Ian stood in front of Minerva Caffrey’s cot in the medical bay. Caffrey was sitting up with the peak of good posture, her shoulders back and her good hand in her lap, the ruined hand laying off to the right on the cot.

“How do you normally prepare to operate on someone?” Ian asked.

Caffrey tilted her head to the side, her expression focused. “Normally, you draft up a plan for both the Life and Death practitioners to follow. You need to carefully coordinate where to excise and rebuild tissue, as well as how to do so. The right tissue in the wrong place is just a new problem.”

“You can just heal your hand on your own, can’t you?” Ian asked.

“I can, but it’ll take time. At our level, I find it’s not necessarily a question of capability, but of convenience. For instance, pairing an upper-tier Life practitioner with a Death practitioner of even the lowest rung can increase the former’s efficiency by over 200%.”

Sounds like a company press release, but makes sense. While Ian could use Death energy to do Life-oriented tasks like keeping himself awake or growing tissue, doing so felt hacky, like using a hammer in place of a pair of scissors to cut paper. It was probably possible, but required thinking outside the box, as well as a high level of finesse.

“We can do this in two stages, then,” Ian proposed. “I can excise everything that doesn’t belong; afterwards, you can take it from there to repair your hand.”

“Let me show you another way,” Caffrey said. “Here, touch my bad hand. Okay. Do you see what I’m doing?”

Ian’s eyes followed trails of glowing white vitality coursing through Caffrey’s skin. “What are you trying to do, exactly?”

“Look at how I am structuring my energy.”

Ian noticed the energy forming into a few distinct sections, looking almost like honeycomb grids. They then started to hug and encapsulate the muscles, bones, and vessels of Caffrey’s deformed limb.

“This is what we call the scaffold. Right now I’ve formed a scaffold around everything that’s currently present; for most operations doing so is overkill. Establishing the scaffold is a tool that the Life and Death practitioner can both utilize together. Try joining your own energy with mine.”

Ian sent a pulse of energy forward; unlike during the duel, he felt no resistance, the energy passing cleanly through her skin. Her hand shuddered involuntarily, goosebumps raising across her skin. Ian ignored the reaction, focusing on shaping his nebulous energy along the highly-structured scaffold pattern.

His energy slotted in cleanly atop hers, clinging to it hungrily, but the two of them kept the energies from mixing.

“Your surgeons must be fairly skilled,” Ian observed. “They all use the scaffold?”

Caffrey smiled. “The best ones do. And by best, I mean the most well-paid. Like I said, it’s easy and efficient to pair one of the best with a few mediocre practitioners of opposite affinity. As long as one party can keep their energies separate, the scaffold will be a success.”

“What comes next?” Ian asked, sending in a bit more Death energy.

“We can reshape the scaffold. We’ll be relying on each other to either expand or condense as appropriate, mending and breaking as we go. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Ian felt a tug as Caffrey’s energy began to shift. All of the different scaffolds covering different parts of her hand began to contort in different ways. Ian focused on the areas where the scaffold moved inwards, carefully flaring his Death energy to kill the outer tissue layer, while using it as a foothold to progress deeper. Meanwhile Caffrey inspired growth, mostly in areas where Ian’s energy had already rent and restructured flesh.

The two of them moved the scaffolds for the next thirty seconds, rapidly restructuring and reshaping the limb until it resembled its former appearance.

Sweat was pooling along Caffrey’s brow by the time they finished, her complexion pale. “That was fast, but painful,” she admitted. “I dulled my senses as best as I could, but still...I’m not sure I’ve ever needed to completely restructure my hand before.”

“I don’t suppose you would’ve needed to,” Ian chuckled bitterly. “Well, I’m glad we were able to heal it so quickly. I’ve never heard of your scaffolding technique before; thank you for sharing it with me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

—

When Ian returned to the SPU’s waiting room, Euryphel was waiting with an inquisitive expression on his face. “I didn’t expect you to go down to the medical bay.”

Ian shrugged. “I felt bad for ruining her hand. If I didn’t intervene, it’s possible she might’ve been stuck with the malformed limb in the next round of duels.”

“It’s not unwise to treat the delegates from the Adrilli Isles well; they’re distant from us, but influential.”

Diana rolled her eyes over in her own corner where she lay curled up on a couch, clearly trying to nap. “You only helped her because she’s pretty.”

Ian gave her his most judgmental stare, trying to channel Mother to the best of his ability. “Do I really seem so shallow to you?”

Diana grunted and rolled over, pulling her capulet over her eyes. “Forget I said anything.”

“Don’t mind her, she’s just jealous.” Euryphel chuckled softly. “It’s a bit frustrating: You make besting a world-class duelist look easy.”

“My abilities are just ideal for this sort of tournament. Unless my opponent is a Life practitioner, their options are limited when countering my bone-lock.”

“That’s what we’re counting on.” Euryphel turned to Lanhui, who sat on the other side of the room, lost in thought. “Lanhui, how are we faring in the tournament?”

“Much better than previous years,” the guardian said simply. “Ian just defeated Adrilli’s strongest contender, so I see the SPU surpassing them for once. If we’re lucky we may make it into the first bracket.”

––

The afternoon continued uneventfully with the other SPU practitioners all finishing victorious, even Lanhui. The next round wasn’t so kind to them, however: both Diana and Lanhui were eliminated in their duels, respectively. Luckily, Lanhui managed to come back in the battle royale, leaving the SPU’s numbers at a healthy three of four remaining by the time of the fourth round.

Ian recognized the name of the person he was paired up against this time.

“Is Zilverna Sezakuin really powerful enough to make it to the fourth round?” Ian asked. “He wasn’t anything particularly special when I faced him a month ago. How did he fair in the previous duels?” he asked. Since they were far from the stage and the duels tended to move quickly, Ian had missed quite a few of them.

“He did well from what I could see,” Lanhui said. “He generally relied on his agility to tire people out.”

“Well, unless there’s something we’ve missed...he shouldn’t be a problem.”

—

The announcer waited for the crowd to quiet down. “Wasn’t the last fight riveting? Well, if you thought that was exciting, this next duel is going to be an absolute smash. First we have Zilverna Sezakuin, son of the Eldemari, adept Sun and End practitioner! Zilverna has made an impressive showing in this year’s tournament, blowing all expectations out of the water.”

Ian zoned out for his own introduction, his gaze drawn to the thousands of disembodied souls floating around the stadium. He snapped back into focus as soon as he heard the words he’d been waiting for: “Commence!”

Ian flung himself forward, trying to close the distance and shut down Zilverna as quickly as possible. The youth was firstly an elementalist, drawing primarily on his Sun affinity for firepower. He was also a wind elementalist, but a weak one: like Euryphel, the source of his wind elementalism was End affinity, but Zilverna’s End affinity was hardly worth mentioning.

One of the key focuses of his pre-tournament preparation had been the bone shield that currently studded his mundane armor. While initially inspired by the glosSword, its defensive focus was a defining feature, using a network of bones powered by soul gems to defend against kinetic and energy attacks. The shield could react to attacks autonomously, though Ian had prioritized making sure that he could override and manipulate the shield at will. After practicing with the Guard, the princes, and even Caffrey in the last fight, he was confident that it would allow him to entirely avoid defensively using his own energy.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet nailed down how to defend himself against active use of End affinity. While it’s possible Zilverna’s End affinity is too low to be weaponized, it’s best to be cautious. He was the scion of the Eldemari.

Zilverna immediately began to retreat backwards while sending balls of fire Ian’s way. Ian twisted in the air and continued unhindered, sending out a cluster of his own bone shards to surround and encapsulate the elementalist. Zilverna appeared unconcerned by all of these developments, his expression neutral, collected.

Ian soon noticed that everywhere Zilverna went, the surroundings were left unbearably hot. Manipulating heat itself isn’t elementalism, Ian realized. He’s not producing enough flame to elevate the temperature that quickly. He must be using his base Sun affinity like Diana.

The dueling area wasn’t small, but Zilverna was covering a lot of ground: the area was quickly growing too-hot to be comfortable, and Ian wasn’t sure he had a viable way to protect himself against the rising temperature. Going up wasn’t particularly effective since the heat rose like a column far above the ground. Going down, on the other hand...it shouldn’t be practical unless he had more bones, at least enough to make a large bone construct.

But Ian wanted to try anyway.

As he chased Zilverna, Ian drew out bones from the many pouches and pockets adorning his robes into a matrix in front of him. To Zilverna and the onlookers, it would probably just look like a defensive barrier.

Ian then rolled the matrix up like a carpet. He elongated its center a bit and tapered it to a point, leaving what looked like a drill vaguely outlined with bones. Ian threw two spare soul gems into the mix and the drill began to rotate, at first slowly, and then at a blinding speed.

Ian allowed the drill to start excavating autonomously in the background while he actively pursued Zilverna, waiting for the elementalist to make a mistake.

This guy needs to chill. The kid was going at top speed, flaring fire through his feet and hands while growing his flames and tweaking his trajectory with his wind elementalism. It looked like a lot of effort.

While Ian had spent most of his bone shard supply making the drill, he still had a few larger shards he used to chase the elementalist down, forcing him to swerve awkwardly. The shards were agile enough that Zilverna didn’t seem to have a way to deal with them other than his normal strategy: running away.

At this point, the duel had gone on for almost a minute. It was honestly embarrassing how long things were dragging on, Zilverna maintaining his distance, neither of them really inflicting damage. While Zilverna’s heat was fading in some spots, the dueling ground as a whole was almost unbearable.

Time to end this. Ian changed direction and dropped down into the entry hole made by his drill. It had gone several feet underground, and while the temperature was still somewhat hot, it wasn’t anything like the surface. Given the breadth of the drill, the hole it made was actually quite small, just barely large enough for Ian to enter. Perhaps the critical challenge isn’t breaking the earth, but clearing it away.

Ian had sent the drill to run in loops and circles underneath the stadium, allowing him to go forward without needing to worry about sharp turns. He didn’t know where the tunnels would take him, but neither did Zilverna: and all he needed to do was keep going until the youth was within his reach. While Ian’s vital vision was limited by the layers of intervening dirt, he’d be able to sense Zilverna once he was close enough.

He zipped around for half a minute before returning back at the entrance, the deconstructed drill components whirling around him. Frowning, Ian resurfaced, only to see an indignant Zilverna flying high in the sky, buoyed by wind and flame.

Of course he continued to run away. Ian’s strategy had been somewhat effective, however, buying the dueling platform time to cool down. I want to finish this...but it’s difficult if he continues to be so slippery. What is Zilverna playing at? This kind of duel is no longer entertaining. Is this all because I flung him into the Bay of Ramsay?

Ian raced up to Zilverna, and to his surprise, the elementalist stayed in place. He’s planning something...perhaps he’s been preparing ever since I entered the tunnels.

Ian decided to trust in his shield and unrelentingly continued forward, a flurry of bones shards whipping around him and gaining momentum.

Unsurprisingly, Zilverna blasted him with twin gouts of flame. Ian gritted his teeth and elevated his bone shield off his armor, reinforcing it to handle a greater surface area.

He continued to fly forward, rebuffing the flames, until finally, Ian felt Zilverna in his grasp.

At the same time, Zilverna’s eyes narrowed. Without any other warning, a burst of flame appeared within Ian’s shield, manifesting seemingly out of thin air.

Ian didn’t have time to think: he defended himself reflexively, calling on his own energy to buffer and snuff out Zilverna’s flames.

Zilverna’s eyes widened, but at this point he was powerless to run, stuck in Ian’s hold.

Ian appeared before Zilverna and forced the elementalist to his knees against a makeshift platform of bone assembled on the spot. The largest bone shard in his current possession flew forward into his hand, its surface like the flat of a blade, its edge as sharp as a knife. Ian stepped onto the bone platform and placed the blade against Zilverna’s neck.

“Match! The Skai’aren’s victory!”