torrent of mana raced down my arms and into the machine. Even with every bit of my mana looping through my body, the line barely moved. Yet, somehow, the line managed to make it in time.

  ‘Eighty-seven to eighty-eight, forty-four units, three seconds.’ I didn’t even bother to try. The screen flashed red before I even had a chance to remove my card from the slot. Still, I held my head up high as I stepped off the test platform. My score didn’t matter. At least, not to me. Not when I had more than doubled what Bert managed.

  “Where to next?” Bert sounded as though he didn’t care that I had just beaten him. I took a second, debating whether or not to point it out and get his reaction or not. In the end, I ended up just looking around. Nothing was worth souring our relationship. Especially if this might be one of the last times we were able to hang out.

  Up until now, I had been looking for the required tests. Now that I was looking at the rest, I found that there were nine more tests. If I had to go by their names, most of them were suited toward this power or that skill. Given my lack of either, I would have to rely on brute force. Something that I was going to put off for now.

  Still, that left a few tests to choose from. The one that caught my eye was an odd one. Salvage and Repair. I mean, sure, there were times where people salvaged goods from the old world, but why test that here? It wasn’t like most of these people would know the difference between a rivet and a nail.

  Bert let out a resigned sigh. “Of course you would choose that one first.” With a shrug, I shoved my way toward the station.

  Unlike the last few stations, this one had a smattering of small tables with some tools on one side. The other, it was, well, a mess. A mountain of parts stood proudly on the other side. All that kept it from scattering across the room as someone looked through it was a series of waist-high walls that nearly blended in with the pile, thanks to the scrap used to build them.

  “Finally,” a woman’s voice came from our left as she stepped out from behind a holographic computer station. “I was thinking that no one was going to give this a try. Not that I would mind, mind you. But there is something to be said about being the only station to not have anyone at least attempt the test. It isn’t like you will get marked down for failing. Then again, it would mean that I could keep working on my project here. Anyway, give me your cards.”

  What the hell. Did she even take a breath during that rambling spiel? As I passed over my card, I took the opportunity to ask, “What is the test?”

  With both of our cards in her hand, she reached around the holographic station to pull out a pair of small units. “These units need fixing. Not that anyone expects you to do so. In fact, just try and figure out what went wrong with them. If you can, get the data off of them. If not,” she shrugged as she handed a unit to each of us. “Oh well. Things break.”

  To my left, I noticed Bert’s look of utter loss and confusion. Yeah, if he couldn’t handle something like this, there was no way he would have been able to replace me in the shop. I don’t even know what I had been thinking.

  My attention turned from Bert and the woman to the unit in my hand. Though it was the size of my palm, the thing was heavy. Wires snaked off four of the sides. The back, or at least I assumed it was the back given the design, was filled with various small patinaed pads. Likely data or power connections.

  In fact, the more I looked at it, the more this thing reminded me of a much older version of the modern holographic computer stations we all used. Of course, most of ours were much more compact and had external connections to allow our personal devices to connect directly.

  And that would explain the one side made of what looked like a single sheet of fogged glass. If I was right, it was a single sheet of magically enhanced quartz. Or at least it used to be a single sheet. The only thing holding the quartz in place was the backing.

  “There he goes.” I heard Bert, but didn’t really register what he said. My mind was entirely on fixing this poor, abused machine. A glance to the side to find the screw driver, and I started disassembling the machine.

  As I pulled the machine apart, I sorted each piece out based on whether it was visibly damaged or not. Then I took the time to inspect each of the damaged parts. To see if I could salvage any of it.

  The projector was beyond repair. There was no way I could re-fuse the crystal here. At least, not without a few extra tools. It was best to just find a replacement. Sadly, that wasn’t the only part that was destroyed beyond repair. One of the power systems was shot to hell.

  Unlike modern systems, this one used mana in addition to electricity. While that wasn’t bad in and of itself, it did make the power distribution system more complex. Oh, and it was prone to giving out for no reason. A fact that drove the quick research and development into finding an alternative.

  The whole issue nearly caused MagiSystems to crash. Now they supplied most of the system components across the Range. From car controllers to positioning systems. Too bad none of that nice, modern technology worked with these old units.

  With a list of what I needed, a pair of cut-resistant gloves, and a small basket, I went to work digging through the pile-o-junk. Surprisingly, there were a number of amazing parts. Things that I wanted to take home. In fact. I took a second to look at the person running this test. Her head was practically buried inside her holographic interface.

  With one hand, I searched for the parts I needed while my other pocketed a few of the more annoying-to-find items. Basket in hand and pockets filled, I exited the small room and returned to my station.

  “Find everything you need?” Bert’s voice to my right nearly caused me to jump. What was with the guy sneaking up on me every chance he got?

  “Yeah.” I took a second to glance at his unit. He hadn’t even taken it apart. With a jerk of my chin, I asked, “What about you? Going to try and fix it?”

  I didn’t have to see his eyes to know they rolled at my question. “You know how I am with technology. How many of the workshop projects did you have to save after I tried to ‘help’?”

  Yeah, he wasn’t wrong there. I nearly snorted as I tried to hold back the laughter that threatened to boil up at the memory of his last attempt. I still have no clue how the fuck he managed to get the mana circuit to flow backward without rewiring the whole circuit, but he had. While the majority of the wiring and motors didn’t care, the systems that controlled everything did. It was the first time I had ever seen a program run backward. I mean, who would have known that it would do that?

  Actually, what if I did that here? Sure, the device wouldn’t be usable, but if I flip the memory chip and short a few connections, I should be able to read all the data. The idea caused my hands to still as I contemplated doing just that. It wouldn’t be that hard. Hell, it would be easy, and it meant that I could get onto the next station in five or so minutes.

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I just couldn’t do it. I needed to give this my all. Especially with Bert watching me.

  With the flat of a screwdriver, I pried apart a few of the pieces. A bit of heat and the internal components fell to the table. As the number of items in the basket diminished, the scattered mess on my table increased.

  Finally, I finished ripping apart the last item. With all the items I needed set to the side, I scraped the rest back into the basket to be dumped into the pile in a little bit. Now came the finicky part. I needed to hold the parts in place. All while bonding them in place.

  Some were simple solder joints, others were more complex magisolder joints. Though they looked the same, they were most definitely not. Whatever Stellar Industries used in their mixture, it was the only one that didn’t blow up when mana tried to flow through it.

  Mana flowed out of my hand and into the table as I activated the magnetic clamps. Sure, they were not the best or the easiest to use, but they were all I had ever had access to. I wasn’t even going to attempt to use one of the fancy options on a test. That would be asking for trouble.

  The circuit board lifted about two and a half inches off the table. Held up by waves of magnetic fields that interacted with the little slivers of metal stuck into the board's surface. The board swayed in the soft breeze from the fan high above. A little more mana stopped the growing oscillations.

  From there, the rebuild went fairly quickly. Piece after piece. Wire after wire. Part after part. All of it was tacked in place before being fully joined. Just as the last screw entered the side of the case, someone tore the item from my hold.

  My eyes shot up to find the woman from earlier going over the device. “What did he, oh. Why did he, no. That wouldn’t work. Wait, no, that part would allow it to. But why not...” She muttered all the way to her desk where she plugged the device into an odd contraption.

  Before she could plug the electrical connections in, the device lit up. It let out a series of beeps before the projector flashed to life.

  MICROSOFT CITYWORKS ? HOLOCORE

  CW-HX / Firmware 3.7.18

  PWR: AC-LINK … FAIL

  WARN: RAIL ISOLATION ENGAGED [0003]

  AUX PWR: MANA-LINK … ACTIVE

  MODE: LIMITS ENFORCED

  POST: MEM OK    CORE OK   I/O OK     HOLO OK

  SECUREBOOT: VERIFIED  AUDIT LOG: ON

  Loading Cityworks Interface…

  The first line confused me as the last time I had heard of a company called Microsoft was in history class. But what happened to them? And why were they…Oh. That’s right. The sudden loss of their main headquarters cost them nearly everything. Stellar Industries was the only reason the company didn’t just outright vanish.

  We both stood there as the text flashed away to reveal a loading bar. I looked up in time to see her eyes flicking between the power contacts and the screen. Then, without warning, one of her hands snapped out to hit a switch on the side, killing the device.

  She took a second to pick up my card and tap it against her screen before tossing it at me as she snapped. “Get to the next test station!” No clue what I did to piss her off, but meh. It was time to go. Bert, seeing me head out of the station, grabbed his smoking attempt. He didn’t even take a minute to catch up to me.

  “You actually managed to fix that hunk of junk?” He sounded impressed. He really shouldn’t be. It wasn’t that hard. I told him as much, but he scoffed. “I don’t know if you noticed or not, but the woman was practically glued to your station about halfway through your repair.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I shrugged. “All that matters is getting the tests done so I can get back to the shop.” He shook his head, but otherwise stayed silent.