“Sometimes, I wonder if I should hang out with you guys.” Cat commented, looking at the same group Lily and Caeden were currently watching. “I feel like they’re waiting to kick our asses.”

“Yeah,” Caeden reluctantly nodded. “It’s probably about what happened with Ander. If they are forming units based on Seat, they won’t appreciate someone from Core messing with someone from Sun. I’m guessing they’ll try and teach us a lesson.”

“Don’t know how far they’ll get with that!” Erik laughed. “We’re kinda kick ass now. I mean, two weeks ago, maybe they could’ve been a problem, but now? With all the extra training we’ve been doing, we’ll destroy them.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Caeden shook his head. “Just because we’ve been pushing ourselves doesn’t mean they haven’t. I’m guessing they’re all from families, which means they have a natural advantage information-wise. Assuming we can win is a recipe for losing.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but if they pick a fight with me, it isn’t going to go well,” Cat warned.

“You’ve been working with Erik a lot for a reason. Relax.” Lily patted Cat on the arm.

Cat snorted. “Easy for you to say, miss evolved shroud.”

“Hey now, she’s not wrong. You’ve gotten really good!” Erik jumped in. The scowl on Cat’s face indicated she had something to say about that, but she was stopped by the teacher clapping his hands, drawing everyone’s attention to the front of the room.

“Let’s go over the basics.” The man jumped right in as soon as the room was quiet, “This is your first ranking day. These will happen at the end of every week from now on. Tomorrow will be an off day for students to relax and prepare themselves for the next week.”

This was all information Lily had found in the library. Caeden was waiting for the next part, since they had never found a set of sparring rules.

“Now, on to the spars themselves. The rules are simple since this is the first day. We will have three rounds. Everyone will fight one match per round, and the opponents will be different each round. The first match will be strictly invasion based. The loser will be determined when they either run out of shroud or are occupied by their opponent. The second round will be active fighting without item assistance. No weapons outside of those made with a shroud after the fight begins. No armor under the same conditions. The third round will be no rules. Win conditions for the second and third rounds are surrender, unconsciousness, or death.”

“Shit,” Caeden whispered. If murder was on the table, this just got a whole lot more dangerous. They were harder to kill now, with infusion making their bodies much more robust, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t die. He wasn’t sure if the Sun Seats who had been eyeing them would go for defeating or just killing them instead.

“Understand!” The teacher continued, raising his voice, “We are training you for the harshest fighting imaginable. Death will come for you swiftly and easily. You must be prepared for that end. Students who kill another on ranking day will incur a punishment, but that is all. Teachers will not interfere unless a student attempts to continue combat past a surrender or unconsciousness. The Academy does not wish for students to die, but we must prepare you for death.”

Caeden couldn’t fault that logic. It was relentlessly brutal, but practical in a certain way. Much like the speech Elune had given on the first day, the Academy’s training philosophy was made clear. They weren’t here to coddle; they were here to train soldiers. Caeden looked at Lily, who nodded. They were on the same page. If it looked like their opponent was going for the kill, it was better to surrender than chance it. Even if losing hurt their school ranking, it wasn’t worth dying.

They hadn’t actually received their rankings yet, but the results of this ranking day were supposed to feed into that score. Caeden didn’t care what the initial rankings were. It would be easier to challenge someone of a higher rank that he had a reasonable chance of defeating than worry about whatever he got immediately.

Their teacher, who still had not introduced themselves, and didn’t look to be in a hurry to do so, began calling forth students to spar. No one from their group was called for several fights, so they got to observe the competition. Caeden and Lily had hypothesized that the tests they completed yesterday would be used to group up students of similar skill for ranking day. That seemed to hold true in the fights they saw. There was an obvious gap between the family members and the regular islanders, but the general skill level was similar.

The first one from their group to go was Cat. Her opponent was from Bronze Seat, judging by the bronze sword and shield pin on his robes. Caeden checked his invasion pressure with his investigative sense, a trick he picked up from Samantha in aura class. He pegged the guy at a solid 1,200, but that put him below Cat’s 1,590. Her efforts with Erik showed as well, and she ended the invasion competition in short order.

Erik followed along next and crushed his opponent, a student from Sun Seat, in under a minute. He had grown his own IP up to 1,300 in two weeks. The Sun student beat that, but Erik’s skills were so much better that it hardly mattered. When he got back to his seat, though, he had interesting news.

“Hey, did you get a read on him before we went down?” Erik was frowning slightly, which threw up alarm bells for Caeden. He looked confused.

“Yeah, around 1,800. A lot, but not unmanageable, obviously.” Caeden watched Erik’s face, which only grew more confused.

“Ok, I’m not sure if it’s my bad investigative sense or what, but I swear he was hiding his IP until we fought. It felt more in line with Lily’s.” Erik looked between the two thinkers of the group.

Erik’s investigative sense wasn’t the best. Caeden had forced him to work on it enough to be able to read IP since that was crucial, but he couldn’t manage much more than that. They had learned in week one about concealment sense; the ability Lily had used to hide from Caeden in the IP room after her shroud was splintered. It could also disguise an individual’s invasion pressure from others.

“That would be insane. You have an evolved shroud. How could he possibly match your IP?” Caeden turned to confer with Lily, who nodded along with his words.

“Exactly. Unless he also evolved his shroud, which would be extremely unlikely. Are you sure it was on my level?” Lily’s invasion pressure had exploded when her shroud evolved, going all the way up to 1,000. With her training over the last two weeks, she was over 2,000.

Erik nodded. “I’ve done invasion battles with you enough to get a solid read. He’s up there. Maybe not as strong, but close. Really close.”

“Do the families have a more efficient, secret training method?” Caeden guessed.

“No way.” Lily shot it down. “The CA would be on that in an instant. Too useful as a military asset.”

“Caeden!” The teacher called.

“We’ll figure it out later.” Caeden put a pin in the discussion, heading down for his own spar.

His opponent wasn’t wearing a pin, so he could be from any Seat, which also meant he likely wasn't from a family. The lack of arrogance and disdain on his face were also strong indicators. The lack of fear led Caeden to believe he was an islander, as most continentals in school showed a strong reluctance to fight.

They made their way to the arena floor, Caeden noting how his sparring partner was rapidly clenching and opening his hands. It could be nerves or excitement. Caeden couldn’t tell. But it definitely meant his opponent had strong feelings about this match. Whether or not he could put up a good fight remained to be seen.

They squared up, twenty feet apart, and waited for the teacher to call for the match to begin. Caeden felt like the man was trying to stare a hole through his head. It would be unnerving if his expression didn’t make him look like he was deeply constipated. Which it did. Ignoring the glare, Caeden took the opportunity to really dig in with his investigative aura sense and make sure he had a solid read on the man’s IP. AS far as he could tell, the other student wasn’t using concealment. His invasion pressure was around 1,000.

They heard the teacher call the beginning of the match, and it was on in an instant.

Caeden’s opponent launched his shroud out the second the start was called, going for an aggressive assault from the beginning. From the man’s behavior, Caeden had expected this, or an entirely defensive strategy. Either way, he knew this would be a fight all about capacity management. The problem was, because of his dual shrouds, Caeden’s IP was taken as an aggregate of both during his tests. Sharp was sitting at 550, and Physical Enhancement was at 700, so collectively, he outstripped his opponent, but individually, he was weaker.

Caeden had been forced to split his training between the two. He had judged it a better strategy than focusing solely on one because his fighting style involved using both of them, and he needed the increased capacity that came with a higher IP. That left him at a disadvantage in a fight like this, where he was restricted to purely using invasion. Honestly, Caeden had given up on using invasion offensively. He just wasn’t suited for it. That being said, he wasn’t just going to roll over and give up.

Considering his enemy’s aggression, Caeden took up the best defensive measures he could. Fortunately, he lucked out. His opponent’s shroud manifested as small, brown and blue blades with a feather shape. He was flinging dozens of them. Caeden’s defenses were perfect for this. He set up his hexagon point defense, and any time one of the feather daggers got close, he would let out a burst of Sharp. It wouldn’t kill the dagger, but it would slow it down and weaken it. Then, they would land on Caeden's skin, which he was infusing with a thin barrier of Physical Enhancement that absorbed the rest of the attack.

Holding both of his shrouds at once had been a big focus of Caeden’s training. He considered it essential to be able to multitask like that and use his dual-shrouded nature to its maximum potential. It was still mentally draining, but he felt confident he could sustain this for several minutes before he would begin to feel the strain. The hardest part, still, was limiting Physical Enhancement’s scope. For now, his opponent's daggers shattered into nothing against his bronze skin. Partially enhanced as he was, it hadn’t transitioned to full-on gold.

The dagger thrower’s scowl deepened, and the number of feather-daggers increased. Caeden could practically smell the desperation rolling off of him. Apparently, a relentless barrage was his only attack. It just goes to show that the tests weren’t everything. You could have good control, a high IP, and a strong understanding of the basics. If you didn’t have the creativity to come up with answers to different conditions, or the combat awareness to employ those tactics effectively, it didn’t matter.

The fight turned into a slog, with Caeden’s opponent throwing ever more attacks while he did his best to weather the storm as efficiently as possible. For minutes on end, the student never changed his tactics beyond making more feather-daggers. He seemed to be stuck in the mindset that if he just hit hard and faster, it would eventually break through. On the other hand, Caeden spent the whole fight slowly adapting and tuning his defenses for maximum efficiency. A little less Sharp here, a little more Physical Enhancement there. It turned into an excellent test of how much throughput his hexagonal defense could handle.

At one point, Caeden grew so used to the attacks that he pulled out his pocket watch to check how long this had been going on. He just let his aura sense guide his shrouds to block all the attacks. He actually had to move the hand holding the watch a couple of times to prevent it from getting hit. This enraged his opponent, who started yelling curses at him as he practically doubled his already absurd output. Caeden couldn’t help but shrug. This was what you got when you put all your eggs in one basket. The second someone came along who could deal with your attack; you got shut down.

It was at the five-minute mark, almost down to the second, that the daggers stopped coming. Caeden let out a sigh of relief. No matter how used to the situation he got, holding his defense like that grew annoying, like keeping your arms at shoulder height. It wasn’t hard, but after a while you just felt sore and fed up with it. His opponent looked pissed, but it wasn’t Caeden’s fault that the man never once tried to change his strategy. He couldn’t fathom why the guy wouldn’t even attempt something different after a few minutes of no results.

Caeden followed his opponent up the stairs as the man stomped his way back to the observation room. He was not taking the loss well. Once he was back with his friends, they picked up where they had left off. After minutes of back and forth, and two more matches done and gone, they still couldn’t figure out what was going on. It just didn’t make sense. No one in the entire school should have an IP as high as Lily’s right now. Everything they had been told, everything they had seen, led them to believe that to be true.

Their conversation was once again stopped by one of them being called. It was Lily’s turn, and she would be up against the leader of the Sun Seats. A woman named Juliette Ursine. She was tall and built, much more than Cat was, with caramel skin and brown hair. She actually looked to be unhappy with the matchup. Based on what Caeden and his friends had been assuming, he would have thought she would be happy to get a crack at Lily.

The two of them made their way to the arena. Something must have happened on the stairs because, in the intervening period, Lily had gone from cautious to full-on pissed. Juliette threw out a few attacks that resembled claws swipes, lines of yellow-white shroud following the tips of her fingers into long cutting blades.

Lily wasn't having it. She went with Ice, freezing those attacks, something Caeden wasn’t even sure could happen. When you used your shroud for an invasion like this, it usually didn’t have physical substance to it. It was more of a metaphysical energy. Not something you can freeze. Lily did it anyway. Then she Created three spikes of Ice shroud the size of her entire body and shot them at Juliette.

The woman tried to cut through them, but her claw attacks only chipped away at the small icebergs. They slammed into her before she could even summon up another attack. Then Juliette was on the ground screaming, the pain of an occupation racing through her body. Lily let it sit for a long moment before letting the girl go. She marched back up to the observation room without a backward glance.

“What was that about?” Caeden asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

Lily huffed, radiating anger. “Ander has been telling everyone at the Sun Seat that you are stopping me from moving over there. That you somehow coerced or threatened me into staying in the Core Seat. Forsaken gods, I hate that man.” Lily practically hissed. “Even when I tell him to fuck off, he pretends I don’t have a will of my own! No, the only reason I wouldn't follow him around is because someone else was telling me what to do!”

“What a dick.” Cat patted Lily on the back.

“It’s just frustrating.” Lily let out a long sigh, coming back under control. “He can’t get it through his stupid head. I just want him to leave me alone. Instead, he starts rumors about my first real friends and tries to act like I’m some princess in need of rescue! He can go right to hell!”

“I’m sorry you still have to deal with him.” Caeden felt frustrated too. Not about the rumors. He didn’t give a shit. No, he was mad about something else. “I was hoping my duel with him would get him to back off. It seems to have only made it worse.”

“Oh, no.” Lily instantly refuted, with gusto, “This is so much better than having him show up looking for me whenever he feels like it. Seriously, you made the right choice back then. I have no complaints.”

“Still,” Caeden shrugged, “I wish we had a good solution.”

“It’s fine; I’m used to it.” Lily smiled, “We’ll deal with Ander in time. I’m not worried about it. I just want to slap him right now, that’s all.”

“Well, at least you can beat the snot out of them, if it makes you feel better.” Erik jumped in, pointing at the Sun Seats.

“Actually, it kinda does.” Lily’s smile turned vicious.