Flowers In The Desert

A genius is an individual who is considered to have superb intellectual prowess.

Someone who can easily overcome the adversities placed before them and maneuver through unfavorable situations using reasoning and logic.

It's said that there are two kinds of genius, those who are blessed by their genetics and are bestowed with innate superiority from birth, and those who acquire the status through arduous struggles and dedication throughout their lifetime.

However, It is often the former group who capture the lion's share of recognition, captivating the world with their prodigious talents even in childhood. Meanwhile, those who diligently forge their genius through hard work often find themselves overlooked, as society fixates on inborn traits rather than the fruits of perseverance.

That is the true face of society, a place where adulation and respect are reserved exclusively for the gifted. Ordinary individuals, devoid of such innate advantages, have no choice but to struggle and claw their way to the top only to obtain the bare minimum of acknowledgment. That is the curse of the title "genius."

But what if there was a way to create a genius? What if it was possible to endow a child of an average bloodline with the intellect of a first-class doctor, the charisma of a politician, and the physical capabilities of a world-class fighter?

Ordinarily, such an idea would be labeled as nothing but a pipedream, primarily because no educational facility could provide such a vast and expansive level of education, especially to a child. That is until a certain man risked everything to make that dream a reality.

Deep in the mountains of Saitama, Japan, there existed a facility, a place designed for the sole purpose of creating children of any bloodline, whether wealthy or poor, into geniuses with the ability to lead a country. An institution that boasted the highest level of education in all of Japan but was kept secret due to its arguably inhumane training methods imposed in the curriculums and the children that the facility used like guinea pigs for the sake of research. This unorthodox facility was known as the White Room.

This is one of the several memories recalled by a student in this facility. A boy who, in the future, would be called the White Room's masterpiece.

At four years old, the boy stood beside his assigned desk in one of the facility's examination rooms. The other children in the room also stood quietly by their respective desks as an instructor took their names one by one.

The boy looked up and stared blankly, letting his gaze wander from the ceiling to the walls. A recurring pattern in this facility was the monochromatic color scheme used for every aspect of its design. There were white walls, white tables, and white furniture. Even the children had to wear white clothes in their daily routines.

This was a tactic used by the executives in the facility to deceive any potential investor or future government official that would visit the facility into thinking it was a clean and pure institution. However, if the children were to testify about their experiences in the White Room, the image of sanctity that the facility aimed to uphold would shatter immediately.

*Shwoom*

The automatic door slid open and another instructor entered the room and walked to the front of the class at a brisk pace.

"You," called a voice.

The boy snapped out of his daydreaming and focused his attention on the instructor who was now standing in front of him.

"State your name and take your seat," the man said in an almost robotic tone.

Upon receiving this command, the boy's brain immediately began to process the instruction and relayed the appropriate response to his throat.

"Kiyotaka," he replied instantly.

The children were taught to say their names as soon as they grasped the fundamentals of communication. However, they were only told their first names and not their surnames, which the boy later discovered was a rule implemented to prevent the children from being identified by other people, due to some of the children having wealthy or influential families.

"Begin!" called the instructor from the front of the room.

The test consisted of questions relating to five writing systems: hiragana, katakana, the alphabet, numbers, and basic kanji. The children had already learned to read and write for a year when they were three years old, so there was no hesitation in their movements and the sounds of pencils striking the papers reverberated throughout the room.

A new curriculum, one of many to come, had been implemented and the children had no choice but to adapt to it. Those who failed to do so would be removed from the facility without hesitation.

Aside from the criteria to be met in the curriculum, there were other rules to be followed regarding how the children conducted themselves. They were not allowed to speak unless ordered to, they were expected to have good posture and proper handwriting and to finish their exams before the given time limit.

Initially, there was a total of 74 students in this group which was called the fourth generation. However, with the high dropout rate the curriculum boasted, only the 61 children that were currently taking the exam were left.

The boy raised his hand, indicating he had completed the test. The time limit that was given was 30 minutes but the children were expected to finish within at least 20 minutes. Each question was to be quickly read, assessed and answered and the previous question was also to be reviewed all under two minutes.

This was the boy's 7th examination since he turned four years old. His three initial rankings were 24th place, 15th place, and 7th place. However, after adapting to the methodologies of the exams, he took first place four times in a row and the gap between him and the second-place finisher had started to widen with each exam. Unfortunately, such achievements were never acknowledged nor praised by the instructors. In fact, it was expected for the children to score high and compete with one another.

Once all the children had finished writing, they were ordered to line up by the door.

"Everyone follow the instructor and go change for your next curriculum."

It was time for the least anticipated activity of the day, Martial arts training. For the last four months, the children had been learning Judo and each session would always end the same.

"Haa!" cried the boy as his vision blurred from the impact of being thrown onto his back.

Above him stood a mountain of a man staring down at him with cold eyes.

"Get up!" the man demanded.

The boy sluggishly picked himself up and assumed his stance only for the man to knock him off balance with his massive size and flip him onto his back again.

The children were reprimanded if they took too long to get up or refused to fight back. To the right of the room, a frail girl clung weakly to the instructor's leg. She seemed to be unable to stand after being thrown and was looking at the instructor with tear-filled eyes.

"Sir, please. I can't stand up," she said begging for mercy.

"I said stand up! You know that children are no exception to the training curriculum!" The man shouted as he kicked her in the stomach, sending the girl flying across the room and causing her to vomit on the floor.

"No one will beg for you here! No one will come to your aid if you get hurt! And if you disappear, no one will care! So stand up!"

These clearly weren't ordinary instructors that the White Room staff had hired to train the children. They seemed like savage individuals who wouldn't care in the slightest about harming women or sending children to the hospital. The girl slowly tried to stand but inevitably collapsed from fatigue.

"How weak! Hurry and get her out of my sight!" yelled the instructor.

The girl, whose name was Mikuru was hurriedly ushered out of the room while the instructor coldly turned his back to her and focused his attention on the next student.

From a normal person's perspective, such training would be heavily criticized and called inhumane or even labeled as child endangerment but to the children, it was simply another day in their lives while living in the White Room. It's only natural to call such a thing a tragedy right? If so, then it is best you prepare yourself because the stories of these innocent children will only get worse as time goes on.

After their session with the instructors had ended, the children were made to participate in hand-to-hand combat with one another. Although the instructors had treated them rigorously and thoughtlessly, the children never wore a look of exhaustion on their faces.

That was the principle of the White Room, to adapt and overcome your adversities or become a victim to the world's cruelties. The boy's fighting record at the time was 44 fights, 127 wins, and 17 losses. And he was currently on a 64-fight winning streak. His opponent, a boy named Shiro stood before him silently waiting on the signal to begin.

The boy had only fought against Shiro twice and had won once and lost once. Shiro's record was slightly higher than that of the boy with 135 wins and 9 losses and among the children, he had the best judo skills. This was now Shiro's third match. Instead of his usual aggressive fighting style, Shiro observed the boy silently to decide his next move.

"Begin!" With the instructor's call, the two boys fought heartily. Though in this facility whether you win or lose, your efforts are never praised. They're simply recorded and used for analysis in the future and you move on as if nothing happened.

Later in the year, the children would start Karate, a martial art that involved more physical contact and harsh blows. At that point, the children had already accepted the notion that the range of martial arts they would learn would increase when they reached five years old or so.

By the time the boy was five years old, the number of children in the fourth generation had already been reduced to 50. This had become a common occurrence for the children and they didn't have the time to care regardless. The difficulty of the curriculums only continued to increase and you would be discarded if you were unable to meet the requirements.

One day, the children were made to eat dinner together. The instructors left the room and the children were allowed to eat their meals and converse if they wanted to. However, conversations were almost nonexistent among the children. It wasn't because it was forbidden rather it was simply because the children never saw the need to speak with each other.

They only ever heard each other's voices during training or in examinations and barely had time to interact with each other outside of the curriculum. There was no camaraderie between the children, just a feeling of indifference to each other's existence.

The children began eating their meals with blank expressions. The meals served to them were structured to provide the utmost nutritional benefit to improve their performances during training. There were no picky eaters in this facility, you simply ate your meal and moved on.

"I don't like these," mumbled a girl that sat in front of the boy.

"Do you like carrots, Kiyotaka?"

The girl named Yuki questioned whether the boy liked the carrots on his plate or not. He pondered her question. He had never become familiar with the concept of liking or disliking something. To him, the carrots in front of him were nothing more than a source of nutrients.

"I don't like them either" answered a voice. It was Shiro who sat about two seats away from Yuki. As the boy observed their dialogue, he thought about the question once more. You either like or dislike something, each conclusion being created from one's subjective emotion, so the answer he came to was he didn't dislike carrots.

After dinner, the boy sat in the corner of the room and observed the other children. One of his greatest difficulties was his inability to use his free time to his leisure. Rather, it was more like he didn't know how. He had become so adjusted to the systematic curriculum of the White Room that he was unable to comprehend the concept of free time.

Therefore, he simply watched the other children and tried to gain any information he could use to advance himself in the future. As he watched them, the boy noticed that Yuki was walking around the room by herself. He wondered why she would waste her energy doing something so pointless. As she passed by him while doing her third lap, Yuki suddenly tripped.

The boy immediately extended his arm and caught her. "How strange, why did you fall so suddenly?" the boy asked after assessing what had just happened.

"It could have possibly been fatigue but I don't think that's the case."

Yuki stared at him in surprise. It seemed they both were unable to figure out why she fell.

"You're right, I don't feel tired or anything but I somehow ended up falling. How strange."

After saying that, the girl made an expression the boy had never seen on the faces of the students or the instructors. An expression made only by widening the orbicularis oculi muscle around her eyes, and the contraction of the brow muscles near her eyebrows.

The boy realized what it was almost instantly. It was a smile, an instinctual expression used by children in moments of joy. However, this expression was foreign to the boy, perhaps because he had never felt the necessary emotion to trigger this expression, happiness.