Chapter 30: Improvement

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Improvement

Judith arrived a little before nine, same as always, letting herself in with the ease of someone who’d stopped needing to knock a week ago.

"Off you go, then," she said, already settling in across from Novaria. "Try not to get eaten."

"No promises," Jason said, grabbing his spear off the wall.

He caught Novaria’s eyes on his way out, held them a beat longer than usual.

"Be careful," she said.

"Always."

---

The Gate had spawned in a stretch of land Jason hadn’t even known existed until Reeve sent the location, a wide, half-forgotten field on the edge of the district, weeds grown up through cracked foundation lines where some government housing project had clearly stalled out years ago and never resumed.

He ran the whole way there.

Not out of urgency, the raid wasn’t for another hour yet, but because the run gave him something to work with.

He fed short, controlled bursts of Sun Shift into his stride every few minutes, testing the taper, training his essence recovery under the strain of constant small expenditures rather than one large one.

By the time the field came into view, he was faintly winded, essence sitting lower than he’d have liked, but still comfortably full enough for an E-Rank clear.

He found a quiet patch of grass near the Gate’s shimmering seam and sat, letting his reserves climb back while he waited.

---

Skyler arrived first.

He caught sight of her from a distance, well before she’d have spotted him under normal circumstances, his Perception picking her out against the tree line long before she crossed into the clearing properly.

He raised a hand in greeting.

She noticed a moment later, smiling back easily, and then, as she got closer, something shifted in her expression, a pause, a second look.

"Huh," she said, stopping in front of him. "You broke through."

Congratulations, on reaching the Intermediate Stage."

"Thank you" He didn’t ask how she’d known. Cultivators could read that off each so long as they looked closely enough. "Training paid off, I guess."

"Guess so." She glanced around. "Wen said she was close behind me."

As if summoned by the mention, a car pulled up along the field’s edge, and Wen climbed out a moment later, waving off the driver, a middle-aged man who lingered a beat too long watching her walk away, something warm and unmistakably fond in his expression before he finally pulled off.

Jason noticed. Said nothing.

Wen crossed the field and pulled Skyler into a quick hug before nodding a polite greeting toward Jason.

"You’re looking stronger," she said.

"I’ll show you just how much stronger during the raid."

Reeve showed up last, jogging the final stretch, already apologizing before he’d fully arrived.

"Sorry, traffic. You all good?"

"We managed," Skyler said dryly.

Jason clapped him on the shoulder as he caught his breath. "Hey. Thanks again, by the way. For Darius."

"Told you, it was nothing." Reeve waved it off, then paused, reconsidering. "Actually, that’s not entirely true. He didn’t even charge you, you know."

Jason blinked. "He mentioned that. Didn’t think much of it."

"He should’ve charged you. He doesn’t waive fees for just anyone." Reeve’s tone carried something almost amused. "He was interested the second I mentioned your dual essence.

Darius has a thing for people with unusual abilities, always has. Says most talent’s boring. Apparently you didn’t disappoint him."

Jason stood there a moment, oddly stunned by that.

’He thought that highly of me?’

"We can talk more about it later," Reeve said, already turning toward the Gate. "Everyone ready?"

A round of nods.

"Alright. Quick briefing before we go in." Reeve’s tone shifted, all business now. "The rating’s been determined at E, but that’s mostly administrative. Actual reading’s high side of E, close to D, honestly. Expect these things to hit harder than a standard E-Rank pack would."

Nobody’s expression changed much at that, though Jason felt the weight of it settle in anyway.

"Also, it’s unscouted. No idea what ecology we’re walking into. Could be wolves again. Could be something with teeth we haven’t met yet."

"Comforting," Skyler muttered.

"Comfort’s not really in the job description." Reeve hefted his shield, stepping toward the shimmering seam of light. "Stay sharp. Stay together."

He stepped through first, shield raised.

Jason waved Wen and Skyler in ahead of him, watching the Gate’s light swallow each of them in turn, then followed, spear in hand, stepping through the curtain of static into whatever was waiting on the other side.

---

The clearing on the other side of the Gate was gray and lifeless, cracked earth stretching out under a sky the color of old ash, and the first golem was already lumbering toward them before Reeve had fully cleared the entry point.

Humanoid, roughly, built out of jagged interlocking stone, movements slow and heavy but not nearly slow enough to ignore.

"Standard formation."

Reeve called, shield rising.

They dropped it easily, Skyler’s arrow cracking one knee joint and Jason’s spear finishing the job through a gap in the stone plating before it even fully toppled.

More followed, weak, easily managed, and somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth kill Skyler let out a low whistle.

"Okay, that’s clean."

"What is?"

"You. That footwork wasn’t there a week ago." She loosed another arrow, dropping a golem mid-charge. "Keeping up with your cultivation and getting that much better with a spear in seven days. I’m impressed Jason."

"You’re overreacting."

"I’m really not," Reeve said, catching a strike on his shield and driving his own weapon through the golem’s throat in the same motion. "I’ve trained with plenty of people. That amount of improvement is impressive for such a short time."

"Good instructor," Jason said, which had become his standard deflection for basically every version of this conversation.

The banter held through the rest of the first wave, easy and unhurried, the golems dropping with minimal resistance.

Then the second wave came through, and the conversation died immediately.

---

These hit harder. Moved faster. The stone plating along their limbs seemed denser, and the first exchange rattled up Jason’s arm hard enough to numb his fingers for a second.

He took a scratch across his forearm from a stray swipe, shallow but real, and another along his ribs a few minutes later, the wounds sealing themselves closed within seconds under his focus.

He was the only one bleeding by the time the wave finally thinned.

’Makes sense. Lowest cultivation in the group. Everyone else just isn’t taking hits I can’t avoid yet.’

With his sharpened senses from reaching the intermediate stage, he could feel it clearly now, details that had only been vague impressions before.

Wen sat at the peak of First Level, close enough to Second that it probably wouldn’t take much longer.

Skyler had already crossed into Second Level, Initial Stage, closing steadily toward Intermediate. Reeve carried Intermediate Stage Second Level himself, the ceiling of a man in his mid-forties who’d clearly spent decades grinding toward exactly this.

’None of them are prodigies. Reeve’s put in years for what he’s got. Wen’s not that much younger than him and still hasn’t broken into Second Level.’

’Skyler’s probably the real talent here. She’ll likely peak somewhere around Late Stage Second before she hits her ceiling.’

’And me?’

He thought about the system, about the bloodline, about a week that had turned him from an amateur into something Reeve openly called abnormal.

’With all of that stacked together, the 7th level doesn’t even feel like the actual ceiling. Feels more like a waypoint.’

’Wonder what’s past it.’

A golem’s fist swung for his head, and he only barely registered it in time to bring the spear up, Skyler’s arrow catching the creature’s wrist a half second before impact, the joint cracking open enough for Jason to drive his spear through and finish it.

He nodded his thanks.

’Focus. Existential crisis later.’

---

Somewhere in the middle of the second wave, his Perception caught something.

The plating covering these things wasn’t uniform. Thinner, weaker seams ran along the underarms, joints that had to flex for the creatures to swing at all, gaps in the otherwise solid stone.

He called it to Skyler between exchanges. "Armpits. The plating’s thinner there, structural weak point."

She blinked, surprised. "You caught that? That’s a sensing-type read, that’s not just eyesight."

"Lucky guess."

She studied him a beat longer than the moment really allowed, then let it go, calling the information over to Reeve and Wen instead, the team’s attacks shifting almost immediately to target the exposed joint whenever an opening presented itself.

The kills came faster after that.

Then the ground shook, and the third wave arrived, and these golems stood a full head taller than anything they’d fought so far.