Liang Shi was tearing into us in the same duty room where he'd once served tea after Marek's suicide attempt. He had to hold himself back to avoid raising his voice, as his colleagues were watching. The cadets were pretending to read from their tablets, but in truth, all ears were on us. So instead of shouting, Liang Shi hissed. It felt less like an overdose had occurred, and more like we had personally driven poor Varga to suicide.

"From this evening, from this very second, you are expected to spot people like Varga in advance!" Liang's voice cut through the room, cold and quiet. "Clearly I was wrong to praise you after how you handled the Marek situation!"

The assistants stayed silent. Most avoided eye contact. I thought about it… and then I spoke.

"What the hell?!"

Someone had nearly killed me earlier today. I was too tired to swallow another crap in silence.

Liang Shi glared at me. His face froze somewhere between anger and surprise, as if he couldn't decide which feeling was stronger.

"Excuse me?"

Now I was the one surprised — he hissed it with the tone of someone saying shut your mouth before I rip out your tongue and shove it up your arse. And underneath that hiss, there was a trace of the same pressure Vaclav had used on me.

He took my surprise for fear and pressed harder.

"So I'm just keeping you here for decoration, am I? You get points, but no one's responsible for anything?"

He was probably trying to give us a good old-fashioned disciplinary dressing-down.

"That's four points a day!" I shot back. "How many do you lot in the Hall of Order earn? And how many of you are on staff? This is a closed facility — where the hell are the drugs coming from? You think some first-year's cooking them under their bunk?"

Liang Shi narrowed his eyes dangerously, and for a moment, I honestly thought he might hit me. My colleagues even slide aside.

"You're forgetting yourself, Sullivan!"

"And you're not?" I shot back. "I'm a first-year! My main job is to survive long enough to make it to second year. I've got sparring, learning, training — I don't have the time or the resources to do the Hall of Order's job for them!"

"You're a supervisor's assistant!" Liang hissed.

"Then fire me — because if I'm now expected to dive into every cadet's soul, I'll end up popping the same crap Varga overdosed on."

"Is it really so hard to keep your ears open?" he tried to mock me.

"Oh, I don't know... Is this the first year the school's had a drug problem?" I asked.

Liang Shi clenched his teeth.

"Sometimes your initiative impresses me, Sullivan. But right now, you're pissing me off!"

"Likewise," I replied. "Today you're not showing a single trace of the insight I actually respect you for."

That caught him off guard.

He rubbed his face with one hand, as if wiping away the mask of anger, leaving only a tired young man behind.

"All right, let's try this," he said. "Are these substances a problem?"

I nodded.

"Are first-years the ones suffering the most from them?"

I didn't nod — because I didn't have access to any stats. Liang Shi understood.

"Trust me — they are," he said. "First-years are the most eager to buy this crap. And something needs to be done."

That, I could agree with.

"The dealers are targeting first-years, so it's the first-years who have the best chance of picking up any info about them."

I shook my head and said:

"But out of all the first-years, you've picked the ones least likely to hear a word about it." I gestured to our little group. "We all have a good chance of making it into the second period. What you need is people who don't."

"They won't talk to me," Liang Shi waved me off. "They're afraid."

"Even if you offer points?"

"Especially if I offer points! You think I haven't tried that?" Liang waved me off again, clearly expecting more from me — as if he'd been hoping for a revelation and got disappointment instead. "When a first-year sees a supervisor, they either shut up or start swearing they've done nothing wrong."

"Wait!" Dubois cut in. "Can we offer rewards for rumours?"

"Of course! I was going to say that before someone interrupted me."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Liang Shi shot me a look that silently asked, will you shut up now?

I shut up.

"Ten points for an addict, fifty for a dealer. That's if the information is verified, obviously. And you get ten percent on top of your regular pay as a bonus." He looked at me. "Except for Sullivan, since he decided to be a proper smart arse today."

Well... maybe I'd judged him too quickly. There was some logic behind Liang Shi's actions and the Hall of Order's plan.

After he'd shut me up, he finally got to growl at us to his heart's content, tuning us up for the task ahead. I also learned that the drug dealers weren't taking payment through personal accounts — otherwise, they'd have been caught long ago. Instead, they were using special wallets, and the money trail vanished afterwards, as if the funds were never spent at all. What's more, the Hall of Order hadn't found a single such wallet among the cadets.

It was all interesting — but it didn't convince me to start investigating the drug ring first thing in the morning. In fact, I was planning to stay well away from the whole mess. The demons were already hunting me — getting into a fight with drug dealers would just hand them the perfect chance to frame my death like they had nothing to do with it.

Of course, I told the guys about the reward. Knowing how obsessed Bao was with points, I didn't want unnecessary conflict. I still didn't understand how his brain worked, so better not to provoke anything. Though, to be fair, he could've found out on his own through Johanson.

Strangely enough, Varga's corpse shook me up less than Arnaud's overdose had. Probably the close call with my own life had acted as a kind of vaccine — snapping me back into focus. I had a solid training session with Rene and then the rest of the day off, since it was a cultivation day. And not just any cultivation, but a reassessment. I didn't want to screw anything up.

Still, too much free time combined with Liang Shi's brainwashing from the day before. I found myself idly wondering how one could gather intel on the dealers — without putting in too much effort.

The first person who came to mind was Hakim. He'd already brought me a guy once who tried to sell me some trash.

I'd handed him over to Novak — but what had happened to him?

I called Hakim.

Outgoing call: O. S. Hakim.

"Greetings, my dear friend!" he answered. "How can I help you?"

"What was the name of that shit who tried to sell me drugs?" I asked, skipping all pleasantries.

Hakim hesitated, then continued in a much less cheerful tone.

"He's already been expelled," he said. "If you want, you can tell your side of the story. But just so you know — I've already reported it. I don't deal with drugs!" he almost shouted. "The Hall of Order has already checked me, so don't expect anything to leak out of me!"

"Oof," I said. "Touchy subject?"

"You lot are a pain in the arse! I'm not suicidal — I only deal in legal goods. I just connect people with what they need. Yeah, I've got a lot of contacts, including outside the school, but I don't touch illegal substances!"

"Can you get me Palm essence for units?" I asked. "Seven ampoules. Seven hundred each."

"Nine hundred?" he countered.

"It costs five hundred," I reminded him.

"It costs points," Hakim replied — his voice now more agreeable, but still not yielding. "And for first-years, points are worth way more than the standard conversion. The market sets the price, and right now that price is nine hundred."

"My greed says I'll pass at that price."

"Greed is a terrible trait."

"Selling bullshit to a client's ears is worse. If you can get it — I'll take it at seven hundred. If not, I'll buy with points."

"Eight hundred!"

"How many ampoules?"

"Seven."

I remembered the timing Adam and I had discussed and clarified.

"Tell you what," I said. "I'll take up to seven ampoules at eight hundred — if you can get them to me within the next two days."

No point waiting longer. I was nearly out of essence and wouldn't have time to prepare for the upcoming sessions in the 'mutual support club.'

"Two days?" Hakim sounded surprised. "I'll manage in two hours."

"You'll find someone with spare essence in two hours?" I asked, sceptical.

"No, I'll go to the shop and buy it with points."

Wait — he could do that?

I slapped my forehead. There were no complicated schemes. Second-periods just didn't need points as badly as we did, and Hakim was simply cashing in on the favourable exchange rate. Then he'd probably go buy whatever he needed with the leftovers.

"Can you drop them off at my block?" I asked. "My shift starts soon — I won't be able to leave."

"Of course. Hundred extra, and I'll deliver."

I laughed.

"Why not! Deal. And throw in three ampoules of Mace, too."

Damn! If I'd known it was this simple, I wouldn't have overthought everything and wasted time trying to buy those missing ampoules with units.

Might not even have bothered with Kiren and Tan…

Then again, those two deserved a bit of trouble — more than once.

Speaking of which — Kiren and Tan!

No… they wouldn't cooperate. More likely to stick a knife in my back.

But didn't they actually buy me that essence? I just needed to frame it the right way...

No, I couldn't twist it into something that would make them listen to me. More likely they'd sell me out to the dealers first chance they got.

But there was still one more group who hadn't paid back their debt — Tariq's crew. I didn't trust Tariq either. And let's be honest — he wasn't the sharpest mind I'd met. Took him three rounds of broken teeth to finally realise messing with me was a bad idea.

But there was also Kim — his number two. That one seemed more level-headed.

I made another call. This time to Liang Shi.

"Well?" he asked, curious.

"Can you advance me ten points?"

"I want to hear the entire plan," he said.

I told him what I had in mind, and Liang Shi told me to wait while he quickly pulled up the file on the guy.

"Kim, is it? In about three hours, he'll be on labour duty in the Fist Garden. That's where you'll approach him and make your offer. The reward for this little chat will be a free, unscheduled session in the Flow Chamber... I've booked it under his name for tomorrow at six a.m. He'll be done before breakfast and before his mates even wake up."

After my shift, I found Kim, who was busy picking flowers in the Garden.

"Been a while!" I greeted him.

He didn't recognise me right away — my face was hidden behind a helmet, and he hadn't seen me in armour before. But then he read my name through the interface and flinched, taking a step back and raising his hands defensively.

"Relax!" I barked before he could activate a technique. "I'm not here to fight."

"Then piss off and do your job."

I crouched and lifted a basket from one of his drones, checked its contents, and sealed it.

"That's exactly what I'm doing. I arranged for you to end up here."

"For fuck's sake! And I was wondering why the supervisor was acting so aggressive. But why me? Why not Tariq?"

"Because he's a dumb, bitter neanderthal — and I need someone with a brain. Plus, no one in their right mind would ever suspect the two of us of working together."

"Oh, so we're working together now?"

"I don't know... do you want a free bonus session in the Flow Chamber?"

"Free cheese only shows up in a mousetrap. You're gonna bleed me dry for that session."

"Don't exaggerate. All I want is for you to keep your ears open."

"You want me to snitch?"

"Come on, does that go against your principles?" I laughed. "Someone like you doesn't have principles! And you don't have much of a choice either — unless you'd prefer your next extra session be with me before your next Chamber.

"Like that time you all tried to rough me up."

"Shit," Kim swore. "What exactly do you want to know?"

"I want to know who sold Varga the crap that killed him."

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