Dael opened the glass door to the sparring room and came to check on Gaal, checking for a pulse at his neck. Dael nodded once he had confirmed that Gaal was just unconscious.

"As short and brutal as I was expecting." Dael said. "Though I was surprised that you let him tag you so well."

"I would have preferred the match to go on a bit longer." I said. "But the fortress wards have gone down, and I will need to deal with that. Better a quick and definitive ending to the match than calling it off."

"I understand my lord, the safety of the fortress is most important." Dael said. "Gaal would agree. Is this sparring room open to anyone, or is it only for your use?"

"It's for anyone who would like to use it." I said. Chantelle sent me a ping. "I need to go and deal with this. You will take care of Gaal?"

At his nod I left the room and walked through the hallway to the fortress stairs. The beast people were still in their seats, talking quietly with each other. I joined Chantelle in the main simulation, which was still focused on the ward room.

She was updating the simulation of the room from her senses, the tabletop with a hologram of the surrounding area over it, coloured red.

"When did I get the new pendant?" I asked.

The winter priests had taken my last one when they'd captured me, I was sure.

"I made it for you while you were sleeping, it was because of me that you lost the last one." Chantelle said, waving her hand dismissing it. "The claim, recharge, and detection wards are still up, only the wards that are on the fortress itself went down. And they're just about to go back up."

The hologram flashed green, and then went red again with the accompanying crash of glass.

"Ha, got it." Chantelle said. "I have a recording of how the wards are being broken. I might be able to figure out a way to stop it from happening."

"You said the detection ward is up?" I asked. "The Champion would need to be close to break our wards, right?"

"Right..." Chantelle said.

She wasn't doing anything in the simulation, but her biological side must have been adjusting the hologram because the display shifted to showing a human standing at the top of the fortress outside, where the doors would open.

He was just standing there, waiting. I started heading up the stairs to the top of the fortress and noticed Brutus and Bala following me. As I got to the top guard room the wards went up and back down again. More data for Chantelle, I guess. Brutus and Bala took up stations in the guard room and I cleared the stone blocking the doors to the outside and threw them open.

.:He's stepped back from the doors to the top of the stairs:. Chantelle sent to me.

.:Thanks:. I sent back.

Huh, I hadn't considered sending thoughts directly like that. It was an extension of the pinging protocol we had been using, and it would save having to drop fully into the other simulation to talk. I had moved to my local surroundings simulation as soon as I was possibly going to walk into a combat situation. Plus I was more comfortable being able to synthesise from my senses into a simulation than just react with my biological side.

I walked up the stairs and saw the Champion at the edge of the platform five meters away. I had seen him twice before, once with the first winter army that attacked me, and once when he had tried to kill me.

I really took in his appearance this time, and he spent the same time appraising me. He was quite short, standing at a little over a meter and a half tall, and his black hair was in a single braid that fell down his back. And he was in simple grey robes that lacked a hood.

"Hello." He said. "I am The Instructor. We should talk."

He held up a sheet of paper that had words pre-written on it.

/out of the hearing of the gods/

"Would you like to talk at your place or mine?" The Instructor asked.

The only place I had that the gods couldn't hear was my Pocket Dimension, and I didn't want him anywhere near my digital platform, that would be giving him too much information and a perfect target to attack. I didn't really want to go with him either, though it was the better of the two options. I was confident that I could look after myself.

"Yours." I said.

He nodded and approached me, raising his hands to show that he was unarmed. He placed a hand on my shoulder, and then frowned a few moments later when nothing happened.

"My teleportation doesn't work with unwilling participants." The Instructor said. "It requires more than simple agreement, you need to want to go. I'm guessing you don't trust me?"

"You did try to kill me the last time I saw you." I said.

"That's true enough." The Instructor said. "But you were being foolish, sleeping in the middle of the forest. Sending you on to your next simulation would have been the learning you needed to have. You surprised me, though. I give you my word that you will be returned safely after we have talked."

I had no way of knowing if his word was good. But I was inclined to trust it, and it would be interesting to see where he had set up. I nodded again and we were immediately somewhere else, the edge of the Forest to the south and mountains to the north.

My connection to Chantelle was telling me that she was one hundred and eighty kilometers south south west. This was close to where Chantelle was taken when I was being redirected to the winter army around the Forest Keeper city. The Instructor got out a light stone and started walking east along the border of the Forest and the mountains and I followed him.

"I couldn't get us any closer." The Instructor said. "The anti-god ward that I had your girlfriend set up blocks the teleportation that I am using. I could break the ward, of course, but that would entirely defeat the purpose. We can talk freely now."

"The summer god is locked up in his own wards, you don't want the winter god to hear us?" I asked.

"He isn't the best of allies, and I thought you would have questions relating to the competitive simulations themselves." The Instructor said. "The administrators can usually work around the natives knowing that they are in a simulation, but there are some awkward cases and having a god learn of it might be one of them."

"Why did you pick the name Instructor?" I asked.

"The Instructor." The Instructor said. "It's a Champion title, actually. I've done close to thirty of these competitive simulations with first time Champions. Though you are my first digitised human. You're the first digitised human on the network at all, as far as I am aware. I'm a fan of your ascension story, by the way, it made for entertaining viewing."

"My ascension story..?" I asked.

"Ah, right, you would have given up your memories." The Instructor said. "You ascended out of the simulation that your race is sandboxed in in preparation for accessing the network."

"Then... You would know my name?" I asked.

"Originally it was Dann, I believe." The Instructor said.

Dann. There was no rush of memories like I had half hoped for. I was expecting to feel... Something from knowing my name. It sounded like my name to me, but also separate. Like it didn't fit me anymore.

"I must say that I find you surprisingly tolerant." The Instructor said. "Though it fits that you only fight all out against those you see as your enemies. My understanding is that humans are usually far more bigoted and biased against anything that isn't their own kind. There have been a lot of competitive simulations featuring them even if you are the first human Champion."

We had arrived at a stone cottage with a pair of solid chairs in front of it facing an unlit bonfire. The Instructor got out a firestarter, flint and steel with oil, and tried to get the bonfire started. After a few moments I stepped up and lit the bottom of the bonfire evenly.

"Thanks." The Instructor said. "You started with some powerful powers. And you've broken the simulation several times above that since you started, including giving yourself immortality and rebasing your goal. Did you manage to give yourself access to a System?"

"I'm not sure if I should say." I said. "Aren't we competing against each other?"

"Our goals don't have to be mutually exclusive." The Instructor said. "They usually aren't for first timers, actually. For example, my goal is to have every creature that isn't aligned to my chosen god be eliminated. Yours is probably something to do with your girlfriend. If you and your girlfriend align with winter then we could both win. Though if we did end up allying then other factors of the simulation would get more difficult to provide a challenge for us. I did get an optional extra goal, which was how I know you rebased your goal, and I received it via a System window. Each time you break the simulation to a significant degree I get an extra benefit, though not to the same degree. And the more Champions in a competitive simulation the less each Champion is boosted by changes to the simulation by others."

"And your optional extra goal?" I asked.

"To eliminate an entire major species or all of the minor species of a biome." The Instructor said.

"Then you know what my new goal would be, and that we are opposed." I said.

"I do." The Instructor said. "But I was genuine when I said I wanted to talk and in my intentions to help you with how competitive simulations work in general. I am often cast as the bad guy, but that is separate. After I have returned you I will do my utmost to make you fail. That is the spirit of competitive simulations. Conflict makes for entertainment."