SSS-Rank Skill Copy: I Can Steal Every Class

Vera was waiting in the training bay when Glen walked in at dawn.

She’d been there all night. The scoring on the heavy bags told the story — three of them split open, sand pooled on the mat, a fourth still swinging from a chain that bent under the impact pattern. Her knuckles were wrapped. The wraps were dark with blood. Not fresh — dried, layered, the kind of accumulation that came from hours of work without stopping.

She turned when the door opened. Her eyes were clear. Alert. No fatigue in them — the S-Rank constitution burning through the sleep debt, converting adrenaline into focus. She was wearing a tank top and training pants, her storm-calling bands off, her hair pulled back. Without the equipment, without the combat posture, she looked younger. Twenty. The age she actually was.

"You found something," she said. Not a question.

"An eighth layer in Arthur’s tablet. The original network. Pre-System. The bridge lattice isn’t a patch — it’s the original framework. We don’t replace the System. We reactivate what was there before it."

Vera’s eyes sharpened. The competitive intelligence behind them — the mind that had earned S-Rank through grit, not talent — processing the implications.

"And you need carriers. People who can interface with the ring’s frequency. People who can reactivate the original channels."

"You already figured that out."

"I figured it out when you said ’training bay’ last night. You didn’t send me here to punch bags. You sent me here to be ready." She unwound the wraps from her knuckles. The skin underneath was raw but healing — Enhanced Regeneration wasn’t one of her skills, but S-Rank recovery was fast enough. "So train me."

Glen held up the ring. The black band caught the fluorescent light. The stone — Arthur’s tablet stone, fused into the band — pulsed with a frequency that sat just below hearing. A hum that vibrated in the teeth.

"The ring interfaces with the pre-System network. It was built for that purpose — Mary made it from Arthur’s research. The original inhabitants used similar tools to maintain the ley-line network. The ring resonates with the original channels and lets the carrier direct the flow."

"You make it sound like plumbing."

"It is plumbing. Energy plumbing. The System’s version is a dam — it blocks the flow and channels it through extraction points. The original version is the river itself. The ring lets you touch the river."

"And anyone can do this?"

"No. The ring requires a resonance. The carrier’s mana frequency has to align with the pre-System frequency. Most people can’t do it — their mana has been processed by the System for too long. The System’s frequency overrides the original. Like a radio signal drowning out a weaker one."

Vera looked at the ring. Then at Glen. "But I can."

"We’ll find out. Hold out your hand."

She extended her right hand. Palm up. The knuckles raw. The tendons visible. A fighter’s hand. Glen placed the ring on her palm.

Nothing happened for three seconds. The ring sat inert. Cold black metal on scarred skin.

Then Vera gasped.

Her hand clenched — not voluntarily, the muscles contracting on their own. The ring began to hum. Not the sub-audible frequency from before — a higher note, sharper, the sound of two frequencies meeting and finding alignment. The stone pulsed. Once. Twice. A rhythm that matched Vera’s heartbeat.

Her eyes went wide. "I can feel it. The ley-lines. Not the System’s version — something underneath. Deeper. Like... like hearing a song through a wall. The System is the wall. The song is the original network."

"Can you direct it?"

"I don’t know. I can feel it. I can hear it. But directing it—" She concentrated. Her jaw tightened. The ring hummed louder. The stone’s pulse quickened. And the fluorescent lights in the training bay flickered.

The original network, responding to a carrier’s intent. The river moving because someone asked it to.

The lights stabilized. Vera’s hand was shaking. She set the ring down on the bench. Her breathing was rapid — not from exertion but from the sheer strangeness of feeling a system beneath the System.

"That’s the most disorienting thing I’ve ever felt," she said. "And I’ve been struck by my own lightning."

"Can you do it again?"

"Give me a minute. My mana is—" She paused. Frowned. "It’s different. My mana feels different. Like the System’s version is a layer on top of something else. The ring peeled it back. I can feel both now. The System frequency and the original one. They’re... incompatible. Running side by side but not merging."

"That’s the problem. The System colonized the original network. The two systems can’t coexist — one has to dominate. Right now, the System’s frequency is stronger because it’s been running for eighteen years. The original network is dormant. The ring wakes it up. But to make it dominant, we need enough carriers resonating at enough points to tip the balance."

"How many points?"

"Twenty-six. Caleb’s math. A third of the Towers. Enough to shift the flow permanently."

"And how many carriers do we have?"

"One. Maybe two, if my mother can do it. Now three, if you can maintain the resonance."

Vera looked at the ring on the bench. Then at Glen. The competitive fire in her eyes — the same fire that had driven her to S-Rank, that had made her volunteer for the Tower, that had made her wait all night in the training bay because she knew this moment was coming.

"Teach me," she said. "Everything. The bridge lattice. The original channels. How to direct the flow. I’ll do it. I’ll be your second carrier. Third. Whatever number I am."

"You understand what happens if the System’s frequency is overridden?"

"I lose my power. My storm calling. My S-Rank classification. Everything the System gave me."

"Not lose. Transform. The original network carries more energy than the System’s processed version. You’d be stronger. Different. But stronger."

"Stronger is good." The grin was sharp. "I like stronger."

Glen picked up the ring. Held it between them. "The training is dangerous. The Tower changes you — we’ve seen that. The original network is older, deeper, more fundamental. If your resonance destabilizes, the energy feedback could burn out your core. Or worse."

"Or worse meaning what?"

"Meaning the original network could claim you. The way the void claimed me. The Tower made me Beyond. The original network could make you something else. Something we don’t have a classification for."

"You don’t have a classification for anything, Glen. That’s kind of your thing."

He almost smiled. "Fair point."

"Then stop warning me and start teaching me. We have four days. I’m a fast learner."

She was. Glen spent the morning teaching her the bridge lattice — the structure, the flow patterns, the way the original channels ran beneath the System’s infrastructure. He taught her the resonance technique — how to use the ring to align her frequency with the pre-System network, how to feel the ley-lines beneath the System’s surface, how to direct the flow without forcing it.

The first hour broke her three times.

She didn’t scream or collapse or seize. The failures were quieter — and worse for it. The ring would hum, the alignment would start, and then something inside her would slip. The resonance would scatter like a held note going sharp. Her mana would shudder in her core, the two frequencies grinding against each other, and the connection would sever. Each time, Vera came out of it pale. Sweat along her hairline. Her hands trembling in a way she couldn’t hide by balling them into fists.

"Again," she said the first time.

"The alignment slipped. You’re forcing it. The original network doesn’t respond to force — it responds to invitation. You’re treating it like a skill. Like storm calling. You gather the charge, you compress it, you release it. This isn’t that."

"I know it isn’t that." Frustration edged her voice. She wiped her palms on her thighs. "But my body doesn’t. Eight years of combat training. Every instinct I have says to push harder when something resists. And this thing—" She tapped the ring on the bench. "—resists everything."

"Because it’s not resisting you. It’s waiting. There’s a difference. A wall resists. A river waits. You don’t break through a river. You enter it."

Vera stared at him. Then she closed her eyes. Breathed. The competitive set of her jaw softened — not into calm, but into something more dangerous. Concentration. The kind that had kept her climbing when every metric said she should have plateaued at A-Rank three years ago. The kind that made her walk into Tower gates that had killed better-equipped Hunters because she refused to be the one who turned back.

She picked up the ring. Set it on her palm. And this time, when the resonance started, she didn’t push. She leaned into it the way you lean into a current — not fighting, not surrendering, just finding the angle where the flow carried you instead of dragging you under.

The ring hummed. The stone pulsed. The lights flickered — and held. Three seconds. Five. Seven. Then her breath caught and the connection scattered again, but this time the failure was clean. No grinding. No shudder. Just a gentle disconnection, like a hand releasing a hand.

"Better," Glen said.

"I felt that." Her eyes were bright. "The angle. I felt where it was. Like a door in a wall I didn’t know was there."

"Find it again."

She did. Seven more times before noon, each attempt lasting a few seconds longer, each disconnection a little cleaner. By the fifth attempt she stopped trembling. By the seventh she was smiling — the quiet, vicious smile of someone who’d found the edge of a thing and meant to push past it.

Vera learned fast. Not because she had natural talent for the pre-System framework — she didn’t, not the way Glen did. But she had discipline. The relentless, grinding discipline that had taken her from a mid-tier Hunter to S-Rank in three years. She practiced the resonance until her core ached. She practiced the flow patterns until she could feel them without the ring. She practiced the direction technique until the training bay lights flickered on command.

By noon, she could hold the resonance for thirty seconds. By evening, two minutes. By the second day, five.

The feedback hit her on the evening of the first day.

She was pushing for three minutes. The resonance had stabilized — the ring humming steadily, the stone’s pulse locked to her heartbeat, the lights dimming and brightening in a slow wave she was learning to shape. Glen watched the flow pattern in the network beneath the compound shift under her direction. She was good. Better than he’d expected, and he’d expected a great deal.

Then she reached too far.

It happened in an instant. The resonance was stable, and Vera — competitive, driven, never satisfied with stable — tried to extend it. Push the connection deeper into the network. Pull more of the original frequency through the ring. Her mana surged to meet the demand. The two frequencies, the System’s and the original, clashed in her core. The ring screamed — a sound that wasn’t sound, a frequency that bypassed the ears and went straight into the bones.

Vera doubled over. Her hand clamped on the ring so tight her knuckles went white. Her other hand pressed flat against the mat, fingers splayed, as if the floor was the only thing keeping her from falling into something. The lights in the bay went dark. All of them. Every fluorescent tube, dead. The only light came from the ring’s stone — a cold blue pulse, rapid, arrhythmic, the network’s version of a distress signal.

"Let go of the ring," Glen said. He was already moving. "Vera. Let go of the ring."

"I can’t." Her voice was strangled. "It’s — pulling. The network is pulling. I opened the channel too wide and it’s—"

"Don’t fight it. You’ll tear your core. Don’t fight it and don’t feed it. Go still. Let the channel narrow on its own."

She went still. It cost her — he could see it in the locked muscles of her arms, the rigid line of her spine, the way her jaw clenched so hard her teeth should have cracked. Every instinct she had was screaming at her to fight, to push back, to wrestle the energy under her control the way she wrestled lightning into a storm. And she was ignoring all of it. Holding herself motionless in the middle of a current that wanted to sweep her somewhere she couldn’t come back from.

The ring’s pulse slowed. One beat. Two. The cold blue light dimmed. The pull eased — not gone, but weakened, the channel narrowing as Vera stopped feeding it. The fluorescent lights flickered back on, one by one, the System’s infrastructure reasserting itself over the room’s power grid.

Vera sat back on her heels. Her breathing was ragged. Sweat soaked through her tank top. The hand that had held the ring was shaking so badly she had to press it against the mat to stop it.

"How long was that?" she asked.

"Fourteen seconds."

"Felt like an hour." She looked at her hand. Flexed the fingers. Winced. "My core hurts. Not damage — pressure. Like something’s swollen in there. The original frequency. It pushed in when I opened the channel and it didn’t want to leave."

"It won’t leave. That’s the point. The resonance isn’t something you turn on and off — it changes you. Every successful connection lets more of the original frequency into your core. The System’s frequency pushes back. The pressure you’re feeling is the two of them fighting for space."

"And if I’d kept fighting it?"

"Your core would have cracked. Not ruptured — cracked. The frequency mismatch would have split your mana channels. You’d survive, but you’d never hold mana again. No storm calling. No S-Rank. No Hunter classification. You’d be baseline human."

Vera was quiet for a moment. She picked up the ring. Turned it over in her scarred fingers. Set it down again.

"Okay," she said. "So I don’t open the channel too wide. Noted." The grin came back — shaky, but real. "But I got close, right? Three minutes before it went wrong. That’s something."

"That’s something," Glen agreed.

"Good. Because I’m doing it again."

She did. Six more times before she let Glen call a rest. The feedback didn’t repeat — she’d learned the threshold the hard way, and she held the resonance just below it, edging toward the line without crossing it. Each session ended with the same pressure in her core, the same swollen feeling, the same quiet understanding that the original frequency was settling into her like water into stone. Slowly. Permanently.

Caleb monitored her core stability throughout. The data was encouraging — Vera’s mana frequency was shifting, the pre-System layer becoming more pronounced, the System’s processed layer thinning. Not disappearing. Not yet. But retreating.

He ran the scans from the monitoring station adjacent to the bay, the equipment Glen had requisitioned humming through its analysis cycles. The readouts told a story the naked eye couldn’t see. Vera’s mana signature, overlaid with the System’s standardized frequency for eight years, was developing a second harmonic. A deeper tone beneath the familiar one. Caleb had never seen anything like it in a living core. He’d seen the pre-System frequency in Glen — in the Beyond architecture that the void had rewritten. He’d seen it in the tablet fragments, in the ring’s resonance baseline, in the dead channels beneath the Towers. Static samples. Archaeological data. This was different. This was a living mana core learning to sing a song older than the System that had built it.

"Her core is adapting," Caleb reported. He pulled up the frequency overlay — two waveforms, one green for the System’s processed mana, one amber for the pre-System layer. The green line still dominated, but the amber was no longer a faint trace. It had substance. Depth. A waveform with its own internal structure, growing more coherent with every resonance session. "The original frequency is establishing itself. The System’s layer is still dominant, but it’s losing ground. At this rate, she could maintain a bridge resonance at a Tower within forty-eight hours."

"Is that fast enough?"

"It has to be. The pause runs out in three days. We need at least three Towers reactivated before then. You, Mary, and Vera. Three points. Not enough for the full shift, but enough for the court to see the proof."

Caleb hesitated. He zoomed the readout in on the junction point — the place in Vera’s core where the two frequencies met. The data there was unstable. Fluctuating. The amber waveform pressed against the green, and the green pushed back, and the boundary between them rippled like the surface of water over a heating element.

"There’s a risk," he said. "The junction zone in her core is under strain. Every resonance session adds more of the original frequency. The System’s layer is fighting the intrusion. If she pushes too hard, or too fast, the junction could destabilize. The feedback she felt tonight — that was a warning. A bigger surge could do real damage."

"She knows."

"Does she know how close it was? Fourteen seconds of full-channel pull. Her core temperature spiked. Her mana density fluctuated outside safe parameters. If she’d held it another five seconds—"

"She’d have cracked. I told her."

"And she went back to training."

"She’s S-Rank, Caleb. She didn’t get there by stopping when something was dangerous."

Caleb looked at the readout again. The amber waveform pulsed. Steady. Growing. A frequency that hadn’t existed in a living human core in eighteen years, taking root in a twenty-year-old woman who’d rather crack her core than quit.

"The pre-System frequency is viable," he said. Quieter now. Almost reverent. "It’s not just residual. It’s propagating. Her core is learning to generate it independently of the ring. Glen — if this works, if she can sustain a Tower resonance, it means the bottleneck isn’t the network. The network is intact. The bottleneck is carriers. And carriers can be trained."

"How many?"

"Unknown. The resonance requirement filters most of the population — System-processed mana doesn’t align easily. But Vera’s core wasn’t deeply colonized. She Awakened late. She climbed fast. Her System integration is shallower than most S-Ranks. That might be why she can do this." He paused. "Or it might be her. The discipline. The refusal to let go. The frequency responds to the carrier. It always did — the original inhabitants weren’t selected. They trained. They learned. They became nodes through practice, not天赋." He caught himself on the word, switched to English. "Through practice, not talent."

Three points. Three carriers. Three Towers. Not the twenty-six they needed for the full shift — but enough to show the court the replacement was real. Enough to buy more time.

Glen looked at the training bay. Vera was on the mat, eyes closed, the ring on her palm, the lights flickering in a rhythm she was learning to control. The hum of the original network filled the room — faint, ancient, the song beneath the wall.

She opened her eyes. "I can hear it clearly now. The song. It’s not just noise — it has structure. Patterns. Like a language. The original inhabitants didn’t just use the network. They talked to it."

"They were part of it. The network wasn’t separate from them. They were nodes in the system — living bridges, carrying the flow. The System replaced them with Towers. Mechanical bridges. Extraction points instead of connection points."

"That’s..." Vera paused. "That’s horrifying."

"Yes."

"And we’re going to fix it."

"We’re going to try."

Vera stood. Picked up the ring. Held it out to Glen. "I’m ready. Train me on the Tower interface. The real thing. Not the practice version. I need to know what happens when I walk into a stabilized Tower and try to reactivate the original channel."

Glen took the ring. The stone pulsed against his palm. The original network hummed beneath the compound. Three days. Three carriers. Three Towers. The court was watching. The Administrators were coming. And the song beneath the wall was getting louder.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We go to Cairo."

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