3 Entrance Exam

A little glowing ball of light appeared out of nowhere. Faintly white with a tinge of green, it hovered around Cody's shoulder and said, "Your objective is to score 10 Academy Credits within 4 hours. If you succeed, you will be officially enrolled into Sophia Academy as a First Sphere student."

Cody scratched his head. "What am I supposed to do here, exactly?"

The light orb bobbed. "Opening missions panel. Filtering available missions for Cody Rivers." There was a short pause. "Access granted for Level 1 missions only. Five missions available."

Five holographic pages appeared in front of Cody, listing different missions. One was to retrieve 5kg of edible berries. One was to analyze ten different kinds of water and send in the report. Another was to help clean up the Village Warehouse. The fourth was to calculate the village harvest this week. The fifth (which offered access to Level 2 missions) was to cook an egg and score more than 5 points.

All of them offered 2 Academy Credits as a reward, with a potential bonus of +1 except for the Cook an Egg mission which offered 3 and access to Level 2 missions.

"So, for 10 credits, either I do them all, or do four with bonus points, or… get to level 2 and do harder missions?" Cody guessed. He looked over the five missions again. "Orb? If I wanted to pick berries or analyze water… where do I find those berries or the water types?"

"Records recommend the Little Marsh for water types, and the Southern or Eastern Weedy Hillside for berries." The orb said.

"Where are those?" Cody asked.

That took some explaining, but pretty soon, Cody got the picture.

This little garden was just his personal space. Upon exiting it, by crossing the bridge, he'd be in Initial Village.

Initial Village was in a hollow surrounded by mountains. Most of them were super-steep and sharp like spikes. Only one of them could be climbed, and climbing to its peak was one of the ways to graduate. That was known as the First Sphere Mountain.

The village itself was situation atop Weedy Hill, and each of its four sides had different kinds of plants. The north had a forest, the south had shrubs, the east had plantations, and the west had orchards.

Around this village and hill were varied terrain types meant for educating the students. This included wetlands (Little Marsh), arid lands (Little Desert), a river, a scrapyard, a mine, a quarry, a network of caves, and a whole lot of mountain trails with different resources along their paths.

"Orb? I'll take the first mission. The one about picking berries." Cody requested.

"Confirm?"

"Confirm." Cody said, reading the details. Apparently, it didn't matter where he got the berries from, as long as he handed in 5kg to the staff at the Warehouse. There was no time limit, and no instruction on where to go for the berries, or what to look for. Thinking back to the assessment, Cody figured he was supposed to explore around and scan the berries and do his own research on whether they were edible.

So thinking, Cody walked to the bridge and exited his Personal Space.

Cody's starting point and personal space was at the 'entrance' of Initial Village, right across a Class-2 landing pad (big enough for shuttles and corvettes, but nothing large enough for Gate travel). Nearby were a warehouse, a bunch of workshops, a small lake, a small farm, and some houses.

That pad was where ships and goods arrived and left this area. It was no coincidence that it was located right next to Cody's Personal Space. Actually, according to the orb, all students' personal space were accessible from that same 'entrance' bridge, meaning they were all housed right across the Pad.

This also meant that someone was standing right in front of him, having just exited his own personal space and stopped to stare in amazement.

"OOF!" Cody bumped into him and the pair of them nearly fell over in the process.

"Ow." The guy he crashed into groaned. He sat up in a daze, looked at Cody and said, "Was it you?"

"Was what me?"

"The thing that hit me like a train."

"Uh… I guess?" Cody scratched his head. "I'm Cody. Cody Rivers."

"Riki Fyres." The guy was fair skinned, red eyed, with short red hair. "I'm from Volcanus. You?"

"Flora." Cody answered. "Actually I'm still there now."

"Same. On Volcanus, I mean." Riki got to his feet gingerly. "Wow, you were really rushing. I wonder if…"

BAM! Another person charged out from her Personal Space and crashed into Riki. It was some girl wearing a wide visor and carrying a crate filled with stuff that made a lot of metallic noises in the crash.

"Hey!" Riki protested, stumbling forward.

"OOMPH!" A bald guy came out of his Personal Space and bowled the visored girl right over. They fell on top of Riki and the three of them went down in a tight tangle.

"WHOA!" a sharp-faced boy came out of his Personal Space and tripped over the three of them tangled on the floor.

"WHAM!" another guy with crew-cut hair stumbled out of his Personal Space and added to the pile-up.

"Get OFF me!" Riki, at the bottom of the pile, was pushing and shoving to get out. Cody went over and tugged him away as a sixth person almost fell over the pile and had to leap ahead to get clear.

In the meantime, he was interested to notice that he could see people's names written in white over their heads. The girl with a large visor was Specs. The bald guy was Oren. The sharp-faced fellow was Na'Sar. The guy with the crew-cut was Kalen. That was as far as Cody managed to see before he scrambled away with Riki.

The pile sorted itself out quickly enough, everyone more or less in one piece each and going about their own business with some embarassment. All of them spared Riki (and by extension, Cody) a glare or a grimace as they left. Riki himself stomped off with a few grumbles, leaving Cody scratching his head behind him. Oh well. I guess he's got his own stuff to do.

So thinking, Cody descended the southern hillside looking for berries. There! That's a strawberry, isn't it? That was easy. I found one berry already…

It was then that Cody realized this mission wasn't as easy as he first thought. For instance… that one berry hardly weighed anything. 5kg of berries could well be thousands of these things, and there was only this one strawberry in sight. Second, even if he could find thousands of berries… how would he carry them? He had no bag, no box, not even pockets in his biosuit…

And there was nobody to tell him what to do, or how to do it. He had to figure it out himself.

"I need something to carry berries with…" Cody paused.

He went over to the nearest 'adult' villager (who wasn't a real person, he guessed), and asked, "Where can I find a box or a bag to carry berries with?"

"We have many boxes of different capacities in this warehouse." The warehouse staff guy said. "How many berries do you need it for?"

"5 kg?" Cody replied.

"A standard class-C box would cost 3 credits…" the warehouse staff said.

"Wait a minute! I don't even have 1 credit, much less 3! This is my first mission!" Cody protested.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to pay for the box if you want it." The staff said.

Wow. "Is there anywhere I can get a box or a bag for free?"

"You could try the Scrapyard." The man suggested.

It was a long walk down the hill, following the road signs to the Scrapyard. This was a zone where a lot of broken machines and parts were strewn about in a huge mess. Cody managed to pick up a cracked plastic bucket of some kind, and went to look for berries.

Here, at the foot of the hillside, Cody found a lot more berries. He scanned them, and researched them, and found that about half of them were poisonous or inedible. An hour of scanning and research later, he piled berries into that cracked bucket and then realized something else.

I don't know how much is 5kg. How will I know when I've collected enough?

This led to more asking around the village and borrowing the weighing machine at the warehouse. The machine said 3.2, so Cody went out and picked more berries and when he came back, it said 5.3…

Happily, he went to the staff to turn it in, but…

"Collection item insufficient." The staff said. "You need more edible berries."

"But… but I weighed them!" Cody protested.

The staff took one glance. "With the bucket?"

"Yes, with the bucket!" Cody nodded.

"How much does the bucket weigh without the berries?" the staff asked.

Cody gaped. Right. The bucket would weigh something too. That means I have to calculate the berries by deducting the bucket's weight from the total…

Emptying the bucket and weighing it, he got his answer. The bucket by itself weighed 0.5 kg. This led to more berry collecting until the total weight reached 5.5 kg…

"Collection item insufficient." The staff said. "You need more edible berries."

"WHAT?!" Cody protested. "But I weighed it! And the bucket too! And it said 5.5kg! The bucket only weighs 0.5kg! It's enough!"

"Not all the berries here are edible." The staff said. "A lot of them, while originally edible, have been poisoned."

"Poisoned?!" Cody stared. "By whom?"

"By you." The staff answered.

"But… how?!" Cody gaped. "What happened?"

"They were placed in a highly unhygienic container." The staff said. "As they are, eating them will most definitely result in various illnesses."

The bucket! Cody gulped, thinking. "What if… what if I washed the bucket, and the berries?"

The staff did not reply.

Cody scrambled to wash the bucket and the berries, and then brought them back.

"Collection item insufficient." The staff said. "You need more edible berries."

"WHY?!!" Cody wailed.

"Some of the berries have been damaged and some are still tainted by the bucket."

Cody groaned. "Is the bucket even suitable for carrying berries?"

The staff member glanced at it. "No. This bucket retains traces of toxic elements."

This is what you get from picking a bucket out of a scrapyard!! Cody groaned. "What can I use to collect berries then?"

"We have boxes available at the warehouse…"

"Forget it! I'll find something else!" Cody stomped off.

When they said 'educational', they weren't kidding. It was starting to become apparent now to Cody that the Entrance Exam had less to do with effort and obedience and a lot more to do with figuring out how to do things for themselves.

What the Academy wanted and sought to see in the Exam, in other words, was one's ability to learn.