Thunderbolt Forms had hit E-10 in the fight against the Blood Orc Revitalist. Since then, I'd been on the edge of a revelation. It had felt like torture. The skill wanted to rank up, the Law wanted to be learned, and it would either happen now or it would happen later.

There were valid, good reasons to delay it—like being able to buy a second or two to strategize in an intense fight, or using the sudden rank-up to turn the tables on an enemy who had the upper hand on me. But in this case, with the team up against who knew what in the portal world's upper city and all of us taxing ourselves to our limits already, I needed the power increase, and I needed it now.

So, I focused on the Stormsteel Core. It took less than a second before I sat on the mountaintop, the wind ripping at my hair and thunder echoing from the black, volcanic stone. Ellen's shadowy presence was here again. I ignored her. We both had our own jobs to do.

There was no rain this time. Only wind…and lightning. The wind was hot—the kind that covered Chandler and Mesa in dust a millimeter or two thick. And the lightning didn't stop. It just rolled on and on, rippling across a sky so clogged with desert sand that I couldn't see the city lights in the distance.

The lightning was a weapon. I knew that. I'd learned that. But it wasn't just a blade. It was something more. It was the knowledge of how to use it. The place it chose to strike. The thunder that stunned those around its target. All of that—and more—was hidden within the lightning.

That was what I had to learn here.

I wasn't fast enough. Wasn't strong enough. Enemies survived for too long when I fought them. I needed to embrace my striker side and end fights before they turned into slogs. I could do that to a horde of E-Rank orcs, or a D-Rank monster—maybe even two at a time—but the C-Rank stuff we'd been fighting was another story. And no, I shouldn't be able to blitz a Blood Orc Hellion down.

But the team needed me to be able to. I needed to be able to.

So…the lightning. How did it get where it needed to be? What did it do to find its path?

I drew the Stormsteel rapier. Held it up to the angry, electricity-filled sky. And waited. There would be a revelation there.

The thunder was so loud I almost missed the flash. It seared itself against my closed eyelids, a branching path reaching from my sword's tip to the sky, like a tree spouting, growing, blossoming, and dying all in a fraction of a second that lasted forever. I kept my eyes closed as more lightning poured down around me and the dust storm grew in intensity. The afterimage was the most important thing right now.

I reached out with my off-hand, touched the rapier, and let it melt into nothing but a puddle of portal metal. Then, I focused. With my eyes still closed, I pushed my will into the metal, bending it and shaping it until it flowed up into the afterimage, coating it and cooling it instantly. The model of the lightning strike hung there mid-air, cast in the sky like a permanent monument to power.

And I studied that monument. I pored over every curve, every branch, every dead end that didn't have enough power to reach the clouds above. As the duststorm thrashed against me, I tried to understand what I was seeing.

But I couldn't. It had no answer. No hard mathematical rules. There wasn't a build for this, or a decision tree. Lightning didn't grow by conscious choices. It grew by instinct. By feel. Every move it made was governed by what the quickest, easiest path to its goal was, and every move that didn't fit that was abandoned.

The Law I needed to understand was that might was instinctive. No, that it was more than instinctive—and less at the same time. That for all my build mattered, now that it was finished, I was overcomplicating things.

That was what I had to learn. Combat—and the power of Thunderbolt Forms—couldn't be put into a formula. There was no way to predict when lightning would strike—and that was its strength.

Unpredictability was flow. Flow was speed. Speed was power. Sometimes, just hitting something hard, as quickly and suddenly as possible, was the right path forward.

Control was chaos.

I opened my eyes.

Law Learned: First Law of the Thunderhead Thunderbolt Forms: Rank E to Rank D

A moment's loss of control can unleash the storm inside of you, Kade Noelstra. It can destroy lives, topple buildings, and break hopes and dreams. However, that same slip of the harness has its purposes. Unleashing the storm and allowing it the freedom to rage as it sees fit in the moment is a powerful weapon. By embracing the chaos of lightning, you have taken a step down the Stormsteel Path: control is chaos.

I grinned like a fool, ignoring Ellen's heavy breaths next to me and the staring eyes of the rest of the team. All I said was, "Got it." Then I poured my attention into my status.

User: Kade Noelstra E-Rank Stamina: 74/250, Mana: 39/400

Skills: 1. Stormsteel Core (D-02, Unique, Merged) 2. Thunderbolt Forms (E-09 to D-01, Altered, Merged) 3. Mistwalk Forms (E-08 to E-10, Altered, Merged) 4. Cyclone Forms (E-04 to E-06, Altered, Merged) 5. Sunbeam Bond (E-01 to E-03, Altered, Merged) 6. Energy Font (E-01 to E-03)

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. 7. Brendan's Hymnal (E-01 to E-03)

Path: Stormsteel Path Laws: First Law of Stormsteel, First Law of the Thunderhead

One good thing about the C-Rank portal was that, while they were pretty likely to get the whole team killed, my growth was benefiting a lot. Mistwalk Forms was close to making it to D-Rank, too; I couldn't quite force the issue yet, but it'd almost certainly happen in this portal. Cyclone Forms would get close, too.

As for the rest, I wasn't in a rush. Every bit of power was more power I could bring to bear on this portal's boss—which had to be at the top of the city—but the odds of rank-ups for Sunbeam Bond, Energy Font, or Brendan's Hymnal were almost impossibly long. They'd happen, but Cheddar hadn't had too many opportunities to show his power yet. The other two simply weren't core parts of my build. That meant I'd be waiting a bit.

Ellen opened her eyes, still breathing hard, and I dismissed my status as she pumped a fist. "Got it. Rank-up acquired."

I stood up, offering her a hand. "Alright, Jeff. You and Yasmin get in here. Let's see what C-Rank looks like for you."

Thirty minutes later, Ellen and I waited by the door, watching the empty street outside. She'd sprawled out on the floor, while I stood and paced. "What's taking him so long?" Ellen asked.

I didn't have a good answer. "The C-Rank trial is supposed to be tougher for some people than others, and Jeff doesn't have any merged skills, so this is the end of the line for him. It'd make sense for that to take everything he's got. He's a beast, though. He'll get through it."

Ellen looked up from the floor. "Really? Jeff didn't build a single merge?"

"No. I've asked him about it, and he said that from the moment his system awakened, he knew exactly how far he'd have to go, and he knew he needed to get there as fast as possible. That's all he'd say, but I've got a feeling he wants to travel back east, where he's from."

"So, he's fine with the C-Rank bottleneck?"

I nodded slowly. "He is. One hundred percent. He's not someone who made a build mistake or anything. He's built to go to the end of Rank C and no further. I don't understand it, really. But at the end of the day, this is what Jeff thinks he needs."

For a few moments, Ellen was quiet. Then she cleared her throat. "Kade, I have a serious question."

"Shoot," I said.

She went quiet again, like she was struggling to find the right words. Then she blurted, "Why are you wasting your time with us? I mean, I'm on the five-merge route, too, and I can feel how much better I do my job than an unmerged mage would. I'm fighting D-Rank enemies consistently as an E-Ranker, and doing my part with the team to take down C-Ranks. That's normal for a five-merge E-Ranker. I should be able to do that."

"And?" I didn't understand her question. The gears in my head weren't catching.

"You shouldn't be able to go up against C-Rank monsters, pretty much solo, and have a chance. That's ridiculous. You've shared your build with me, but when I watch you fight, it's not hard to figure out that you're hiding something. Whatever that is, it's letting you hit way, way above your rank. So, why are you here? You could be running with a C-Rank team that's pushing toward Bs."

It was my turn to go quiet. I stood there, leaning against the house's stone wall and thinking.

Ellen was right.

I hadn't seen it before, but I was stronger than I had any right to be. And Jeff knew it, too. He'd thrown me at the C-Ranked Blood Orc Revitalist without any concern as to whether I'd be okay—and Jeff cared about making sure his team was okay. Equally importantly, I had been okay. It had gotten hairy at the end, but I'd kept a powerful mage from helping the other monsters overwhelm the team until they could turn the tables.

And I was only growing stronger.

That raised another question: If Ellen saw it, and Jeff saw it, who else had seen how strong I was getting, and what did that mean for my own goals? I needed to keep the Stormsteel Path a secret as long as I could—at least until I was strong enough to ignore the guilds and the Governing Council. The weird core I'd used for my first merge had put me on the Path. That had to be the root of my strength.

"Please, Kade. I need to know." Ellen sat up in a smooth motion, then stood. Her two pigtails were both out of her robe; she didn't bother tucking them back in as she stared at me, eyes pleading. "Why are you still here with us?"

"Because I'm not that ridiculous," I said.

"Oh, please, you've got an A-Ranker trying to get you killed after you rejected them. You've got all sorts of secrets. C-Rank monsters don't phase you one-on-one. You might not see it yet, but you will. You're going to be a problem, and you're going to be one soon."

"Okay, fine." I dropped my voice and leaned in close. "I'm a little ridiculous. But I don't think my build's too far out of line compared to everyone else, and the moment I start making a splash, I'm going to have eyes on me from every guild. We've talked about this, right? I don't want them to know about the Path I'm on."

"That's it?"

I laughed. "No, that's not it. That's not even the real reason why. I was being honest before. I'm not that ridiculous, and I enjoy fighting with you, and with Yasmin and Jeff. You understand Jessie, and that means a lot to me. She can be a handful."

"I never had a brother or sister," Ellen said quietly. "I'm Bob's only child, and all the pressure in the world's on me. Sometimes, it's hard not to be jealous of you two."

She looked like she wanted to relax, but couldn't. Something was still bugging her. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm on Jeff's team until he can't keep up, and hopefully, he'll be in our guild by then—"

"You're still on the guild thing?" Ellen asked.

"I never stopped being on the guild thing. And as for you, we've both got builds that can reach S-Rank. Until you tell me otherwise, you're stuck with me," I finished.

Ellen stood there for a few seconds. Then, before I could react, she threw her arms around my neck and wrapped me up in a hug. I patted her back awkwardly; it had been so sudden that I had no idea what to do. "Thanks. That means more to me than you know."

Luckily, Jeff saved me. "Hey, you two lovebirds, I'm finished. Rank C, and it feels great!"

Ellen let go of my neck, flushing a little, and I got my first glimpse of Jeff at C-Rank.

He'd been big before. Most tanks were. Javier and Kenny had been built like brick houses, and they'd only been E-Rank. And Deborah Callahan was A-Rank, and an absolute beast. Jeff had been somewhere in between, but on some level, I'd just assumed that he'd always been a musclehead. At least, he had been in middle school; he'd been a few inches taller than any other students, and a good thirty or forty pounds heavier.

But now, he looked like he could eat barbells. His jaw muscles could probably bite through that much iron, assuming his teeth could hold up to the strain. His body hadn't bulked up so much as every inch of his musculature was perfectly toned and ready to fight. He didn't look like a bodybuilder, though. Under his armor, he looked more like a gorilla. No show, just power and toughness.

"Congratulations, Jeff," I said, offering a hand. He shook it, his massive fingers like a vise around mine. "So, you made it. Are you finally going to tell me what you've been pushing for?"

Jeff stopped. He stared at me thoughtfully. Then he shook his head slowly. "Yes. But not here, and not now. This portal's not the right place for that conversation. How are everyone's resources? Ready to keep pushing?"

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