Extra's Sign In System: The Hero's an Idiot!

Chapter 229: Chapter 229: The Masters (Bonus Chapter)

Chapter 229: The Masters

The Meditatory Chambers echoed with the sound of quiet footsteps.

Ten Level 100 combatants stood in the center of the underground arena. Three veterans waited for them on the polished stone floor.

Seraphina Vance wore a fitted combat tunic. Lord Tokks stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Lady Elara Logcheville wore a pristine dueling jacket.

A blue holographic projection hummed near the weapon racks. Lord Commander Gunther Stillbane watched them through the Astral Server uplink. The ruler of Bastion Six could not abandon his own recovering city.

Lord Commander Helion Goldmane was absent.

Nobody spoke about his missing presence. The silence in the room felt worse than an admission.

Seraphina stepped forward. The top-tier Healer did not soften her words. She addressed the ceiling none of them could break.

She named the Level 200 threshold. The Valor.

"Mine is the Silver Garden," Seraphina said. Her voice was steady and clinical. "It required forty years of refinement. It arrived the hour I stood over my husband’s bleeding body."

On the far side of the sparring mat, Reina went dead still. The Cryo-Berserker did not say a word. Her knuckles turned white as her grip tightened on the edge of the stone bench.

Seraphina pointed at the glowing hologram of Gunther, ignoring the heavy tension.

"Gunther drew his from the mountain he was born under," Seraphina continued. "Hennessey’s Valor is a bloodline inheritance. It is bound to his House."

She paused. Her eyes darkened.

"I will not discuss how the Lord Commander acquired his."

The refusal carried a cold, heavy weight.

"The Seed does not bloom by hitting wooden dummies," Seraphina lectured. "It blooms on conviction under lethal pressure."

Aegon’s Crucible had ignited under Draven’s boot. Reina’s Blood Avalanche had sparked under black fire. The rule for the next tier remained the same.

"I can tell you what a Valor is," Seraphina finished. "But I cannot arrange one for you. The arrangement is a war."

Draven stepped into the center of the room. He did not contradict the Healer.

"We are not aiming for the wall today," Draven said. His voice was cold and pragmatic. "In thirty-three days the food runs out."

The city needed competent defenders to survive the winter. Ten fighters punching far above their weight class meant the difference between surviving a famine and watching a city eat itself.

"The Level 200 wall is a problem for the war," Draven stated. "Baseline competence is your problem right now. Get to work."

Draven read the pairings from a Vanguard datapad.

Bram and Reina were assigned to Gunther. Bram was still nursing a shoulder laid open to the bone two days prior.

Gunther noted the thick bandages through the hologram and restricted the immovable earth mage to stance work and core bracing.

Reina had massive output with zero control. The Lord Commander of Bastion Six would break their bad habits.

Lucien went to Seraphina. It was a contest of speed against lethal precision.

Natalie went to Lord Tokks. A father teaching his daughter the pinnacle of sensory combat.

Aegon went to Lady Logcheville.

Cole and Lyra were sent up to the surface. They needed to coordinate with Halvers and the engineering corps to start industrial-scale production.

Draven lowered the datapad.

Nyx and Estella received no assignments.

Aegon stepped onto the reinforced sparring mat. He wore his thick iron armor. The Crucible Warlord radiated a contained, blistering heat.

Lady Logcheville stood across from him. She held a matched wooden practice spear.

She did not manifest a single spark of fire. She relied on flawless martial discipline.

Aegon lunged forward. He thrust his heavy practice spear in a sweeping arc.

She did not try to block the massive kinetic force. She stepped inside his guard. She tapped the blunt end of her spear against his right knee joint and swept his leg.

THWACK.

Aegon hit the floor hard. He stared up at the ceiling in shock.

Elara took him apart piece by piece.

She read his aggressive openings the way she read a Vanguard deployment map.

Aegon swung again, roaring with effort. She deflected the haft of his weapon and struck him in the ribs.

CLACK.

Aegon stumbled. He gasped for breath.

"You fight like a man with a point to prove," Elara said coldly. She spun the wooden spear in her hands. "You have been trying to prove your worth to me since you were ten years old."

Aegon flinched. The words hit harder than the wooden shaft.

He remembered drinking the expensive family elixirs. He remembered believing the House had written him off as a failure.

"I am the House," Elara said, lowering her spear. "You are my son. Until you stop fighting for my approval, you will always leave your right flank open. Get up."

Nyx and Estella sat on a cold stone bench. They watched the brutal training sessions unfold.

Nyx traced the edge of her Shadow-Rend Dagger. Her teacher was dead. She had killed the Phantom-Weaver Guardian inside the hidden tomb to claim her legacy.

Estella rested her chin on her hands. She had no ancient lineage. The Cult had tortured her in a dark basement to force her magic to awaken.

Neither girl had a living master to guide them.

"It looks like we are sparring," Nyx murmured.

Estella gave a faint nod.

"Give me a minute first," Estella replied.

Estella stood up and walked toward the far end of the arena. Draven was waiting by the heavy iron elevator doors.

"You are the only one above my tier," Estella said. "Train me."

Draven looked at her. He shook his head.

"My authority is kinetic," Draven replied. "I manipulate space and physical vectors. Your magic is cosmic radiation. I can teach you how to think. I cannot teach you what to do with starlight."

Estella watched his gray eyes. She did not raise her voice.

"You taught Aegon the exact opening to break Neville’s guard," Estella noted. "You taught Cole how to listen to iron."

She took a step closer.

"You taught me how to condense a beam instead of vaporizing a city block," Estella said quietly. "You did not learn any of that in Bastion Seven."

Draven did not flinch. He offered no explanation.

Estella did not accuse him of lying. She filed the observation away in her mind and walked back to the sparring mats.

Draven keyed the elevator. He descended to the lowest level of the Vanguard bunker.

The doors opened into the secure war room. Helion Goldmane stood over the central tactical table.

The Lord Commander was drawing up defensive contingencies.

Draven realized the truth the moment he saw the deployment lines. Helion was not upstairs teaching because he was building a survival doctrine for a city that did not have him.

Helion knew Draven intended to take him out into the wasteland to fight the two Kings. The day they stepped off the Bastion wall, the Capital would launch their strike fleet.

Helion looked up from the map.

"How long?" Helion asked. "How long until this squad can hold the wall without us?"

Draven looked at the tactical map. He ran the brutal arithmetic in his head.

"Eighty days," Draven stated.

The shelves went bare in thirty-three. The first harvest was a hundred days after that.

Every number in that room was too long.

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