Jayden awoke not to sound but to a soft vibration on his wrist. The V-Node pulsed gently with a muted blue glow.
Moments later, the room responded.
Light strips embedded in the walls gradually brightened, shifting from a cool indigo to a soft daylight hue. Panels on the floor retracted to reveal a sleek, retractable sink. The wall to the right peeled open silently, unveiling a transparent shower pod that misted itself with warm vapor.
"Morning protocol activated," said a pleasant voice—his room's ambient AI.
"Estimated time until directive: 2 hours."
Jayden followed the routine almost mechanically—teeth brushed with a sonic pulse wand, body cleansed in seconds by adaptive mist, and a high-protein breakfast cube materialized on the auto-tray beside a glass of synthetically filtered juice. Everything happened with eerie precision, like the entire room was alive.
Exactly two hours later, the V-Node vibrated again—this time, more urgently.
A new message appeared:
Directive (Compulsory): All candidates must report to the pinned location immediately.
Jayden tapped it, and the familiar holographic map reappeared, drawing a glowing path through the Novareum's twisting architecture.
"Let's see what today holds," he murmured.
As he walked, he noticed others emerging from their rooms—some groggy, others buzzing with anticipation. Their wrist projections floated beside them, illuminating the corridors like fireflies—whispers of uncertainty mixed with excitement filled the air.
The corridor finally opened up into a space so massive it felt unreal. A white chamber—featureless, gleaming, and endless. Clean and clinical, yet unnerving. If yesterday's auditorium was impressive, this was overwhelming. The room could swallow a stadium whole. No chairs. No equipment. Just light, white, and silence.
Jayden stepped in, eyes scanning.
Where's Luca?
He searched through the growing crowd but found no familiar face. More and more candidates poured in—hundreds—then the entrance was sealed with a whisper of air.
A pause.
And then…
"Welcome."
A voice—mechanical, sharp, genderless. It echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Candidates turned in every direction, trying to locate the source. But it was no use.
"I am your Director for today. You will follow every instruction I give. Noncompliance equals elimination—either from the program… or from this facility. That is not a metaphor."
"Your evaluation begins now."
"You will be tested based on your specialties. In the next 15 minutes, use your V-Nodes to select the discipline you believe you perform best in. You will be tested accordingly. Choose wisely."
The voice cut off. Silence again.
Then, one by one, wrist devices lit up.
Jayden's projection flared—hovering above his palm like a floating interface. He tapped the option labeled "Practice."
Suddenly, a holographic menu burst to life, displaying categories in full 3D:
Combat
Infiltration
Reconnaissance
Assassination
Tactical Intelligence
Espionage
Tech Operation & Description
Jayden's eyebrows lifted. "This is a game," he whispered.
Around him, excited chatter began to rise. Teens murmured their preferences out loud, some tapping without hesitation. Others compared choices with friends. A few scrolled carefully, studying each option as if their life depended on it.
Jayden just stood there, frozen.
"What am I good at…?"
He thought back—puzzles and sketchbooks as a kid. Tactical movies at the orphanage. His mom's training drills. Quiet memories. Quiet talent. But none of it felt like a specialty.
He sighed, still scrolling.
Then—tap.
A familiar touch on his shoulder.
Jayden turned.
Luca grinned. "You done picking your poison?"
Jayden shook his head. "Not really. It's harder than it looks."
Luca chuckled. "You know you can choose everything, right? No one said you couldn't."
Jayden blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"Dead serious. I'm doing it. If they want to test me, let 'em do it right."
Jayden stared for a second… then smiled.
"That's a good idea."
He turned back to his interface. One by one, he tapped every single category.
The holographic menu dimmed, and a final message blinked:
All categories selected. Confirm selection?
Jayden looked straight ahead and exhaled slowly.
"Confirmed."
The V-Node pulsed once.
And somewhere behind a wall of reinforced glass and invisible surveillance drones, Elric Vahn raised an eyebrow.
"Interesting…"
The fifteen minutes were up.
The white room fell silent again, like the calm before a storm.
Then—
Zzzzt.
Red lines shot out across the white floor, glowing like heated filaments. They originated from the very edges of the room, spreading inward with laser precision, stopping just a few meters from the wall. A perfect geometric pattern formed—like a box drawn inside a larger box. The red glow bathed everyone in sharp color, slicing through the sterile whiteness.
"All candidates," the voice returned—calm, sharp, and emotionless.
"Step behind the boundary line immediately."
The room erupted into motion.
Dozens of teenagers scrambled back, some tripping over themselves in confusion. Others moved with sharp precision as if they had been expecting it. Jayden followed, stepping behind the glowing line with a few glances around him.
Then, with no mechanical sound—no grinding, no shifting—rectangular pods rose out of the floor.
Silently. Perfectly aligned.
It was almost unnatural how smooth the transition was.
Each pod stood roughly two meters tall, its surface a black mirror-like material with barely visible seams. A small light blinked above each one, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.
Jayden's mouth opened slightly. "What the…"
Across the room, similar reactions echoed. Whispers. Gasped questions. But no answers.
On the far side of the room—unseen by the candidates—stood a long mirrored wall. Behind it, operators in pristine black uniforms worked rapidly at sleek, curved consoles. Screens projected vitals, neural sync ratios, thermal maps, and micro-tension feedback from every candidate in real-time.
Some scientists scribbled observations. Others monitored oxygen levels, cognitive spikes, and hormonal surges.
And standing at the center of it all, silent as stone—Elric Vahn.
His eyes swept over the screens like a hawk watching a field of prey. Behind his back, his fingers were interlaced, but tension built in the stiffness of his jaw. He wasn't watching for mistakes. He was watching for outliers.
"Let's see who breaks first," he murmured.
Inside the Chamber...
The voice returned, its coldness wrapping around the room like frost.
"These are Training Chambers. Step inside. The system will do the rest."
Jayden narrowed his eyes at the nearest pod. As he stepped toward it, a panel slid open with a gentle hiss, revealing an interior resembling a hybrid between a medical scanner and a gamer's dream. It was lined with soft, dark material and fitted to hold a human body perfectly upright. Metal curves traced the inside edges, pulsing faintly with blue light.
He took a breath. "Alright, let's do this."
He stepped inside.
The pod closed around him with fluid elegance, sealing with a quiet shhhk. The interior lights dimmed, then adjusted to a soft, pulsating glow.
Then he heard it—not from the speakers, but inside his head.
"Neural sync initializing. Stand by…"
................................................................................
Months earlier, in a quiet corner of Melbourne, a gaming tech startup called EchoForge Interactive had unveiled a controversial prototype—a hyper-realistic neural interface VR pod. The goal? To create full-immersion simulations so real that the brain couldn't tell the difference.
The prototype had stunned the gaming world… and terrified the medical community. It caused high neural stress, deep disorientation, and, in rare cases, memory distortion. The project was shelved. Too unstable. Too expensive.
But when the aliens arrived, Earth's leaders began preparing for the worst—The Novareum found it.
With international funding, defense scientists, and the minds behind EchoForge, they rebuilt it—modified and militarized it.
The result? The world's first Adaptive Tactical Neural Chamber—designed not to entertain but to evolve.
.................................................................................
Inside the pod, Jayden's V-Node synced with the chamber. Lights flowed through the edges of the pod-like veins of energy.
"Welcome, Jayden Cole," the chamber's internal AI intoned.
"Training sequence initializing. Custom scenario to be generated based on selected parameters…"
Then—
"All categories detected. Full-spectrum trial commencing. Neural load: Maximum."
Jayden's heart skipped.
"Wait—ALL categories?!"
Before he could say another word, the world around him shattered.
White light exploded.
And Jayden fell into a simulation.
It was now about Survival...