Road Of Advancement

The group was guided to a large classroom with a standard test set-up. Each student was allocated to a pre-arranged seat and desk and the instructor then proceeded to introduce the rules. Cheating would lead to forfeiting, the time limit varied per subject and so on and on. For Theodore, this felt like a trip down (Bryan's) memory lane. University was just like this. Except for this time, there were additional rules befitting the current advanced age.

They were all told to shut-off their AI, a procedure Theodore felt vaguely uncomfortable with doing for the first time after becoming dependent on Summit in the last three-and-a-half-plus months. It was not a surprise, after all, the test would be about the personal knowledge and learning ability of each examinee.

Theodore ignored the uncomfortable feeling of losing his 'partner' and started his test on 'general knowledge' and later he did not select additional languages. As much as he had tried to learn them from Mr.Jones, he did not feel sufficiently prepared or knowledgeable about foreign languages. His former self firmly screwed up his lessons with Jones and he himself could simply not learn a foreign language in just three-and-a-half-month. At least during Jones his lessons, Summit would help him out.

Theodore felt he did well on subjects like chemistry, physics and math. The basics and later advanced studies with Wilkinson really paid off. He did not know how to judge his score comparing to others. Three and a half month was really short time to catch-up to the serious students who had put in effort for years. He had liked history and geography and knew he had 'crushed' those topics. These subjects were rather easy for Theodore since his base-line had been given substantial upgrades thanks to Dr Morgans' gene optimization. Speaking languages, applying grammar, applying math was different than just pure memorization.

Afterwards, they were handed three tests, based on their own choices in the field of science. Theodore had selected Engineering Physics, Engineering Mathematics and Power engineering beforehand, as he had been most confident in this selection. He mentally thanked Mr - now Prof. - Boulton and Prof. Wilkinson for their assistance as he could already see the results of their constant gruelling tests. He felt calm and collected as he read through the first questions of each exam and then started on Power Engineering - as he felt most comfortable with this as it was taught excessively by Mr Boulton.

As he went on, the list of questions simply kept expanding. The AI would simply keep asking questions to get a full grasp on Theodores theoretical and practical knowledge of the subject. Theodore could feel the questions had a 'Boulton' flavour to them as he recognised the style of the questions.

He answered the first ten rather easily. The next ten became a little harder. This repeated itself until Theodore was faced with questions that were very advanced and were related to some higher principles which Theodore could not yet fathom. He decided to leave questions seventy-four and onward blank. Because of the neural-interface, answering the test-questions went incredibly quickly. Your thoughts were literally noted as the answer. Therefore, finishing a test in thirty of forty minutes was pretty normal.

Nobody reacted when Theodore switched papers after thirty-three minutes. However, they would certainly be stumped by him answering full seventy-four questions! They had already branded him a 'mech-pilot' and they would certainly not expect him to also have such a score in science!

However, some students would not feel anything remarkable about him answering seventy-four answers. He was tutored by a brilliant professor and this was the professors' speciality. There were students that still scored remarkably higher. In a sense, it was only remarkable because Theodore had been impressive at the tracks as well! Also, add in that he had only been serious about his studies for three-and-a-half-months and his genie was more than apparent!

Theodore did not lose a moment of focus during the entire tests. His mental capacity to concentrate was great and he would not lose his focus during such an important test. He picked up his next test on Engineering physics and started working on the questions right away. He only managed to answer sixty-one questions in this test. Which was still well above average.

Thirdly he picked up engineering mathematics and went about his way in the same calm and collected way. During the entire test, he did not look up or down, just straight at his tests. The most he moved was to scratch his head at a particularly difficult question or shake his head when he really did not have a clue about the right answer.

He then went back and read through all his answers on all three of his tests. He adjusted some answers and even corrected some errors he picked up after re-reading. After being satisfied after a third check he gave the mental command to hand in his tests. He then waited for the rest of the class to finish their test. This was the first time during the day Theodore became nervous. There was time on his hands and he could no longer influence the outcome. The silence added to his mental stress as his brain was rapid firing new 'insights' of various topics of the test.

'I really need to relax. There's nothing I can do now. Stressing out won't do anything good.' Theodore finally thought as he suppressed his anxiety and started a series of calming breathing techniques.

"Allright, all of you have finished your tests. Most of you will be given your results in the next minute. Some of your tests were sent to be personally graded by the staff of the KMU, you will be notified of your scores within an hour. If this is so, then congratulations - the AI decided your answers were interesting or your answers fell beyond its scope of scoring. Normally this is a good thing, so don't worry."

This level of science was still 'kids' stuff to the instructors at KMU. Together with their learned AI they would have no problem with grading extremely quickly and accurately.

Theodore was among the lucky ones, his test on Power engineering had been forwarded to KMU staff. He hoped it would be graded by prof Boulton. His answers closely aligned with Boultons knowledge and research assumptions. He would definitely gain some extra points there.

Physical engineering had netted him a score of one-hundred-seventy-two and Engineering Mathematics had netted him a score of one-hundred-seventy-eight. He quickly looked up his score in comparison to his group and found he was 4th and 5th on this subject. Surprisingly, the top three were complete unknowns in his group.

Dwight, Anthony and Louis had taken different subjects, but to his surprise, Lilly-Anne had both times surpassed his score by a small margin. This made him take a second look at the pretty lady since he had not expected this at all! It seems the idol was more than meets the eye. Decent in mech-piloting, an above-average neural aptitude and a high score in science. She could do more than just singing and being pretty, that was for sure.

The alumni that had dragged them around campus once more herded them to their final destination. He dropped them off at the Hall of Teaching. A place where all teachers had their own private office. Everyone was notified on their comm to see a specific teacher. Theodore rejoiced as he was assigned to a familiar name: Prof. Boulton!

Theodore had Summit - once more 'online' - pull up the building schematics and had him navigate to professor Boultons private office. He quickly found himself on the twelfth floor staring at a familiar office. Boulton had his office furnished exactly the same as his office at the Thompsons during their extensive lessons. Theodore could not help but check whether the chair was real. Prof. Wilkinson had truly scarred him with his lesson on 'reality and assumptions'.

Behind his desk professor, Boulton was seated like usual, his face did not give away anything as he greeted Theodore.

"Well, we meet again Theodore! Hope you liked my introduction speech this morning?"