The physical conditioning assessment was designed to break people.
Two hours of sustained load testing in a facility that smelled like recycled air and corporate ambition. Treadmills that adjusted incline based on heartrate. Resistance machines calibrated to push every muscle group past comfortable output. Recovery intervals measured in seconds rather than minutes.
Helena stood behind a glass partition with a datapad, recording everything. Two other Olympus Rising staff flanked her. Lab coats. Clipboards. The kind of people who looked at a human body and saw a spreadsheet.
I gave them exactly what a high-performing C-Rank with A-Rank potential should produce. Slightly above expected numbers. Enough to impress without raising flags. The treadmill topped out at a pace that would have winded me six months ago. Now it felt like a warm-up jog, and keeping my breathing deliberately ragged took more effort than the actual running.
Nel monitored my output from inside my skull.
