The guard leads me to the west tower through a passage that curves around the upper stands.
The noise of the crowd drops as we climb. The wide walls and reinforced doors muffle the protests of everyone left without an LDP, though Leona’s voice still reaches a few corridors, announcing the future official shops affiliated with the Silver Fang.
We reach the top floor. Rahul is seated in front of the window.
His hair has been set right. His clothes carry no trace of the arena, and the glass cane rests beside his chair. The anger that nearly broke loose a few hours ago no longer shows in his posture.
That doesn’t mean it’s gone.
The guard closes the door once I’m inside.
Rahul points to the chair across from him.
"Have a seat, Mr. Sands."
I obey.
Talking to him reminds me of a faint numbness on the side of my face where the slap landed. My ear still holds a low ringing too, but I don’t mention either one. Rahul doesn’t seem interested in asking.
On the desk sits a report stamped with the Oathring seal. He runs his eyes over the first page before closing it.
"The Team Battle prize was to be paid in coin."
The tense makes it clear where the conversation is going.
"Was?"
Rahul rests his hands on the cane.
"You owed me a fight. I provided the arena, the opponents, the technical crew, and the audience. Consider the prize spent settling that obligation."
"The Oathring also got a fight nobody in this city will forget."
"True. And you got the chance to show off your skills in front of thousands of people."
He doesn’t raise his voice. He speaks with the same calm he’d use to explain a clause already signed.
"On top of that, you turned my event into an advertising campaign for the Silver Fang without asking permission. You used my screens, my staff, the arena’s containment, and my audience’s attention to sell that product."
Rahul glances out the window.
The last empty crates are being pulled from the coach.
"My Oathring charges for the commercial use of its image."
"Yours? I don’t recall seeing an owner, or that fee anywhere in the rules."
"I don’t recall authorizing a shop inside my arena either."
He uses "my" again, but he has a point.
I’d walked into the event with a coach full of potions, handed out LDP to the workers, and turned Duvilin’s greatest manifestation into a commercial sign. Arguing about a missing written fee after all that would mean trusting Rahul’s goodwill, and he had freed me and nearly killed me on the same day.
I still try to salvage something.
"So the fight settles what I owed, and the advertising eats the prize. I walk out with nothing."
Rahul looks back at me.
"You walked out alive. After what you did today, I consider that a generous reward."
There’s no humor in his expression.
I remember the force of that single slap. If Rahul had chosen to use OXI, a skill, or any weapon he carried, no healer would have taken me to rest in Freya’s room.
There was also the destroyed contract, seventy thousand Scales in revenue, and a product that had already taken hold across Azure Prime. Pressing Rahul for more money would mean pushing until a complete victory turned into a mistake.
"Fair."
He seems to weigh my answer.
Maybe he expected me to argue, to threaten to involve the crowd, or to try to wring another concession out of him. I’d taken enough from him for one day.
The silence stretches a few seconds.
I look again at the closed report on the desk.
"You called me up here to explain what you don’t intend to give me? You could have kept the money and skipped the conversation."
Rahul stays still.
Then he tilts his head in acknowledgment.
"You’re right. I didn’t need to be present for that part."
He pushes the report aside.
"I wanted to offer you something else."
My attention comes back to him.
Gifts from Rahul rarely come alone. Even without a contract, every favor draws a line he can pull later.
"What?"
"Battle experience."
For a few seconds, I think he means training.
Rahul notices.
"Real experience," he clarifies. "Transferred through Ocean’s Law."
The room seems to go quieter.
Money buys weapons, information, access, and people willing to die in someone’s place. Experience is different. Every point carries the accumulated result of battles, survival, and growth. It’s the part of getting stronger that no smith can produce.
It’s also the commodity everyone pretends doesn’t exist.
"That isn’t usually offered as payment," I say.
"It isn’t usually offered in public."
Rahul opens a drawer in the desk and takes out a narrow strip of dark leather. Small runes are carved across its surface.
"Ocean’s Law allows experience to be wagered. Society accepts it when two Divers pretend the transfer is only the consequence of honor, rivalry, or pride. Calling it a purchase is considered vulgar."
"Because it exposes what’s really happening."
"Because it reminds people that progress can also be torn out of someone weaker."
He sets the strip on the desk.
"I’m not selling. I’m offering."
"Why?"
Rahul looks at the Silver Fang sigil beyond the window.
"I want to stay on good terms with you."
The answer is simple, but not innocent.
"You showed today that you can turn a small opportunity into a result far larger than it should be. You also showed you have no respect at all for other people’s planning."
"I respected your planning. I just added a few things."
His look alone is enough to end the attempt.
"You’re useful, Dryden. I’d rather you remember who helped you grow when the time comes to choose your allies."
He’s trying to buy me.
There’s no insult in it. Rahul understands relationships through value, favors, and debts. The contract is gone, but he still wants a way to stay in my path.
Accepting would pull Safe Harbor closer to his orbit. Refusing wouldn’t make me freer. It would only leave me weaker.
Some luxuries look ugly in the hands of whoever accepts them, but stay useful all the same.
"How much?"
Rahul touches the leather strip.
The runes wake.
[NOMINE GLADIATUS][Rahul Sharma vs. Dryden Sands][Experience Wager: 5%]
I read the number again.
Five percent of a Rank SS’s experience.
The gap between us turns that small fraction into something my Rank D body might not even be able to take in completely.
"Are you sure?"
"I can recover five percent more easily than you could pile up an equivalent fraction in your current state."
The strip opens a line of light between our hands.
[Accept Nomine Gladiatus?]
I set my Diver Mark.
[Nomine Gladiatus started.][Experience Wager: 5%.]
No arena forms. There’s no crowd, no judge, no barrier around us. Ocean’s Law recognizes the agreement inside that office because both of us accepted the terms.
Rahul raises his hand before I can ask how he means to handle it.
"I surrender."
The runes go dark.
[Nomine Gladiatus ended.][Result: Victory for Dryden Sands.][Experience Wagered: 5%.]
The transfer begins.
A pressure enters the center of my chest and spreads through my limbs. They aren’t Rahul’s memories. No technique, no face, no battle appears in my mind. What I receive is rawer: accumulated refinement, adaptation to danger, and the weight of survivals belonging to a Diver who has crossed tiers far above my own.
My body tries to absorb all of it at once.
My fingers dig into the arm of the chair.
New messages surface.
[Rank Differential Conversion Applied.][Source Rank: SS][Recipient Rank: D][Maximum Safe Conversion Calculated.][Experience Absorbed from Wager: 3%.][Unabsorbed Experience Returned to Source: 2%.]
The pressure grows until my ribs feel too small for what’s building inside them.
Then it stops.
[Rank D — Experience: 16% → 96%.]
I stay still while my body finds a way to absorb the change.
Three percent of Rahul’s experience became eighty percent of my progression. The remaining two points went back to him because my Rank can’t take them without risk of damage. It works like a safety measure in the system, built to prevent fraud.
Four percent left.
Then comes the wall.
Rank C is the first real divide between the Divers who only survive and the ones capable of building a path in the deep regions. Piling up experience isn’t enough. The body, the class, and the OXI flow have to cross a structural change.
Many never make it.
After that first break, growth would speed up. Rank C would open creatures, regions, and rewards a Rank D couldn’t even touch. Progression would accelerate through C and B until it hit the next great wall at Rank A.
I’m close.
Four percent and one barrier stand between me and the Trenches.
Rahul taps the tip of the cane against the floor.
The sound pulls my attention back to the office.
"Satisfied?"
I close the HUD.
"I’m thinking about how much you plan to charge for this later."
"Good. It means you understood the gift."
He doesn’t try to deny it.
The transfer creates no obligation under Ocean’s Law, but Rahul has just handed over something no amount of money could buy in the open. One day, he’ll remember it.
"Is there anything else?" I ask.
Rahul leans back in the chair.
"I got your window."
Every scrap of attention still resting on the experience disappears.
"When?"
"Thirty days from now."
My body goes still, but my hand closes over the arm of the chair.
Rahul opens another drawer and takes out a thin metal plate. An incomplete map is etched into it, showing corridors, elevators, and the divisions of an underground structure.
"The Deep Asylum is due for an extraordinary supply exchange. Part of the garrison will be replaced, and a maintenance crew will get access to sector four."
He sets the plate in front of me.
"For eleven minutes, control of the passage will be in the hands of men who owe me favors."
"Eleven minutes to get in and out?"
"Eleven minutes to get in."
I look at him.
Rahul keeps the same calm tone.
"After that, you’ll have to find another way out or stay hidden until the next chance comes. I can put you inside. I can’t carry your father out."
My eyes go back to the map.
"Is he alive?"
Rahul takes a moment before answering.
"I’ve confirmed that a prisoner matching the name and description of Alden Sands is still registered in the inner sector."
The air seems to leave my lungs.
"Registered doesn’t mean alive."
"He received food and a medical evaluation within the last ten days. That’s the most I could confirm without raising suspicion."
My father is alive.
This isn’t hope built on an old record or a memory from my other life. He was given food and examined less than two weeks ago.
"In what condition?"
"I don’t know."
Rahul points at the plate.
"The inner sector keeps separate records. Forcing access now could close the passage before it even exists. You’re smart, and you know the Deepwarden."
"Who can come with me?"
"That’s your decision. The more people you bring, the higher the chance someone notices the movement. If you’re caught, my name was never involved."
"Obviously."
"Don’t treat that as a formality. The people who run the Deep Asylum don’t negotiate the way I do."
He doesn’t need to warn me.
I know part of what’s in that prison, and I know my memories might already be wrong. Small changes over the last few months could have shifted guards, routes, and protocols. Rahul is handing me a door. Everything past it is still my problem.
"When do I get the full map?"
"Seventy-two hours before the operation. Until then, only you and I know the date."
"And your men?"
"They’ll know when they need to take their posts."
I nod.
Thirty days.
In that time, I have to find the last four percent, break the barrier into Rank C, and prepare a team capable of entering one of the most heavily guarded facilities in Thirstfall. I also have to make sure the factory, the Silver Fang, and Safe Harbor keep running without me.
Rahul collects the Oathring report.
The meeting is over.
I stand and store the metal plate in my inventory.
"Rahul."
He raises his eyes.
"Thank you."
The word doesn’t erase the slap, the confiscated prize, or everything he’ll charge for in the future. Even so, my father is alive, I now have a real chance to reach him, and maybe a possibility of saving Lola along the way.
Rahul tilts his head.
"Remember that when I need you."
I open the door.
Before leaving, I look one last time at the arena through the window. The Silver Fang sigil glows against the end of the day, while the last orange light fades over Azure Prime.
At the corner of my vision, the screen stayed open.
[Rank D — Experience: 96%.]
My father is alive.
In thirty days, I’ll have a door.
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