For a solid ten minutes they just chattered; then, with an apologetic grin, Corrine brought out the screen once more:

“Sorry. we should keep going and make the most of the time we have.”

Their study switched to focusing on the known enemies from the other fractions. She made a point of only including those who had been there for more than three battles against their faction, so that they had sufficient data to assess them properly. It went without saying that, even with those restrictions, there were lots of participants to analyse.

When Corrine had quoted the statistics of the representatives of the other GODs being stronger, he had accepted the fact, but hadn’t truly realised what it meant. In basic terms, the bottom third on the DEUSs list had been removed and replaced with the more powerful alternatives. All but the very weakest of the enemies representing the other GODs would have slotted easily into the top half of DEUS’s list.

It was humbling.

The information they had available on their opponents wasn’t, and couldn’t be, as in-depth as the listing of skills the DEUS representatives had supplied. However, after seeing the observations from at least three battles, there was enough information for them to estimate the likelihood of Tom being successful against these opponents. Despite them being stronger, the percentage Tom could beat hadn’t altered on average. He hard-countered about one in twenty of the adversaries, and, when that happened, it didn’t matter if their raw attributes were slightly larger than their equivalents in DEUS’s team - with their core build exposed, he was still positioned to defeat them.

“This is hopeless.” Tom said finally. “I need to develop lightning to be able to strike at range.”

“Yep, and not a missile form. You want something more instantaneous, something designed to stun rather than kill.”

“And it needs a kicker to let it bypass the shields as well,” Tom mused. “A simple ranged attack, for example, wouldn’t affect you, and I doubt your defences are any stronger than average. That means unless it has shield busting, it’s going to be pointless against the talented enemies I’m going to be fighting.”

She nodded at that. “Yep. I go into every fucking battle with my mana shield in place. Doing anything else would-be fucking stupidity, and, unfortunately none of these fucks are that dumb.”

“I wonder if I can leverage my version of Power Strike…”

She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. “To be honest, it sounds impossible. I guess you could find an instant lightning-based spear attack and then somehow evolve your Power Strike to allow it to be remotely infused on a spear you have control of. Maybe if you did both…” She shrugged. “You might be able to pull something like that out of your arse, but you’d be paddling upstream trying.”

After that thought, they lost the enthusiasm to continue with their analysis, and, when they received the warning that their duel only had five minutes, they were both happy to put aside the pad.

“I have a bit more to show you when we leave this place,” Corrine told him.

“I figured as much.”

“I won’t cover much more today, but we’ll have plenty of opportunities to deepen your knowledge before your next fight.”

“It almost sounds like Amkhael would have covered more.” He teased.

“And he would have. It might have gone in one ear and out the other, but they definitely would have addressed everything possible in two hours.”

“But what you do is much better?”

“Yes, it fucking is, and don’t you dare suggest otherwise. But more seriously, the open category guys aren’t that bad, and Amkhael would have tried to do his best; however, his cultural proclivities mean he rubs humans the wrong way. To us, he’s a dick. To his own people, he’s probably perfectly normal.”

“I understood.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Tom. Being reincarnated without personal power is lonely. It’s completely fucked.”

“Lonely?”

“Yeah,” her voiced hitched. “Constantly.”

“Don’t you have any friends?”

She shook her head. “They’re children; or, I guess, teenagers now, but it’s the same thing. They can’t keep up with me, so what’s the point. Getting close to them just creates unnecessary vulnerabilities.”

“I feel the same.”

“What about the tiny heterochromia girl?”

“The what?”

“It means two different eye colours.”

“That’s a big word to express that.”

“What can I say? I was educated. But seriously, what about her?”

“I won’t say it was a mistake.” Tom shut his eyes. “But it’s not optimal. She kind of snuck her way in. Kang and I both treat her as a little sister.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen.”

“I understand avoiding the kids. I tried to do the same, even if Briana got through, but what about other reincarnated ones? You’re not going to leave them behind.”

She glanced at him and then shook her head. “No, it’s too risky to do it. When I was five, there was an assassin infestation. They killed a group of three fourteen-year-olds; Dim thought they identified one of them and exposed the others through the connection. There was no way I was going to make the same mistake. It’s been hellish for the first six years. I felt totally isolated, and then I came here and here was a place I could be myself.” She went silent, frowned, and swallowed heavily, her eyes shut. “But chatting with natives isn’t the same as speaking to humans. Please, don’t die, Tom. I don’t know if I can…”

“I’m not going to.” He assured her.

She snorted. “That promise coming from someone reincarnated doesn’t inspire me with confidence. I’m sure you promised that to people in your past life.”

“Of course I did.” Then he grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Don’t die either.”

“I’m a survivor…” she chuckled darkly. “Apart from when I’m fucking not. I can’t wait until I turn fifteen. I have my route planned for the first three years, one to get me up to rank eighty as fast as possible. Then I can feel safe. Have you made any plans yet?”

“Nothing so concrete.”

They descended into silence.

“Tom... Can you be my friend?”

The request made him look at her in surprise. It was not something he had ever expected to hear from her after their first troubled encounters. She had always felt unapproachable and antagonistic.

“Please.”

He swallowed. It was a long time since he had seen someone look so vulnerable.

“Of course we can be friends.”

She smiled almost shyly. “Even though I’ve killed you, like, ten times?”

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“You had your reasons.”

“Yes, I had to do what was best for you. But if you’re my friend, you have to promise.”

“Not to die,” Tom finished for her. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on it.”

Their time ran out, and they reappeared near the huge rock in the central area. The others were gone, but a number of other natives were nearby. Corrine frowned as she glanced around, searching for something.

“They’re not here. I was hoping to pass you over, because I can’t stay. My body’s already in the isolation room, and I need all the time there I can get.” She grabbed his hand and took off at a pace that forced him into a trot to keep up. “I’m here every morning and evening. If you can make it, then, please, do. Just ask a construct, and they’ll bring you to me. It’s one of the things they’re good for. But before I go, let me show you the armoury.”

She dragged him along into one of the more elaborate portals, and he found himself in a room that was filled with weapons and armour designed for humans. Half of them were his size, and the rest were for Corrine.

“Ta da.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ta da?”

Her face hardened. “I thought it would sound cute. Would you prefer something like this is a stupid cunt of an armoury that only contains fucking uncomfortable tier-zero crap and what you get from here is the only fucking things you can use in sanctioned fights? Is that better?”

“To be honest, I preferred the ta da.”

“That’s why I went for it, and you couldn’t help but tease me for it.” She grinned, clearly not anywhere near as upset as she was pretending to be. “Anyway, this is the armoury. You can’t bring anything in from the outside, but if you have the skills, you can improve the supplied stuff to make it into something better.”

“I have some skills that can help.” Tom said without hesitation.

“Then if they’re powerful enough to matter, you’ll be popular. The only rule is that you are barred from helping anyone in a lower bucket. That doesn’t affect you. If you do have skill, you can help everyone. What can you do, anyway? In a year and a half, I wouldn’t have thought you could have learnt anything that would be useful.”

“Remove flaws from wood, maybe upgrade the tier of the wood; secondly, also being able to create danger sense bracelets. This is the sole scope of my crafting expertise.”

She raised an eyebrow at that and whistled. “If that’s for real, then that second one could be damn useful. Next time we’re here together, I’ll introduce you to some people. But for now, I have to go. I have eight hours in an isolation room, and I don’t want to waste them.”

She deliberately didn’t mention what she was doing, which told Tom that she was working to get a title, and it was pretty easy to figure out which type it belonged to.

“Enjoy yourself.” He said with a big grin and a thumbs up.

She scowled. “Oh, I definitely won’t, but it’s something I need to do.”

On those words she vanished; the armoury shivered and got smaller, with the spaces dedicated to her vanishing. He wasn’t at all surprised.

Slowly, he rotated to examine everything that he had available to use. There was the standard weaponry and armour, both the light and slightly heavier versions. There was even an awkward-looking wooden suit that he knew was there for him to enhance into something more useful.

He stopped and faced a display section with a series of shelves filled with miscellaneous pieces of wood. Four long steps brought him to be right in front of them, and he picked up a piece that looked like a large coin. It was wider than his palm and about a centimetre-thick.

It was perfect for the test he was considering. He focused, and the grain of the wood changed superficially. A moment later, the coin had a one engraved on the upper side and a zero on the other. Then his magic kept flowing in order to change the interior, introducing a series of precise lines as he quickly constructed the basic framework of the Danger Sense ritual.

Then he paused to consider what he wanted to do. The ritual was not as incomprehensible as it had once been. April had spent a lot of time explaining different areas of it, a lot of which he had reluctantly absorbed. With that advanced knowledge, he was confident he could eventually adapt the ritual in the direction he needed. When she had been explaining it, he had been resentful of the interruptions slowing him down. Now he wished he had listened more carefully.

Before he started editing everything, he spent all of his fate with a singular image in his mind. He wanted to create a working ritual fit for the purpose.

Then he began to carve the additional pieces in. Rather than perfectly duplicating the working design April had originally given him, he began to make adjustments. He removed the ritual components that controlled information on the direction and nature of the incoming threat, and instead focused on extending the time frame that the magic could peer into the future. The functionality he stripped away gave him room to add additional items. He duplicated the sections that allowed it to peer further into the future. Then finally, because this was for him and he could both repair and refresh with mana, he removed the self-destruct elements and made it more robust in the hope it would let him reuse it.

When he finally finished the process, he had packed over thirty points of precognition mana into it.

The result did not look particularly impressive, but Tom could see the energy trapped within it; the ritual, while not as efficient as he had hoped, actually worked. After so much practice, he could tell when he had made fatal mistakes, and for this, despite the sheer number of changes, all of his errors were minor.

“Can I sell this?” he asked the empty room.

There was no response, but, when he turned around, a figure similar to the one that Amkhael had crushed appeared.

“Is there a way I can sell this to get coins?” he repeated the question, this time asking the construct. After all, being available to answer him was why it had appeared.

“What you’re holding would be classed as a tier-one danger indicator for solo fights in the Champion Trial.” The construct said, clearly letting slip more information than it should have. “DEUS, via the system, will not allow you to sell something in that niche that is less than tier-two to those in the child and adolescent buckets. It will need to be tier-three to be offered to the open level participants.”

Tom sighed at that response in relief. It conveyed a lot in what it didn’t say. “But if I can improve it to that level, then will I be permitted to sell them?”

“If there’s a market, yes. You’ll be able to sell four for a single coin.” The construct told him. “The person you’re selling it to will get three, and the price with be three times that for the higher-tiered version.”

Tom nodded and wondered whether that was a deal that anyone would go for. Presumably, at tier-two it would do what he had been hoping. It would let someone know if they were about to enter a match where they were destined to be killed or crippled. It wouldn’t differentiate between a win or a loss, but knowing you weren’t going to die would allow them to go in without a shield and earn extra coins for the battles they were meant to win. Given the advantages his invention would bring, there would be demand. In an open market, he would expect that they would have sold at a significantly higher price than the regulated process would allow. With prices effectively artificially lowered, he was confident that there would be demand for every single one he could create.

“Will it work? I mean will, this save their lives?”

“I can’t say.” The construct responded.

But it didn’t need to confirm anything verbally. The fact the system would let him to sell it told him that it would be fit for purpose, but no skill was a hundred percent perfect. There were abilities out there that would have the capability to beat his tier-two Danger Sense ritual even if it was empowered to a tier-six level thanks to his affinity.

He flipped the coin in his hand. It was definitely something to talk about with April. If he could improve it to standard, and if he was spending eight hours daily in here, then he should be able to get a passive income of one or two coins per day. That would add up quickly. Not as quickly as the sixteen coins every week, which would have been the reward if he could win fifty percent of his fights, but it was close.

As for breaking even in the combat ring, for him to get powerful enough to do that… Achieving that level of power was a long way away, and it was a height he might never reach.

He hated to think it, but, in this case, crafting was the best way forward. It was a win for everyone, and it was only possible because of his freakish affinity. If he had one or two points less, his gut told him his danger sense artefacts wouldn’t have been an option.

Having decided that he had discovered enough for now, he left the trial.

The instant he did, he was assaulted by a wave of memories. They contained the pertinent details of everything his body had gotten up to while he was in the champion’s lobby. It included all the conversations he had been involved in. The feature was not one he had been expecting, but having experienced it, he understood it was a hundred percent required. This way, there was no risk of his little excursions being discovered through him failing to remember something important.

He was back in the system room equivalent. There were monitors for him to watch, surround sound, and familiar metal walls. Aided by his memories, he realized that he was in the reading class, and a quick check of the screens confirmed that. Given they were studying picture books, he was not in a hurry to leave.

With a wry smile, he slumped down on the couch and thought about everything that had happened over just a few hours of real time.

There had been a lot.

The genius youths who had been the hope of their whole species. Some had failed and others had died. Both outcomes had been a tragedy. He had not been as good as them, and definitely not as strong, but he had won through, despite the odds, because of his cheat of using fate. Then, while he was acclimatising to the rules, Corrine had gone crazy town on him to try to impart the lessons that she thought he had to learn. Then they had spent two hours chatting and researching his opponents.

He was man enough to admit he had loved being able to do that, just like he loved the couple of similar moments he had managed to have with either Kang or Dimitri. It was as if he had forgotten how important being an adult was to his mental health. As though he was a parched man in a desert, the flood of good fortune had almost overwhelmed him, and it felt surreal to think he could have hours of mature contact every day. A significant part of him was jumping up and down in joy at that thought. While it wasn’t painful to pretend to be a child as such, it certainly became depressing and overwhelming after a while.

The next question was, could he elevate Kang into the trial before Corrine’s time was up? Because now he had tasted it, he didn’t want to give it up.