Chapter 343: A Smaller Cut

The attendant checked Ren’s declared output against the lane rating, then unlocked the gate.

Beyond it, a stone floor ran between reinforced walls to a thick backstop scored by earlier tests. Wooden target posts stood in a rack beside the entrance. The attendant carried several down the lane and fitted them into floor slots while Ren followed, checking the positions.

"Keep within the output you booked," the man said. "The targets are replaceable."

"Understood."

Ren had chosen this hall in the arena district because it permitted Stormsever at that output. Deepsnap remained prohibited on campus; it hadn’t gone on the booking.

Three sets of slots marked the distances he wanted to test. For the first run, the attendant placed a target in the nearest set, with a white-banded marker on either side and another diagonally behind it. At the farthest set, Ren wanted an additional marker directly behind the target.

He stood at the firing line and checked the arrangement. The white bands were at the height of his cut. Anything that touched one counted as hitting a bystander.

The attendant returned behind the barrier beside the gate, taking his slate with him. Ren waited for the man’s signal before raising his hand.

— • —

He began with Stormsever’s ordinary sweep.

Green-gold and grey light spread across the lane, the broad cut he had used against swarms in the insect fragment. He kept its output within the booking and sent it through the nearest post.

The upper half fell. Both markers beside it broke at the same height, followed by the one diagonally behind. The backstop caught the remaining sweep with a heavy thud.

Ren lowered his hand. Broken white bands lay among the target pieces. The attendant watched the backstop for a moment, then entered the result on his slate.

At the junction station, Vesper had struck the second attacker’s knee and carried her movement past him. She had called clear as she broke uphill. Beyond the man lay empty scrub, away from the station and Eira’s route, and Ren had sent Stormsever across it.

There had been room for the cut once Vesper moved. A narrow passage, or someone standing close beside his target, would have left him fewer choices.

He wanted a release he could use through that smaller opening.

— • —

While the attendant waited behind the barrier, Ren asked the System privately to optimize Stormsever.

[OPTIMIZE: SELECT DIRECTION.]

[1 — CONFINEMENT: CUT WIDTH REDUCED. FORCE CONCENTRATED. COVERAGE REDUCED.]

[2 — ECONOMY: ENERGY EXPENDITURE REDUCED. WIDTH UNCHANGED.]

[3 — REACH: RANGE EXTENDED. WIDTH UNCHANGED.]

Economy would let him make more cuts with the same expenditure. Reach would let him strike from farther away. Both had uses, but neither would spare the posts beside his target.

He selected confinement.

The adjustment came as a change to the release he already knew. He could follow where the force that spread the sweep outward was brought into a shorter edge, held together as it left his hand. The rest of the art was familiar. He ran through that difference privately, comparing it with the broad release before trying it.

"Reset the near target," he told the attendant. "Same markers."

The man replaced the broken posts and swept the pieces clear. Ren stayed behind the firing line until he was back at the barrier.

— • —

The first attempt cut through the target and the marker on its right. The sweep was narrower, but one end had spread as Ren released it. The diagonal marker behind remained standing.

He could feel where he had let the edge open. On the next attempt he held the altered release through the final movement of his hand.

This cut was about the width of his shoulders. It broke the target and grazed the inner edge of the right-hand marker, shaving wood from beneath the paint.

Ren walked down to inspect it when the lane was clear. The white band had a thin grey groove through it. Close, but still a hit.

He returned to the firing line and waited for another post.

The third cut held together.

Its colors stayed distinct, green-gold over grey, along a short edge scarcely wider than the target. It passed through the wood and left the markers on both sides untouched. Beyond them it missed the diagonal marker and struck the backstop.

The target’s upper half hit the floor after the light had gone.

Ren looked past it to the fresh score on the backstop. He had confined the width; the cut still carried through the target. Someone standing directly behind that post would have been hit.

He asked for another target at the same distance and repeated the release. This time he watched its whole path, from his hand through the post to the backstop. The edge stayed narrow throughout the tested stretch.

The attendant checked both white bands before replacing the target again.

— • —

They moved the arrangement to the middle set of slots, then to the farthest. Ren kept the same output while he tested the release at each distance. Once he could repeat it, he asked for the final marker to be placed directly behind the far target.

From the firing line, the target hid most of its white band.

Ren left his hand down. A successful narrow cut from there would go straight through both posts. He moved left along the firing line until he could see the rear marker clear of the target, then sighted the path onward to the backstop. There was room for the whole cutting edge to pass.

He released.

The target broke. The rear marker stood untouched, and the backstop caught the cut beyond it.

Ren held his position while the attendant reset the target. He repeated the shot, then tested from a different place along the firing line, choosing his angle again before releasing.

The shorter edge gave him room to make those choices. His ordinary sweep would have reached the rear marker from either position.

Before the booking ended, he switched back to the broad form for one run. It spread as readily as it had at the beginning. Then he returned to the confined release and cut a fresh post between two untouched bands.

Stormsever remained a Master art. He was practicing a different release of it, and by the end of the session he could choose between the two without pausing to work through the adjustment.

Close Sever, he thought.

He lowered his hand and signaled that he was finished.

— • —

The attendant came down the lane with his slate and a folding rule. He measured the latest cut, checked the white bands, then compared the fresh score on the backstop with the earlier marks.

"What did you change?"

"The release. I’m keeping the cut narrower."

The man entered that beside the measurements.

"Same output for these?"

"Yes."

"I’ve recorded it with the distances." He turned the slate so Ren could check the entries. "Near, middle and far. The last set from both positions."

Ren read them once and nodded. The figures described what he had tested here. He would have to account for movement and uneven ground when he used it outside.

The attendant gathered the broken upper sections into a cart. While he went back for fresh posts, Ren stopped beside the final target. Its lower half remained in the slot, the pale cut surface level across the top.

He rested his thumb on the uncut wood just beneath it. There was no splintering along the edge. He stepped past the target and turned the rear marker enough to inspect its white band.

The paint was intact all the way around.

He set it back in its slot and went to collect his coat.

— • —

Late-afternoon light lay across the flowers when Ren returned to the Worldroot. He sat on a root with his back against the trunk and let his working hand rest on his knee.

The inner door at the waterworks had refused him below Stage Seven. A better cut would be useful on the next expedition, but it would do nothing about that threshold—or the one on Aldric’s bloodline road.

He asked the System privately to show him the Law requirements for Seven.

[FIRE: 17.1% / 25%.]

[WATER: 11.1% / 25%.]

[EARTH: 10.0% / 25%.]

[AIR: 9.0% / 25%.]

[LIGHT: 3.5% / 5%.]

[DARKNESS: 7.5% / 5%. MET.]

[LIFE: 12.55% / 5%. MET.]

[DEATH: 13.05% / 5%. MET.]ℯℯ𝑙.

[SPACE: 1.50% / 2.50%.]

[TIME: 0.75% / 2.50%.]

Seven requirements remained unmet. Earth and Air each needed more than their present totals. Water was almost as far behind. Fire needed another 7.9, while the smaller gaps in Light, Space and Time still required understanding he had yet to acquire.

His foundation stood at 48.6 million tons, close to the ordinary Stage Six ceiling of fifty million. Endless Graft would let him grow beyond that while remaining Six. The extra strength would matter, but it could not supply a missing Law.

He looked up through the branches toward Verdance’s sun and asked whether it could serve as the stellar structure for his next stage.

[STELLAR STRUCTURE: EXISTING SUN.]

[STABILIZATION REQUIRED. INTEGRATION REQUIRED.]

Sunlight reached his face through a gap in the leaves. He watched the bright reflection on the ocean below. The structure he needed to work with was already there; learning how to stabilize and integrate it was another part of the preparation.

Time offered somewhere to begin closer to home. He had learned from Time-bearing fire before. He could ask among the residents whether anyone was willing to teach him further, starting with what they understood and could show. For the other gaps, he needed sources or instruction deep enough to take him beyond what he already knew.

He dismissed the display and remained beneath the branches until the sunlight had moved off his hand.

— • —

A message from Sol was waiting on his slate when he returned to the Terrace.

Sol had found a nursery-recovery contract on a tidal world. The work needed more than he could provide alone, and he wanted to discuss it with Ren before the listing closed.

Ren read it, then opened the reply field.

When can we meet?