"Congratulations, Mr. Maxwell Aurelius Najera! You have qualified for enrollment at Sentinel Academy of the Philippines for S.Y. 2026-2027. Welcome aboard, Sentinel!"
I only scored 20 over 75 on the Sentinel Academy's entrance exam and still somehow managed to pass their rigorous selection of students.
Sentinel Academy of the Philippines is a prestigious academy located in the mountains of Baguio City. It has the best teachers, the best facilities—the best of everything that can shape students into the perfect humans they advertise them to be—the future of the nation.
Given that they had more or less than 100,000 applicants every year and only accepted 156 freshmen, I should've failed. I didn't know how I managed to slip through their almost 0.156% acceptance rate.
Sentinel Academy prided itself on being a fine institution, gathering geniuses and honing those students into paragons of excellence. So, how could they let someone like me—someone who failed their entrance exam—slip through?
Was their definition of genius different from what was commonly perceived? For them, what did honing a person into perfection possibly mean?
What did it actually mean to be a perfect human?
In transhumanism, a perfect human could be someone who exceeded their biological limitations with the help of technology. Simply put, a human transformed into some kind of robot or cyborg was considered the ideal being. By eliminating flaws, a person could be enhanced and modified to achieve perfection.
However, for some, our imperfections as human beings are what make us perfect. It is in our nature to make mistakes, learn from them, and grow to achieve our full potential and become our ideal selves. By becoming the best version of ourselves, we are expected to contribute to society, gradually building the utopia we are all striving for.
But in some religions, only a Supreme Being or God is considered perfect. Humans like us are meant to be flawed. It is through spiritual growth that we seek perfection. According to their doctrines, being modified or enhanced is going against our very nature.
If that was true, then wouldn't striving for perfection mean defying our very nature?
But among the definitions I mentioned, which one was correct? Or at least the closest to being correct?
If perfection was subjective, could humans ever truly be perfect?
If perfection meant the elimination of flaws with no need for further development, would human lives still hold meaning? If not, why are we still pushing ourselves to attain it?
Besides, if humans were to strive for perfection, who had the right to decide how we should attain it?
Thus, given those questions, could we truly shape ourselves into the perfect beings we aspired to become?
I enrolled in Sentinel Academy to find the answers to those questions. If it was true that they were honing students to become perfect humans or the best version of themselves, then I had to be there. To understand the true definition of a perfect human… I have to become one myself. Or, at the very least, see if such a thing was even possible.