Early the next morning, I was woken up by a bellow.

Now, I consider myself something of an authority on different kinds of loud voices. First and foremost, you’ve got your bog-standard yelling/shouting. Your temper rises, and so the volume of your voice does, that’s all there is to it. The next step up from that is screaming, which is often louder, but the real hallmark of screaming in my opinion is incoherence, or unintelligibility alongside being very loud.

Then you have what I call hollering, which is like yelling but the voice is raised not because you’re angry, but because you’re in a situation where you honestly need to, to be sure the person hears you. My father, for most of the time I knew him, was an inveterate holler-er, who hollered in many situations where he didn’t even need to.

So, when I say this man bellowed, I mean he darn well bellowed. It was much too loud to be considered hollering, and much too calm, even monotone, to be yelling or screaming. Bellowed was the only fitting description.

“Get your asses out of bed, on the double! It’s training day, if you want to be elites you gotta train like elites, so wake up!”

Well, I woke up all right, even though I was thoroughly discombobulated for about the first 30 seconds. Mewi didn’t seem as much the worse for wear—in fact, was it just me or had he already been awake? Well, unlike me, he’d had a retail job back on Earth that he’d have to walk to in the wee hours of the morning. I’d long been after him to get more sleep, actually.

“All right, I’ve seen worse responses,” said a towering figure, a humanoid in a heavy armorsuit that seemed like a bulkier version of Master Chief’s, who rather resembled the Big Green Bad Thing style of fantasy orc judging from his face inside the helmet. When he next spoke, his voice still rang out though it was reduced by a factor of ten. “You may call me Bruzigan. I am the Federation’s direct representative in the allied team, as well as its leader. We have a lot to cover if we’re going to get you both through the 4th Floor on Extreme quickly enough.”

“Wait, both of us?” said Mewi.

“You said you wanted to fight alongside Lheticus, didn’t you? Do you think that will ever happen if you don’t reach that level, whether you join my team or not? But if you have what it takes, there is one more spot you can take up. The maximum size for a Floor team is six—many operate with just five, especially at the higher difficulties, and with Lheticus, we’ll have that many, but I’ve been told to give you a chance to prove yourself. And we know you did pretty well in the Constant Competition recently, so I doubt you’re a hopeless case. We won’t have you clear on Extreme right off. Instead, my plan is to get you ready to take on the 1st Floor on High difficulty, then the 2nd on Very High, then Extreme from the 3rd on. But don’t neither of you blame me if you end up washing out.

Moving up in difficulty level in the Tower is not something just anyone can do. If it was only a matter of training, those who clear Extreme difficulty wouldn’t be so rare. Lheticus already had his first trial by fire—no pun intended—so other than getting him and our next most recent member ready, my job is to see just how much potential you have. If I see you have enough, then we’ll talk about getting you to Extreme, understand, Mewiabu?”

“Yes sir,” said Mewi, “and, please call me Mewi.”

“Then, call me Bruzigan—not Bruzi or Bruz, I don’t like it shortened. Anyway, we’re not a Federation military unit here, there’s no sir. If you really insist on a title, just call me boss. In fact, military doctrine, adherence to military chain of command style tactics, tends to be a liability for Floor teams who try it. Most of the time, we’ll be fighting by ourselves in Area 1, so even though we’ll have other duties, we’re still going to be a Floor team first and foremost. Understand?”

“Yes si—I mean, yes, boss.”

“All right, follow me and let’s get hooked into virtual space. First off, Mewi, you’ll show me what you can do, so Lheticus, you drill on your own for a little while.”

“Gotcha, boss,” I said, with a slight nod. In the room Bruzigan led us to, there were three pods, all set up for us.

“One of your teammates was brought in just a month ago,” he said, “she’s only one floor ahead of you, you’ll train together soon enough. The other two have already cleared the 4th Floor and have other duties right now, but once you pass the 2nd floor, we’ll starting working on fighting as a team. Get in.”

Once again, I entered the virtual realm. Bruzigan talked with Mewi for quite a while it seemed, so I practiced my spellcasting, trying to improve casting times as well as my aim without the use of Power of Imagination.

Eventually, after he had Mewi fight a few battles, Bruzigan set him to clearing the ten-point physical training courses and came back over to me. “I’d say he’s got a chance,” he said, “he seems to be a fairly quick study, if all he’s done before is train in real space for about six months, and he’s great at keeping a level head in battle. With how much AP he gained from the Constant Competition, he should be ready to clear the 1st Floor on High right away, actually, if he follows the distribution plan we worked out. With Grosstin’s resources supporting him, he might even beat Very High already. But I don’t want to push him too hard too quickly. I’ll focus his training on dealing with longer term stressful situations for now.”

“All right, what about me, then?”

“You’ve already cleared the 1st Floor on Extreme as well as getting the training course point bonuses, so we’ll only do enough training here in the virtual realm to keep you from getting rusty. Other than that,” he paused, thinking, “I understand you wanted spells. Well, you’ll get spells, and you’ll work like a horse leveling them up. That has to be done in the real world. After you’ve made enough progress there, we’ll talk professions, and maybe some sparring and training with the other members. Then, a week before the minimum deadline, I’ll brief you and drill you on the 2nd Floor scenario.”

“Sounds good to me, boss.”

“One more thing,” he said, “you seem to have very good luck with rewards, if you obtained a Class Evolver. What did you get from the 1st Floor?”

I told him. He looked thoughtful. “The storage tank won’t be any good compared to what Grosstin will give you, but use it for spell training, someone can rig it up on your back like your old Compression Pack. The helmet is very good, I’ll let them know to keep it in mind for the build for your combat suit. But the real prize is the Elurian Avocado. Beneficial food is a pretty common drop at the higher difficulties, but that particular one is attribute enhancing, which is much rarer. It has to be cooked by an expert, but it’ll increase your Intuition depending on the quality of the dish. I’ll need to let the high ups in your Guild know about this one, too. If you have AP, save it. Fire spells have some of the lowest Intuition requirements of all the elements, so this might be all you need for now.”

I refrained from mentioning how much I was not looking forward to eating a dish with an avocado as the main ingredient. Then a thought occurred. “Does that mean the spells Mewi will want to learn have higher requirements? Shouldn’t he get the bonus, then?”

“Mewi will be all right there. Didn’t he tell you how much AP he got from the Constant Competition?”

“No, I didn’t ask, I...didn’t want to pry,” I said, trailing off, now realizing this really was something I should have asked about.

“127. And on our plan, I told him to put about a quarter of that into Intuition. He’ll be all right for now.”

“That much? That’s bonkers. Yeah, if he ups his stats that much, he really could do it.”

Bruzigan nodded. “That’s why the Constant Competition only comes around once every ten years. But I wouldn’t say he’s definitely at Extreme level. That takes more than stats—it takes a cool head, perseverance, and guts. Well, he’s got the cool head, anyway. I’ll see about the rest with his training. Now as for you, go ahead and go to the Magic Facilities building. They know you’re coming; they’ll get you set up with new spells and your training environment.”