Evaluation Wing C was significantly quieter and far less populated than the atrium. The walls were smooth, matte white, broken only by recessed doorways and the occasional surveillance panel.
Kyro hadn't gone far when he spotted a sharply dressed man in a black tuxedo waiting near the far end of the corridor. Middle-aged and aquiline-nosed, he bore the seven-pointed star insignia of the Ascendant Authority stitched neatly over his breast pocket.
"Kyro Malarc, I presume," the man said in a measured baritone, already reaching for the data slate before Kyro had fully closed the distance. "I'm Examiner Halvek Raynard. I'll be overseeing your evaluation today."
Not consulting. Overseeing. Kyro filed that away.
"As I'm sure you've already been informed, I am also authorised to answer any inquiries you might have regarding the Comprehensive Evaluation you'll be undergoing." Halvek clasped his hands behind his back. "To that end, do you require clarification on any particular aspect of the procedure? Feel free to speak without hesitation."
Not about to let twenty whole Marks go to waste, Kyro asked the first question on his mind. "What exactly is CES Grade?"
Halvek raised an eyebrow in reaction to his question. "Forgive me, but how much do you actually know about Ascendants or Ascension Arts?" he asked.
"Next to nothing," Kyro admitted.
The Examiner gave a small, knowing nod. "Very well. I'll start at the beginning. Try to keep up."
He turned and began walking immediately, not bothering to check if Kyro followed, which he did, falling into step a half-pace behind.
"Approximately six hundred cycles ago," Halvek began, "an esoteric, extraplanetary force—now known as Cosmic Energy—flooded our world. The select few capable of interacting with and utilising this energy to produce tangible effects became known as the first-generation Ascendants. Every Ascendant you see today descends from them."
Kyro nodded as he walked in tow. This much was common knowledge. The Genesis Surge had marked the beginning of the Ascension Era, lasting roughly two hundred cycles before giving way to the darker, more prolonged Ascendant Wars, though Kyro doubted that would feature in today's explanation.
"To put it simply," Halvek continued, "CES Grade—or Cosmic Energy Synergy Grade—is an immutable metric that quantifies how well, or poorly, a living organism interacts with Cosmic Energy, if at all."
"All living organisms?" Kyro asked, catching the phrasing.
Halvek glanced back with a faint grin, pleased, in the way of a man who set traps in his sentences and enjoyed watching them spring. "Quite observant. Yes, all living organisms can be assigned CES grades. Humans, you see, were not the only beneficiaries of the Surge. Some plants and animals were affected as well. The difference is that we do not call those entities Ascendants, but rather... mutant creatures."
Mutant creatures.
Even hearing the term alone was enough to make the hairs on the back of Kyro's neck stand on end. He had only ever seen one in person—from a safe distance—and even that placed him in the minority. Most people never encountered one at all. Not if they had any say about it, anyway. After all, it was well established that without the means to defend oneself, a person was little more than prey, or entertainment, to the bloodthirsty beasts. In rare cases, even Ascendants were not exempt from that rule.
"So how many CES Grades are there?" Kyro asked, steering the conversation onward.
"Officially? Seven. In practice, five," Halvek replied.
Kyro frowned. "I don't follow."
"Allow me to explain," Halvek said with the cadence of a man who had delivered the same lecture countless times. "At the very bottom of the hierarchy is Null grade, assigned to those entirely inert to C.E. interaction."
"So your baseline humans. Normies."
"Precisely," Halvek concurred. "Nulls possess no functional resonance with Cosmic Energy whatsoever. The world, as Ascendants experience it, is simply closed to them."
Kyro gave a slow nod, the weight of that settling in.
"Above Null is Iron grade," Halvek continued. "These individuals exhibit faint sensitivity to Cosmic Energy but lack the capacity to meaningfully utilise it. Most never progress beyond Class 0."
Kyro's mind went briefly to Mika. He wasn't entirely certain, but the description fit.
"Beyond Iron is where meaningful potential begins." Halvek straightened slightly, as though marking the threshold. "The grades are, in ascending order: Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. It goes without saying that the higher your grade, the greater your compatibility with your Path of Ascension, and the higher your ceiling in the outside world."
Now Kyro had even more questions. Like what was a Path of Ascension, and what determined which Path one followed, but the dead end far up ahead suggested time was limited. Best to focus on the task at hand.
"So what does the Comprehensive Evaluation actually involve?" he asked.
"Two phases," Halvek replied without breaking stride. "CES Grade measurement, followed by Affinity profiling. Both conducted under controlled conditions."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you'll be placed in a sealed chamber," Halvek said evenly, "and exposed to incrementally increasing concentrations of refined Cosmic Energy."
Kyro's step faltered slightly. "That sounds…"
"Unsafe?" Halvek glanced back, faintly amused.
Kyro had been thinking dangerous, but close enough.
"Don't worry. The last accident occured well over a decade ago. And the subject survived. Granted, we did have to scrub parts of her off the chamber floor."
Kyro shot him a look. Halvek ignored it completely.
"Your CES Grade will be determined by how much Cosmic Energy, if any, your body can absorb, circulate, and stabilise before reaching saturation," he explained. "Most aspirants plateau quickly. The monitoring system detects this and automatically terminates the process."
"And Affinity?"
Halvek clasped his hands behind his back once more, a force of habit, apparently. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to answer that at this time. Only examinees who pass the CES Grade measurement phase are privy to that information."
Funny how that part never made it into the recruitment packet.
They came to a stop before a thick, reinforced door.
Kyro's jaw tightened as he took it in. It looked like the sort of door that neither tolerated interruption nor invited observation.
Without flourish, Halvek keyed in an access code, pressing each digit with unhurried precision. A low, resonant clunk echoed through the frame as the locking mechanism disengaged.
Kyro felt his pulse quicken. Whatever was waiting on the other side of that door would either confirm everything he'd been trying not to hope for, or end it. No middle ground. No partial answers.
"Shall we begin?"