Although the Exam would not begin for another half an hour, the testing center was already packed.

  Shon looked around. There were at least a few thousand students, both Fraxian and Valerian. In the end, only 250 Fraxians and 250 Valerians would be selected as Stormrunners.

  The allure of being a Stormrunner pulled Fraxians and Valerians alike. Prejudice might follow eye color, but poverty struck both.

  Shon thought about his own circumstances. As a Fraxian, he certainly had bigger stakes. Being a Stormrunner was one of the few paths to earn citizenship and a sliver of respect. But who was Shon to judge these Valerian kids? To dive into storms without thermal sense, they must have a good reason.

  Shon approached the training stations. Each station targeted a specific skill set to be tested, whether it be physical skills or thermal powers. While waiting in line, anxious students crammed through their textbooks for the written test.

  Applause erupted from one side of the stadium. Shon walked over. In the center of the training station, two Valerians were facing off in a combat ring. The guy on the left lunged forward, but the girl on the right dodged it with ease. She grabbed his ankles and slammed him onto the floor using his own momentum. The crowd broke into applause once again.

  Shon flinched. That must hurt. Thankfully, only Valerians were tested in hand-to-hand combat.

  A Stormrunner unit contained many specialized roles, each requiring its own skill sets and hence its own series of tests. Any position involving combat was strictly reserved for Valerians.

  As for Shon, he had wanted to be a striker for as long as he could remember. Strikers were the ones who plunged into the heart of the storm, finding its weakness among the winds and delivering the killing blow. This job was the most impactful, but also the most dangerous.

  He glanced down at his exam schedule again, as he had thousands of times already:

  Test One: Written Test — Assess theoretical fundamentals of physics, meteorology, and engineering.

  Test Two: Thermal Transfer Test [Fraxian only] [Fraxian Striker Version] — Evaluate ability to perform precise heat manipulation under mathematical constraints.

  Test Three: Political Loyalty Test [Fraxian Version] — No information will be given.

  Test Four: Stormrunning Simulation — Assess ability to defuse a level 4 storm in teams of three.

  The descriptions hinted little at the actual exam contents, which was the point. Stormrunners must always be ready for uncertainty and changes. Real storms always killed in unexpected ways.

  With the limited warm-up time, Shon could only prepare for one of the tests. He must target an important skill without wasting too much energy.

  He walked to the adjacent station, a large shooting range. For Fraxians, marksmanship was not a standalone test, but it was a crucial skill for the Stormrunning Simulation, and for the real thing, too.

  At a closer look, the range was neatly divided into two halves. On the Valerian side, the crowd cheered on a young marksman. The moment the buzzer rang, he unleashed a series of precise shots, each striking the targets in the center of their heads. He danced from cover to cover, dodging every counterattack with his fluid choreography. Right as he emptied the last round in the rifle’s clip, he holstered his revolver, bringing down the remaining three targets without much of a glance.

  As the marksman put down his gun, his gaze crossed Shon’s. He saw Shon’s orange Fraxian eyes and sneered. He picked up a bullet and slid it across his neck. Shon ignored his taunt.

  “That’s Damian Strauss,” whispered Zora. “He’s one of the top guardian candidates. Stay out of his way.”

  A guardian, of course. Guardians the favorite Stormrunner position of Valerians. Supposedly, they were to protect the entire unit against any external threats, either storm or human.

  “What a pity he’s got rocks for brains,” Shon muttered.

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  Shon walked onto his own half of the range. On the Fraxian side, there were no human-shaped targets. Instead, irregular boulders large and small flew in unpredictable trajectories, mimicking debris in a sandstorm.

  Unlike the fancy arsenal on the other side, Shon only had three models of XetaGen blasters to choose from. He picked up the biggest blaster and balanced its weight in his hands. As a target boulder flew across the range, he lined up the sights and pressed the trigger. A blue beam shot out. Instantly, the boulder was pulverized into dust, leaving behind nothing but a faint smell of char.

  He heard footsteps behind him. A few Valerians passed by. Shon quickly lowered his blaster. Theoretically, the blaster could only damage inorganic targets, leaving any organic matter in its path unharmed. However, Shon did not want any misunderstanding.

  Once the footsteps faded, Shon picked up a smaller blaster. He closed his eyes. As a striker, the blaster was supposed to be a part of his body, an extension of his arm. It was not aim and shoot. It was feel and point.

  He reached out with his thermal sense, scanning the range for target projectiles. Suddenly, the air currents quivered. The atmospheric convection faltered, betraying the target’s location. Shon let intuition guide him and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Thrice. He opened his eyes. All targets eliminated.

  After eliminating the remaining targets, Shon moved on to the field simulation range. The Stormrunning Simulation will take place in the same field later in the day, though for the sake of fairness, all winds were turned off, and the entire terrain would be reconstructed once warmups were done.

  Behind the tempered glass walls, a few candidates were already navigating the course in Stormrunning gear. Some sprinted along the walls, ducking under rocks and jumping over obstacles. Others soared through the air, swinging from their grappling hooks and leaping around midair with jump packs.

  Shon was itching to try on the gear, but he took a deep breath and walked away. He needed to conserve his energy.

  The bells began ringing. An assembly was called. The Fraxians and Valerians parted into two crowds. Shon walked with the other Fraxians into the dark auditorium.

  Once the last student had entered the auditorium, everything turned pitch black, or at least pitch black for Fraxian eyes. To his own surprise, Shon welcomed the temporary blindness. Without the bombardment from the senses, he got a few minutes of mental solitude to calm his nerves.

  Shon heard some film strips rolling, and the projector buzzed to life, casting a larger-than-life image of President Claudia Valtora on the center of the screen.

  The video began playing. President Valtora’s piercing blue eyes glanced down, staring right into the soul of each candidate. She waited for a few seconds before she began speaking.

  “Good morning, students. Congratulations on making it this far in your journey. You have already come further than many Fraxians ever will.”

  President Valtora’s powerful voice made her a natural orator. Her words carried throughout the room, bouncing off walls and echoing off the students’ hearts. With darkness everywhere else, the glowing screen filled up Shon’s entire vision.

  “This Exam will be a life-changing event. The highest-scoring students will be granted a Valerian citizenship status alongside their families. This is the highest honor any Fraxian could achieve in their lifetime.”

  Shon’s heart began racing. A Valerian citizenship. That was what he had been working for. After all the sacrifices his family had made to settle down in this nation, after enduring all the injustices and insults as an auxiliary, and after studying and training at an intensity that few understood, he could finally have a shot at becoming an Honorary Valerian. By then, his family would no longer need to scrimp every cent. They could even move in to a comfortable apartment in the safe interior.

  Most importantly, no one would disrespect him anymore. He would be an equal. He would be free.

  “Becoming a Stormrunner means carrying a sacred duty,” President Valtora continued. “When the sandstorms come, you will be the ones charging towards danger.

  “While everyone else is running for their lives, you must be prepared to give your own. While everyone else is hiding, you must dive headfirst into the sand and gravel. While everyone else is praying to never encounter another storm in their lifetime, you must be constantly on the chase, diving into one storm after another, not only diffusing them, but also extracting data and knowledge. Your individual lives will form the Republic’s backbone, and your intelligence will enrich humanity’s compendium of knowledge.

  “Of course, even if your exam results fall short of expectations, the Republic still offers many other paths for you. Whether or not you pass, whether as a citizen or auxiliary, your talent and determination are vital to our ongoing battle against the tyranny of Mother Nature.”

  “I wish you the best of luck on your exams. It has been my honor to serve the Republic of Valeria, and likewise, it will be your utmost honor to serve our great nation. Through service and patriotism, you will find meaning like never before, and your lives will change forever after today.”

  With that, the videotape finished playing. The room was once again engulfed in darkness.

  There was a chill in the air. Shon felt goosebumps in his arms. Having fallen under the hypnotic powers of President Valtora’s oratory, Shon dreamed of the future ahead.

  Shon wondered what it would be like to become something bigger — bigger than the nine-to-five Academy drudgery and five-to-three exam prep, bigger than that cramped apartment in the low-city next to nothing but gunshots, bigger than constantly calculating whether the cost of train fare would leave enough change for groceries.

  If he became part of something bigger, perhaps all this senseless repetition would have some meaning. Perhaps by then, his mother and sister would also reap meaning in their sacrifices.

  The thoughts rose and fell in Shon’s head, eventually leaving only one thing in his mind.

  He must become a Stormrunner.