The Greatest Mecha-Chapter 77: The Test Begins

The interior of the room was magical and magnificent, everything was good the walls, the bedsheets, pillows, curtains. The symbol of Zen Utopia everywhere always showing their brand over the place, Alto collapsed into the bed but he did not let the comfort get to him even if it was tempting, his mind had been very distracting, thinking the same thing over and over.

"I don’t think I’ll be able to use the mech designer protocol here."

He could not take the risk knowing that there could be scanners or sensors that could pick up the reading of his special device. Even if this was just him being overcautious, he could not help but think that there could be surveillance cameras in the rooms of all the participants, in that matter he could not slip up and open up the mech designer protocol for any reason even if he needed it.

Perhaps if he activated the mech designer protocol on such a sophisticated planet where it’s technological achievements were decades ahead of anywhere he had read about they would be able to pick up a reading or a type of emission not many places could. Alto could not stand the risk of losing the system, it’s was the only reason why he had achieved such a feat in such a short time span.

There was only two days left till the start of the competition and the participants were made to follow a very odd rule which prevented them from leaving their room within this time frame for any reason in entirety, this sounded strange to Alto. The only source of contact with the outside world was the holoscreen that displayed channels of things that happened across the planet, but the channels were limited. There was a steady delivery of food in the morning and evening, and a more than decent bathroom. There was nothing lacking. For some odd reason Alto did not feel the need to study two days before the competition, he knew he would need all of his brainpower if he was to be at his best, he found the channels on the holoscreen greatly entertaining.

He learned about the benefits of winning the competition and how it came to be, originally the competition featured only mech pilots showcasing their talents but at the time when the silver seats were being widely known they decided to include mech designers into the system to give the younger generation a challenge to meet up with world standards.

Alto also managed to find some information on the professor thought they were very limited they were very different from how she was portrayed to him. The news portrayed her as noble, kind, smart and a powerful force in the future of mech designing. Alto soon discovered that the information he was recieving was very limited showing that the planet cared very little about them and not wanting to give away any useful information to any one who could be a potential spy or terrorist. Security it seemed was a very serious matter to take note off.

With no way to access the system in such a strict location Alto started to run simulations in his mind and made sure to sleep a lot, and soon the promised day had come and it was time to know where he would place in the world.

"ALL PARTICIPANTS ARE TO EXIT THEIR ROOMS AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS IN THEIR WRIST COMM DEVICE AND REACH THE DESIGNATED AREA WITHIN TWENTY MINUTES." A voice sounded over the speakers.

The call came around 6AM and Alto who always woke up early was not in Kuch if a hurry to freshen up and leave. The door to his room opened up as he came into contact with it, freeing him from his prison. He soon found himself in a number of people who navigated their way to a special room, some of them seemed very excited and others paranoid. The excited ones acted overconfident like stars from whatever star system they came from, it made sense that a majority of them were children of rich families. The paranoid ones were the real oddballs, they acted like they had no idea how they ended up there in the first place, like they just woke up from some fairytale land to find themselves in a futuristic world.

The room they were soon in was a huge classroom style setting, the walls and floor were reactive showing the images of swirling stars and planets. It was a very expressive sight that took Alto’s breath away, there were seats with everywhere, many people dreaded sitting at the front and allocated them to the back seats. Alto noticed that those who sat in front carried the charisma of the world, not that they seemed proud of gallant though a few were. But those who sat in front were quite confident in themselves, Alto envied their confidence, currently the pit of his stomach was bubbling with anxiety but he swallowed hard and made his way to one of the seats in the middle. As soon as the time limit expired the doors to the room closed themselves leaving anyone who had failed to enter behind, luckily it seemed that only a handful of participants had failed to enter in time.

Alto thought it was a shame that they had already failed before they even started, he could not imagine how distraught they would be. Certainly not after all they had been through preparing for this day only to sleep it through. He did not have much time to be sympathetic over those who had failed before a young woman appeared in front of the class as if appearing from thin light.

The huge classroom which was already quiet was now like a coffin, most people were silenced by either their fear and anxiety or by intimidation from the woman who Alto had come to know on the news as the first disciple of one of the silver seats.

"You all know why you’re here and I can’t waste my time trying to inspire you when seventy percent of you all are certain to fail." Her voice was cold and devoid of life almost like a certain someone Alto knew but not empty enough. She had long dark hair that reached her chin and his both her eyes behind it, she wore a black uniform and carried a pad in her hand which she tapped on. "You will receive your tests now, you have four hours to answer them all. Note that there will be extra time but I don’t give a fuck so I’ll be taking it off."

This caused a bit of a ruckus in the hall, with the tap of a button on her pad the ground under those who complained opened up with them vanishing and being evicted from the tournament. Alto gulped down and thought of how much these people could have spent just to attend and just to be sent away like that, even if any of them could have been part of the top ten no one would ever know.

The young woman continued. "Does anyone have fucking having anything to contribute?" She continued to tap in her pad before saying. "You needed a score of seventy five percent to pass, only someone with the brain of a chimp will fail but who am I to list your shortcomings?" Without any notice she initiated the test immediately.

A small pad popped out of Alto and everyone else’s desks, there was a section where they would enter their name and login. Then six sections displayed on them, "Mechanics, Metallurgy, Robotics, Computer science, physics, circuitry." Under each was a minimum of sixty questions for him to solve.

Alto started with the sections he was most confident in, he started with mechanics before working his way up to metallurgy, and then physics then computer science, then robotics and circuitry. The questions started easy but soon grew much harder than he had expected. Just when he thought he was having it hard he started to hear panicked screamed from the crowd with some participants crying and others throwing a fit only to be disqualified immediately.

"You only have yourselves to blame for being as dumb as a chimp, don’t throw that on me." The young woman said.

After a few minutes the time ran out and the pads all shut down preventing anyone from doing anything more.

"No, I was almost done. I can’t allow this." Cried someone.

"This is not fair, it was too hard." Cried a young girl.

"I was never thought circuitry or robotics in my academy." A young man said.

The young woman who held the test only had one thing to say. "What you call an academy I call a zoo, you chimp. The results will be revealed now before we start the second test to see if any of you are really worth shit." As hurtful as her words were is carried a sense of truthfulness.

If they failed there then it meant that was as far as they could go. Alto waited for the results, he knew he would pass but why what margin that, remained to be seen. The pads came back on and started to read multiple digits too fast to see, this intensified the tension everyone was already subjected to. In the end the results were displayed and the cries of those who had failed was the loudest.

Alto’s eyes flinched as he saw his result, he threw his hands over his face and leaned back into his seat, "So this is how I stack up against the world’s best."