Divine Milking System

Chapter 435: 435 | A Dimensional Substrate

He stood with more effort than sitting had cost, the cane taking weight that his knees refused.

"The burger was good?"

"Best thing I’ve eaten in six weeks."

"Good. Come back. Bring the girl with the pink hair. Frankie said she looked strong."

"She is."

"Then she deserves a burger." He patted my shoulder with the two-fingered hand and walked back up the pier with the rolling gait of someone who had rebuilt an entire life on top of what a gate took from him. The cane tapped the planks. The gulls scattered and reformed. The old man with the fishing hat disappeared around the curve of the shack, and I heard Frankie’s voice rise in greeting, and then I was alone on the bench with the ocean and the knowledge that Dominic Vale had known about the Divine Milking System since the day I sat down in his classroom.

I stood and walked to the car.

Vale pocketed his phone. "Good talk?"

"You knew."

"I know a lot of things. You’ll have to be more relevant."

"Since orientation. You said orientation."

"I did say that."

"How."

He opened the passenger door and dropped into the leather seat with the loose-limbed grace of someone whose spatial awareness extended to the molecular level, someone who could feel the density of Crown Victorias from four hundred meters and the heartbeat of every person in a hospital wing.

I got in behind the wheel. The engine turned over with a sound that my previous life would have recognized as expensive and my current life recognized as Vale refusing to answer a direct question.

"How," I repeated.

"Start the car."

"I’m not starting the car until you tell me how you knew about the System."

"You’re in my car. My car, my rules. Start it, drive north, and I’ll answer one question per thirty minutes of highway, which at our current pace should give you approximately four questions before Santa Barbara."

"That’s insane."

"It’s also the only offer on the table. You could walk back to the academy from here. It’s about ninety miles. Your C-rank Endurance could probably handle it in two days, and by then I’ll have had the conversation with the man in Santa Barbara without you, which would be unfortunate because the conversation is primarily about you."

I started the car.

The engine’s growl filled the cabin and vibrated through the steering column into my palms, and despite everything, despite the anger and the fear and the knowledge that the man sitting three feet to my right had been holding cards I didn’t know existed, something in my chest loosened at the feeling of a gearshift in my hand and open road ahead.

I pulled out of the spot and turned north.

"Question one," I said.

"Clock starts now."

"How. Did you know. About the System."

Vale adjusted his sunglasses. He crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. He looked out the window at the strip malls and palm trees going past and took a breath that lasted longer than any conversational breath needed to last.

"I felt the dimensional signature the moment you walked into my classroom," he said. "Your body carries a secondary energy pattern that doesn’t match any known ability classification. It’s layered underneath your standard mana channels like a substrate, and it pulses at a frequency I’ve only encountered twice in my career. Once was an artifact recovered from a Tier Four gate in Seoul. The other was a theoretical model in a classified paper about divine-class external grants that the IHC buried twenty years ago because the implications made four council members resign."

I processed that at highway speed, which felt appropriate.

"So you recognized the frequency."

"That’s a second question. Twenty-nine minutes left."

"That’s a follow-up."

"Follow-ups are questions. I don’t make the rules."

"You literally made the rules sixty seconds ago."

"And they’re very good rules. Eyes on the road."

I white-knuckled the steering wheel and merged onto the 101 northbound for the second time today, and the Charger ate the on-ramp like it had a grudge against acceleration limits. The speedometer climbed past seventy, and the coastline opened up on the left, rocky bluffs dropping to blue-green water with white caps breaking against stone.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Vale did not speak. He scrolled his phone, adjusted his sunglasses twice, and at one point appeared to be reading a restaurant review with genuine interest. The silence was so aggressive it felt like furniture.

"Question two," I said, checking the dashboard clock.

"I’m impressed. You waited."

"What else do you know about me."

"Broad question. I’d narrow that down if you want a useful answer."

"You said you’ve known since orientation. What specifically did you know on day one, and what have you figured out since."

"That’s two questions packaged as one, and I respect the attempt." He set his phone down on his thigh and looked at the ocean through his window. "Day one, I knew you carried an external divine-class system graft that operated on a frequency consistent with dimensional artifacts. I knew the frequency pulsed more strongly when certain students were nearby, which gave me a working theory about activation conditions. And I knew you were dying."

The word landed in the car like a stone dropped into still water.

"The lifespan signature. It leaks. Not in a way most people would notice, but spatial awareness at my tier includes temporal distortion patterns, and your body radiates a countdown that bleeds into the local dimensional fabric like a radio station nobody tuned into." He adjusted his collar. "I didn’t know the specifics. I didn’t know it was milk. I didn’t know about the extraction mechanic or the ability theft or the devotion percentages or whatever else your patron built into the architecture. Those details I gathered over time through observation, faculty reports, and the extremely obvious hickeys you continue to display despite owning a collar that covers your neck."

"So when you picked me for mentorship."

"That’s question three. You’re early."

"I don’t care."

"I do. Seventeen minutes."

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