"Barely."
Jerome stared at him for another second, then burst into a laugh so loud it made a few people nearby flinch. "Barely, he says. This guy says barely."
The room did not immediately return to normal after that.
How could it?
Kael had walked into the Climber Association as an unregistered rookie, taken off his shoes, buried his toes into reinforced marble, and punched harder than most high-floor bruisers could manage with gear. The staff tried to pretend procedure still had shape, but their eyes kept drifting toward the display. Twelve thousand seven hundred eighty-eight kilograms. It sat there like a problem. Not enough to beat Yenna's higher-bracket record, but enough to make every person in the upper testing floor understand that something strange had just entered their building.
A few climbers came forward to congratulate him.
