Wednesday came faster than Adam expected.
Two days of lectures, fitness drills, and social choreography. Adam observed. He attended Linde's second lecture — expedition protocols, extraction, the relationship between prep time and survival. It was designed to scare them. It worked. He sat through a teamwork seminar led by Voss, a Level 3 instructor who spoke about squad dynamics with the weariness of someone who'd watched too many solo operators die alone. He ran the obstacle course twice more, upper third both times.
And he listened. In the cafeteria, hallways, breaks — everywhere students gathered, the conversations were the same. Builds. Abilities. Endless comparison of who bought what.
"—honestly, Iron Skin is a waste. It's good for like two tiers and then you're stuck with it forever. My cousin bought it at L1 and by the time she hit L3 she said it was like wearing a raincoat in a hurricane. Does nothing."
"It's not nothing. It still—"
"It's nothing at L3. You know what's something at L3? Nen. One of the energy systems. My brother said a kid in his cohort bought it day one at L3 and within six months he could see people's energy output with his bare eyes."
"That's one system. What about Chakra? I saw a clip on ExplorerNet of this Vossian Explorer using some kind of clone technique — actual physical copies of herself. She's only L4."
"Clones are Chakra, yeah. But you have to specialize hard. If you spread across ninjutsu and genjutsu and taijutsu you end up okay at everything and great at nothing."
Adam ate and said nothing. The conversation was happening two tables over between three second-years who'd spent more time on forums than class. Half was wrong. Half was close enough to be dangerous.
"What about Ki?" one of them asked. "I keep seeing people say it's the best system in the Bazaar."
"Ki's locked until like Level 7. Maybe 8. Nobody our age is buying Ki."
"But if you could—"
"You can't. That's the point. The Bazaar won't even show you the full listing until you're high enough. And the price is supposed to be insane. Like, tens of thousands of NP."
"I heard it's because Ki comes from a Tier 8 world. The people there — the natives — they're not even human. Not really. They look human but their bodies can take hits that would vaporize us. There's this argument people make about some fighter from that world, a bald guy, supposed to be the weakest member of his group, and he could still blow up mountains."
"So Ki is strong because they're strong. Not because of the system itself?"
"No, the system IS strong. It's one of the strongest. But it's strong because those people are built to use it. An Earth Prime human with Ki would still be way more powerful than without it, but you'd never match the natives. Their baseline is just... different."
"So why doesn't everyone just save up and buy it at L7?"
"Because you have to survive to L7 first. Without an energy system. That's like showing up to a gunfight and saying you'll buy your gun in eight years."
Nearly a smile. The kid had it right. Ki was one of the best systems on paper — nobody disputed that. But the Bazaar locked it at L7-L8 and priced it like a house. By the time you could afford it, you'd either built your career on another system or died saving for it.
The smart play was pick something at L3 — Nen, Chakra, Cursed Energy, Magicules — and commit. The differences were about playstyle. Nen rewarded intelligence. Chakra was versatile but demanded specialization. Cursed Energy hit hard with a psychological edge. Magicules scaled endless but started slow.
Adam already knew which one to take. Had known for years.
He finished his sandwich and pulled up ExplorerNet. The trending page was highlights, build tier lists, drama. A clip from Sigrid Holm, a Haldren L4 Explorer, was circulating — twenty seconds of her using energy hardening to tank an explosion, then countering with a strike that shattered concrete. Comments argued whether it was Armament Haki or Tekkai or custom.
Below that, a raid video — chaotic, multi-person engagement in a warzone city with aliens. The footage was shaky, obscured by dust, but Adam could see eight Explorers fighting something large and metallic. One used a movement technique that left afterimages — probably Reiatsu-based. Another had glowing hands, shaping energy into projectiles that detonated. A third did something Adam couldn't identify — the air rippled like heat haze, everything within ten meters simply stopped moving. Frozen. A domain effect.
The caption: L5 raid, Invasion-type world. 23 deployed, 14 survived. This is what you're training for.
Fourteen out of twenty-three. Sixty percent with experienced L5 Explorers.
Adam put his phone away.
The sparring arena was a converted gymnasium on the west side of campus — high ceilings, padded floor, reinforced walls. The reinforcement had been added later. The original walls were standard construction until a second-year with Unarmed Mastery and a strength amplifier put his fist through a load-bearing column during a warm-up drill. Brandt had told the story on their first day two years ago with the tired delivery of a man filing an insurance claim: "Seventeen years old. Wanted to see what the ability felt like. Now he knows."
The final-year cohort was assembled along the perimeter. Brandt stood in the center of the ring — a marked circle about eight meters in diameter — with a tablet tucked under his prosthetic arm, expression set to mild professional displeasure.
"Ground rules. These are evaluation matches, not fights. I need to see where you stand, what you've purchased, how you handle pressure. Matches end when I call them, when someone yields, or when someone leaves the ring. Abilities allowed. Weapons not. If you injure your partner beyond what Reinforced Physiology handles overnight, we talk."
He looked around.
"First match. Eriksen and Sato."
A ripple went through the cohort. Adam caught the Aurland twins exchanging a look — Erik was already pulling out his phone to update the spreadsheet. Kael stood up with the easy confidence of someone unaware he was about to lose, walked to the ring with a grin.
Mira Sato closed her tablet, set it down, and walked to the ring like it's a business meeting.
They faced each other. Kael was bigger — fifteen centimeters taller, broader shoulders, raw physicality from good genetics plus Reinforced Physiology. Size mattered in a straight fight.
Mira wasn't going to give him that.
"Begin," Brandt said.
Kael moved first. He closed the distance with a straight right — textbook form, good extension. Combat Instinct guiding him. Adam could tell. The hip rotation, the follow-through — that was ability, not training.
Mira sidestepped. Precise, minimal, letting the punch slide past. Then she was inside his guard, moving with fluidity that didn't come from ability but from two Level 4 parents who'd drilled fundamentals into her since childhood.
She hit him three times in two seconds. Liver. Floating rib. Solar plexus. Each strike short, sharp, aimed at gaps between muscle groups. She wasn't overpowering him. She was finding seams.
Kael gasped and swung an elbow. Mira ducked, stepped back. Her breathing hadn't changed.
"That's the difference between an ability and a skill," Brandt said. "Eriksen has Combat Instinct — clean, efficient, textbook. Sato doesn't. She has eight years of her parents drilling fundamentals. The ability gives you the how. Not the when."
Kael wiped his mouth and came again. This time more careful — tighter guard, shorter range, trying to use reach. Combat Instinct was learning, feeding corrections.
Mira had fought people with Combat Instinct before — both her parents ran it. She knew the tells. The slight hesitation before counters, the way the guard adjusted a beat too cleanly. Combat Instinct made you faster, not smarter. Mira was both.
She feinted high, dropped low, swept his leg. Kael went down. Before he could recover, she was on him — knee to his back, arm locked, pressure one rotation away from painful.
"Yield," Mira said. Flat.
Kael tapped. "I yield. Jesus."
Brandt nodded. "Sato wins. Time: forty-three seconds." He looked at the cohort. "Anyone who thought this would go differently should ask themselves what assumptions they made and whether those will get them killed in an expedition world."
Erik was already typing. Beside him, Lukas shook his head.
"Second match. Aurland, Erik. Lindgren."
Erik walked to the ring with the controlled posture of someone trained by a Level 5 father. Lindgren — the heavyset boy who'd broken his desk — lumbered up. He had Unarmed Mastery, which meant his body knew how to fight. His face didn't.
It lasted longer, mostly because Erik was cautious and Lindgren was big enough to require patience. Erik had Enhanced Reflexes — Adam could see it in how his eyes tracked Lindgren's movements, always a fraction ahead. He slipped punches by centimeters. Ducked a haymaker that would've rattled him. Then, when Lindgren overcommitted, Erik pivoted, caught him clean on the temple, and watched him crumple.
"Aurland wins. Time: one minute twelve seconds." Brandt checked his tablet. "Lindgren, when you wake up, we're discussing power versus control."
Lindgren groaned. He was conscious, just reassessing.
The matches continued. Adam watched, cataloguing abilities, techniques, patterns. Two more students had Combat Instinct — most popular L1 combat buy, you could spot it in mechanical precision. Three had Enhanced Reflexes. One girl, Petra, a quiet second-year, had bought Evasion Protocol — she spent her match backing away with almost supernatural awareness, never getting hit, never landing hit. She lost on a ring-out when her opponent walked her to the edge.
"Evasion Protocol without an offensive follow-up is surrender," Brandt said. "You'll survive longer, but you'll never complete an expedition by running."
Then Brandt called, "Varen and Delacroix."
Adam stood. Across the room, Ren did the same.
The walk to the ring took ten seconds. He thought. He'd watched twelve matches. The cohort fought — ability-dependent, aggressive, academy-trained for engagement. They fought like students.
Ren was different. He'd noticed it in the obstacle course, the way she moved during drills — economy of motion, constant environmental awareness, positioning where she could see exits. That wasn't academy training.
They faced each other in the ring. Up close, Ren was maybe five foot four. Lean, composed, hands relaxed. She looked at Adam the way Adam looked at everything — analytically, cataloguing his stance, weight distribution, how he held his hands.
"Begin," Brandt said.
Neither moved.
Three seconds. Five. The cohort murmured. Brandt watched.
Adam shifted his weight forward — testing, not committing. Ren's eyes tracked it. She adjusted her stance by two degrees.
She's reading me.
Adam went first. Straight left — Combat Instinct guiding mechanics, Accelerated Cognition processing her reaction. She slipped it. A slip. Head movement, minimal, the kind thing boxers spent years learning. The punch passed her cheek by less than a centimeter.
Then she hit him. One shot, open palm to his sternum. It didn't look like much. The impact felt like someone had shoved a battering ram into his chest.
Adam stumbled back two steps. His lungs seized. Reinforced Physiology absorbed most of it, but the shock was real.
What the hell was that?
He'd felt Combat Instinct kicks with less impact. This was a palm strike from a, maybe, fifty kilograms girl.
Ren hadn't followed up. She was standing in the same spot, watching him recover with neither satisfaction nor concern. Just observing.
Adam came again. Faster — a combination, left-right-left, using Combat Instinct's full range. His body moved correctly, efficiently, feeding optimal patterns. Against Kael or Lindgren, this would've overwhelmed.
Ren slipped the first, redirected the second with a touch that changed trajectory, stepped inside the third to deliver another palm — this time to his shoulder. The arm went numb down.
She's not hitting hard. Hitting precisely. Pressure points. That's not an ability.
Or was it? Adam couldn't tell. Pain Suppression was common. Nerve Strike was in the catalog. If Ren had both —
She came forward for the first time. Rapid sequence — palm, palm, elbow — center mass, throat, floating rib. Adam blocked the first two with Combat Instinct feeding guard patterns, but the elbow slipped through and caught his ribs. Something cracked. Not bone — cartilage shifting in a way Reinforced Physiology would fix overnight but hurt now.
Adam reset. His right arm was coming online. His ribs ached. His chest felt compressed. Ren hadn't changed her stance. Hadn't changed her breathing. Hadn't changed her expression.
I can win this. Combat Instinct, Reinforced Physiology, Accelerated Cognition. Faster, stronger, more durable. I can process information faster than she can react.
But if I win cleanly, people ask questions. If I show everything, Brandt calculates NP spent and wonders about the math.
Win and draw attention. Lose and preserve cover.
Adam made a decision the old him — the programmer who died alone — would've made without hesitation. The smart play. The safe play. The play that kept his secrets intact.
He hated it.
He came in with a combination that was eighty percent. Good enough to look like he was trying. Not good enough to threaten someone who moved like a master. She countered with a wrist grab that became an arm lock that became Adam on the mat with his face against padding and Ren's knee between his shoulder blades.
"Yield," Adam said.
"Delacroix wins. Time: one minute thirty-eight seconds." Brandt's voice was neutral, but when Adam got up, there was something in his eyes. Not disappointment. Recognition. Like he'd seen Adam choose to lose and was filing it away.
Adam walked back to the bench. His ribs ached. His arm tingled. His pride did whatever pride does when you deliberately underperform in front of sixty people.
Kael leaned over. "She's terrifying."
"Yep."
"What's her build?"
"I don't know." That was true. Adam had felt three things — precision striking that could be technique or ability, body mechanics suggesting training beyond academy curriculum, calmness under pressure that was either natural talent or having been in genuinely dangerous situations.
"Dalvik doesn't teach like that," Kael said quietly.
"No. It doesn't."
The remaining matches blurred past. Adam watched but kept coming back to Ren, sitting with the same contained stillness she'd had all week. She didn't talk to anyone after her match. Didn't celebrate or debrief. Just sat and watched, the same way Adam did.
The final match was Lukas Aurland against a stocky boy named Holm — no relation to Sigrid. Lukas fought like his twin: controlled, patient, Enhanced Reflexes doing the heavy lifting while he waited for openings. Holm fought like a brawler — all forward pressure, Iron Skin making him confident he could eat hits. For a while it worked. Then Lukas found the timing, slipped a haymaker, and put him down with a combination too fast, too clean for someone who'd only had abilities a few weeks.
"Family training," Kael murmured. "Their dad probably had them drilling since childhood."
After the matches, Brandt gathered the cohort.
"I've seen sixteen fights. About four of you look like you've been in a real exchange. The rest fight like you read a manual, which you did. That's what Combat Instinct is — a manual in your nervous system. Manuals are useful. They are not sufficient."
He looked around.
"Some bought the right abilities for your build and goals. Some bought what was popular on ExplorerNet. In five years, the first group will be alive and the second will be a cautionary tale in a lecture like this. Abilities can't be removed. Whatever you've bought, you're stuck with. Make your next purchase count."
He paused. Looked at Lindgren, holding an ice pack to his temple.
"Especially you."
A few nervous laughs. Brandt didn't smile.
"I want reflections — written, one page, on what surprised you in today's matches. Due Friday. Dismissed."
Adam walked home along the river. The evening was colder than Monday — autumn settling into Kerenth. Leaves on the water. Lights coming on in apartments across the Velden. The sound of a train somewhere north of Greyhill.
His phone buzzed. The cohort group chat was exploding.
Kael: OK so can we talk about Delacroix? What WAS that?
Erik A: She's got something. Not just Combat Instinct. The palm strikes had too much impact for her size.
Lukas A: Updating the spreadsheet. She's unranked until we have more data. Not taking bets on her.
Random student: She transferred from Dalvik. Maybe southern schools teach different?
Mira Sato: They don't.
Kael: Sato would know. Her parents train with Dalvik graduates sometimes right?
Mira Sato: Dalvik teaches team coordination and formation tactics. Whatever Delacroix does, she didn't learn it there.
Kael: Adam you fought her. Thoughts?
Adam: She's good.
Kael: Wow. Thank you for that incredibly detailed tactical analysis.
Erik A: Classic Varen.
Adam pocketed his phone. Kael was right — the answer was useless. The real answer — she fights like someone who's been where losing means dying, and I threw it because winning would raise questions — wasn't something for a group chat.
He stopped on the bridge. Below, the river moved dark and steady. His reflection was a smudge. The way he wanted it to be, for now.
The problem wasn't Ren. It was what it showed about himself. He'd chosen to lose. Chosen safe. And Brandt had seen it. And Adam, who'd spent his second life building patience and restraint, was starting to feel the cost.
Holding back was smart. Necessary. Also, slowly, making him feel like the person he'd been — the one who played it safe, kept his head down, didn't risk anything, and died with nothing.
He couldn't keep doing this forever. At some point he'd have to show what he was. At some point the cover wouldn't be worth the cost.
But not today.
He crossed the bridge and went home.
On ExplorerNet, the trending video had changed. A Level 7 Explorer from the Eastern Alliance — a woman called Void — posted a clip. Six seconds. She raised her hand, the air collapsed into compressed darkness, and she threw it at a target two hundred meters away. The impact erased a hillside. Cursed Energy at L7. Still think it caps out?
Comments were chaos. Ki fans arguing it wasn't power scaling, just technique. Nen users pointing out raw destruction wasn't the only metric. Someone claiming Magicule users at L8 could do the same with a thought. Buried in the replies, a comment from a verified L8 Explorer Adam didn't recognize:
Every system reaches the mountain. Some take different paths. The Bazaar doesn't sell ceilings — it sells floors.
Adam read it twice. Then he closed the app, set his alarm, and went to sleep.
Tomorrow he'd write Brandt's reflection paper. This weekend he'd figure out how to deal with the deployment ban keeping him grounded while the clock ticked.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the grayed-out listing in Energy Systems waited, patient as gravity.