Though Theo was incredibly busy, he couldn't possibly fail to notice the upcoming date when he had only one month left before the duel. He wasn't sure if the past five months felt like far more or far less time. In any case, he couldn't afford to let himself get distracted by the impending deadline.

Training with Nauda and Fiyu had been mostly successful, getting him used to manifesting his singularity even when being threatened. Unfortunately, he couldn't improve endlessly with just brute effort, and the technique was definitely going to require strategy to employ effectively. Fighting the two of them together, he only managed to gather enough cantae half of the time, and with their awareness of the technique, they might have been able to dodge even if he aimed for them. Certain steps would be too slow until he ascended and he'd have to work around that.

Perhaps the biggest problem was that the two of them combined weren't the same sort of threat as Esaire, who would be coming at him with focused speed and a Ruler's cantae. Theo didn't know anyone who was the same sort of soulcrafter, and didn't want to over-train against a single expected opponent anyway. That was a good way to develop rigid thinking instead of actual skills.

Still, he had another trial to pit himself against: one more quarry run with House Teal. This would be the last one he could attend before the duel, so he intended to make the most of it. Hopefully Nauda and Fiyu could sneak in, then he'd see if he could manage a singularity even in the whirlwind with attacks from all sides.

"Is something different about this time?" Theo had been distracted by overall plans while they drove out to the quarry, but Nauda leaned forward, shielding her eyes. "You notice anything, Fiyu?"

"There are more people than the two times I attended." Fiyu had been driving to let him soulcraft more, and now frowned along with Nauda. "They feel like an average group of soulcrafters, but they are much more tense than normal."

"Huh. I wonder if we're missing something."

That might be, but Theo didn't notice anything that struck him as substantially different. No Tythes, Esaire, or strange outsiders lurking in the crowd - more Fithans than usual, if anything. The House Teal official was the same Lady Baryara as always, standing in the same dignified pose. Fiyu was right about the tension in the crowd, however, which was visible in their faces in addition to whatever details she detected.

Fortunately, no one challenged the presence of Nauda and Fiyu. They'd probably be disqualified if they were noticed by Lady Baryara, but Theo didn't care about that in the slightest. He wondered if he could taunt some other soulcrafters to get them to come after him and increase the difficulty further.

"House Teal, in its wisdom, has decided to bestow a greater gift than our usual." Lady Baryara actually skipped her usual speech, a new tone of confidence in her voice. "We have increased the intensity of the whirlwind and the draining effect within the quarry, but we also offer a greater prize: a Chasm Invitation."

Immediately Theo's priorities shifted. He couldn't overlook the chance to acquire a second Invitation without a huge expense, even for the sake of training. As he took a second look at the soulcrafters around him, he realized that many were rough men and women, one large group even bearing weapons. No doubt some Houses had heard rumors of the prize and sent skilled soulcrafters to acquire it.

Fighting this many veterans might be beyond his abilities, but all he needed to do was win, and after nine hours in the whirlwind, Theo thought he had a chance. He turned back to his allies and spoke in a low voice. "Change of plans: don't enter, because I don't want to give them any reason to disqualify me. Stay alert in case anyone tries anything suspicious."

They nodded, and then there wasn't time for anything else, because Lady Baryara was clearly ready to announce the start. Theo stepped up to the side of the quarry as the whirlwind spun up to full speed. Unlike usual, nearly everyone else moved to the edge as well, some even putting a foot onto the slope, all ready for the signal.

"Begin!"

Theo leapt down the slope, like most of the others, but he also cast a gravitational field over himself. As a result, gravity pulled him down faster than the others, though several sprinted at nearly the same rate. He leapt across the base of the quarry, exerting his speed chambers to their fullest extent.

On the way, he lost ground to a Ruler who blazed forward. Some of the others might be faster than him, but that didn't mean they'd win. Theo was immensely familiar with the whirlwind by now, even in its intensified form, and he had never once tried to seriously win the competition.

He did now, slamming two gravitational fields down over the entire quarry as powerfully as he could generate them. Rocks began to plummet in their arcs and most of the others stumbled in surprise, but he hadn't applied it to himself. Instead, he cast the third field only around himself, reducing himself to a fraction of his normal weight as he sprinted up the side. A few rocks still spun at him, but he dodged with extra bursts of speed.

Then he was sprinting up onto the top, so fast that his reduced weight nearly sent him sailing off. He managed to stay back, releasing all his other fields. Around him, he saw a few who had managed to sprint through much of the whirlwind, but they had been focused on one another, not a lone Archcrafter who had ignored everything but the summit.

Seconds after the competition had begun, he stood in front of Lady Baryara, who stared at him in surprise. Since he'd stayed on the ground the entire time, she couldn't object, but she had clearly not expected the competition to end so quickly.

"Thank you for this opportunity," he said, doing his best Nauda impression. "Would you bless me with the Chasm Invitation now?"

The woman gave him a sour look, but she also pulled a piece of white marble from her robes. Other than being inscribed with the symbol of House Teal, it was identical to the one Fiyu had. That meant they only needed one more... but he had higher priorities.

Around them, one of the Rulers broke to the top to take second place. Many of the others fought with one another in the returning whirlwind, apparently interested in the monetary award, but he saw some of the strongest soulcrafters leaving. They could easily have reached the summit, clearly interested only in the Invitation. He could see the growing dissatisfaction on Lady Baryara's face and decided that his plans didn't need to change.

"If I understand correctly, your goal with this competition is to drain cantae for your ongoing mining operations. Since you have already kindled the whirlwind, would you permit me to train here until it fades? It would generate considerably more cantae for House Teal, so-"

"Fine." The woman pushed past him irritably, shooting one more glance in his direction. "If you steal so much as a single tornadogem, you will face House Teal's retribution."

That suited him fine. Theo looked across the whirlwind, which had restored itself to its full ferocity, and waved to Fiyu and Nauda. When he gestured downward, they understood, and both entered the quarry to meet at the bottom.

"I guess I need to get an Invitation now," Nauda said as they came together. Theo shook his head.

"Now that we only need one more, I'm sure we can find a way, even if we need to spend a lot to buy it. What I want to do is train like we planned. Between the new whirlwind and both of you, this might be a good test."

"Unlike the trial itself, which quailed before your might." Nauda smiled and spun her staff into a combat position.

Meanwhile, he realized that Fiyu had disappeared... so she intended to fire at him from within her stealth technique. A perfectly valid strategy, and even if it didn't match what Esaire would do, he wanted to test his limits. Theo leapt back away from Nauda's first attempt to bind him, landing on the side of the inner slope to get distance from both of them.

The intensified whirlwind whipped rocks more quickly than before, and he couldn't afford to ignore it or dodge on instinct. That meant his attention was split in many ways, plus there were still soulcrafters training or trying to achieve another of the lesser awards.

He almost put them out of his mind, before he noticed a group of Archcrafters moving in his direction. They looked experienced and a bit angry, perhaps intending to steal his Invitation from him. Not wanting to deal with that at the moment, Theo put a reverse field beneath them to send the group out of the quarry.

All five glowed with a cloak of blue cantae and charged.

In that instant, Theo realized that he'd miscalculated. The cloak around them was unquestionably Esaire's technique to nullify gravity, which meant that this was no theft. Esaire hadn't just been preparing himself, he or his family had trained local mercenaries for this precise hit. None of them looked like pushovers, either, so this could be bad.

Then a storm of light crashed into the charging mercenaries and one of those in the air froze in place, then smashed into the ground. Trusting in his own allies, Theo threw out a hand and hit the first of them with gravitational torsion.

Thankfully, the cloak couldn't shrug off such a complex twisting field, but the Archcrafter he struck wasn't just some pawn of the Armeau family. He kept charging, despite the fact that the torsion broke one of his arms, and reached out with a technique.

If he'd been as slow as he was a few months ago, Theo wouldn't have noticed the stone melting beneath his feet in time. As it was, he barely sent himself upward in time to avoid the liquid stone rising upward to wrap around his legs.

The emergency retreat gave him no time to defend, and a few rocks slammed into him, but then he was high above the whirlwind looking down. He saw Nauda exchanging blows with two of the mercenaries, keeping them at bay but giving ground. Fiyu flickered in and out as she rained more lightstorms against their opponents, at least distracting them. Unfortunately, that left one focused on him and generating a significant amount of cantae.

Theo reversed his gravitational field and sent himself downward, a second before a beam of solid cantae tore through the air where he'd been. Unfortunately, the mercenary didn't look surprised, and he'd barely landed before he needed to leap aside from another solid beam. The sublime stone of the quarry wasn't immediately destroyed by it, but several boulders shattered and their fragments joined the whirlwind.

So their opponents were trained, prepared, and positioned facing the whirlwind. House Teal must have noticed, yet Lady Baryara had ignored the attack, perhaps as retaliation. As he dodged aside from the next cantae beam, Theo didn't like his odds.