“Mr. Fulgen, describe a situation where you had to remain calm while others were panicking.”

  “Well, there was the time thirty-five mice from our biology life lab got loose inside the classroom.”

  “Oh my, how did that happen?”

  “Yeah, that would be me.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Brick snarled. “We could’ve had him!”

  He continued to curse as he used the scope on his sniper rifle to inspect G-Tech headquarters. Fulgen had left the building. Gone out clubbing on Topside, apparently, hardly a chaperone in sight, and they hadn’t found out about it until it was too late.

  “You win some, you lose some,” said Mantis. She was sitting cross-legged on the rooftop, casually eating an onigiri and playing with an iceball as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “These jobs require patience. Right, Blackout?”

  The stocky man gasped, as both of the mercenaries still did whenever Mantis spoke to them directly. “Uh, y-yeah, sure.” He was keeping Brick and Mantis hidden during this stakeout. Whisper was scouting closer to the building, checking the entrances and the activity at street level.

  “You know what I’ve realized, Brick?” Mantis said between mouthfuls, using her irritating singsong voice. “You’re meaner than me.”

  Brick blinked. “That’s… honestly so insane I don’t even care what you mean.”

  “No, really. People like you. And you.” Blackout whimpered. “You’re wired differently from me, right? You’ve got sympathy. Empathy. Whichever. You feel something when other people get hurt. It hurts you, a little. But you do it anyway.”

  Brick took out his walkie-talkie, trying to ignore Mantis. “What’s your status, Whisper?”

  The reply came. “Still quiet here. There’s a plate with runes by every entrance. If I’m reading them right, they’ll disable those beacons of yours if you try to sneak a crewcase inside.”

  Damn. They had up to twenty-four grunts at their disposal, but they’d be mowed down if Brick summoned them in the open and tried to storm the building directly.

  “You understand what I’m saying?” Mantis continued. “I don’t give a shit who I hurt or what they feel. I don’t feel anything. But you’d better believe if I did I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t do that to myself. But you do. You hurt yourself just to hurt others. I can’t comprehend that.”

  Brick tensed. There was actually a strange sort of logic to that. But…

  “Like your family,” Mantis said, taking another bite of her food.

  “Don’t.”

  “It hurt you to abandon them. You knew it would hurt them. But you did it anyway.”

  “I had no choice!” He set the rifle down and stood over her, at his full height. She didn’t flinch, as always. Why should she? She could gut him before he could blink. Blackout cowered.

  Mantis shrugged. “You could have stayed single. I bet it ate you up for years, didn’t it? Knowing you could be called up at any time? You hurt yourself so much, and for what? For this to happen anyway.”

  Brick tried to come up with something, anything to say in response. Yes, he’d known when he met Latrice. He’d known he was already a doomed man. But he’d also hoped. She was so gentle, so accepting. The sweet smell of lilacs.

  Then along came Naomi, her little smile like a shining star, the way she adoringly touched his face like a breeze from heaven. They kept him human all those years. He couldn’t have just given that up. Started out as the man he was now.

  But now what? Was it all pretend? Had he shared brief fleeting moments of joy with his family, or had he used them after all?

  Because he knew. That whole time, he knew what he might have to do to them.

  Mantis chuckled as she turned away. “Face it, Brick. You’re meaner than me. I will never be as dedicated to cruelty as you are.”

  Brick heard a click in his ear. “She’s upsetting you, isn’t she?”

  Brick tried to keep a straight face. It was the voice from his implant. He slowly returned to his spying through the scope, trying to keep his breathing steady.

  “Don’t worry. We have a plan for her. She’s both far more valuable and far more expendable than you realize. Just stay the course, but be ready for a change in mission objectives. You’ll be free before you know it.”

  Free from what? This new life of his? No way. From Mantis? Perhaps. But from those words? They were already burrowing into his skull like parasites. No, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be free of them either.

  “You’re meaner than me.”

  I had to admit it. Maybe it was childish, but I was insufferably pleased with myself as voices clamored inside Marin’s office. Even though a lot of the yelling was directed at me.

  “Of all the reckless, irresponsible—”

  “Can you blame him, Isabel? It was your idea to—”

  “—could take months to recover from this!”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “I will not have my judgment questioned! If I say he is ready—”

  “?Eres un malagradecido! After all I did for you, you go and make a storm like this for me to calm?”

  Okay, that one stung. I really should have thought more about how much this stunt would affect Catalina.

  As for the rest? It was pure entertainment.

  I was, perhaps, back on all too familiar ground here as I sat in Marin’s office watching a screaming match. Finally, chaos I had caused on purpose.

  “Enough!” Marin finally shouted. She tapped her pen on the table irritably. “Mr. Fulgen, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  I sat forward and cleared my throat. “I… I don’t know what came over me. I might have had a few too many—”

  “Bullshit!” said Catalina. I winced.

  “Fine,” I snapped. “I contrived a situation that would make it difficult for G-Tech to keep me benched, mmkay?”

  “You betrayed our trust!” said Marin.

  At that I sat up and steepled my fingers, letting my face go flat. “Wow, you’re right, I hadn’t thought about that. Gosh, that’s… whew. That might be the second worst betrayal of trust I’ve seen since I joined this company.”

  Chris nodded and pointed toward me.

  “And I,” said Valery, “wish to personally apologize to Mr. Fulgen for having taken any part in that deception! If this is to continue, with him or anyone else, I am prepared to submit my resignation!”

  “Easy, Drake,” said Marin. “You’ve made your point, Mr. Fulgen. I also apologize for that. But damn it, I don’t know how we can move forward from here!”

  “I do,” I said. “Put me on a team and let me get out there. Then the leak is just a leak. I don’t pull this shit again, and neither do you.”

  “You already know why it isn’t that simple! Listen, Fulgen. I’m sorry if all of this came off as us prizing your amulet more than you. That was unacceptable, and in truth, I regret that more than anything.”

  She stared at me intently, not wavering. I nodded slowly. “That’s good to hear.”

  “But—well, I suppose this is officially need-to-know now, and you could probably figure it out on your own—your amulet is the enemy’s prize, and that deeply concerns us. First of all, that can only mean one thing: They think they have another candidate.”

  ?Does that mean what I think it means??

  [Yes, someone else who can use the amulet. As I said before, there might be dozens of such individuals in the whole world. Hundreds at most. And they’re very difficult to detect short of having them touch the artifact and seeing if it reacts. But I suppose if any faction could, it’s the Garrison.]

  “Ok, I understand that.”

  “We also don’t know why they want the Fire Guardian in particular. There are ten other amulets still unaccounted for, with different but equally powerful abilities.”

  “We don’t know why they want the Fire Guardian,” agreed Chris. “But we’ve known that they do for a long time. That’s why he left us the pyroaetheric detector. He knew—”

  Marin shot Chris a look, and he went silent. She turned to me. “Anyway, if it ever feels to you like we’re being paranoid, it’s because we are. And we have reasons.”

  “All right, well, if you want to protect me, why not group me up with half a dozen fellow sorcerers and have them keep me company at all times? I mean, if you can let me go off and… have a drink… with just two sorcerers in tow, surely you can do that? And maybe, as long as I’m out and about anyway, I could punch some bad guys?”

  Marin sighed. “Damn, I should have known I was setting a precedent.”

  “Besides, I told that girl four weeks. Which my lecti tells me—”

  “—Is enough time to reach tier 3!” Chris said. “Right! He’s just reached the level cap, right? With his Legacy skill he’ll breeze through the secondary classes! Marin, I know there’s still danger out there, but he’ll hit the ground better prepared than most of our sorcerers, and you know it! He’ll be an asset, and I’ll finally have another Guardian at my side!”

  “It would be much easier on me if we played this off as our idea,” Catalina conceded. She looked at me, still angry, but she gave me a slight nod. Respect. I’d just made a good play in her game.

  “Here is what I propose,” said Marin. “We will officially announce that, tentatively, Mr. Fulgen will enter the field four weeks from now.”

  I met her gaze levelly. “Are you saying all this amounts to a ‘maybe?’”

  “No. You will enter the field if you meet two conditions.”

  “Oh, I love conditions.” But I scooted my chair closer to her desk.

  “First, you must reach tier 3.”

  “Done. I’ll hit the gym and the training rooms as soon as we disperse.”

  “Second, you will complete a readiness challenge I will set for you.”

  “Oh, no,” said Chris. I looked sharply at him, but he didn’t look dismayed. In fact, it looked like he was struggling to keep a straight face. “I know where this is going. Sorry, continue.”

  Valery also made a coughing sound that might have been suppressed laughter. “I agree to this. Is tough, but fair.”

  I returned my attention to Marin. “Is that all you can give me? Some mystery challenge? Can I at least have a hint what it’ll be?”

  “It will be a sparring duel, like many you’ve had so far.”

  “Against who? You’re not gonna make me fight Chris, are you?”

  “No, not Chris. Not when you’re only fresh out of tier 2. But it will be an opponent of my choosing.”

  I considered. This felt like a trap. Chris and Valery’s strange reaction told me there was some kind of wrinkle, but they were also supposedly on my side, and they didn’t object. “Still 1v1?”

  “Yes, still single combat. Our usual rules. To incapacitation or surrender.”

  “And… it’ll be someone from G-Tech?”

  “Of course, and they will also be tier 3.” Now it was Marin’s turn to look slightly smug. “I thought you liked surprises, Mr. Fulgen?”

  I returned the smirk. “I do. But I also have this thing about being set up for failure.”

  Marin’s smile became rueful. “It will be a challenge, but I promise you, it will be winnable.”

  “And if I do win, I enter the field?”

  She nodded.

  “And if I lose?”

  “Then we will announce that, too bad so sad, you aren’t quite ready yet and your debut will have to be delayed. I’ll allow you more chances at regular intervals. In the meantime it will be business as usual, minus the deception. You’ll continue to train. We’ll continue to hunt those sorcerers. I would appreciate it if you give advance notice if you wish to venture out and submit to having an escort, but I will accommodate those requests as long as there are no further… incidents like last night.”

  I considered all of that. “Define ‘regular intervals.’”

  “I think you’ve set a good cadence. Every four weeks. Once you reach tier 3 progress will slow, but that will be enough time for you to noticeably improve.”

  Damn it, it was fair. But the thought of doubling my timeline grated on me to no end. I really wanted to get this right the first time. “Okay, worst case scenario. What happens if we hit the six month mark, I’m still not in the field, and I’m sick of your shit?”

  “Then you will be free to go, with our compliments, if that is what you wish. If you still want to ‘punch bad guys,’ as you put it, you will be personally licensed under the LVS Act, but you will still need to work under an LVS entity with police liaison support. There are a few other small ones out there. My personal opinion is that you will still be safest with us until this all blows over. But you’re a free man.”

  This wasn’t quite what I wanted. But it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

  I… well, I still mostly hated it. But I’d take it.

  What if cultivation was engineering?

  Engineer mind + Taoist cultivation + Blacksmith MC

  He died. He glimpsed infinity. Now he's building his way back—with a hammer.

  No shortcuts. Just a nine-year-old forging lightning generators and formations in a dying kingdom.

  ? Daily Updates ? Slow-Burn ? Real Cultivation