Chapter : 1657

  "That's what you are, isn't it?" Lloyd continued, his voice monotone. "Society has chewed you up and spit you out. You are the gamblers who lost. The soldiers who were too weak. The workers who were too clumsy. You are the invisible people. The ones nobody misses."

  Spirit Jasmin shifted slightly. The light refracted off her skin, creating a dazzling, dangerous prism effect. It was a silent reminder of the power in the room.

  "I brought you here," Lloyd said, "because I have a problem. I have built a weapon. A weapon that costs more than this entire city. A weapon that can kill a Devil King."

  A murmur went through the crowd. A weapon to kill a Devil King?

  "But I have a problem," Lloyd repeated. "I can't put a knight in it. Knights are stupid. They think they are heroes. They try to tank hits. They try to be brave."

  Lloyd sneered at the word 'brave'.

  "If you try to be brave in my machine, you will die. And worse, you will break my machine. And I hate it when people break my toys."

  He looked at them, his eyes flashing with a sudden, intense blue light.

  Lloyd activated his [All-Seeing Eye].

  The world shifted. The flesh and clothes of the recruits became translucent. He didn't care about their muscles. Muscles could be built. He didn't care about their mana cores. Their cores were pathetic, withered little things, F-Rank dust motes.

  He looked at their nervous systems.

  He saw Kaito's brain. It was firing rapidly, processing data, calculating threats. It was a hyperactive processor. Good.

  He saw Vala's neural pathways. They were thick, highly developed in the motor cortex. Her signal transmission speed from eye to muscle was off the charts. She wasn't weak; she was just wired for speed, not torque. Excellent.

  He saw Ren's hands. The fine motor control nerves were like a complex web of lightning. His brain had rewired itself to compensate for his legs, dumping all its processing power into his fingers. Perfect.

  He deactivated the Eye. The blue light faded from his pupils.

  "You are here because you are weak," Lloyd said, his voice hard. "In this world, you are prey. The Devils look at you and see food. The nobles look at you and see tools. You have spent your entire lives running, hiding, and cheating just to survive one more day."

  He let the insult hang there. He let them feel the shame of it.

  "But I am not looking for strength," Lloyd said softly. "I am looking for pilots. I am looking for the rat that steals the cheese from the trap and doesn't get snapped. I am looking for the cockroach that survives the boot."

  He gestured to the wall behind him. A large metal door groaned open. Inside, illuminated by spotlights, stood the Aegis Mark II.

  It was smaller than the Mark I. Sleeker. It didn't look like a suit of armor; it looked like a predator made of matte-black metal. It had no shield. It had thrusters. It held a rifle that looked like it could punch a hole in the moon.

  The recruits gasped. It was the most beautiful, terrifying thing they had ever seen.

  "This is the Aegis," Lloyd said. "It doesn't need your magic. It has its own heart. It doesn't need your strength. It has hydraulic muscles that can crush a boulder. What it needs... is a brain. A brain that is terrified of dying."

  Lloyd walked towards the machine and patted its leg.

  "A hero will stand and fight. A hero will die. I want the person who sees a fireball coming and thinks, 'I need to be somewhere else.' I want the person who panics, but whose panic makes them faster, not slower."

  He turned back to the group.

  "If you stay, you will go through hell. I will break you. I will reforge you. I will teach you how to interface with a machine that thinks faster than you do. Most of you will fail. Some of you might die in training."

  He pointed to the door they came in.

  "The door is unlocked. You can leave. If you leave, I will give you ten gold coins. That is enough to feed you for a year. You can go back to your gambling, your hiding, your small, safe lives."

  He pointed to the machine.

  Chapter : 1658

  "Or you can stay. If you survive the next three days... you will never be prey again. You will be the hunters. You will be the Titans that protect this kingdom while the 'heroes' are hiding behind their walls."

  Silence.

  Ten gold coins. It was a fortune.

  The dockworker stood up. "I... I can't do this. I'm just a guy who lifts boxes." He walked to the door.

  A failed scholar followed him. "I'm afraid of heights."

  Three more stood up and shuffled out, their heads down, taking the easy way out. Taking the gold.

  Five people left. Forty-five remained.

  Kaito looked at the door. Ten gold coins could pay off his debts. But then he looked at the machine. He looked at Lloyd. For the first time in his life, someone was looking at his cheating, his math, his desperate survival skills, and calling them a talent.

  Kaito stayed.

  Vala looked at the door. She could go back to her village. She could marry a baker. But she remembered the instructor laughing at her. She remembered the feeling of rolling under the carriage—the thrill of cheating death. She looked at the Aegis. It didn't have a shield. It was like her.

  Vala stayed.

  Ren gripped the wheels of his chair. He had no legs. The world saw him as half a man. But the machine... the machine had legs of steel. If he could connect to that... he wouldn't just walk. He would fly.

  Ren stayed.

  Lloyd watched the five leave. He didn't stop them. He didn't mock them. They were the control group. The ones who lacked the hunger.

  He looked at the forty-five who remained. They were trembling. They were scared. But their eyes were fixed on him.

  "Good," Lloyd said. A genuine, terrifying smile spread across his face. "Welcome to Titan Squad. First lesson: Forget everything you know about fighting. Fighting is for idiots. We are going to learn how to dance."

  He clapped his hands. "Jasmin. Wake them up."

  Spirit Jasmin stepped forward. Her diamond skin flared with light. She didn't attack. She just released a wave of pure, killing intent.

  The underground facility beneath the Ferrum estate was not a place designed for comfort. It was a place designed for secrets. The air was cool and smelled faintly of recycled oxygen and cold stone. There were no windows to let in the sunlight, no decorations to cheer the spirit, and certainly no soft chairs to rest weary bodies. It was a concrete box buried deep within the earth, a place where the outside world ceased to exist.

  Inside this concrete box, forty-five people stood in uneasy silence. They were a motley collection of humanity, the dregs that society had chewed up and spat out. There were men with scars that told stories of bar fights lost, women with eyes that darted around looking for exits that didn't exist, and youths who looked like they hadn't eaten a proper meal in weeks. They were the gamblers, the washouts, the cripples, and the thieves. Yesterday, they had been invisible. Today, they were standing in the heart of the most powerful territory in the North, waiting for a judgment they didn't understand.

  They shuffled their feet, the sound echoing loudly in the stillness. They looked at each other with suspicion. Why were they here? Was it a mass execution? A forced labor camp? Or something even worse?

  The large dockworker, a man named Bruno whose arms were thick as tree trunks, leaned over to the thin, nervous youth beside him. "Hey," Bruno grunted, his voice a low rumble. "You think they're gonna feed us? My stomach is making noises louder than a dying bear."

  The youth, Kaito, clutched a deck of cards in his pocket as if it were a holy relic. "I calculate the probability of food being served before noon at less than twenty percent," Kaito whispered back, his eyes fixated on the strange metal door at the front of the room. "Usually, when you gather this many expendable people in a basement, the first step isn't catering. It's usually intimidation."

  "Intimidation?" Bruno scoffed, flexing a bicep that threatened to tear his shirt. "Let them try. I can lift a wagon. What are they gonna do, yell at me?"

  As if on cue, the heavy metal door hissed. It didn't creak like a wooden door; it slid sideways with a smooth, pneumatic sigh that spoke of expensive engineering. The room went deathly silent. Even Bruno closed his mouth.

  Lloyd Ferrum walked in.

  Chapter : 1659

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He didn't look like a warlord. He didn't look like a savior. He looked like a man who had a very long to-do list and very little patience for incompetence. He wore a simple, tailored black suit that cost more than the collective net worth of everyone in the room. In one hand, he held a clipboard. In the other, a mug of steaming coffee that smelled like heaven to the hungry recruits.

  Behind him glided Spirit Jasmin. She was a striking contrast to the grim surroundings—a being of living diamond and light, her expression perfectly neutral, her eyes scanning the room with the cold precision of a turret. Her presence dropped the temperature in the room by five degrees.

  Lloyd walked to the front of the room, took a sip of his coffee, and sighed. He looked at the forty-five faces staring back at him. He didn't look impressed.

  "Good morning, refuse of society," Lloyd said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried to the back of the room with crystal clarity. "I trust the concrete floor was comfortable enough for your standards. If not, feel free to complain to the complaint department. Oh wait, we don't have one."

  He tapped the clipboard.

  "You are all wondering why you are here. You are wondering why the heir of House Ferrum has collected a group of people who, let's be honest, are not exactly the pride of the kingdom. Some of you are thinking I need muscle. Some of you think I need cannon fodder."

  Lloyd walked over to a large blackboard mounted on the wall. He picked up a piece of chalk and drew a large 'X' over a drawing of a sword.

  "Let me be clear," Lloyd said, turning back to them. "I do not need muscle. If I wanted muscle, I would hire an ogre. Ogres work for raw meat and don't ask stupid questions. I do not need swordsmen. If I wanted swordsmen, I would go to the Academy and pick up a dozen nobles who have been training since they were in diapers. You are here because you are weak."

  A ripple of anger went through the room. Bruno the dockworker clenched his fists. Being called weak was the one thing he couldn't stand.

  "You are weak," Lloyd repeated, smiling a sharp, sarcastic smile. "You have no magic. Your Spirit Cores are pathetic dust motes. In a fair fight, any knight in this kingdom could cut you down without breaking a sweat. And that is exactly why you are valuable."

  He gestured to the rows of wooden desks that filled the center of the room. On each desk sat a black, rectangular slab of stone with a smooth, glass-like surface. Next to each slab was a silver stylus.

  "Sit," Lloyd commanded.

  The recruits hesitated. They looked at the desks. They looked at Lloyd. Then, slowly, they shuffled forward. The chairs scraped against the floor. Bruno squeezed himself into a chair that was clearly too small for him, looking ridiculous. Kaito sat down nervously, placing his cards on the corner of the desk. Vala, the failed squire, sat with perfect posture, though her hands were trembling. Ren, the clockmaker, rolled his wheelchair up to a desk, his eyes inspecting the black slab with intense curiosity.

  "These," Lloyd said, pointing to the slabs, "are Logic Slates. They are a little invention of mine. They run on low-grade Lilith Stones. They are not weapons. They are tests."

  "Tests?" Bruno blurted out. "Like... school?"

  "Yes, Bruno. Like school," Lloyd said dryly. "But with higher stakes. In school, if you fail, you get a bad grade. Here, if you fail, you go back to the gutter."

  Lloyd tapped a rune on his own master slate. Instantly, the forty-five slabs in the room flickered to life. A soft blue light emanated from the screens, illuminating the confused faces of the recruits.

  On the screen, a grid appeared. In the center of the grid was a glowing blue dot.

  "The test is simple," Lloyd explained, walking between the rows of desks like a shark patrolling a reef. "Pick up the stylus. When the test begins, the grid will turn into a maze. The maze will shift and change every ten seconds. Your job is to use the stylus to guide the blue dot through the maze without touching the walls. If you touch a wall, the dot explodes. If you get trapped when the maze shifts, the dot explodes."

  "That's it?" a mercenary in the back scoffed. "A child's game? I thought we were training for war."

  Chapter : 1660

  "I wasn't finished," Lloyd said, his voice dropping an octave. "While you are guiding the dot with your dominant hand, arithmetic problems will appear on the left side of the screen. Simple math. Addition. Subtraction. Division. You must solve these problems by tapping the correct answer from a multiple-choice list with your other hand."

  The room went silent.

  "You must do both at the same time," Lloyd said. "If you stop moving the dot to do the math, the maze speeds up and crushes you. If you get a math problem wrong, the maze walls become invisible for three seconds. If you focus too much on the math and hit a wall... well, you fail."

  Lloyd returned to the front of the room.

  "This is not a test of strength. It is a test of processing power. In a battle, you don't have the luxury of doing one thing at a time. You have to move, aim, check your fuel, watch your radar, and listen to your commander screaming in your ear, all while someone is trying to turn you into ash. I need brains that can split. I need minds that can handle chaos."

  He looked at his watch.

  "You have one hour. If your score drops below fifty percent, the slate turns red. If the slate turns red, you stand up, you walk out that door, and you never come back. Begin."

  The chaos began instantly.

  Bruno grabbed the stylus like it was a dagger. He stared at the blue dot with intense, sweaty concentration. The maze appeared. He moved the dot. It was easy. He grinned.

  Then, a math problem popped up. 15 + 7 = ?

  "Twenty-two!" Bruno shouted.

  "Don't say it, tap it!" Lloyd yelled from the front, sipping his coffee.

  Bruno looked at the numbers on the side. He took his eyes off the maze to find the number 22. In that split second, the maze shifted. A wall slammed into his blue dot.

  BUZZ. A loud, angry noise erupted from his slate. A red light flashed.

  "Dammit!" Bruno roared, slamming his fist on the desk. "This thing is rigged! It moves too fast!"

  "It moves at the speed of a slow goblin," Lloyd retorted. "You are just slower. Reset and try again."

  All around the room, the sounds of frustration grew. The "warriors"—the men and women who had relied on their physical prowess their entire lives—were crumbling. Their brains were wired for singular focus. They could swing a sword with perfect form, but ask them to swing a sword while calculating a tip at a restaurant, and they fell apart.

  One mercenary was sweating so hard he couldn't grip the stylus. Another was trying to do the math on his fingers, abandoning the dot entirely.

  "I can't look at two things at once!" a failed knight yelled, throwing his stylus across the room. "It's impossible! Humans aren't built for this!"

  "Then evolve," Lloyd said coldly. "Or leave."

  Lloyd watched the master slate on the wall. It displayed the status of every candidate. Within five minutes, ten slates had turned permanently red. The system had locked them out.

  "You ten," Lloyd said, pointing without looking. "Out. Collect your ten gold coins at the gate. Don't let the door hit you."

  The failed candidates stood up, faces burning with shame and anger. They marched out, grumbling about "stupid magic tricks" and "waste of time."

  Lloyd didn't care. He was weeding the garden. He needed to get rid of the rocks to find the soil.

  He walked through the rows, observing the survivors. He stopped next to a young woman who was biting her lip so hard blood was trickling down her chin. She was staring at the dot with such intensity her eyes were watering. She ignored the math completely.

  BUZZ.

  "You're tunneling," Lloyd said softly. "You're focusing so hard on survival you're forgetting to solve the problem. In a war, that means you dodge the arrow but step on the mine. Fail."

  He moved on.

  The room was thinning out. The loud ones were gone. The angry ones were gone. What remained were the quiet ones. The desperate ones.

  Lloyd stopped at the back of the room. He looked down at the desk of the gambler, Kaito.

  Kaito was in a trance.

  To anyone else, the test was a nightmare of multitasking. To Kaito, it was just a Tuesday night at the card table.

  His world had narrowed down to the glowing screen. He didn't see a maze and math problems. He saw odds and variables.