Free Web NovelChapter 249: Learning to Aim First
We head back to the Academy without Oliver.
He stayed at the factory to oversee the rune mage installing the containment barrier around the Safe Harbor chest. According to him, it wouldn’t take more than thirty minutes, as long as the mage was competent.
On the way to the southwest plaza, I notice eyes lingering on me too long. Not many. Not enough to become a crowd, nor direct enough to justify a confrontation. But they’re there. Students cutting their conversations short when I pass. Freya’s scouts, most likely, which means I can afford not to even summon her. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Veric walks beside me, far too pleased with the attention. Rhayne trails a little behind, quiet, still processing everything she heard at the factory.
When we reach the plaza, the dry fountain still sits at the center, ringed by low trees and stone benches. The spot is remote enough to be ignored by anyone who likes an audience.
It doesn’t take long for Freya to show up.
She comes with two followers. The first is a tall girl, black hair in a short braid, a spear across her back, and eyes too calm for someone on Freya’s side. The other is broad-shouldered, reinforced gloves on his hands, plainly happier settling arguments with his fists. Both Rank D.
Freya stops in front of me as if I’d summoned her by ringing a bell.
"Who do you think you are, Sands?" she asks. "Call me once, and now you expect me to show up when you snap your fingers?"
"I didn’t call you today."
Her smile hardens. "No?"
"No. But I’m glad you came on your own. Saves paper and time."
Veric turns his face to hide a laugh, and Rhayne closes her eyes for a second. Freya, on the other hand, looks like she’s deciding whether to punch me before or after the explanation.
"Choose your next comment carefully," she says.
"I’m trying. You make it hard."
The spear girl lets out a discreet cough that might be a laugh. Freya glances sideways at her. "Mira."
"I didn’t do anything."
The big one crosses his arms.
"Kellan," Freya says, without looking at him, "if he keeps talking, you can break something."
"Of him, or the whole plaza?"
"Surprise me."
"Enough," I say, before Veric decides to compete with her for who causes more problems per minute. "The point of this group isn’t only combat experience. If it were, we’d hit each other with blunted weapons and pretend pain teaches on its own."
"Pain teaches plenty," Freya says.
"It teaches fear, the kind you carry for your dear Master. But technique demands structure."
She goes quiet. Maybe because she heard a truth, maybe out of curiosity, maybe out of respect.
"We’re going to train by betting experience."
The line doesn’t land the way I expected. Veric frowns. Rhayne looks at me like I mentioned a strange new food. Freya narrows her eyes. Mira seems interested. Kellan seems happy to have caught at least the word "betting."
"Rank experience?" Veric asks.
"Yes."
"That’s possible?"
"It’s a little-known practice now. One day it’ll be more common than it should be." I keep the bad part behind my teeth. "When two Divers challenge each other in Nomine Gladiatus, they can swear a transfer vow. Rank experience isn’t an abstract idea. It’s energy absorbed from slain creatures, refined by the system and stored in a Diver’s progress. With the right bond, part of that energy can be wagered."
Freya uncrosses her arms. "And the winner takes it."
"The winner takes it. The loser only loses what they bet. If anyone hits zero percent in their current Rank, the bond breaks. A Diver can’t be dropped a Rank over wagered experience."
Rhayne goes visibly uncomfortable. She never says a word, but I feel it. She’s Rank D now. She climbed there in silence, and with her energy so faint, few would ever notice.
"This sounds dangerous."
"It is. That’s why we cap the bets. Balanced pairs can go a little higher. Lopsided pairs, one percent. Nothing beyond that."
As I speak, I think of the Deepwarden. In the future, they’ll call it optimization. Low-Rank Divers hunting monsters out of obligation, filling their own experience bars only to lose everything in rigged fights against favorites. Diver farms. People turned into a filter between monsters and guild heirs. One of those practices that start as a tool and end as a chain of slavery.
If monsters are going to turn it into a weapon, I’d rather learn to aim it first.
"Is anyone here at zero percent experience?" I ask.
No one answers.
Freya makes a face. "You think I’d come to a training session without a scrap of progress?"
"I think pride has killed people stronger than you."
"Want to test that?"
"In a little while."
I open my own screen for a moment.
[Rank D — Experience: 12%]
Enough.
I take strips of paper from my inventory, write the names, and fold them one by one. Freya watches like the method offends her entire bloodline.
"You’re going to draw without a container?"
I look at the clay pot forgotten beside the fountain, empty. "It looks available."
"This is ridiculous."
"Then it fits our situation."
I drop the names in the pot and mix them. Rhayne draws the first pair, maybe because she’s the only one everyone trusts not to rig it.
"Veric and Freya."
Freya smiles. So does Veric. I immediately regret allowing democracy.
The second pair comes out Mira and Rhayne. Rhayne tenses, but Mira just tilts her head, polite, accepting without complaint.
The third is my name and Kellan Rook. Kellan breaks into a simple, almost honest grin.
"How much?" he asks.
"Two percent," I answer. "If you can stand listening to instructions."
"I can stand getting hit while listening."
"Then you name it. I love extra experience." fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
The last papers confirm the obvious: Oliver and Zhang Xi.
Veric looks at me. "You drew two people who aren’t even here."
"They were informed of their own existence."
Freya laughs. "This is going to be a mess."
Oliver arrives twenty minutes later, breathing like a man who walked too fast to admit he was rushing. He looks at the papers in my hands, then at the faces around me.
"Why does everyone look guilty?"
"You were drawn," I say.
"I hate when that sentence comes before the explanation."
"You fight Zhang Xi."
Oliver stops. "The Silver Fang monk?"
"Yes. And you’ll bet one percent of your experience."
"Generous. Still, I feel like my soul was administratively betrayed."
Zhang Xi arrives ten minutes after that, serene, as if crossing the city, teaching a primordial rune to Leona, and coming back to the Academy were just part of a balanced morning. She hears the summary without interrupting, then looks at the drawn pairs.
"At least try not to lose limbs unnecessarily," she says. "Regrowing them costs a great deal of OXI."
I pull a box of twenty LDP from my inventory and set it in front of her.
"That won’t be a problem for you, Reverend Zhang Xi."
She looks at the box. Then at me. For the first time since she arrived, her serenity seems to slip by a thread.
"Dryden Sands... what exactly are you planning to do?"
I look at the pot, at the drawn names, and at the people I need to turn into something better than improvised survivors.
"Train."
