Shen listened to Alicia's recounting of her past. She had been born in a wealthy family then fell prey to abusive relatives. She had also gone through a fair bit of relationship drama, though she glossed over a lot of it.

"And then I came to the tutorial seeking power for revenge," she explained. "I wouldn't have passed the first stage without help, and you know how bad I went in the second. I'm not special in any way. I have been improving magically, but it's definitely not enough. You could defeat me with eyes closed."

That was a fair assessment. Shen could kill her with ease.

"I'm not sure if it was a few days ago or yesterday," she continued, and Shen was sure it had to do with the time perception dilatation they were subjected to. "Either way, I got an offer to reach the E-rank in this stage. It was suspicious. As I said, I'm just a random girl. It was too tempting to pass though, so I asked to hear more.

"I was taken to what felt like an interrogation room with a lawyer. He didn't say he was a lawyer, but I can smell the fuckers nowadays. Fuck lawyers. I disliked him at a glance. He offered me knowledge worth four million AP if I signed a contract saying I would answer questions whenever his client asked.

"I refused, obviously. Scams were bad enough on Earth. Imagine signing what might be a magic contract to sell my soul or something. But I also made a complaint about him to the system. He didn't look concerned until someone offered me help. I accepted that through a notification, and a few moments later, the lawyer teleported away.

"Then a gorgeous elf lady, the one I had accepted help from, appeared and told me the lawyer had been killed, and no one would investigate it."

Shen took a few moments to digest everything. Alicia's past sounded common enough for a mortal, but the lawyer bit was confusing.

The system translated the word for Shen and even added a crash course on tribunals, judges, and prosecutors. It was bizarre; he had never seen anything like it.

In the Eternal Empire, the Emperor appointed judges who were exhaustively trained by the Eternal Court. They knew all imperial law like dragons knew their scales. When they took a case, they investigated everything themselves with the help of their deputies. They looked for evidence and sought to understand the circumstances from an impersonal point of view. They did hear the parties multiple times during the investigation to better understand the case, but only to a certain point. Some judgments were made with barely any word exchanged.

There was no need for representatives trying to subvert the law or being paid to lie; the judge knew all law and did their best to apply it according to the Emperor's will. Who would investigate and gain access to information better than a judge appointed by the Emperor himself and trained by his Court?

And after being adequately investigated, the facts spoke for themselves.

Judges weren't infallible, of course. If any party found the judgment unfair, they could ask for a new trial, and another judge would investigate. If they were found guilty twice, the penalty would increase at least twofold. If they were considered guilty by a judge and not guilty by another, the matter would be taken to the Emperor himself. Likewise, the twice guilty could still appeal to the Emperor, but their penalties increased at least tenfold if they were found guilty once again.

Unsurprisingly, few dared to do so.

But they did it sometimes, and the Emperor reverted some sentences. When that happened, the involved judges were thoroughly investigated to ensure they were fit to maintain their positions. Some lost their jobs, and all the trials they had ruled over were reviewed by peers. If foul play was involved, they were condemned by the Emperor.

To Shen, that was a much better system.

Alicia was telling him that these lawyers twisted the law to their interests. They studied how to better take advantage of it. They lied and cheated to achieve their goals.

How could a proper judge let words from people known for their lies change their minds? How could society allow people to abuse the letter of the law to go unpunished?

Where was their honor?

Shen supposed there had to be honorable lawyers out there, too, if only because there were disgraceful ones. Someone had to be willing to protect the innocent. Shen just had to believe in it.

But he agreed with Alicia: the deal had been shady, and the lawyer getting killed confirmed it.

"Someone wants to get to you or to me," he concluded.

Alicia's experience with the lawyer pointed in that direction. The dishonorable actions could be mostly ignored; the Alliance had never hidden that it had miscreants. That the trainees fought prisoners guilty of atrocities said enough, and the Empire also had had to deal with such people.

However, for no one to investigate a death was too much. It meant influential people were interested in keeping their connection to the lawyer a secret.

"Anyway, now you know why I have trust issues," Alicia concluded. Shen had almost forgotten she had told this tale to explain why it was weird for her to trust him. "Every time I trust someone, I get disappointed. If I had trusted the Alliance, God knows where I would be now. I know better." She looked him straight in the eyes. "But I trust you."

Shen could almost physically feel her powerful emotions. He nodded somberly and cupped his hands in front of himself. "Thank you for your confidence, my friend. I shall aim to make myself worthy of it."

Alicia smiled and did her best to hold her laughter back. That was already an advance, as far as Shen was concerned. She wanted to laugh at his seriousness but was trying to respect him.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"So?" She stood up and walked to the window. She put her lower back against the wall and started twirling a lock of hair with her finger. "Knowing you, you didn't come just to talk about the weather."

Shen was a bit offended until he realized she was right. He sighed. "That is fair. I will aim to improve our friendship. I already have questions I want to ask you, like where you are from, which places you have visited, and your goals after the tutorial."

Alicia widened her eyes in surprise. "I didn't see that coming."

She smiled slightly, sadly. "I have a good idea of your plans now, and I want to talk to you about it later. But you're right; that's not the main reason I came." He took a deep breath. "Thank you for sharing your history with me. I also wanted to talk about my past. Or rather, I wanted to ask you not to mention my place of origin to anyone."

Shen wasn't sure how effective her silence henceforth would be. The system had said it was listening to conversations during this stage, but that didn't mean it hadn't spied on the earlier stages either. It was always ready for their commands, after all. For all he knew, the entire Alliance might know about the Empire already.

"Not talk about the Empire, you mean?" she asked, then widened her eyes and put both hands over her mouth. "Holy fuck, I'm sorry."

----------------------------------------

Alvaerelle was paying extra attention to one of the screens. No one knew why Earth had had sleeping cultivators, and she had just gotten a hint. An empire, was it?

Suddenly, all screens in the room turned black. An instant later, she felt a vast will focusing on her.

| Dreamer: Alvaerelle Elafir, I offer you a system favor. In return, I demand you cease all the Talent Reevaluation Committee activities related to Feng Shen and Alicia Winter.

"Refused," she sent back without a second thought. Corruption had caused her planet to fall. She would never lower herself so.

| Dreamer: It was not a request. Either you accept it, or I shall kill you.

Alvaerelle didn't believe that threat for a second. Killing a Talent Reevaluation Committee representative on the line of duty? Even a well-connected B-rank like the Dreamer would pay for it.

Thinking of his Title made her recall who she was talking to.

The Dreamer could dream about the future. It was a very, very flawed ability when it started dealing with the Void or B-ranks. But against her? They knew how she would react; they knew she would refuse; they probably even knew what she was thinking right now.

She still doubted they would kill her, but even threatening to do it would cost them political capital if she reported it. They had done it all the same. So she wondered about their end goal.

They sent a new message an instant later.

| Dreamer: I'll give you two favors.

That gave Alvaerelle pause.

Favors, like AP, were also provided by the Guardian System. The difference was that they could be exchanged between people and were rewarded for great deeds only.

Getting your first favor was relatively easy if you went to war against the Void and distinguished yourself compared to what was expected of your rank. One in every trillion Guardians or so could do it.

A favor allowed one to make requests of the system that would usually be refused because it cost more resources than it was willing to spend. Nothing illegal could be requested, which limited things somewhat, but favors were still valuable.

Influential beings or organizations usually spent favors to increase the monitoring priority of crucial figures. A talented seed, an offspring, a lover. However, using the favor didn't give them access to said monitoring data if they didn't have it already. That would be illegal. Higher monitoring only meant the system got better data with less likelihood of interruption, thus improving the monitored being's safety.

That was helpful but not something Alvaerelle had any interest in. The high elves were a strong race, and she was well-connected. If she wanted a favor spent to increase someone's monitoring priority, she could get it.

Two favors were something else.

Being awarded the first favor required one to distinguish themselves against the Void. That favor could be spent, and further distinction would net another favor. However, to go beyond one favor in your "account" required much more.

Saving entire galaxies, advancing technology in a way it helped against the Void as a whole, uncovering high-level treason that would bring untold catastrophe to the Alliance; those were the kinds of things that the system required to let one have more than one favor at a single time.

The difficulty in achieving two favors was reflected by how much could be done with it. Direct system protection, planetary monitoring priority against the Void, even access to locked parts of the system, among many other possibilities.

Those were things Alvaerelle had no hope of ever achieving despite her connections.

Speaking of connections, she could also get a B-rank to act in less than legal ways by paying two favors. Even an A-rank who looked at her favorably might consider it. A-ranks had enough strength to not really need system help, but if the request wasn't too hard for them—and few things were—why not do it?

That was enough to tempt her.

Alvaerelle considered it for a very long while, certainly longer than she had ever thought she would. It was one thing to believe herself beyond getting bribed, but when a simple act could give her so much...

The things she could do with two favors!

But in the end, there was something that no amount of favors could buy back: her integrity.

She opened her mouth to reply when pressure crushed her from all sides. Mana flooded the room, exploding her monitoring screens into smithereens. She was locked in place by a being much more significant than herself.

"I was not lying," a surprisingly young-sounding voice boomed, exploding her eardrums and giving her a splitting headache. "Take my offer or die," the Dreamer said directly into her mind, crushing her mental defenses like they were nothing.

Alvaerelle no longer doubted they would kill her. That attack was already too much. How ironic for it to happen right after the trainees had been given that inspiring warning against infighting.

"I..." she said with difficulty, "...refuse!"

She tried to resist the pressure, but it was way beyond her. The Dreamer was a peak B-rank being while she was at the early stages of C-rank.

She was thrown on the floor and crushed like a bug. Bones broke, organs ruptured, blood flowed freely from her torn skin.

Alvaerelle had never thought she would die like this, but she faced death without shame. She would die with honor, and that was enough for her.

Suddenly, the pressure disappeared.

Her body tried to regenerate right away, but the Dreamer had been vicious. Their attack had filled body and soul with their Path, and it was still there, preventing her healing. She would not recover unless she got access to a B-rank healer to get rid of their influence. The Talent Reevaluation Committee would cover the cost as she had been injured at work, but it would still require her to leave her post with alacrity.

"Log and report," Alvaerelle whispered.

Nothing happened. The Dreamer had disabled the monitoring and reporting subsystems in that place. Not surprising, all things considered, but still something else for her to report.

She thought they might also stop or redirect her teleportation attempt, but they didn't. When she willed herself to teleport to the TRC local branch, she appeared exactly there. She would be taken care of from thereon.

Alvaerelle had no idea why the Dreamer was so interested in hiding Earth's past, but she realized the dark elves had been right all along: the Dreamer was a rabid beast that had to be put down regardless of how valuable it was. A rabid prized dog was still rabid.

Alvaerelle would make sure to convince her people of that.