Brandt's office was on the third floor of the academy's east wing, at the end of a hallway lined with framed photographs of graduating classes. Adam had walked this hallway dozens of times over the past two years. He'd never noticed how many of the faces in those photographs belonged to people who were dead now.
Today he did.
The door was open. Brandt was behind his desk — a slab of reclaimed wood that looked like it had been through a war. The instructor was writing with his one remaining arm, left hand moving with practiced efficiency. He'd lost the right one to a Level 4 world fifteen years ago. The prosthetic — basic mechanical, nothing Bazaar-enhanced — sat in a charging cradle on the shelf behind him. He only wore it for demonstrations.
Adam knocked on the doorframe.
"Sit," Brandt said without looking up.
Adam sat. The chair was hard and positioned slightly lower than Brandt's, which was either bad ergonomics or a deliberate power play. Knowing Brandt, it was both.
The instructor finished writing, set the pen down, and looked at Adam. His eyes swept over him — clinical, fast. Whatever he saw made his jaw tighten.
"You look like shit," Brandt said.
"I'm fine."
"Your hand is burned. Your knuckles are swollen. You're favoring your left shoulder. You haven't slept in two days." Brandt leaned back. "But sure. You're fine."
Adam said nothing. The burns on his left hand had faded significantly after purchasing Reinforced Physiology — the ability optimized healing along with everything else — but they were still visible. Pink, tight skin where the blisters had been. He'd hoped the sleeve of his jacket would cover it.
Brandt reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a file. Thin. Adam's name was on the tab.
"Two years," Brandt said. "That's how long you've been in my program. You showed up at fourteen with better theoretical knowledge than most of my third-years. You scored top three in every written assessment we've ever given you. Your physical scores are average, your teamwork scores are below average, and your psychological profile says you have — and I'm quoting here — 'a marked tendency toward independent action and information hoarding.'"
Heat climbed Adam's neck.
"You want to know what I wrote in my end-of-year notes last term?" Brandt opened the file. "'Adam Varen is the most prepared student I've ever taught who is also the most likely to get himself killed. His knowledge base is exceptional. His instinct to operate alone will be his undoing.'"
The words hung in the air.
"And then," Brandt continued, closing the file, "you deployed on the day of your Bazaar connection. Alone. Without telling anyone. Without gear. Without abilities. From your apartment." The last word carried a specific anger. "We have deployment bays here, Adam. Medical staff on standby. Recovery rooms. People who can stitch you back together when you come back bleeding. That's what they're for. Instead, you deployed from your living room and came back with second-degree burns and nobody within a kilometer who could help you."
He let that sit.
"Into a Level 1 world that — based on the expedition parameters I pulled from your uncle's very agitated phone call — apparently contained supernatural elements despite the L1 classification."
"The world was L1. The anomaly was—"
"I know how world classifications work, kid. I taught you how they work." Brandt's voice was flat. "What I want to understand is the decision-making process that led a student with below-average teamwork scores and a noted tendency toward solo operation to do exactly the thing his entire profile predicted he would do."
Adam looked at his hands. The burned one and the bruised one. Evidence of a plan that had worked — barely, messily, by the skin of his teeth.
"I knew the world," he said quietly. "Not from a briefing. I just... knew it. The threats, the layout, the timeline. I had information that gave me an edge no team could have provided."
Brandt studied him for a long time. The silence had weight.
"S-rank," the instructor said finally.
"Yes, sir."
"On your first expedition. With no abilities. No team. No purchased equipment." Brandt rubbed his face with his hand. "Do you understand how that looks?"
"Lucky?"
"Impossible. It looks impossible, Adam. The last time a student scored S-rank on a first deployment was eleven years ago, and she had a full team and two months of prep." Brandt paused. "She's Level 6 now. One of the best Explorers Haldren has produced in a generation."
He let that sink in.
"I'm not going to pretend I understand how you did what you did. But I'm going to tell you something, and you're going to listen. The Bazaar doesn't care about you. It doesn't reward brilliance. It rewards survival. Every S-rank Explorer who thought they were special is either still alive because they learned humility, or dead because they didn't. There is no third option."
"I understand."
"You don't. But you will." Brandt stood up. "Your final year starts today. You will attend every class. You will participate in every sparring session. You will work with a team when assigned one. And you will not deploy again until I say so."
Adam opened his mouth.
"That's not a request. I can't technically stop you — the Bazaar doesn't answer to me. But if you deploy without my clearance, you're out of Westfall. No final-year certification. No network. No recommendation letters. Just you and whatever's in your head, alone."
The threat was real. Adam could see it in Brandt's face — not anger, not punishment. Strategy. The man was giving Adam a reason to stay that appealed to his rational side, because emotional appeals wouldn't work on a kid who'd already proven he'd ignore them.
"How long?" Adam asked.
"Until I'm satisfied you won't get yourself killed. Weeks. Months. Depends on you."
Adam nodded. He hated it. But Brandt was right about enough things that arguing would be stupid.
"One more thing," Brandt said as Adam stood to leave. "A survival-type L1 world. Common assignment. No supernatural elements, no anomalies, just humans in a bad situation. Do you know why I'm mentioning it?"
Adam went still.
"Because three students from Nordvik Academy deployed to it last week and two of them didn't come back. Sixteen years old. Top of their class. Better physical scores than yours." Brandt's voice was quiet. "Think about that today while you're sitting in Professor Linde's lecture feeling bored."
Adam left the office. His hands were steady, but something in his chest wasn't.
Westfall Academy occupied a cluster of white stone buildings on the south bank of the Velden, connected by covered walkways and surrounded by training grounds that had been expanded three times in the past decade. When Adam had enrolled at fourteen, there had been about two hundred students across all years. Now there were closer to three hundred. The government kept increasing funding. More instructors, more facilities, more scholarships for promising candidates.
Because the alternative was not having enough Explorers when the next incursion came.
Two years of Westfall had given Adam more than theoretical knowledge. The curriculum was built around one assumption: you would enter hostile worlds, and you needed to come back. First-years learned orientation, map reading, basic survival. Second-years moved to infiltration techniques, emotional profiling, tactical positioning. By the end of second year, Adam could pick a pocket, read a room, shoot a handgun with reasonable accuracy, and run basic counter-surveillance — all taught by instructors who'd needed those skills to stay alive. The scenario rooms in the basement ran simulated expedition conditions twice a week. Adam had cleared dozens of them.
None of which changed the fact that he'd ignored all of it and deployed solo from his apartment on day one.
Adam crossed the central courtyard and headed for Lecture Hall B, where the final-year orientation was scheduled. Students were everywhere — mostly his age, a few older returnees who'd taken gap years or transferred from other programs. The energy was different from previous terms. Tighter. These were the ones who'd made it through two years of prep and were about to start the part that mattered. The part where you stopped learning about expedition worlds and started going to them.
Most of them had connected to the Bazaar over the summer break. Adam could tell — there was a subtle difference in how connected students carried themselves. A little more aware. A little more present. The Bazaar did that to you. It sat in the back of your mind like a second pulse, and once it was there, you couldn't quite go back to being the person you were before.
A few hadn't connected yet. They still had time — the window stayed open for a full year after your sixteenth birthday. After that, the Bazaar withdrew its offer permanently. No second chances. No appeals. You were either in or you were out, and the decision was final.
"Adam!"
He turned. Kael Eriksen was cutting through the crowd toward him — tall, blond, built like someone who'd taken Reinforced Physiology as his first purchase except he hadn't, that was just genetics. Kael was one of the few people at Westfall that Adam would describe as a friend, mostly because Kael had decided they were friends in their first week and Adam had never figured out how to argue with someone that persistent.
"You look terrible," Kael said cheerfully. "Good summer?"
"It was fine."
"Liar. You connected, didn't you? Over the break?"
"On my birthday."
Kael grinned. "Me too. Two weeks ago. Bought Reinforced Physiology on day one. Couldn't help it — the ability was right there and I had birthday NP from my parents. Felt like..." He flexed his hand, looking at it. "Like someone turned up the resolution on everything."
"That's a decent way to describe it."
"What'd you buy?"
The question was casual. Normal. Every newly connected student was comparing purchases — it was the Bazaar equivalent of comparing phone specs. Adam had prepared for this.
"Same as you. Reinforced Physiology. And a couple of utility picks."
"Which ones?"
"Spatial Pocket. Accelerated Cognition."
Kael whistled. "Cognition? That's three hundred NP. Most people skip it — they say it doesn't feel like enough for the price."
"It's a long-term investment."
"You sound like a financial advisor." Kael threw an arm around Adam's shoulder — the bruised one, which Adam managed not to flinch at — and steered him toward the lecture hall. "Come on. Linde's doing the welcome address and I heard she's got updated incursion footage."
Lecture Hall B was a tiered auditorium that seated about eighty. The final-year cohort filled maybe sixty seats — the rest would be occupied by second-years sitting in for the overview portions. Adam found a seat near the back, which was where he always sat. Kael dropped into the chair next to him and immediately started scanning the room.
"Sato's back," Kael said, nodding toward a compact Japanese girl in the third row who was reading something on her tablet with the focus of a surgeon. "Apparently she spent the summer training with her parents. Both Level 4."
Adam knew Mira Sato. Quiet, precise. She never asked questions in class because she'd already figured out the answer. She'd beaten Adam in two out of three sparring evaluations last year — not because she was stronger, but because she was ruthless about exploiting openings.
"And there's the Aurland twins." Kael gestured toward two blond boys who looked like they'd been manufactured in a lab for a recruitment poster. Erik and Lukas Aurland — both connected, both already sporting the subtle physical tells of Reinforced Physiology. Their father was a Level 5 Explorer who'd made his reputation clearing L3 worlds with a pure combat build. The twins were expected to follow suit.
"Who's that?" Adam asked, looking at a girl he didn't recognize. Dark hair, sitting alone near the windows, wearing a jacket that was too big for her. She had the slightly glazed expression of someone browsing their Bazaar interface while pretending to pay attention to the real world.
"Transfer. Came in last week from — I think Dalvik? Southern academy. Name's Ren something." Kael shrugged. "Don't know much. She keeps to herself."
The doors at the front of the hall opened and Professor Linde walked in. Tall, in her fifties, gray-streaked hair pulled tight. Her posture said she'd rather be anywhere else. She'd been a Level 5 Explorer before retiring to teach. The thin silver scar across her throat was from a world she never talked about.
The hall went quiet. Linde had that effect.
"Welcome to your final year," she said. No warmth. No smile. "Some of you connected to the Bazaar over the summer. Some of you will connect in the coming months. By the end of this year, all of you will have deployed to at least one expedition world, or you will have chosen not to, in which case this program has nothing more to offer you."
She tapped the display behind her. A timeline appeared, spanning twenty-five years.
"For the benefit of the new transfers, and because some of you have clearly forgotten your second-year material based on last term's exam results, we're going to start with a review. I don't care if you've heard this before. You're going to hear it again."
She pointed to the start of the timeline.
"Twenty-five years ago, the Nexus Bazaar appeared. No warning. No buildup. One morning, every sixteen-year-old on the planet woke up with an interface in their head and access to a system that could rewrite human biology. The initial reaction was predictable — excitement, curiosity, a gold-rush mentality. Governments scrambled. Scientists studied it. Religious leaders had opinions. And teenagers started disappearing into other dimensions because the Bazaar didn't come with a manual or a minimum age requirement beyond sixteen."
She advanced the timeline.
"The first five years were chaos. We didn't understand the tier system. We didn't understand world classifications. We didn't understand that the Bazaar wasn't a gift — it was an open door. Open doors work both ways. Early Explorers went in with no preparation and died at rates that would be considered a humanitarian crisis by any metric. Governments tried to regulate it — ban minors from deploying, restrict Bazaar access. None of it worked. The Bazaar doesn't answer to legislation."
A murmur went through the hall. Adam watched Linde's face. She was reciting facts she'd lived.
"The academies were the compromise. We couldn't stop teenagers from deploying, so we tried to make sure they survived when they did. Haldren was one of the first countries to establish a formalized program. Westfall opened nineteen years ago. The survival rate for our graduates is thirty-one percent to Level 5, compared to eleven percent for unaffiliated Explorers."
She let that number sit.
"And then, ten years into the Bazaar era, we learned why it mattered."
The display changed. Grainy footage, shaky. A city skyline. Buildings intact, then not. Something moved between the towers that was too large and too fast to be human. Flashes of light like energy discharge. Screams on the audio, mixed with sounds no weapon Adam knew made.
The hall was silent.
"The Kassel Incursion. Fifteen years ago. First contact with extradimensional hostiles on Earth Prime soil." Linde's voice was flat. "A Level 6-equivalent force breached through a dimensional fault near Kassel, in what was then the Germanic Federation. Estimated hostile count: forty to sixty individuals. They had high-tier Bazaar abilities — energy projection, physical enhancement, environmental manipulation. Some could level city blocks."
She advanced through images. Rubble. Emergency services. Military vehicles dwarfed by the scale of destruction.
"The response was catastrophic. Conventional military was useless. Small arms, armor, air support — none of it mattered against opponents who could shrug off tank rounds. High-level Explorers engaged alone and were overwhelmed by numbers and coordination we couldn't counter."
Another image. A crater where buildings had been. The scale was hard to process.
"The incursion lasted eleven days. Kassel was destroyed. Final casualty count: approximately two hundred and thirty thousand civilians. Forty-one Explorers killed in combat. The incursion was ultimately ended through the use of tactical nuclear weapons — a decision that remains controversial but was, by all available analysis, the only option remaining."
Nobody in the hall was looking at their Bazaar interface anymore.
"This event restructured global priorities overnight. The International Explorer Commission was expanded from an advisory body to a regulatory authority. Governments that had treated Explorer programs as optional began treating them as national security imperatives. Funding increased by orders of magnitude. And the strategic doctrine shifted."
Linde looked at the class.
"The lesson of Kassel: one high-level Explorer is worth more than an army of low-level ones. The power gap between tiers is not linear. A Level 3 is not three times stronger than a Level 1 — they operate on a different scale. A Level 5 can do what would take a battalion with conventional force. Level 6 and above?" She paused. "That's where you stop measuring military and start measuring strategic assets."
She pulled up a chart. Power scaling by level — a curve that started gradual, then bent sharply upward.
"The major inflection points are here, here, and here." She pointed. "Level 3, where energy systems become available. Level 5, where biological enhancements and advanced Traits push beyond what unenhanced humans could do. And Level 8, where we've documented almost nothing. We've never had a Level 8 from Haldren. The global count is in single digits."
She turned off the display.
"Your job, over the next year, is to survive long enough to matter. Not to score well on tests and die on your second deployment thinking knowledge equals capability."
Adam felt that one land. He wasn't sure if Linde was looking at him specifically, but it felt like she was.
"Class schedules are posted. Sparring evaluations begin Wednesday. Dismissed."
The rest of the morning was administrative — schedules, equipment checks, fitness assessments Adam passed easily now. Reinforced Physiology had smoothed out what used to be gaps. He'd always been average. Now he was above average without effort. It felt like cheating and also the point.
Lunch was in the main hall — a long cafeteria where social dynamics played out in seating arrangements. Adam grabbed a tray, sat alone near the wall. Habit. The cafeteria was loud. Conversations overlapped, people compared Bazaar interfaces, showed off early purchases.
"—got Night Vision and Pain Suppression. Figured survival first, you know?"
"My sister went Iron Skin plus Enhanced Reflexes. Classic tank start. She's Level 2 already."
"Did you see Kvale's stream last night? He soloed an L2 world in three days. The full video is on ExplorerNet."
Adam listened without participating. ExplorerNet was the dominant social platform — part TikTok, part Reddit, part database. Famous Explorers posted highlights, build breakdowns, gear reviews. Some had millions of followers. Torsten Kvale, nineteen, from Nordvik, was one of the most popular. He narrated expeditions live.
Twenty-five years ago, teenagers fighting in other dimensions was science fiction. Now it was content. Kids watched Explorer streams the way his old life watched gaming channels. The threat of incursions coexisted with influencer culture. That should have been contradictory.
His phone buzzed. A news notification from the Kerenth Herald:
INCURSION ALERT DOWNGRADED — Vostok Breach contained after 3-day engagement. IEC confirms Level 4-equivalent hostiles neutralized by joint Nordic-Eastern response team. No civilian casualties. Full report pending.
Adam read it twice. A breach. Contained in three days with no civilian deaths. That was good news — good enough that it barely rated as news anymore. Small incursions happened every few months. The big ones, the Kassel-level events, were rarer. But the fact that breaches were routine enough to be downgraded to a news ticker said everything about what the world had become.
He swiped past the alert. The lifestyle section had a piece about Jara Kovic, a Vossian Explorer who'd hit Level 5 at twenty-two. The youngest in her country's history. The photo showed her at a gala in a dress, looking like she'd rather be anywhere. Comments debated whether she was a hero or just an outlier.
Kael dropped into the seat across from him with a tray piled high.
"So," Kael said through a mouthful of pasta, "sparring evals Wednesday. You ready?"
"Define ready."
"Can you throw a punch without hurting yourself?"
"Probably."
"Then you're ahead of Lindgren." Kael nodded toward a heavyset boy two tables over who was demonstrating something with his hands that looked like a martial arts technique and also looked completely wrong. "He bought Unarmed Mastery and he's been practicing in his room. Broke his own desk."
"Unarmed Mastery gives you the technique, not the judgment."
"Exactly. He's going to spar Sato and she's going to take him apart." Kael grinned. "I've got fifty NP on it."
"You're betting on sparring matches?"
"Everyone's betting on sparring matches. The Aurland twins have an actual spreadsheet. They're taking odds on every matchup in the final-year cohort." Kael leaned in. "They've got you at twelve-to-one against Sato, by the way. Nobody thinks you can take her."
"They're probably right."
"That's not the attitude of a guy who scored S-rank on his first—" Kael stopped himself. Looked around. Lowered his voice. "You said don't mention that."
"I told you not to mention it to anyone. That includes mentioning it loudly in a cafeteria."
"Right. Sorry." Kael ate another forkful of pasta. "But seriously. How? You went in with nothing. No team, no gear, no—"
"I got lucky."
"Nobody gets S-rank lucky."
Adam looked at Kael. He was genuinely curious — not jealous, not suspicious. Easy to tell him. Easy, and stupid.
"I had good information," Adam said. "That's all."
Kael studied him for a second, then shrugged. "Fine. Keep your secrets." He pointed his fork at Adam. "But you owe me a sparring match before Wednesday. I need to figure out if Combat Instinct is as good as the reviews say."
"Deal."
The afternoon was physical conditioning — two hours of exercises designed to simulate expedition stress. Sprints with weights, climbing drills, timed obstacle courses. The instructors watched. Adam moved through with quiet efficiency, finishing upper third without attention.
He was careful. Top of the class in writing was expected. Top physically would raise questions. A few weeks ago he'd been average. Now he was better. Reinforced Physiology explained some of it, but if he performed too well, people would calculate NP spent and wonder where it came from.
So he held back. Just enough to blend.
During a water break, he found himself next to the transfer student — Ren. Up close, she was smaller than in the lecture hall. Narrow shoulders, sharp features, dark eyes that moved constantly, cataloguing everything. Someone had taught her to assess threats as baseline.
"You're Varen."
"Yeah."
"You finished the obstacle course six seconds faster than your recorded time from last term."
Adam looked at her. "You read my recorded times?"
"I read everyone's recorded times. The academy posts them." She took a sip of water. "Six seconds is a lot. Reinforced Physiology?"
"Among other things."
"Mm." She capped her water bottle. "I'm Ren Delacroix. Transferred from Dalvik."
"Why'd you transfer?"
Something crossed her face — fast enough Adam almost missed it. "Dalvik focuses on team operations. I wanted individual development."
A practiced answer. Adam had a dozen of his own.
"Welcome to Westfall," he said.
She nodded and walked away.
Adam watched her go. The way she moved — controlled, aware — was something you learned when you'd been scared. Really scared. Dalvik was known for solid team Explorers. Not for students who assessed threat levels during water breaks.
He filed it away and went back to training.
The walk home took twenty minutes. Across the south bridge, along the river, through Northbank streets that were starting to feel like home. Cool evening air, smell of rain. Adam walked with his hands in his pockets, his mind processing, sorting, filing.
Day one of final year. Brandt's warning. Linde's lecture. The Kassel footage hit differently now that he'd been inside an expedition world. The cohort about to be thrown into the multiverse.
And the persistent thought: he'd already done it. Already fought, stolen, burned his hand, punched someone, spoken to a death god. He had an S-rank, a plan to Level 8. While classmates compared first purchases and bet on sparring matches, Adam had 750 points and a Force Join Token and knowledge intelligence brokers would pay catalogs for.
The gap between what he knew and what he could share was the loneliest part. Before, loneliness was passive — slow accumulation of missed connections. Here it was active. A choice. Every time someone asked and he gave answers that were technically true and mostly lies.
I got lucky.
I had good information.
It was fine.
He thought about Kael's arm around his shoulder. Easy warmth. The way Kael just decided people were friends and backed it up until they had no choice but to agree.
Adam had spent thirty years avoiding that. He'd died alone because it was easier than being known.
He didn't want to do that again. The thought surprised him. He genuinely didn't want to keep everyone at arm's length until distance became permanent.
But trust meant vulnerability. And vulnerability, sitting on these secrets, was a calculation with no clean answer.
He unlocked his apartment and dropped his bag.
His phone buzzed again. Kael, in the cohort group chat:
Wednesday sparring lineup posted. Eriksen vs Sato first match. Taking bets. Current odds: Sato 4:1. DM me your picks.
Below that, a reply from one of the Aurland twins:
Our spreadsheet has Sato at 6:1. Your odds are wrong and your methodology is embarrassing.
Below that, Mira Sato herself:
Please stop betting on me. It's distracting.
Below that, Kael:
That's exactly what someone at 6:1 would say.
Almost a smile.
He set his phone down, heated up a casserole from the fridge, and sat at his desk.
The Bazaar interface pulsed softly. He opened it, navigated to the grayed-out listing in Energy Systems, and looked at it the way he did every night. Still locked. Still waiting.
Then he closed it, opened his academy binder, and started planning how to get through the next months without deploying, without losing his mind, without letting Brandt see the cost.
Outside, the Kerenth evening settled in. A train crossed the bridge, windows lit yellow. Somewhere in the city, someone was streaming an expedition. Somewhere else, someone was connecting to the Bazaar for the first time, feeling their world rearrange inside their head.
Somewhere, in a dimension the Bazaar catalogued but didn't explain, the worlds were waiting.
Adam turned a page and kept reading.