Zhao tapped his tablet. The slide changed.

  A detailed force composition breakdown filled the screen. The Battle of Kenway-Allston, dissected down to every individual cultivator. Dreadnought crews. Drone pilots. Transports.

  "When you look at this," Zhao said, "what's missing from our side?"

  Leo studied the screen. Numbers and unit designations blurred together. He had no framework to evaluate what he was seeing.

  "I skipped all my classes," he admitted.

  Zhao looked at him for a long moment. Then nodded slowly.

  "That's actually a good answer," he said. "Most people would have guessed wrong and wasted my time." He paused. "Though if you had showed up to class, maybe you could make a living without risking your life."

  Leo considered this.

  "Fair point," he agreed.

  "What's missing," Zhao continued, turning back to the screen, "is Gold Core Flyers. The military calls them T4 Flyers. They exhibit pseudo-Nascent Soul level strength by lifebonding with high tier flying swords.”

  He paused. "There's also T4.5 Flyers. Same setup, but they can use third person perspective."

  Leo perked up at the mention of his signature move.

  "The military avoids deploying them in mass for two reasons. The first is that third person perspective becomes exponentially more difficult to train the older you get. Basically everyone who has attained it needed spiritual medicine to do so."

  "Coach Williams said it would take months," Leo said. "It didn't sound very hard."

  Zhao's expression flickered.

  "Coach Williams' mentor lied to him. The mentor wanted to see if a young person with exceptionally high spatial intelligence could obtain third person perspective while they still had the brain plasticity of youth." Zhao pulled up something on his tablet.

  "Coach Lin Mei, your third person perspective trainer, would have given you the spiritual medicine if you showed no progress. But as she and the mentor suspected, you achieved it without assistance."

  "They published a paper afterwards," Zhao added jealously. "Even won an award for it."

  "I was an experimental subject?"

  "You must have consented to it somewhere. Didn't you read the forms they asked you to sign?"

  Leo glowered. Of course he hadn't read them. Who actually reads those things?

  Then another thought struck him.

  "Wait, isn't cultivating your brain before twenty-five supposed to be dangerous? What if I screw up my immortal potential or something?"

  Zhao shrugged. "If I was given the opportunity, I would cultivate third person perspective in a heartbeat. However, it has never been done successfully without spiritual medicine before you. The medicine is strictly rationed."

  He swiped to another slide. Research notes. Lin Mei's name appeared again.

  "Besides, Coach Mei thinks it will help you form your Nascent Soul. Gold Cores who cultivate third person perspective have a much higher success rate advancing to Nascent Soul. Third Person Perspective is very similar to what a Nascent Soul can sense within their domain."

  Zhao's voice carried a slight edge now. His eyes lingered on her name as first author.

  "Coach Mei is excited to give you a thorough examination once you advance to Gold Core. If she finds any problems, you can use your massive NFL money to fix them. You can probably demand first author on whatever paper she writes." He waved his hand dismissively. "Cry me a river."

  Zhao seemed far more jealous about the paper than anything else.

  "So why are Nascent Souls so slow if they have a version of third person perspective?" Leo asked, thinking back to Lord Ironhorn's lumbering around.

  "They're not slow," Zhao corrected. "A domain has mass and inertia. They can build tremendous velocity, but they can't make instant directional changes like you can. Your advantage is maneuverability. In close quarters, you'll dance circles around them. But don't let them build momentum or you'll get run down and exhausted to death."

  He closed the current presentation.

  "But that brings us to why you're here." Zhao opened a new file. "I'm going to teach you how to kill a Nascent Soul Lord by yourself."

  Leo leaned forward.

  The new slide appeared. Red text across the top: TOP SECRET - CLEARANCE REQUIRED.

  Zhao slid a tablet across the table. "Sign this."

  Leo looked at the document. Considered whether he wanted to try reading it. Skimmed the first paragraph. Something about non-disclosure and penalties. He decided if he'd never read what he signed before, there was no point starting now.

  He pressed his thumb to the signature field.

  "The reason Gold Core flyers don't go on convoys," Zhao said, "is because they're busy training with a new weapon. One we want to surprise the Catacombs with."

  The next slide showed schematics. A massive land vehicle, similar in scale to a Dreadnought but with a radically different silhouette. Where Dreadnoughts were built like fortresses on treads, this thing was lower, sleeker, with an elongated body. Rising from its rear section was a vertical drum, and wound around it in tight coils was a segmented tail.

  "The Scorpion," Zhao said. "Designed specifically to allow Gold Cores to kill Nascent Soul Lords."

  Leo studied the specifications on the image.

  "The biggest advantage of a Nascent Soul is their domain," Zhao continued. "The Scorpion is designed to neutralize that advantage. It can counter thirty-three of the thirty-five known domain types."

  "Which two can't it handle?"

  "Domains focused purely on realm suppression. Ones that instantly paralyze Gold Core and below cultivators." Zhao pulled up two domain diagrams. "Both are unpopular because they only help with lower tier fights. The domain is ineffective against other Nascent Souls or Deity Transformation cultivators."

  Leo recognized them immediately from his research on Nascent Soul Domains.

  "The first of the two is the Heaven Domain of the Eight Trigrams system." Zhao continued. "It generates the pressure of Heaven's Authority, forcing everyone affected to kneel. But that domain is considered heresy in the Catacombs. Zero chance we'll face it."

  "The other is the White Tiger Domain?" Leo asked.

  "Correct." Zhao waved dismissively. "But you can leave the White Tiger Domain for others to handle. You're the delivery driver, Leo. You just need to focus on getting the package to the right address."

  The projection shifted to a technical diagram showing a segmented tail structure terminating in a wicked three-pronged claw.

  "The claw operates through temporary lifebonds. Before battle, a specific cryptographic combination is decided. The Gold Core flyer forms a temporary bond with a seed encryption. Then they guide the claw onto the enemy Nascent Soul." He traced the attack sequence on screen with one finger

  "Upon contact, it clamps. The Nascent Soul dies instantly."

  Leo watched the animation cycle through. The tail uncoiling. The claw extending. The strike.

  Zhao leaned back in his chair. "We had to abandon all the T1 spiritual Qi veins because the Cults started hitting our convoys with three Nascent Souls at a time. Long-range spiritual Qi detectors can identify groups of four or more in an area, but below that threshold, they move freely."

  He closed the technical specifications. "With one Dreadnought and one Scorpion, each convoy can hold off three Nascent Souls and potentially counter-kill them. We'll be able to retake those veins we abandoned."

  "We're planning a coordinated reveal in late December. Force them to battle and slaughter as many Lords as possible before they adapt."

  "So this tail and claw system can help me with the Mountain Domain?"

  Zhao nodded slowly. "The Mountain Domain is actually one of the more difficult ones for the Scorpion to counter. The slowing effect makes it impossible to force the claw through. We've been training Gold Cores to target it specifically, but very few have succeeded."

  He looked at Leo.

  "Technically speaking, you should be just as capable as those Gold Cores."

  "Why?"

  "The principle of the Mountain Domain works like gravity. And gravity's strength is also its weakness." Zhao pulled up a physics diagram. "Gravity affects heavy objects just as much as light objects. The Mountain Domain affects Qi Refiners the same amount it affects Nascent Souls."

  Leo processed this.

  "Your weak cultivation will actually benefit you. And most importantly, your youth. Your brain plasticity." Zhao set down his tablet. "Before I teach you the technique, I need to explain the Eight Trigrams system. What do you know about it?"

  "Honestly?" Leo shifted in his seat. "I don't even really know what a formation is."

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Zhao stared at him.

  Then he spat to the side.

  "Your Moonrider is wasted on you."

  "Probably."

  "Maybe if you stayed in school, you could make a living without doing such death-seeking things."

  "You already said that."

  "It bears repeating." Zhao pulled up a new diagram.

  "The Mountain domain is a powerful domain system because it can directly counter flak and remains useful against higher realm cultivators."

  The slide showed a symbol. Three horizontal lines stacked vertically. The top line was long and unbroken. Below it, four shorter lines arranged in two columns, gaps between each pair.

  "This is the Mountain trigram. It looks like a lowercase 'n' shape. One long line supported by two columns of smaller lines."

  Leo studied the image.

  "The domain works exactly how it looks. The top long line represents the peak, pushing everything below it downward. The four smaller lines forming the sides represent the hollow interior of the earth. The space where weight must eventually settle."

  "The key point is here." Zhao highlighted the thin strand on the diagram of the domain. "The hollow. A narrow space where the domain's gravitational energy does not reach. It leads directly to the center, where the cultivator stands. There are two ways to approach it."

  He drew a line from the top of the strand to the middle.

  "First, from the top down. The long thick part of the trigram, or the peak of the domain, seems intimidating, but it represents gravity pushing down. Getting past it is trivial. The problem is it obscures the hollow path. You might be completely off-target once you break through the peak of the domain."

  He drew another line from below.

  "The second method would be from the bottom. But there's a significant problem. Cultivators typically stay close to the ground, especially Mountain Domain Lords. The bottom approach is often physically blocked."

  Leo nodded slowly.

  "The Lord moves his hollow space constantly, trying to shake you off. You need to match his movements perfectly while following the lava chute down to the center."

  Zhao pulled up a video of a T4.5 flyer navigating down the tiny hollow in the middle of the Nascent Soul's domain, the segmented tail of the Scorpion trailing behind him with its three-pronged claw.

  "Perfect tracking and control. You stay centered in the eye of the storm as it shifts and jukes, guiding the claw all the way to the Lord himself."

  Leo watched the Nascent Soul Lord begin moving, dragging the hollow space with him. The flyer matched each movement, maintaining position in the safe zone.

  Zhao leaned forward. "The closer you get to the center, the stronger the gravity becomes and the less reaction time you have. One miscalculation and you get crushed."

  The Nascent Soul Lord whipsawed the domain violently. The flyer struggled to compensate, but the hollow shifted too fast. He tumbled out of the safe zone and collapsed instantly, crushed by the domain's pressure.

  Zhao closed the video. "Princeton has a training center where you can practice the control work. Matching your movements to your perception. But simulations only go so far. The technique is extremely difficult to pull off in actual combat against a determined enemy."

  "Why is it called the lava chute?"

  "Because that's what it feels like if you get thrown out of the chute." Zhao's voice was flat. "Most cultivators can't maintain that level of precision under pressure. The Lord waits until the last moment, makes one unpredictable movement, and suddenly you're outside the hollow space."

  He closed the diagram.

  "This is the primary problem with training flyers to thread the lava chute. Each failed attempt seriously injures them. Recovery takes time. Convincing them to try again after experiencing that kind of pain takes even longer. Very few agree to more than one training session."

  Zhao looked at Leo directly.

  "The good news is that gravity scales to your cultivation level. The pressure you'll face will be appropriate for Qi Refining. Painful, but survivable."

  "And the bad news?"

  "There's no way to prevent injury. Gravity affects all parts of your body simultaneously. It bypasses armor and formations entirely." Zhao pulled out a small device.

  "However, we can attach a tether to you and extract you instantly if you fail. We can nearly guarantee you won't die, even in combat. You'll just be out of commission for a while."

  "And if I land the claw?"

  "You'll be fine. The Nascent Soul dies instantly. The domain collapses. You walk away."

  Leo sat in silence for a moment.

  "Is there a magical treasure blueprint I can have? For a practice dummy claw?"

  Zhao smiled. He tapped on his tablet and produced a formation diagram.

  "This can be drawn on anything you want. A claw. A sword. A stick. The important part is the divine sense encryption formation." He handed it over.

  "I'm giving you the single-code version rather than a configurable one. If whoever you're practicing against figures out the code, just ask me for a new one."

  Leo took the diagram carefully.

  "What about the part where it instantly kills the Nascent Soul?"

  "Don't dream about it unless you can find a source of T6 spiritual Qi."

  Zhao emailed Leo the Formation Diagram.

  "Now," Zhao said, "let's begin training."

  ---

  The simulator chamber occupied the basement level of the Frick Formation Laboratory.

  The ceiling arched overhead, a perfect hemisphere carved from bedrock and reinforced with spiritual formation lines that pulsed with faint blue light. Thousands of projector nodes covered the curved walls, giving the stone surface a honeycomb texture.

  At the bottom of the chamber, a holographic body of light stood. The simulated Nascent Soul Lord. His target.

  Leo stood on his Moonrider at the top of the simulation chamber. Below him stretched a giant sphere, simulating the Nascent Soul’s domain.

  A narrow tunnel extended upward from the body of light, rising toward Leo like a strand of glass. The simulated hollow of the domain. Less than a meter wide, wobbling and swaying as it climbed. Just barely enough space for Leo to slip inside.

  In actual combat, Leo would have to pass through the ‘peak’ of the domain before locating the hollow. For now, they were focusing on the fundamentals.

  "Difficulty seven," Zhao called from the control station. "Begin."

  Leo activated Third Person Perspective.

  He dove.

  The Moonrider screamed downward, carrying him into the wobbling tunnel. At this distance, the movements were easy to read. The oscillations started at the body of light and traveled upward like waves along a rope. By the time they reached him, he was already prepared.

  Two hundred meters.

  The strand swayed left. Leo tracked the movement from its origin, watching the wave climb toward him. He shifted right when it arrived, staying centered in the narrow channel.

  One hundred fifty meters.

  The wobbles came faster now. Less time between origin and arrival. The body below began to juke, sharp lateral movements that sent violent ripples up the strand. Leo matched them, his body responding to divine sense commands without delay.

  One hundred meters.

  The reaction window shrank. Each oscillation gave him less than a second to perceive, process, and adjust. The strand whipped back and forth, a living thing trying to throw him out.

  He led the simulated claw behind him with his divine sense. A training tool that mimicked the spiritual signature of an actual Nascent Soul killing weapon.

  The claw needed to be fired at exactly ten meters from the target. Close enough so he could control the flight with his divine sense. Far enough to give him a fraction of a chance to survive the backlash.

  Fifty meters.

  Leo's perception split. Part of his awareness tracked the strand's movements, predicting the wobbles as they formed at the body. Part focused on his own position, making micro-adjustments to stay centered. Part prepared the claw, calculating the angle and timing for the final strike.

  Thirty meters.

  The oscillations became almost instantaneous. The wave would form at the body and reach him in the space between heartbeats. His body moved before his conscious mind registered the change. Pure reflex translated through divine sense.

  Twenty meters.

  The strand jerked right.

  Leo followed. Too slow. His shoulder brushed the edge of the light.

  A harsh buzzer sounded. The projectors flashed red.

  "Reset," Zhao called.

  Leo shot back up to the starting position. The hollow tunnel reformed below, swaying gently, waiting.

  "Again."

  He dove.

  After a few hours of work, he reached the ten meter mark. The hardest part of the technique. He would need to survive at close range while guiding the claw with his divine sense to strike.

  He prepared the claw. His awareness fractured into simultaneous processes. Track the strand. Maintain position. Aim the weapon.

  The body lurched.

  Leo fired the claw.

  His body jerked sideways to avoid the incoming oscillation.

  The claw shot forward, streaking toward the target.

  The strand whipped right.

  Leo followed, staying inside the narrowing channel as the claw flew towards the target. He fought to maintain position while guiding the weapon with his divine sense, adjusting its trajectory in real time.

  But guiding the claw meant splitting his attention.

  The strand oscillated. Leo tracked it. The claw drifted off course. He corrected. The simulated Nascent Soul Lord juked.

  Too many variables. Too little time.

  His arm brushed the edge again.

  Red flash. Buzzer.

  "Reset."

  Leo returned to the top. His breathing came hard even though his body had barely moved. He was exhausted mentally from trying to track too many variables.

  "The final ten meters is where everyone fails," Zhao said from below. "You need to guide the claw while surviving oscillations that give you almost zero reaction time."

  Leo stared down at the body simulating the Nascent Soul Lord.

  "In theory, the convergence should help me. The strand can only wobble so much at ten meters."

  "In practice, the domain pressure at ten meters is so extreme that even a minor contact will cripple you. The wobbles are smaller, but the cost of touching the edge is absolute." Zhao checked his tablet.

  "How many times do I need to succeed at difficulty seven before I'm ready?" Leo asked.

  "Difficulty seven is baseline. A slow, predictable Nascent Soul." Zhao adjusted the controls. "Real Lords move faster. Attack you. Try to shake you out deliberately. Practical training doesn't start until you can beat difficulty fifteen consistently."

  Zhao turned to Leo.

  "Learning to counter the Mountain Domain will be your only concern from now until the end of the year. Coach Williams and your transport team will be informed you are unavailable until January."

  "But what about my merits? I was earning a good amount!" Leo complained.

  Zhao pointed at the body representing the Nascent Soul.

  "Merits are a way to apportion intangible contributions. All the small actions that collectively hold off a Nascent Soul Lord without directly engaging one." He lowered his hand.

  "If you kill a Nascent Soul, you won't be measured in merits." Zhao continued. "You will be rated and given an ELO."

  Leo blinked. "An ELO? Like League of Legends?"

  Zhao glowered. "I was hoping you would say chess." He shook his head. "But what can I expect from a kid who skips all his classes to play video games."

  Leo looked slightly embarrassed. He did skip class to play Elden Ring after all.

  "Being rated and receiving an ELO will automatically grant you and your family almost all privileges you could purchase with merits. Including draft exemptions. For free."

  "More importantly, being rated means you've proven yourself as an asset for the Catacombs invasion." Zhao paused. "The Department of Defense's strategic resources will be available for requisition or purchase."

  "Strategic resources?"

  "Anything requiring T4 or T5 spiritual ingredients." Zhao glanced at his tablet. "This becomes critical after you reach Foundation Establishment. The best cutting-edge body refining techniques requires T5 spiritual medicines to cultivate. To access those resources, you need an ELO rating or be the direct child of someone who has one."

  Zhao's expression shifted, grew serious.

  "More importantly, if you want any chance at beating Mateo this year, you need to achieve a rating."

  Leo tensed at the name.

  "Mateo is far stronger than you or your teammates realize. You won't be able to simply avoid him and win on points. You'll need the special resources and techniques only available to rated cultivators if you want a chance."

  Zhao held Leo's gaze.

  "I spent three years trying to make the playoffs with your teammates. I hope you don't let them down in their final year."