Jace told them over breakfast.

  The Mess Hall was half-empty - tournament days ran on a compressed schedule, and most students had eaten early or skipped food entirely in favor of last-minute drilling. The four of them sat at their usual table in the far corner, the one that had been the reject table at the start of the year and had since become something else. Not prestigious. Not sought-after. Just *theirs*.

  "[Vagabond]," Torrin repeated. He chewed his bread slowly, as if testing the word's structural integrity. "Never heard of it."

  "Neither has the System registry," Elara said. She'd already pulled her notebook out, stylus moving in tight precise strokes. "I checked the academy's class compendium this morning. It is not listed. The closest analogue is [Wanderer], which is a Utility-class evolution of [Scout] - entirely different skill tree, exploration-focused, no combat cross-classing."

  "So it's unique," Mara said.

  "It is *unrecorded*. That is not the same thing." Elara's pen tapped twice. "It may exist in other databases - the Conclave's archives, the Guild's classification records. But within Ironhold's reference materials, there is no entry for [Vagabond]."

  Jace took a drink of mana-infused water - the academy's standard hydration, faintly metallic, designed to accelerate natural resource regeneration. He could feel the difference this morning. Not dramatic. Not the power surge he'd fantasized about when he was younger and imagined leveling up as a [Skirmisher] or an [Enforcer]. More like the difference between wearing shoes that were a half-size too small and wearing shoes that fit. The same feet. The same ground. But the friction was less, and each step cost a fraction less of the energy he'd been hemorrhaging since Awakening.

  "The important thing is [Skill Mimicry]," he said. "Twenty seconds. Forty percent proficiency. Five-minute cooldown."

  "Twenty seconds is nothing," Torrin said.

  "Twenty seconds won us the first round yesterday."

  "That was with a mimicked [Taunt] you'd been practicing for weeks. This is different. This is copying something you've only *seen*."

  "At forty percent," Mara added quietly. "Which means if the original user executes at full power, you get less than half."

  "Less than half of a skill I couldn't use at all yesterday." Jace set down his cup. "I'm not saying it changes everything. I'm saying it changes the math. We had one trick - the [Taunt] redirect. Now we have a toolkit."

  "A toolkit with a twenty-second battery life," Elara said. But she was writing, not arguing. Her stylus moved faster when she was engaged. "What skills have you observed that you could potentially replicate? Be specific."

  Jace had been making that list since three in the morning.

  "Thresh's full [Taunt] - but his PRE is so far above mine that even forty percent of his execution is probably beyond my capacity. The kinetic burst that a senior - Renn, I think his name was - used during the advanced combat demonstration last month. Two or three basic combat cantrips from the practicals. And anything I see today."

  Elara looked up. Her eyes were sharp. "You intend to use the tournament as an observation exercise."

  "I intend to use the tournament as an everything exercise. We fight to win. And while we fight, I watch."

  Silence around the table. The Mess Hall hummed with the low-frequency tension of competition day - the scrape of utensils, the murmur of strategy conversations, the occasional bark of nervous laughter.

  "What's the plan for round two?" Torrin asked.

  Jace pulled out Elara's dossier notes. "Tell me about Team Solvane."

  * * *

  The arena reconfigured into broken highlands - rocky outcroppings, scattered boulders, and elevated terrain features that created multiple sight lines and engagement distances. A ranged fighter's paradise. A melee fighter's nightmare.

  Team Solvane entered with the quiet confidence of a party that understood their win condition before the match began. Their leader was Declan Solvane - a [Frost Mage], Normal-tier, Controller/DPS hybrid, and widely regarded as one of the most tactically intelligent students in the sophomore class. Pale, lean, with the kind of economy of movement that spoke to high Agility investment alongside his primary Mystical build. His staff was Uncommon-tier - a crystalline focus that amplified cold-element spellcasting and gleamed with condensation even in the dry arena air.

  His party filled the standard slots: a [Sentinel] Tank with tower shield and heavy armor, a [Skirmisher] DPS with paired hatchets, and a [Herbalist] Healer who stayed deep in the backline. Good composition. Clean synergy. The [Sentinel] held the line while Solvane controlled range and the [Skirmisher] exploited openings.

  But the terrain was the real weapon. Every boulder, every outcropping, every ridge created cover for a ranged caster and obstacles for a melee approach. Solvane had drawn ideal ground.

  "He'll kite," Elara said, her voice low as they took their starting position behind a cluster of boulders. "His [Frost Bolt] has a deceleration component - each hit reduces movement speed by a percentage. Three hits and Torrin will be functionally immobile. Five hits and you will be."

  "Range?" Jace asked.

  "Thirty meters effective. Forty with the staff's amplification."

  "Forty meters," Torrin said. The number sat between them like a wall. At his movement speed, closing forty meters of broken terrain against a kiting specialist would take fifteen seconds - an eternity when each second brought another [Frost Bolt].

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  "We don't chase," Jace said. "Chasing is what he wants."

  "What's the alternative? He comes to us?"

  "In a way." Jace looked at the terrain. The boulders. The ridgelines. The sight lines and blind spots. His [Analysis] was running hot, the skill grinding through tactical permutations faster than it ever had before - the Journeyman-rank proficiency feeding off the INT boost from his evolution. He could feel the map resolving in his mind like ink spreading through water, paths and vectors and timing windows crystallizing into something approaching a plan.

  "Elara. How many flash-runes do you have left?"

  "Two. Plus one concussive."

  "I need you to save the concussive. Use one flash-rune on the [Sentinel] when I give the signal - same as yesterday, disrupt his visual tracking. The second flash-rune goes into the ground between those two ridgelines." He pointed. "Not at anyone. At the terrain. I want a visual wall."

  "A screen," Elara said, understanding immediately. "You want to block Solvane's sight line."

  "For five seconds. That's all I need."

  "To do what?" Mara asked.

  Jace looked at the forty meters of broken ground between their position and the elevated outcropping where Solvane would inevitably position himself. Forty meters. Fifteen seconds at a sprint. Three [Frost Bolts] minimum, each one slowing him, each one draining his HP, each one making the next step harder.

  Unless he didn't sprint. Unless he *jumped*.

  The kinetic burst he'd observed three weeks ago. Senior Cadet Renn - a [Blade Dancer], Rare-tier - had demonstrated it during an advanced movement seminar that Jace had no business attending but had watched from the hallway through a cracked door. A short-range movement ability that converted mana into physical acceleration - not a teleport, not a dash, but a violent propulsive force that launched the user across space like a stone from a sling. In Renn's hands, it was elegant - a flowing redirect of momentum that carried him twenty meters in a heartbeat.

  In Jace's hands, at forty percent proficiency, it would be something considerably less elegant.

  But it would be fast.

  "I'm going to do something stupid," Jace said.

  "That is rapidly becoming redundant as a statement," Elara observed.

  "Torrin. When the screen goes up, advance on the [Sentinel]. Don't try to get past him - just occupy him. Make noise. Be the threat they're used to seeing."

  "And you?"

  "I'll be the threat they're not."

  The horn sounded.

  * * *

  Solvane played it perfectly. He moved to the highest outcropping within the first ten seconds, his [Sentinel] establishing a defensive line at the base of the rise, the [Skirmisher] holding a flanking position behind a boulder cluster. The [Herbalist] settled into a natural alcove with clear sight lines to all three teammates and zero exposure to direct assault.

  Textbook. The kind of setup that made tactical instructors nod approvingly.

  His first [Frost Bolt] hit Torrin in the chest.

  The impact was clean - a lance of condensed cold that struck the Holdfast Plate and spread across its surface like frost on glass. Torrin grunted. His next step was slower. Not dramatically - a five-percent reduction, maybe less - but Jace's [Analysis] tracked the deceleration with clinical precision.

  *One.*

  The second bolt came four seconds later - Solvane's casting speed was impressive, his staff's amplification shaving the cooldown to almost nothing. This one caught Torrin's shoulder. More frost. More deceleration.

  *Two.*

  "Stay behind the boulder line," Jace told Torrin through gritted teeth. "Don't advance yet."

  "I'm aware." Torrin's voice was tight with the effort of moving through thickening cold. His joints were stiffening. The frost wasn't just slowing his movement - it was draining his SP through thermal damage, his body burning stamina to maintain core temperature against the magical cold.

  The third bolt sailed past Torrin - Solvane adjusting aim, targeting Jace. It detonated against the boulder Jace sheltered behind, coating the stone in rime. Frost crept toward his position.

  From the outcropping, Solvane commanded the field. His [Sentinel] held the approach. His [Skirmisher] waited for the moment when the cold made someone slow enough to catch. His [Herbalist] was untouched, unreachable, sustaining.

  A kite composition in its ideal environment. By the book, there was no answer.

  "Elara. First flash - the [Sentinel]. Now."

  The inscription strip flew. It detonated against the [Sentinel]'s tower shield in a burst of white light - not damaging, but blinding, turning the wall of steel and reinforced wood into an obstacle the [Sentinel] couldn't see around. His defensive posture broke for one second as his eyes clamped shut.

  Torrin surged forward. Not fast - never fast - but with the inexorable momentum of his full STR behind every stride. He hit the [Sentinel]'s shield at full extension, a shoulder charge that drove the Tank backward three steps and locked them into the close-quarters grapple that neutralized the [Sentinel]'s ranged protection role.

  Solvane adjusted. Of course he did - he was smart, disciplined, already redirecting his next [Frost Bolt] toward Torrin's exposed back-

  "Second flash - terrain. NOW."

  Elara's throw was perfect. The inscription strip hit the ground between the two ridgelines Jace had indicated, detonating not as a directional flash but as a diffused light-wall - a screen of visual noise that turned four meters of open ground into a blinding white curtain.

  Solvane's [Frost Bolt] flew through the screen. It missed - not by much, but a miss was a miss when you couldn't see your target. His casting stuttered. Two seconds of broken sight line. Two seconds of recalculation.

  Jace activated [Skill Mimicry].

  The sensation was nothing like the slow, grinding acquisition of a skill through [Wayfaring]. This was *instant* - a pattern downloaded into his body like water filling a mold. One moment he'd never performed a kinetic burst in his life. The next, the muscle-memory and mana-pathway configuration of Senior Cadet Renn's technique existed inside him with the clarity of a skill he'd practiced for years.

  At forty percent fidelity.

  The difference between watching a master perform a technique and executing it yourself at forty percent was the difference between reading a recipe and cooking the meal while missing half the ingredients. The structure was there. The precision was not.

  Jace pushed mana into the kinetic channels - felt it catch, felt it build, felt the pressure in his legs and his core and the base of his spine where the acceleration would originate. The technique wanted finesse. It wanted careful shaping, graduated application, the kind of nuanced mana-control that came from an AGI of 20 and a MYS of 18 and years of practice.

  Jace had an AGI of 13 and a MYS of 10 and twenty seconds.

  He launched.