Kim and I never did come up with a reliable way to communicate safely. Still, he gave me the names of three addicts right away. All three were guys: two lived in our block, and I even knew one of them. Y. Volkov, the very same bully victim who had now become a leader of the anti-bully coalition. The other cadet, B. Mtembei, I didn't know at all. He hadn't made a name for himself, hadn't stood out in any way. He wasn't part of the bullies, but had managed to avoid any conflict with them. It was precisely that blandness and low profile that made me choose him.

Still, the final decision wasn't mine to make. I'd done my part, and done it well. Time for the serious people to get to work. Liang Shi and his lot had already botched one operation, so I decided to hand the names over to Novak. Let's see how a proper diplomat handles things. I didn't have the resources for round-the-clock surveillance.

Vaclav approved my choice of target.

I just wasn't sure whether that approval was genuine or for show. Nor did I know whether Novak would limit himself to one subject or pursue all three at once.

My part was done, and in return, I received an entire box of Pure Thoughts tea. Though from now on, I was banned from using it as payment. Novak had several boxes of yellow-grade tea for such purposes.

Speaking of quality and useful things — Adam had finished working with my essence. I received thirty-three ampoules of various M1-grade essences from him, the kind that couldn't be acquired within our School. It was just enough to raise the rest of my spiritual and martial roots to 15.

Unfortunately, we'd struck the deal before I found out that one ampoule didn't necessarily equal +1 —otherwise, I would've ordered more. Still, I hadn't yet dealt with the Wood, so worrying about the others was pointless.

Though... I'd started to feel something inside the ring.

It was depth.

When my mind touched the ring, it was like staring into a deep well. Not bottomless, just deep.

That sensation brought another with it: space dissonance and disorientation.

I suspected that I'd only be able to break through in mastering Space Qi once I learned to handle both of those. Still, it made me wonder whether the Wood was similar. So I started pestering Bao Feng with questions about how he sensed the Wood.

I don't know which of us was more off-track, but Bao said he felt the Wood like muscles — tight, overstressed muscles. They just needed to be stretched out before use.

That explanation didn't help me much. If anything, it left me more confused than before. So I decided to put my study of Wood Qi on hold for a while to clear my head. I kept going to the mutual support club only to demonstrate Fist Qi and pay off the favour I owed the guys.

Kowalski was the first to get the hang of it, and then the others caught on too. In general, no one had any real trouble with the Fist.

It was during one of those sessions that I accidentally grasped the essence of Air Qi.

I genuinely wasn't trying, but the space was cramped, so we often mixed training types. As it happened, I was paired with Omar. He and Kowalski had already mastered the Fist, and Omar had moved on to demonstrating Air.

The echoes of his technique rolled across my back and gave me goosebumps. I froze, stopped hurling Chain Punches, turned to him and asked him to do it again.

Omar was demonstrating an Air Bolt — an all-purpose technique that didn't deal much damage but combined well with other types of Qi. His version was probably tailored for some kind of synergy too, but I didn't ask what, exactly. Feeling a spark of insight, I sharpened my senses.

Omar flicked his hand and fired a compressed blast of air from two fingers. The bolt zipped past the left side of my head, brushing my cheek with a breeze and the residual Qi.

There was something in it, something wild, raw, and familiar...

The Monkey! That was Mad Monkey! That same rebellious streak, that same refusal to repeat itself, was condensed in this stream.

It seemed my technique had been reverse-engineered from a more advanced, compound form, but still carried the core of something greater.

"Uniqueness and freedom!" I said, locking eyes with Omar.

"Freedom? Of course!" he grinned. "It's air. As for uniqueness, though, I'm not sure what you mean."

We didn't argue. Everyone experiences Qi differently.

Instead, I asked him to repeat it, and after a few more bolts with my eyes closed, I confirmed it — another type of Qi added to my arsenal. Though I didn't feel any danger from it. Which could be a problem in battle.

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The next day, after my breakthrough with Air Qi, I had another reassessment. I gained five more minutes in the Flow Chamber.

Five minutes and seventeen seconds, to be exact. I could now endure the Flow for over fifty minutes, which, according to the thinhorn specialist who ran the test, was an excellent result. Ninety-seven percent of cadets cultivated for less time. But that didn't mean they got less from it.

Roughly forty percent of cadets in the later part of the first stage had lower dispersion rates, meaning they got more out of their cultivation in less time.

If we went by raw outcome, I absorbed only 13 units of Qi in 50 minutes.

Those numbers were killing me.

My boys must've been gutted too — all of them hadn't even reached their second bottleneck yet. And they didn't know Nur-Zola had already overtaken them for the second time.

Bursala hadn't let go of her pulse, wringing out every last drop and maybe more. Zola was about to break through the second bottleneck any day now. At this rate, she'd hit the second tier before any of my guys.

Though I doubted she'd beat me to it.

The small numbers irritated me, but I couldn't do anything about my obsession with counting. After every session, I did the maths.

This time was no different.

So:

Cultivation level: 2378 / 2467

That's +420 from an hour ago. 407 will disperse, 13 will remain.

New total: 1971 / 2467

In three weeks, if nothing goes wrong, I'll hit the cap the moment I finish a session: 2469 / 2467.

If I had a few crystals, I could try to break through. But I didn't have any. And Novak had made it perfectly clear — he wasn't giving me any.

I'd have to grind out the extra energy the old-fashioned way.

To safely break through to the second tier, it was recommended to have a surplus of 10% above the base level. I would still need 247 units.

247 divided by 13 equals 19. Nineteen cultivation sessions. That meant 57 days — roughly two months. That would bring me to the six-month mark since the start — the very threshold that Doc Robinson had defined as the safe cutoff for making it past the first-year cull.

But what if something happened in that time?

What if, at the next tournament, I ended up getting stabbed in the gut instead of Dubois? A week in the capsule without cultivation, and I'd already be behind the so-called safe mark.

Now I understood why Robinson was against the tournaments. Well, not tournaments as such — he opposed duels, specifically.

Speaking of duels — despite Robinson considering them less dangerous than tournaments, I still thought the risk wasn't worth the reward. Duels were essentially gambling. Two participants put up equal point stakes, and the winner took it all.

There was a special committee that kept a close eye on fixed matches. They weren't concerned with cheating per se, only with fights that had been bought, when points were essentially being sold for cash. Results were often annulled simply because the committee found the match suspicious.

I had no intention of participating in duels. Unlike Bao and Denis, they'd each had one, and won.

Bao Feng's opponent had been Viktor Li, a well-known mix of Air and Point, at the late first stage. He probably expected the cultivation gap to be enough. He was wrong.

Bao stepped into the arena wearing his stylish armour, which, as Alan would say, added extra 'flair.' Thin gold lines framed every glossy black, polished segment. A clear reminder that Bao had ordered that armour back when he was still daddy's golden boy. It even had formations. One of them definitely designed to counter Point.

His mace, a tangle of dark, twisted vines, hung at his waist, tightly coiled and compact.

Viktor's armour looked less flashy, a bit older, and painted in the standard black-and-blue. In his hands was a metal spear: flexible and springy, perfect for mid-range combat.

The signal rang out, and Bao moved forward slowly. So did Viktor.

Neither rushed.

Bao attacked first. He swung his mace, and, to Viktor's surprise, the coiled vines unravelled. The head shrank to half its size, and the spinning vine acted like a whip. Suddenly, Viktor found himself at a disadvantageous range. The mace landed too close for comfort, and all he could do was dodge. There wasn't enough room to counterattack. He tried to maintain a safe distance, but quickly realised that tactic wasn't going to work. He dashed forward, spear outstretched.

It was as if Bao had been waiting for that. He swung the whip-mace low, parallel to the ground, and the vine wrapped around Viktor's ankles, before he could even finish his dash technique.

Viktor hit the ground, and the vine, like a serpent, coiled itself rapidly around his body. It slithered across his torso and paused at his neck. His armour creaked under the pressure. Viktor tried to do something with his spear, but Bao had already secured the grip. Without getting any closer, he held his opponent down until the vine completely immobilised him. Then he simply dragged him to the edge of the arena and booted him out.

Denis faced off against Tadashi Ken — a Mace cultivator.

The atmosphere in the arena was different this time, more aggressive, more rigid. Both participants stood motionless, their armour gleaming under the dome lights. Tadashi was short, stocky, and carried a massive mace that glowed red. The glow threw me off. My opponents' weapons had never glowed. Tadashi's armour matched — deep red, marked with just a few black stripes. Denis's, on the other hand, was blue, completely unadorned with black.

The judge gave the signal.

Denis didn't move. He stood upright, palms relaxed, arms hanging loosely. Tadashi, in contrast, charged in from the first second — no testing, no hesitation. His mace swung up and then came down with a roar. The air trembled.

The strike hit the ground, right where Denis had been standing a heartbeat earlier.

He'd only taken a single step to the side.

Tadashi's momentum carried his entire body forward, and Denis simply touched his side. A light, almost accidental contact, barely visible, if not for the golden flash of Palm Qi.

Tadashi staggered. He hunched slightly. His weapon dropped to the ground.

Judging by his reaction, he tried to inhale deeply and couldn't. Not because of lack of air, but because something inside had begun to resist. His body rejected the movement.

His muscles wouldn't obey. It was as if some internal mechanism had broken without being touched.

He tried to swing again — a second strike, slower this time. So slow, in fact, that Denis was able to give him a casual smack on the helmet.

As Denis told me later, his opponent had a formation against Palm techniques. And like all formations, it had a weakness — distance.

A golden shimmer flashed through the helmet, and something vaguely gold-tinged flew out the back of Tadashi's head. He collapsed, first to one knee, then onto his side.

The judge declared Denis the winner.

All in all, the lads had done well in the duels. Denis walked away with twenty points, and Bao had tricked his opponent out of a full fifty.

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