Location: New Babylon, Upper Sector. Imperial Necromancy Academy. Advanced Anatomy Theater 404.

  The room temperature was locked at a crisp 64°F (18°C). This wasn’t for the comfort of the living, but to keep the dead from spoiling. The air purification system hummed at full throttle, yet it couldn't scrub the atmosphere clean. The air hung heavy with the scent of ozone, alchemical reagents, and that cloying, sickly-sweet stench known simply as "Death."

  The smell clung to the back of John Doe’s throat like a layer of greasy film.

  John stood at the end of a line of elite students decked out in designer robes. By contrast, his second-hand, wash-worn grey robe stuck out like a glitch in the matrix. He stared intensely at the sterile, dust-free floor, his hands wringing together inside his sleeves, knuckles turning white from the tension.

  He was counting his heartbeats.

  One-twenty. One-thirty. Still climbing.

  "Next. Eric van Horn."

  The voice of Mentor Morgue echoed from the center of the amphitheater. Amplified by a runic array, his voice carried a chilling, metallic rasp—pure, polished British disdain wrapped in chrome.

  Morgue was a High Deacon of the Necromancers' Guild and the examiner from hell for Corpse Anatomy & Psionic Extraction. Half his body had been replaced by cyber-necromantic augments. His implanted red ocular prosthetic whirred like a barcode scanner, coldly assessing the worth of every student.

  A blonde young man with an arrogant smirk stepped up to the podium. With a practiced flick of his wand, an ethereal green psionic scalpel materialized in mid-air. He sliced open the chest cavity of the Orc cadaver on the table with surgical grace. Not a single drop of blood was spilled.

  "Psionic purity 98%. Incision precision: S-Class," Morgue drawled, glancing at the floating holographic data screen. He marked a tick on the golden grading sheet. "Splendid. The Van Horn family technique remains as elegant as ever. Next."

  As the name was called, a ripple of hushed, cutting snickers spread through the room.

  "Check it out, it’s the scholarship rat from the Rust Belt."

  "I heard he sold his REM sleep cycles to the DreamCorps just to afford tuition."

  "If he passes today, he gets a Guild badge... talk about lowering our property value."

  John pretended he was deaf. He took a deep breath, trying to force his lungs to expand and suppress the spasms in his stomach.

  This was the final exam.

  It was also his Judgment Day.

  If he cleared this level, he’d get that gold-rimmed diploma and the qualification of a "Registered Necromancer." That meant a Guild payroll, full medical benefits, and—most importantly—it meant his mother, Margaret, rotting away in a slum hospital bed, would finally get that high-purity "Holy Water" injection she needed to survive.

  "John Doe!" Morgue’s impatience spiked. The aperture of his red cyber-eye contracted, zooming in. "Are you waiting for the corpse to animate itself and send you a formal invitation?"

  "No... Sir. I'm coming."

  John’s legs felt like they were filled with lead. He steeled himself and shuffled toward the dissection table under the harsh spotlight.

  With every step, the metallic tang of blood grew thicker.

  Lying on the table was fresh material shipped straight from the underground fighting pits—a massive Minotaur slave. Cause of death: ruptured heart. The gaping chest wound was still oozing a dark, crimson fluid like a slow-moving spring.

  The liquid trickled down the metal gutters of the table.

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  The sound was amplified in John’s ears, like a sledgehammer hitting his nerves.

  "The task is elementary," Morgue said, tapping the edge of the table with a cold clink. "This is the Guild’s latest 'Resource Recovery' standard. You are to open the pericardium and extract the residual 'Berserk' emotion crystal without damaging the surrounding psionic vessels. You have three minutes."

  For any competent Necromancer, this was Necromancy 101.

  Easier than slicing bread.

  But for John, this was a tightrope walk over hell.

  He reached out with a trembling hand and grabbed a rune-etched scalpel from the tray. The alloy handle was cold, yet it felt like holding a branding iron.

  In a city where "Death" was the primary GDP driver, this wasn't just a physiological defect; it was a career death sentence. It was like a pilot afraid of heights, or a hacker allergic to Wi-Fi.

  To patch this bug, John had tried everything: hypnosis, desensitization therapy, even buying cheap hallucinogens from the streets to numb his nerves. In previous simulations, he’d barely scraped by using these cheats.

  But today, to test the students' "pressure resilience," Morgue had disabled the exam room’s [Visual Filtering Field].

  Everything was High Definition, Uncensored, and Raw.

  "Begin." Morgue pressed the timer.

  Red digital numbers floated in the air.

  John gritted his teeth so hard he tasted copper. He frantically chanted his mother’s name in his head, clinging to it like a lifeline.

  For Mom. For the insurance. One cut, and I land a 50k annual salary. Hold it together.

  He leaned in. The tip of the scalpel touched the Minotaur’s rough hide.

  A soft, wet sound of flesh parting.

  Immediately, due to the release of pressure, a stream of warm, viscous, dark red liquid—reeking of rust and nausea—welled up from the cut, washing over John’s latex-gloved fingers.

  In that instant, John’s world crashed.

  The vivid red exploded across his retinas, dominating his entire field of view.

  His physiological response was faster than his logic. Harder. Violent.

  His sympathetic nervous system red-lined. Heart rate spiked from 130 to 180. A wave of vertigo hit him; the room twisted and stretched. The surgical lights above turned into spinning suns, and a high-pitched tinnitus screamed in his ears like a thousand banshees.

  No... not now... please...

  His stomach convulsed violently, as if an invisible hand was churning his insides.

  "What are you doing? Stop shaking!" Morgue noticed the glitch. He frowned and leaned in close, his face—a map of arrogance and cruelty—looming over John. "This is precision work! Do you intend to ruin the materials? This corpse costs two hundred credits—"

  Morgue never finished his sentence.

  Because John couldn't hold the seal anymore.

  The nausea breached the floodgates.

  John bent double. The contents of his stomach—a mix of cheap nutrient paste acid, bile, and sheer terror—erupted like a broken fire hydrant.

  And because Morgue had leaned in way too close to scrutinize the "failure"...

  The mouthful of yellowish-green, acrid fluid sprayed precisely, generously, and comprehensively all over Mentor Morgue.

  It splashed onto his priceless black robe, stitched from high-tier Succubus skin and threaded with gold.

  It coated his blinking red electronic eye.

  It even splashed into his open, lecturing mouth.

  This time, it wasn't the corpse's blood dripping. It was John’s lunch.

  The entire lecture hall froze as if hit by a mass paralysis spell. Even the hum of the air purifiers seemed deafening.

  Someone covered their mouth.

  Most just looked at him with the eyes one reserves for a walking corpse.

  John slumped against the dissection table, dry heaving, his face as pale as paper. Cold sweat dripped from his nose onto the dead Minotaur. He knew it was over. Game over.

  Mentor Morgue stood frozen.

  His cyber-eye, now obscured by filth, flickered wildly, emitting a short-circuiting zzzt sound. He slowly raised a hand, wiped the slime from his face, and began to tremble with apoplectic rage.

  It wasn’t just about the hygiene.

  In the rigid caste system of the Necromancy Guild, a slum rat assaulting a High Deacon was blasphemy.

  Three seconds later.

  A roar loud enough to shatter the bulletproof glass exploded over John’s head.

  A shockwave of black psionic energy burst from Morgue, blasting the weakened John off his feet.

  John slammed into the trash cans at the back of the room. He felt a rib crack.

  But the physical pain was nothing compared to the cold judgment that followed.

  Morgue, frantically casting Cleaning Charms on himself, used a trembling finger to slash a massive, bloody red "X" on the holographic grading sheet in the air.

  "For severe physiological defects, deliberate destruction of teaching assets, and public humiliation of a High Mentor..."

  "You are hereby EXPELLED!"

  "Your profile will be flagged in the Guild’s 'Scrap Database.' I guarantee you, from this day forth, no institution in New Babylon that deals with magic will dare to hire you! You aren't even fit to sweep the floors of a morgue!"

  "Get out! Take your stench and crawl back to your sewer!"

  Security guards in black uniforms—actually low-tier stitched corpse-soldiers—marched in. They dragged John out like a dead dog, showing no mercy as they hauled him from the classroom that represented his only future.

  The heavy doors slammed shut in John’s face.

  Sealing off the dream of "curing Mom and becoming somebody."

  In the hallway, John slid down the cold wall.

  He looked at his hands, still trembling. Hands that were supposed to manipulate souls, now unable to even hold a knife.

  Combined, in this city, they were a death sentence.

  He looked down at the student ID hanging around his neck. In the photo, his freshman self smiled with hope.

  Now, the holographic ID was fading, turning a dull, invalid grey.

  John whispered, his voice choking.

  "I’m... completely broke."

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