With Jessie's safety in less doubt now that she was doing…something…with Ellen, I had nothing stopping me from starting my trial immediately. It was a little concerning that the two of them hadn't explained what they were up to, but I had more important things to focus on. Ellen was trustworthy, and Jessie was…Jessie.

They'd be fine.

I'd done my research on the D-Rank trial, and I was ready.

As far as rank-up trials went, it was supposed to be the simplest. No one could provide specifics of what the steps were because everyone's experience was different, but everyone agreed that there was a consolidation of power, and then a demonstration of it. A build-up, and then a test.

My bedroom floor was bare. I'd removed my mattress and pushed my bedframe as far into the corner as I could. In terms of space, I had…probably not enough if and when things went weird, but plenty for what most of the trial reports said was likely to happen. I expected the first part to be easy. It was the second half—the test—that I was concerned about. That was when the Stormsteel Core intervened most of the time, and if it was going to alter my D-Rank trial, it'd be in the test.

I sat down and readied myself.

Then I began contemplating my Laws. Every delver had at least one Law to consolidate their skills with. I had five.

The First Law of Stormsteel stated that destruction was protection. It was an aggressive Law, even as it worked to keep me safe. The violence of my Stormsteel breastplate was a testament to that; the swirling maelstrom that made up my armor ripped at weapons and claws, trying to destroy them to keep me safe. I looked forward to another piece of Stormsteel armor.

Control is chaos, the First Law of the Thunderhead proclaimed. An understanding of the battlefield, and of how to take advantage of the only constant on it—uncertainty. Parrying, attacks against one enemy that hit others around it, and negating armor were only the calm before the true storm.

Next was the First Law of the Clouded Eye. Protection begets deception. The strongest defenses came from lies and misdirections, and the best misdirections happened from the appearance of strength. Mobility and a strong defense could work together to create openings and weaknesses in my enemies.

The First Law of the Sirocco was that power is patient. It was a warning and guidance at the same time: bide my time, wait for the opportune moment, and strike quickly.

And finally, the First Law of the Godray. There is always another storm. A challenge that was too much for one fight could be brought down through persistence and dedication. Storms didn't retreat. They regrouped and crashed against their enemies again and again until they were defeated.

I'd learned all five Laws.

Now I had to consolidate them into my core.

I reached inside of myself mentally, pushing through the dark clouds and driving rain that surrounded my core. The thunderheads parted around me. The core itself was a not-quite-yellow sphere the size of a ping pong ball, inscribed with my two spells, Ariette's Zephyr and Thunder Wave. I reached past the two inscriptions, too, trying to make contact with the core itself.

The last time I'd done this had been at the Peoria Governing Council center. Then, I'd accidentally unleashed Mana throughout my body the moment I touched my core.

This time, I was trying to do it on purpose.

The moment my mental finger touched it, Mana exploded outward, emptying almost faster than I could keep track of it. Within seconds, I had almost nothing left in my core. Last time, I'd scrambled to gather as much of it as I could, but this time, it felt right to let it fade outward and surge free from my body. The pain was both agonizing and shockingly limited; the God of Thunder had given me worse when he'd given me Tallas's Dueling Blade.

But even so, it took almost five minutes to purge every last drop of Mana from my system. The core had to be empty to accommodate the Laws I'd learned, and to begin melding them into something more potent than they were individually. Once I'd emptied myself until my body felt like the dry husk of an ear of corn left in the sun, I was ready.

The Laws went in, one after another. And with every Law I brought into my core, the storm around it grew in strength. By the time I'd finished adding the First Law of the Godsray, the storm felt less like a desert thunderhead and more like a hurricane.

The time had come to consolidate.

I reached out. The storm responded to my grasp, straining to break free, but I squeezed until my knuckles went white. Then I pulled a strand of lightning and a swath of stormcloud free and shoved it into my core.

With every handful of storm, my core grew and changed. It twisted under me, its not-yellow surface pitting with gunmetal gray that expanded and connected in a lattice across it in a grid much like the lines on the globe. It spun, slowly forming a perfect sphere.

In a normal D-Rank trial, this would be the end of consolidation. And it was for me, too—but instead of learning a new Law or being granted strength, my system lit up with messages.

The Stormsteel Core grows stronger. Prepare yourself.

The core began to glow until it was as bright as lightning. I couldn't keep my eyes open against it. I blinked, then squeezed them shut.

The light faded after an eternity, and I opened them to darkness. Not blackness, but a gunmetal gray lattice that surrounded me. I was inside my core.

And outside of it, a storm raged. It wasn't a hurricane anymore.

Now, it felt like the red spot on Jupiter.

Kale Noelstra had been right.

The God of Thunder wasn't home. And he hadn't been entirely truthful with the boy. After all, a god had to keep some secrets back, even from a fascinating disciple like Kade.

There were hundreds of Paragons like him. Some were weaker, and others were stronger. And every one of them wanted power over the others. Every one of them was, in their own way, starving. That made some of his subordinates restless, and some of his rivals stupid. So, instead of watching Kade's trial with great interest and seeing if he'd managed to handle his first five Laws of the storm, the God of Thunder was in the process of murdering an A-Rank Paragon and claiming its territory. He hadn't wanted to kill her. It wasn't even an interesting fight. But she'd mistaken his mercy for weakness. Twice.

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That was never acceptable, even if it was both tedious and predictable.

Lightning seared the water-wolf's flesh, sending columns of steam high into the sky and filling the air with an acrid, ozone-filled stench. She screamed, but the God of Thunder only tightened his jaws around her chest until her ribs cracked with the sound of thunder. Her heart was still beating when he ripped it free and incinerated it in his fangs. She died screaming.

The God of Thunder didn't spare her body a second glance. Someone would take her place on the Seafoam Path. Someone always did. He flew toward the shimmering, oil-slick prism of a temporary portal that had connected his world to hers. Without a living boss, the portal world she'd inhabited would collapse. As a Paragon, he could put that off, but for what purpose? The endless sea he'd left her bloody, charred corpse in offered him—and his Path—nothing.

Besides, he was curious to see how Kade was doing without his guidance. The core consolidation trial, after all, grew more challenging with more Laws to work through, and Kade had plenty of them to figure out.

He hoped the kid's trial would be entertaining, because the third-ranking Paragon of the Seafoam Path hadn't been.

As I stared up at the grid overhead, two things became extremely clear.

First, the constant lightning that lit up the sky around me and the wind that tore across it fast enough to shake the lattice were going to break through. It was only a matter of time. The storm outside didn't care about power being patient, or about any other storms. It only cared about breaking my core.

And second, when it did break through, it would kill me.

I needed to do something about it—to reinforce the core's lattice, or create a second layer of defenses around me. And the tools I had to work with were my five Laws.

The portal metal overhead creaked and groaned as the wind picked up, and I got to work.

The First Law of Stormsteel. Destruction is protection. I needed more than a few Laws to build the inner core's defenses and hold back the storm. And the only material was the outer lattice. So, instead of trying to use my Laws to brace the core, I tore into it, ripping out sections of the grid and dragging them to the core's center. Lightning and rain poured in through the weak spots; I'd seriously damaged my core, and pain poured in as quickly as the elements.

And the structure I was building, the shelter from the storm, was only a bare metal frame. It was a long way from the walls and roof and spires I'd need to weather the maelstrom outside.

But that was okay. I didn't need to hold out against the storm for long. Just for long enough. Long enough to complete the structure. Long enough to find a single point of control in the chaos. That was the First Law of the Thunderhead. I prepared to abandon most of the core as more and more metal came down—this time, not from me, but from the wind.

A piece crashed down next to me, its impact drowned out by thunder that felt less like individual peals and more like a hundred bass drums being pounded as fast as the drummers could swing their mallets. Then another. One hit the pseudo-shelter in the center of my core. My nascent fortress shook.

I ignored it. The impacts meant nothing.

They were inconsequential except inasmuch as I could use them. As the storm shredded my old core's frame, I summoned Tallas's Dueling Blade and sent a single bolt of electricity upward, into the storm. "Come on!" I shouted. "Is that the best you can do?"

And, to my surprise, relief, and fear, the maelstrom responded.

The storm outside paused for a moment. Thunder echoed, then faded to nothing. The lightning-brightened sky darkened until it was pitch black. Even the rain stopped falling. The battered core held its breath. So did I; I knew what was coming. Just like I had on the playground, the storm was gathering its fury. There was, according to the First Law of the Godray, always another storm—or in this case, perhaps a strengthening of the current one.

Something felt wrong about that. It didn't quite fit. But I ignored it—I was committed.

"Come on," I whispered into the sudden silence, "Come on and hit me."

The storm broke overhead. If it had sounded like a hundred drums before, the barrage of thunder this time was like being at the center of an artillery barrage. The sky brightened until I couldn't see anything. Lightning flashes turned it into a strobe light a hundred miles wide. The old, broken core couldn't hold for long—and it didn't. Pieces fell all around me. I picked them up as they fell and added them to my newer, tighter core.

The First Law of the Clouded Eye. Protection begets deception. I was in a race against the storm, but I was using its headwinds to speed my building along.

A bolt of lightning broke through.

Then another.

They hit me one after another. My arms and legs convulsed, and I hit the ground hard. Part of me wanted to claw my way toward the new core. The old one's protection was all but gone. The sensible thing to do was hide. But power was patient. Every minute I could hold out was a minute for my new core to grow stronger. That was the First Law of the Sirocco. It wasn't time to go yet. When it was, I wouldn't hesitate. But until then, I could hold my impatience back. I could master my fear.

The new core took shape, a triple-layering of fractured Stormsteel lattice welded together by my lightning. Steam poured off the joints, and the whole thing shook in the wind. I ignored it all, except to brace the weakest-looking supports and slowly layer portal metal onto it until the grid was so tight it almost blocked the wind and rain entirely.

More lightning pounded down around me—and into me. I could hardly move my arms and legs from the impacts. One more chunk of shattered, arcing grid—this one filling the gap I'd dragged myself through—and the nascent core was finished and consolidated. I'd added everything I knew about the five Laws I'd learned.

It would have to be enough.

The rest of the old core came apart in one screaming, shrieking crash that, for a second or two, drowned out the storm. Portal metal hammered the ground, twisting and snapping. An unbroken section as long as a football field crushed my new core. The outermost layer buckled, but held.

Wind poured in. A dozen lightning bolts hit the frame every second; my welds heated up and sitting inside felt like trying to relax in the sauna, but without the relaxation. My eardrums burst from the pressure and sheer volume of the thunder, one after the other. The storm was venting its fury. Every ounce of it. It was angry, and I was its target for daring to resist it.

But I hung on, and so did my core.

The outermost layer survived the wind and lightning for almost three minutes before the massive, unbroken piece of frame shifted. Then welds popped, and the storm got its first grip on my core's defenses. I wanted to rally, to resist, but I'd done my best to defend myself, and now, all I could do was wait. Destruction was protection, yes, but power was also patient. Fighting now would be a waste of my time. So, I let the outer layer rip itself to shreds as the storm intensified.

As the second layer slowly weakened, the thunder's cannon barrage slowed, and darkness filled the world outside my core. The rain dwindled, and even the wind's grip found less and less purchase against the wall I'd built. I slowly relaxed, the tension draining from my back as a single point of light broke through the clouds. I'd done it. I'd survived, and I'd used the five Laws I'd learned to do it.

Not only that, but I'd consolidated them into my core and ascended to D-Rank. Whatever Jeff had gone through to make it to C, it hadn't been nearly this out of control. I popped the makeshift door open and stepped out into a light drizzle and a breeze that was only cold because of my drenched clothes and hair.

The sun broke through in a beam of light that centered on my core. I stared at the damage; twisted metal and broken gridwork lay strewn across the ground all around me. But I'd won.

I opened my status, looking for my new ranking.

User: Kade Noelstra E-Rank

"What?!" I asked myself, staring up at the bright, white line of sunlight streaking toward me. "I did it, though! I used all the Laws!"

Something was wrong. Sunlight wasn't that white, not even after a storm, and it shouldn't have streaked toward me. It should have hit me instantly. This wasn't the end. I hadn't been patient enough. I braced myself and summoned Tallas's Dueling Blade and my Stormsteel breastplate.

"The First Law of the Godray. There is always another storm," the God of Thunder boomed.

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