Chapter 29| Conversations

Chapter 29: Chapter 29| Conversations

The afternoon combined session ran until 4:30 PM.

Zane sat in his usual spot and ran silent low output Impact Breaker reps under the desk. Palm flat against the underside. Pressure just enough to trigger the activation without discharging anything visible. Contained. Controlled.

0.88 seconds.

0.88 again.

He’d noticed it a few days ago. Since completing the milestone quest the activation time had flatlined. No more incremental drops from the daily quest reward. The +0.03 seconds per completion that had been chipping away at his time since week one had stopped producing visible results.

’The daily quest reward has hit its limit,’ he thought. ’Only completing the daily quest can reduce it further. And even that has plateaued.’

『 Correct. Activation speed improvement is now exclusively tied to daily quest completion. Current plateau: 0.88 seconds. Further reduction requires consistent daily quest completion over an extended period before the next marginal drop occurs. 』

’So I just keep doing the quest every day,’ Zane thought. ’And eventually it drops again.’

『 Correct. Slow but guaranteed. Consistency is the only lever available until a milestone upgrade unlocks. 』

’Fine,’ Zane thought.

He kept his reps going under the desk.

0.88 seconds.

Consistent. Held.

One rep at a time.

He filed that away.

’Reason enough,’ he thought.

He looked up from his notes and scanned the room.

Ryan Castellan was two rows ahead. Still forward facing. Still preparing with the focused energy of someone who had made their decisions and was done revising them.

Then without turning around. Ryan spoke at the volume he always used when he wanted something to carry exactly as far as two rows behind him.

"Heard the Sigilless kid showed something in the morning drill a few days back," Ryan said to the person beside him. Casual. Like he was discussing weather. "Probably nerves. Body does strange things under pressure. Seen it before."

The person beside him said something too quiet to catch.

Ryan nodded slowly. "Won’t matter in the arena." He let out a minute laugh.

He didn’t look back.

Zane held his pen and kept his expression completely flat.

’Nerves,’ he thought. ’He’s reframed it as nerves.’

He almost smiled.

’He heard something secondhand and built an explanation around it that fit his existing picture. Because the alternative. that the Sigilless charity case has been running something this entire time doesn’t compute for him. It breaks the frame he walked in with on day two and has been maintaining ever since.’

’Which means he’s going into trials with the wrong picture.’

’Which means the first time he sees the right one it’s going to be too late to adjust.’

『 Confirmed. Ryan Castellan’s current threat assessment of you is based on incomplete and incorrectly interpreted secondhand data. This is a tactical advantage. Do not correct it. Do not react to it. Let him carry the wrong picture into the arena. 』

’Wasn’t planning to,’ Zane thought.

He went back to his reps.

0.88 seconds.

The afternoon session ended at 4:30 PM. Students filtered out in the usual clusters. Zane packed his notebook and joined the flow without hurrying through the corridor, out the academic block entrance, across the courtyard, back into the main building.

The evening ran quietly after that. Dinner in the cafeteria. He Briefly, stop at his desk to review his notes. Nothing urgent. Nothing pressing.

By 9:00 PM he was back in room 714.

Dex’s squad had already gathered. Torre had obtained food again from his unidentified external source. The same packaging, same complete absence of explanation, same zero questions asked by anyone present.

Fen had his laptop open. Pris was doing her nightly stretches in the corner with the mechanical precision of someone who treated flexibility like a professional obligation. Kael was leaning against the wall near the window with his arms crossed and the comfortable stillness of someone who didn’t need to be at the center of anything to feel present in it.

Zane looked at Pris. Then at the time on his communicator.

9:10 PM.

"Aren’t girls supposed to be at their dorm?" he said. "It’s almost ten."

Dex laughed. Not his usual easy laugh. Something more genuine than that. Like the question had genuinely caught him off guard.

"That mostly applies to first years," Dex said, still grinning. "Fresh birds. Management figures they need the structure while they settle in." He gestured vaguely at Pris. "By second year they figure you know what you’re doing well enough to not need a curfew enforced."

"And if you don’t know what you’re doing by second year," Torre added, mouth full, "the curfew wasn’t going to help anyway."

Pris didn’t look up from her stretch. "I know exactly what I’m doing."

"She does," Kael confirmed from the wall. "That’s what makes it worse."

Pris almost smiled.

Zane filed that away he didn’t know if it was lies or truth who would trust dex. Pris almost smiling was apparently a two-per-week event and he’d now witnessed both of this week’s.

Dex was providing unsolicited commentary on the food.

"This is from that place near the west gate again," Dex said, inspecting whatever Torre had brought. "The one that doesn’t appear on any delivery app."

"It appears on one," Torre said.

"Which one," Dex said.

"The right one," Torre said.

Dex looked at Zane. Zane shrugged. Torre ate peacefully.

"I just want to know the name," Dex said.

"No you don’t," Fen said without looking up from his laptop. "You want plausible deniability about where the food comes from. Knowing the name removes the deniability."

The room went quiet for half a second.

Then Torre pointed at Fen. "He’s right."

"He’s always right," Pris said from the corner without looking up from her stretch.

"It’s very annoying," Dex said.

Fen said nothing. Just closed his laptop slightly and ate.

Zane sat on his bed and ate some snack dex gave him and let the room run. Torre stole something off Dex’s plate without asking. Dex noticed and said nothing because Torre had brought the food in the first place and the social mathematics were complicated. Pris finished her stretches and sat on the floor with her back against the wall and ate with the same methodical efficiency she applied to everything.

Kael caught Zane’s eye from across the room. Didn’t say anything. Just nodded once. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Zane nodded back.

Nobody talked about trials obviously it wasn’t their concern they were second years.

The food ran out. The squad filtered out one by one. Torre first, Fen second, Pris third with a brief nod at the door that was as close to a goodbye as she’d offered anyone since arriving. Kael last, pausing in the doorway just long enough to look back once without saying anything, then gone.

Dex turned off the overhead light and left just the desk lamp running.

The room settled. Everyone had said their goodnights leaving the two immediate owner of the room alone.

Gerald wheezed briefly.

"Four days huh," Zane said.

Neither of them said anything else.

It was enough and he crashed exhausted from today’s work.