The chief examiner sneered. "You don't need to worry about that!"
Snap-
He snapped his fingers.
The door behind him opened, and eight Mechanical Constructs were wheeled out. Each had a seat in the middle, with an inverted helmet suspended above it. Faint flickers of electricity seemed to dance across the helmets.
The chief examiner sneered. "The finest Master Mechanic in our City of Night built these devices specifically for this stage of the examination. As you just said, differences in race and physical structure mean everyone's pain tolerance varies."
"But I never said we'd be inflicting pain on your bodies!"
"This machine can simulate the sensation of pain directly in your consciousness. As long as you're a creature capable of thought and self-awareness, it can reproduce that sensation with one hundred percent accuracy!"
Everyone was shaken.
This was one motherfucker of a machine.
Whatever creature had invented this thing needed to die!
"Enough talk!" The chief examiner's gaze sharpened as he sneered.
"Choose a machine and sit down. We've divided pain intensity into 200 levels. You must reach a pain tolerance of 50 to pass! At the end, we'll rank you all. The higher your ranking, the more points you'll receive. How many you earn is entirely up to you!"
He sneered, looking cruelly over the candidates.
"Of course, remember that you must remain conscious to qualify. If you pass out, crash, or die halfway through, your result is void!"
"Thirty-minute time limit! Begin!"
His shout rang out.
All the candidates sat down on their respective machines with apprehension.
The iron restraints around their arms and legs snapped shut. Amid mechanical humming, the helmets overhead descended and enclosed their heads.
The vampire in seat number 3 beside Lynn turned uneasily toward him.
"Hey! Good Doctor, you're human, right? You