The next morning, Robert was early at an indoor gym, in his sports uniform. Freddy and the puffblooms remained home. Amanda arrived with makeup to hide the bags under her eyes but Robert didn't even need to use Life essence to tell she had spent most of the night awake. He had studied that complexion enough to tell.

She approached and stifled a yawn. With hopeful eyes, Amanda latched onto his arm. "Say, do you have some hours in the bank? Would you grant me some peaceful nap time?"

Robert laughed and nodded. "Sure. I earn a day every fifteen minutes, eight hours every five." He grabbed her hand. "Just make sure to never let go of me."

Amanda stared at him. "How come you can be this smooth without even trying?"

"What?"

"Never mind. Use your talent, please."

Robert did. The gym lost all color in a flash. He took out the silk rope and tied it around her left wrist, binding the other end around his. "There you go. Now, a bed."

Amanda had her own. A Queen-sized bed. "You can lie down on the other side if you want."

They both took their places on the bed, Robert on the far end with his back to her.

"That's fine. I'll be in my mental palace, working on a project. Sleep well, Amanda."

He went limp after these words, his mind in the mental palace. Amanda stared at his strong and wide back for a while before she tried to sleep.

While a day or some of work on his imprint, Robert returned his consciousness to his body when he felt something shaking him. It was Amanda who was already awake.

"Hey," he said, spinning in place to face her.

"Hey. Thank you. I slept like an angel."

"Why did you spend the whole night awake?"

"I was negotiating the exploration rights for that passage. Samson's claim is already solid, we created a new LLC subsidiary that owns the passage and the land around it. I'm the CEO of that subsidiary now. But initial exploration is risky so we subcontracted an Archhuman guild for the inaugural delve. They will have a month to go inside with exclusivity and raid whatever they want. We get twenty percent of whatever they find plus any unique or special treasures. In exchange, we dump the risk of delving into them. If they die, they die. If the realm is shit, we would never profit anything to begin with. If they strike rich, then we lose only the opportunity. But we will profit because we will exploit those resources after a month. And if they find something really unique, then we were the ones to strike rich because they must give it to us."

"What if they find a unique spirit or a unique Prime and use it on the spot?"

"The contract states that they will be subject to a mental examination by granny before and after. They won't screw us over and ruin their reputation. Nobody will ever hire them again. Not to mention granny might go after them for any perceived slight of significant magnitude."

"A lot of things hinge on Mrs. Samson's personal power, right?"

"Yes. One organization could declare war on another and seize assets if they weren't all backed by powerful four-stars. That's why the Empress granted the Kraven clan two years of protection. Nobody can openly attack them or just take assets. Otherwise, they're dead. But it doesn't stop them from negotiating. Basilisk, our esteemed City Lord, snatched all of Kraven's mining shares in Faralethal. The bastard basically owns the place. But he somehow drew Madam Morleppe's ire. They are not in speaking terms. The only thing stopping Morleppe and Basilisk from ducking it out is the widespread destruction such a battle would cause."

"What a mess."

"It is what it is," Amanda sighed.

"Hey, I found out I can transport creatures when I go into the true void. But I must maintain physical, skin-to-skin contact. I can take you to the arcology right now if you want."

Amanda grabbed Robert's hand. "Sure! Let's play a prank on Veronica!"

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Nope. How did you find it out?"

"I tested it with the fish creature I tamed. I screwed up with its mind, it was going to eventually become either a raging berserker or a drooling vegetable. Before either happened, I took it to the true void to test my power."

"What a cruel master you are, Robert Blaze!" She snickered.

Robert was confused. Wasn't she supposed to be disgusted? Anyway.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

Amanda's answer was to braid her fingers around his. "Let's go."

He focused on his talent and dove into the true void. Robert pulled Amanda closer and wrapped his free arm around her waist. He gripped her hand with all of his strength, finding he couldn't squeeze or break her fingers even if he wanted to.

"Wow. I can't see a thing!" She said.

"Not even me?"

"No, I can see you but where is the light coming from?"

"We are in a dimension that's more conceptual than material. You aren't seeing me as much as perceiving my presence and my intent and interpreting that as sight and sound."

"Are we far from home?"

"No, just a few minutes while I home in the exact location."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Distance in the true void meant nothing. It was all about familiarity and intent. Soon, Robert emerged into the liminal void inside his apartment.

"Here we go. We are inside the arcology."

Amanda looked around. Indeed, they were inside Robert's apartment. She could see Freddy's dog paraphernalia in a corner of the living room.

"Security will be pissed. They think the arcology is teleportation-proof."

"We didn't teleport. We just walked sideways through the dimensions but we surely walked every inch of distance between here and there."

"Tomato Tomahto," Amanda snickered. "We moved from point A to point B in less time than it takes to blink an eye. Through physical barriers. Into the heart of the Samson arcology."

"Then we should move back to the Academy before our time here ends. Let this be our trump card."

"Yeah. It's better than getting everyone suspicious of you because you can get anywhere. Wait, we can tell them it's limited to places you've already been, like granny's office. That will really put them at ease."

"No, we can't. I'm taking us back to the gym."

Robert held her and dove down, drawing a surprise yelp from Amanda.

*

*

Noah entered the gym with a hovering platform behind him. It had two metallic disks one meter wide with a crystal slab in the middle.

"Today, you will train with holographic sparring partners. These disks can create ether holograms that can react and fight like a real person. Each has more than ten thousand warriors' recordings and can change from one to another depending on the settings."

The teacher took a sports court and set one of the disks on each side. "We will do sparring sessions of five minutes each. If you defeat your opponent or get defeated by it, you'll get one minute of rest. If you run the whole five minutes and end in a draw, you'll take the next five to work out what went wrong. The programming on the disks will record your fights and you can replay them. It also automatically shows where you screwed up. Let's go."

Robert stood with his sword. On the other side, a blue, semi-transparent hologram of a warrior with sword and shield appeared. He didn't have time to see what Amanda got because he had to defend himself. The warrior seemed to be a fire Arch because the weapon was covered in flames. Seeing that powers were on the menu, Robert used haste to ease the pressure on him. It was still hard to get around the shield and attack the warrior, while the sword remained hidden behind the shield, lashing out from almost any side to attack by surprise.

Robert had to rely on his spatial and temporal senses to predict where the attacks would come from. The warrior also used the shield as a weapon, bashing him if he got too close. It was frustrating. He couldn't get past the shield, he couldn't lower his defenses to attack because he would get overwhelmed. The holographic warrior then burst into action, moving into striking range with the shield in Robert's face. His danger sense flared. Robert spun around the shield, rolling to put his back against the hologram's back. That's all that saved him from a stab in the guts that would've ended the duel.

Robert then kicked the back of the hologram's knee as he pulled his limbs closer to increase his rotational momentum. He lashed out with his sword against the hologram's spine, causing it to break down into thousands of fractal particles that vanished in the next second.

Looking at the platform, buttons appeared, giving him the option to replay his fight with the analysis. Robert did so while trying to recover the essence he spent on haste. The warrior hologram appeared along with a copy of himself, in red. The fight replayed, pausing at spots where he could see an alternative to his actions, a place in the fight where he could've delivered a fatal blow but erred on the side of caution.

Or so he thought. He reviewed the fight a couple times, missing his next duel time but Noah said nothing. Robert then slapped himself in the forehead. He went to the platform and set it to show superimposed alternatives, showing the consequences of different choices in different colors. The whole recording took twice as long to play but showed ten variants of the fight with the movements Robert could've performed to improve his position and gain momentum.

Then he set it to always do that after a fight and prepared for his next opponent. The recording was stored in his mental palace where he could watch it at his own leisure.

His next opponent was a berserker wielding two axes. Robert didn't last one minute. He got the projection with his mistakes but he made only one. He didn't charge right at the start.

*

*

Amanda didn't have the decades to train with the sword Robert did. She was losing every duel. How, she asked. She had the stoneskin, the hundred wet hells, she was supposed to be invulnerable. The projections each struck her body a handful of times, then went for some soft spot not even her tempering could protect. The inside of her mouth. Her eyes. Even down there. What kind of degenerate programs a hologram to strike you down there?!?

It was unfair. But she knew it also was the consequence of taking the easy life during her teens. Before that reverse recognition squid, as Robert baptized the two-star Arch-mollusk that wandered where they shouldn't, she was coasting on her laurels. Why did she have to work hard? She was the heiress to the Samson conglomerate. And even that was a non-issue as Titania Samson wouldn't die in forever. Seriously, succession in these great corporations and houses and clans was a joke. Due to Supreme-quality healing, nobody with the money to afford those services died.

She had four years of development to catch up with. But now she had the drive for it. What if the Samson corporation would stay under her great-grandmother forever? She just needed to create her own corporation. With a mighty shout, Amanda charged at her holographic adversary and was knocked out of the court by a massive hammer. It didn't even break her bones.

Amanda pushed herself off the ground. She wanted to cry but she wouldn't give up.

During her interval between beatings, Amanda watched Robert spar. His technique was leagues ahead of hers. But he cheated, he spent years training the basics in the liminal void. he would spar, stop to watch a tangled mess of colorful holograms, and then spar again. She had no idea what he could possibly glean from that horrendous wireframe love child of Salvador Dali and M. Escher.

*

*

After four hours of torture, Noah had his students sit on the floor to review the morning's exercise.

"What do you think are your prospects at the tournament?" Professor Actus asked.

"Abyssal," Robert replied. "If these holograms are what we will face, we are screwed."

"Amanda?"

"Why even try?" The girl said dejectedly.

"Okay. First, the holograms at at the level of professional two-stars who spent about a decade fighting in the interspace and honing their skills. These two-star Archs are at the cusp of igniting their third star but most won't. Because they took the easy path. They don't fight a passage breakout as a morning exercise. If you were allowed to use your full range of abilities, you'd have won every single engagement there."

Amanda doubted but she kept herself from rolling her eyes. Which her old, spoiled self would do a hundred percent. Showing Noah disrespect would be against her new persona, though.

"I would need to prepare plants ahead of time."

"Put some plant vases in your storage ring. You are allowed to bring plant specimens you grew yourself, just like Robert here can bring his tame monsters. however, these specimens aren't protected and can be the target of lethal attacks. Most opponents during the tournament would do just that to spite you. Remember that the ban on lethal attacks is valid for either party. Don't think your opponents are weaker just because they didn't survive hell."

"What you need the most is initiative. The two of you failed to act immediately upon the start of your duels. Instead, you adopted a wait-and-see approach. That's the right way to go when you are delving. You need to know what you are facing. But in a duel? You already know what you are facing. Another human being. Who cares what powers, talents, and tempering they have. You know what you have to do to go in and get the kill, so you put them on the back foot."

Noah stood up and clapped his hands. "We will take a break for lunch and some massage therapy before we convey here at fifteen hundred hours for another four-hour sparring session. I want you to think about that. And Robert, if you are going to use your talent to get more time to think, you take Amanda with you so the both of you have the same amount of time.

"You two are dismissed. Hit the shower, eat something light, do some stretching, or get a massage, then come back here. I'll do some calibrations on the holograms."