“How did he win?” Doctor Chowdhury quizzes the crowd. It’s clear she’s making a play at pedagogy, but her posture is uncertain and her voice quavers. She paces in front of the front row of seated cultivators.

“Kind of looked like a modified forward powerslam,” suggests an avid fan of the ring. At first, there are responding nods of approval. They are stifled by a look from the doctor.

Someone further back raises their voice. “It’s the points, right? He’s got a lot of levels, so he’s got a lot of strength and endurance and whatever.”

There are a few uncommitted murmurs leading to a doubtful reply from another side of the group. “Maybe… but he said he said he spent a bunch of points on Wisdom right?” A woman stands up and continues by directing a question to Doctor Chowdhury. “What are their actual numbers? There isn’t a way to see someone else’s menu, is there?”

The Doctor looks to Todd, who doesn’t have an answer for the second question. He hesitates but steps forward. “My physical stats are all at 13, even.” He glances towards the young man from the fight.

Sporting a few new bruises in humility, the boy presses his thumb hard against the side of his nose and blows a sharp puff out the other nostril. “You’ve got more Endurance, but my Agility is better,” he sulks.

“So it should have been an even fight,” Todd encourages him. His shoulders tense up as he focuses on one face instead of the crowd. “Or you should have won. There’s no statistic for knowing how to fight or not – and you would have had me on technique.”

Murmurs of assent indicate a consensus, as Abhigjna tucks one set of knuckles under her chin and hums softly. “It’s true. Your guard is terrible.” She slaps her right elbow gently. “Too wide.”

“See? My guard is too wide,” Todd rubs at a tender rib and jabs one finger accusingly at the doctor. “Apparently.”

The woman who’d risen to a question slumps back down to a seat and a guess. “If it’s not your numbers, it has to be your [Skill].”

“What?” Todd shakes his head. “No… it’s because I’ve got a boat-load of Cosmic Energy. I’m using it to supercharge my –” he pauses to wave his hands around to indicate his arms and body, “muscles?” Then he swipes over his face and frowns, “My everything, I guess?”

The beaten young man winces and leans forward from his seated position. “So if I get more levels I can super strength my super-strength?”

“Nope!”

From the other side of the courtyard, Pixie Befor tumbles along the floor in pieces and puts her parts back together in front of the seated class. Tucking her upper lip high until she adopts an unflattering bucktoothed overbite, she produces a lopsided, broken set of spectacles and sets them atop her nose.

“The accumaglomeration of hyperborated Energy in the midimural poperbolodolibode –”

Todd purses his lips and squints. There is a cough from the back of the group.

“Really, nobody? Fine.” Befor strips the glasses from her face and flicks them towards the sky where gravity grips them in the wrong direction and they fall upwards out of sight. “It’s ‘cause your growth is unbalanced. Your titles gotcha a bunch of extra stat points, but your fleshy bodies haven’t gotten used to them yet. If you had crazy high body cultivation already, your meaty lil’ arms and brains could handle your new power, all natural-like.”

“My body cultivation?”

Befor waves dismissively. “Body cultivation is one of the things that got rolled up into your species statistic. A long time ago, it used to be a separate screen; same with your spiritual cultivation. But the [System] decided that was way too complicated, and even then most people never really grow fast enough in one area to become unbalanced. But since your stats are higher than your low F grade bodies can support, they require a teeny bit of cosmic energy to balance...”

“Like all the time?”

“Could I get dumber if I stop spending Cosmic Energy?”

“Yes, and yes,” Befor interrupts. “Fun story, intelligence stackers who run out of energy are hilarious. But back to the point: the higher your level gets, the more Cosmic Energy you make. As long as your level keeps up with your bonuses, you’ll have plenty of juice in your spleeny whatevers to keep your stats up subconsciously.”

Todd thinks about that. “Is there something which would unbalance us again in the future?”

“Yep.” Befor states simply. Then after a long moment of prolonged silence she swoops away in a pink flurry. “Bored now,” her voice echoes behind her as she goes.

Todd scratches his head and grimaces, exchanging a look with the doctor and turning back to their temporary pupils.

“So that’s it. That’s the lesson? You had a bigger gas tank,” one of the young men scoffs.

Doctor Chowdhury meets Todd’s eye with a look of exasperation. Her eyes narrow coldly. “You may squirt him, Todd.”

“I’m not going to…” The crowd glares at him dubiously. “I’m not – listen, there’s another reason I won and it’s important.” Todd looks up from the ground as he forces himself to meet the eyes around him. “I won because I know the healing pills exist now. So I was willing to get hurt and Blake here wasn’t.”

The three young men shake their heads in satisfied unison. “Ohhhhhh, dope. That’s a good lesson. Go hard or go home, that’s deep.”

Certain he’s somehow led his students astray, but neither sure where he’d lost them, nor how to recover, Todd swallows down his pride. It takes near a half hour for the instructors to settle the students down after the fight, and as the morning draws towards afternoon more and more Cultivators ‘graduate’ from the class by reaching level five.

At the beginning of the morning, Todd had decided his charges fit roughly into three categories. The young and brash and easily distracted make up group one. When they leave, they tend to join the self-defense lesson. The elderly, the stubborn, the maladaptive, they loosely form a second grouping. They send off to rejoin their respective team leaders, and mostly settle into the practical planning aspects of the expedition: food, water, camping supplies, any task that’s familiar and predictable.

In the dwindling company of the remaining group three, Todd finds an ease and comfort. He is seated cross legged at the Doctor’s right side, with Abby Fletcher across on her left, as a much reduced circle continues to cultivate into the second of the intermediate exercises. The bulk of this last cadre is made up of people who appear to have less of a knack for absorbing Cosmic Energy from the air, kind of like a magic asthma. They all come from different walks of life, and the only thing they seem to have in common is their impediment. Excitedly, Todd shares the lessons from his cultivation manual which had been too complicated for the larger session. The improvements to efficiency, as well as requirements for fine control and patience, pay slow but reliable dividends for their last students.

Todd uses the time to recover, to replenish and restore. Then the bug hunt returns.

"Nayira, Doctor C!" Officer Bernice O'Shea calls out hoarsely.

Emerging from the upturned tunnel caked in a layer of grey dust and mud, Bernice tosses her feather sword out in front of her. It smears ichor as the plume slides along the tile. Turning back, Bernice hauls back and hauls out with an arm around the waist of Larry Shaker. He is blooded and muddied and lets out a grit-teeth moan. With a fierce grip on his wrist, Larry holds up his right hand with two fewer fingers than he’d had that morning.

Todd leaps to his feet and freezes. Good intentions ain’t no proper medicine for amputation, and there are professionals at hand. Doctor Chowdhury is slower to her feet, but gracefully flows into a jog towards the plaza center. Meanwhile Nayira leaps out of a micro-crowd, a hangtime up and over their heads as they duck and yelp. She hits the tile running at a full sprint, and Chowdhury matches her speed like her license depends on reaching her patient first.

Todd and Abigail are left to keep the Cultivation class in civil order in Abhigjna’s absence, Candra holds the self-defense class in check alone, Walter helps newcomer Sue-Ann defuse a panic in wilderness survival 101, Jennifer restrains logistics and crafting from chasing after Jingshu, Joe and Nina plead individually with Team leads on either side of the crowd, and even after all that stewardship two hundred souls are left unchaperoned.

Predictably, and with too much curiosity matched by too little caution, there is a rush of people that surrounds and crowds the emerging bug-xtermination team. Todd caught a view of a bright red helmet and a bright red bald spot before his view is obstructed, and he sighs knowing that Teo and the crafter are both safe.

Twenty minutes of concerted effort and reorganizing puts the five hundred and eighty six (Business Jenny counted, nice work Jenny) humans of the subsection back into their eight person teams, which rounds with some mismatching and inevitable disorder to 75 seated groups. Officer Bernice stands on top of a folding bamboo chair and the crowd is arrayed around her in a semi-circle. Her face is wiped clean, but her martial gi is still filthy from subterranean fighting.

“I want everyone to know first of all that Larry is going to be okay. It got a little rough and tumble down there, and there were some branching tunnels but…” she sighs, “the bugs are dealt with and Harold here has got the life support back online.” She extends a hand toward an unassuming man wearing [Redburr Shell Armor].

Harold has his helmet tucked under his arm and his squat, square face is heavy with eyebrow. When he waves, a small group cheers loud enough to surprise many of the others. Todd wonders if the Craft Geeks have found their king, and wonders harder how ‘Craft Geek’ is becoming a real thing now. Reaching into his satchel, he produces a short black iron rod with a curved spiked tip, vaguely in the shape of a scorpion’s tail. Todd sees both Abigail and Jingshu holler even more excitedly.

Bernice raises her hand for silence. “We also had Aefore confirm that all the rooms are safe again, they’re open and unlocked. That’s the good news. Bad news is the machine is still half busted – and Ciforre says we’ve got to disembark tomorrow.” Her hands drop to her sides and slap against her hips. “That’s all I got.”

She hops lightly down off the chair and Joe steps up to take her place.

“Okay everybody. Our timekeep’s let me know we’re at One in the PM. That doesn’t leave us with a lot of hours. I know that a lot of us have questions still, and I’m sorry about that. But we’re having trouble cornering one of our hosts long enough to ask about tomorrow.” Joe points over the crowd to Walter, who rises to his feet. “Wilderness survival 101 with ‘Wild Man’ Walter is now mandatory, abbreviated fifteen minute short course. If we’ve got anybody left still under level 5, you’ve got cultivation training. And if you’ve got time after that we’d love it if you join us for self-defense with me and mighty Candra the Barbarian.”

Todd’s attention drifts as Joe begins to rehash the basic plans for tomorrow. Sitting with his Greed Satchel between his knees and the flap open, Todd sorts through a small collection of equipment out in a pile in front of him. There are nine meal tokens for eight people, good enough for one full day of meals as the ration portions are pretty generous. He’s only got six healing pills between those same eight, which is astounding considering every person started out with three. The two sets of bedding aren’t a problem, he’ll have his team recover theirs from their rooms later.

He doesn’t like being made a team captain, but with his level up to eight it simply makes sense to be matched with as many fives and sixes as he can safely take care of. He spends early afternoon with them, learning their names and talents, strategizing for their [Skills], and making plans for a three day dip into danger.

The team:

Hyunh Vu is 26, she's in medical sales. Her [Slumber Strike] seems pretty useful, it causes drowsiness at the lowest level of mastery. She and Todd both hope it improves to cause nonlethal knock outs. She’s here as Todd’s translator as she’s a bilingual speaker fluent in English and Vietnamese. Fighting strength? One year of kiddie Tae Kwan Do and a two week self defense night class.

Duong Pham is 64. He used to do roofing and also moonlit as an unlicensed electrician. His [Stellar Scale] allows him to sing light in a progressive, rising set of notes. Doesn’t sound useful. Primary language, Vietnamese. Hyunh says he describes himself as a pacifist, but asserts she saw him change his [Mercury Rod] into a knife during the swarm fight.

Fred, Ly, and Martha Brecker. 32 years, 27 years and 17 months, respectively. The Breckers joined Todd's group on purpose, which makes him upset and pensive and very gravely responsible for their well being. Fred's [Fire Bolt] will be simple but serviceable, but Ly's [Nose for Herbalism] might be pretty useful for finding wild plants and food. Fred will fight. Ly hopefull won’t have to. But they've both got plenty reason to if they have to.

Carter Leeds is a teen-squader. 16, sunlight-starved and obsessed with world war two history in a way that makes Todd concerned and suspicious, but otherwise the boy is compliant and helpful. His [Iron Nail Agony] technique sounds as powerful as it is sociopathic; so when Carter eagerly describes its effect, Todd's mouth presses down to a polite but dissatisfied line.

Chris Fields appears to make a living exclusively by some kind of copyright infringement, though he goes to great length to loudly assert that his career doesn't count as theft. He's 28 and needs to stop staring at Ly and Hyunh, so Todd patiently keeps him distracted. [Sonic Shriek] matches Chris perfectly, it's hard to focus, circumstantial in its effectiveness, and does more harm than good to the people around him.

Being overburdened by Chris leaves Todd with less time to meet Livia Jorgensen. She's 22 or so, but refuses to speak to anyone but the Breckers. Maybe she'll open up on the Quest, but for now she seems like a lost cause. The only thing he gets out of her is her ranged skill, [Thunderstruck]. He remembers it from Aefore's list of recommendations during his own skill selection.

The final member of the group is Chris Greene, a quiet nervous man who demonstrates his staticky, glowing [Ball Lightning] early in the conversation and shuts down. Todd suspects that Leeds and Greene might actually have a lot in common, as long as Leeds could be carefully weaned off his creepy teen nazi phase.

Oh well. Long term goals.

Todd's group is larger than it ought to be: unwieldy, and mismatched. He'd picked up the oddballs, strangers and loners who'd been turned away from other groups. Some of them probably deserved it. But Todd was determined, resigned and secretly excited.

Because he knew that regardless of their flaws, their weirdness and their vulnerability, he was going to keep these people safe.

They'd been careful, they'd planned for everything. So naturally something was overdue to go wrong.

"Everyone," Joe cries out suddenly. He leaps back up onto the announcement chair and it creaks beneath him. Waving his arms over his head, his face is pale and his voice is cracked. "I'm sorry. I've just learned that the maximum team size is five."