Saturday.
Best day of the week for most students. No lectures, no duels, no mandatory anything. Just freedom: sleeping in, wandering the grounds, using off-campus passes to hit the city and pretend they weren't cadets for a few hours.
Alex wasn't doing any of that.
He was in the training facility on the eastern edge. The one with no official name. The Quiet Room. Shame Room? Anyways, he was sitting on the floor with a Resonance Crystal floating a few inches above his palm and his pole axe hanging in the air a few inches in front of him.
All alone as usual. Sort of.
He'd been at it for an hour.
The crystal was standard Osserian issue—pale blue, thumb-sized, humming with stored energy. He'd applied for it last week. It finally got approved yesterday. One crystal, low-grade, enough for maybe two or three real attempts if he didn't waste it.
He'd already wasted two.
He held it up again. Drew on his Core. Tried to feed the crystal's energy into the pole axe—to bond with it, deepen the connection, make it his instead of just something he borrowed.
The pole axe shimmered, pulsed, then... nothing.
He sighed.
"You know you can actually help, right?"
He didn't turn around. Didn't need to.
Veronica was on the bench against the wall. Same spot as last time. Same tablet in her hands. But her eyes weren't on the screen.
She was watching him. Had been for a while, actually.
[Amusement: 30% → 31% ↑]
Of course, he thought. She's enjoying this. Thirty-one percent. Not even enough to be noticeable to anyone else, but I can see it. She's having a great time watching me fail.
She didn't answer his question, just kept watching. Then she stood, walked over, and stopped next to him. Close enough that he could smell that clean, faint scent again—like nothing in this world, like something that shouldn't exist.
The pole axe was still hanging in the air in front of them. Alex's heart did that complicated thing.
Probably just a cold, he told himself. Yeah. Definitely a cold.
She stared at the weapon.
[Curiosity: 55% → 58% ↑]
Alex cleared his throat. "What?"
"Your weapon's Resonance Level is higher than yours."
"Yeah. It's R-21."
She turned her head slightly to face him. "Did you steal it?"
[Curiosity: 58% → 61% ↑]
[Cognitive Engagement: 35% → 40% ↑]
Alex opened his mouth. Closed it.
"Steal?" He turned to face her. "Wow. You really think so little of me, don't you?"
Their eyes met.
She'd been looking at him, not at the axe. At him. Those red eyes, flat and unhurried and impossible to read, but definitely on his face.
His throat closed up.
He cleared it, then looked back at the pole axe.
"So how did you get it?" she asked. "You obviously didn't forge it yourself. Your Resonance is too weak, and your control is embarrassing."
Another jab. Flat, honest, and completely, devastatingly true.
He muttered something under his breath, then louder: "My dad gave it to me. He helped me bond with it. Happy now?"
Veronica was quiet for a second.
"Hm."
[Curiosity: 61% → 62% ↑]
[Boredom: 80% → 78% ↓]
She didn't ask about his dad. Didn't pry. Didn't care, probably. Just filed the information away and went back to staring at the axe.
Alex stared at it too.
A beat passed. Then another.
"May I?"
He blinked. "Yeah. Knock yourself out."
Veronica reached out, and her fingers closed around the haft. The pole axe didn't resist. Didn't flicker. Didn't do any of the things it usually did when someone else tried to touch it. It just... let her hold it.
She stood there for a second. Then the pole axe started glowing; soft blue at first, then brighter, the same way it would if he'd just fed a high-grade Resonance Crystal into its core. Light moved along the haft, curled around the blade, sank into the metal, then the glow shifted to gold.
Pure gold, racing along the weapon's length—the kind of bright an Artifice construct only showed when it was being upgraded to its absolute limit. He'd seen it plenty. Other students, ones with better Cores and better crystals, showing off in the training halls like it meant something.
Not that he'd know what that felt like.
The glow lasted two seconds, maybe three, then faded, leaving the pole axe looking exactly the same.
She gave it a small swing—the blade cut through the air with a sound like fabric tearing—then she handed it back.
Alex stared at it. Then at her. Then at it again.
"You just—" He stopped. Started again. "You just increased the Resonance Level of my Artifice to its absolute limit. Just by holding it."
She tilted her head. "It's actually lighter than it looks."
[Cognitive Engagement: 40% → 44% ↑]
[Boredom: 78% → 73% ↓]
"That's not—" He gestured vaguely. "That's not the point. It was R-21. Now it feels like—"
"R-25." She said it like it was obvious. "The construct had room. You weren't using it."
Something clicked behind Alex's eyes.
She just did in seconds what would have taken me months of grinding Merits and crystals. What might have been impossible at R-14. And she's standing here, bored, like it was nothing.
He turned to face her fully.
"Teach me."
Veronica squinted. Actually squinted, like he'd just asked her to clean his dorm.
"What? No."
"Come on." He stepped closer. "You—you just did something that shouldn't be possible. With my Artifice. In your hand. Teach me how to do that."
"Teaching is stressful."
"I'll be a good student."
"You're slow. I'd have to talk a lot. That sounds exhausting."
[Curiosity: 62% → 62% —]
[Boredom: 73% → 73% —]
[Cognitive Engagement: 44% → 43% ↓]
Alex's jaw tightened. "I'll ignore that."
He held out the pole axe. She looked at it. Then at him. She didn't take it. Instead, she turned and started walking back toward the bench. Probably for her tablet. Probably done with this conversation.
Alex followed.
"Seriously. Just—something. Anything. A tip. A hint. One sentence."
She kept walking.
"I promise I'll be the best student you've ever had."
She stopped, turned to face him, and he froze.
She was close. Closer than he'd realized. Those red eyes, flat and unreadable, looking at him like he was a puzzle she hadn't decided was worth solving.
She opened her mouth—
The door slid open.
Marcus walked in.
Behind him were three others. Gold Marks. The kind who traveled in packs because alone, they'd have to actually be interesting.
Marcus stopped when he saw them standing close, facing each other.
His eyes flicked between them. "Am I interrupting something?"
Veronica turned to face Marcus.
[Amusement: 31% → 28% ↓]
Neither of them answered.
Marcus's smirk widened. He glanced at his friends—the three Gold Marks, all wearing the same expression of amused superiority.
"Archer. Alone with a Gold Mark again?" He let that hang. "That's not suspicious at all."
His friends chuckled.
Veronica stared at him. Not glaring, just... staring. Like he was a piece of furniture that had suddenly made noise.
Marcus waited for a reaction.
She kept staring.
He glanced at his friends, just briefly. Just long enough to check if they were still watching.
They were.
He looked back at her.
She blinked once.
Marcus shifted his weight. "...Uhm."
"You're still here." she said.
Marcus opened his mouth.
"I said what I said." She cut in.
Alex bit the inside of his cheek.
One of Marcus's friends—the same one who laughed last time—made a sound. A small one. The kind of sound you make when you're trying very hard not to laugh and losing the battle.
Marcus's head snapped around. The friend's face went red. Then neutral.
Marcus glared, then turned back to Alex. His eyes dropped to the pole axe in Alex's hand—still humming with that freshly-upgraded energy.
He paused. His head tilted.
"What did you do to your Artifice, Poster Boy?" His voice had changed. Sharper. "Steal a crystal you couldn't afford?"
Alex didn't answer, but something flickered at the edge of his vision.
The Emotional Matrix. He'd watched Curiosity climb, Boredom dip, Amusement flicker up and down. But some numbers never moved. Contempt sat at 80% like a throne she'd never leave. Control at 100%. Volatility at 5%. Arousal at 0.1%.
One was flickering now.
[Annoyance: 1% → 6% ↑]
His eyes widened. Just slightly.
She was annoyed. Veraphilia—Veronica, the queen who yawned at his fights and called his tuition pocket change—was actually annoyed.
At Marcus.
Alex didn't know what to do with that, but he knew he had to do something before she did.
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