Chapter 416: Twenty-Four Names

"Your drake’s ground sense," Dunmore said. "Would you have gone on the terrace if it had told you nothing?"

Jin hesitated. "Probably not, with the slump. But I don’t know."

Dunmore looked at him for a moment, then nodded, as if that had been the right kind of answer.

The marks came with the list on Thursday.

Route and decision-making: strong. Cooperation: strong. Completion time and sample grade: below the strongest submissions.

Other trios had returned faster or brought richer samples. Jin could accept that. Their notes showed why his group had chosen differently.

Below that was the list.

[Resource-Realm Selection — Eligible Candidates and Seeds]

[24 candidates. Seeds determined by performance records and field assessment.]

7. Astor, J.

9. Vale, L.

The tournament structure followed.

All twenty-four would enter one free-for-all. It would stop the moment ten tamers remained. Anyone eliminated was out of selection, with no second chance and no revival round.

Among the ten survivors, the six highest-seeded would get a bye. The four lowest-seeded would fight two preliminary duels, and the two winners would join the six. Eight would become four. Four would become two.

Those two would go to the realm.

The melee was on Saturday.

"Seventh," Lucian said beside him. He didn’t sound jealous. He sounded thoughtful. "And me ninth."

"Still have to survive Saturday," Jin said.

"It means something after Saturday. If we’re both standing, and enough people above us aren’t, seventh is a bye and ninth might not be."

Lucian scanned the other names. Teller was there. So were Vasha and Petra, and a lot of people Jin only half knew from the other practical group. "Fourteen out in one afternoon."

The noodle place was full that evening, and quieter than the week before. The same people came, but they sat a little further apart, and nobody mentioned Saturday until Teller did.

"I’m not standing next to any of you," he said, with his mouth full.

Teller pointed his chopsticks round the table. "Three of you stand together in a melee, everyone else looks over and sees three people who’ll make it to the end. Then they all come at you at once." He shrugged. "You’re allowed to cooperate. I just don’t fancy advertising it to everybody else."

"So we don’t fight each other," Petra said, looking at her bowl. "And we don’t fight together."

"We just don’t go looking for each other," Vasha said.

Nobody argued. Jin noticed that nobody looked at anybody else while they agreed, either.

Walking back, Lucian fell into step beside him.

"Same goes for us," he said. "If I see you on Saturday, I’m not coming over. You’re not coming over. If we stand together, they’ll see those two and come for us both."

Jin glanced at him. "I know. Doesn’t mean I’ll enjoy watching somebody come at you."

"I can manage," Lucian said, without any uncertainty.

Jin did a short Engine run that night, mostly to think about something else. A Kilnback Beetle had settled into the lower tunnels where he’d cleared one before.

Flicker put two Ember Shots into the joint behind its head, and Glitch’s avatar turned it over and finished it.

[Kilnback Beetle — defeated]

[Reward: 25,000 Coins]

The avatar had taken a clip on the foreleg, so Jin withdrew it alive rather than pressing farther. He ate properly and slept, keeping up the routine that helped his own blood reserves support its recovery. By the next evening the limp was easing; the injury hadn’t vanished with dinner. Neither run had triggered an Engine blood charge, and all five Lives remained.

Half to operating funds. Half to the family note.

240,000.

He thought about grey paste on Breeze’s ear, and closed it.

Meridian’s main arena looked much bigger from the sand.

From the stands, Jin had thought the scattered barriers were close together. Down here, the lanes between them were wide enough for Glitch to turn comfortably. That also meant a long way to run if somebody caught him without cover.

A white line circled the oval, with a broad red band outside it. Tall posts marked the permitted airspace. Officials stood around the perimeter, watching beasts as well as students.

At inspection, a woman checked the practice head fitted to Jin’s spear, its padding and the fastening. She stamped the binding blue, then checked his vest and guards. Glitch submitted to his own inspection with an expression of deep inconvenience.

Flicker watched from Jin’s shoulder. He felt her claws shift through the padding as another bird passed overhead.

"Soon," he murmured.

The chief referee gathered all twenty-four candidates by the north gate. Her name was Ashdown, and she waited until the last conversation stopped before pointing to the boundary.

"Your whole body crosses that line, you’re eliminated. Your beasts leave with you. Surrender and a referee’s stoppage for inability to continue also end your match."

She pointed toward the tall posts.

"A beast fully leaving the marked area or flying above the height limit is withdrawn. Its tamer may continue. The withdrawn beast cannot re-enter."

"What about a wingtip?" someone asked.

"A wingtip isn’t a whole bird. Watch the judges’ flags. And don’t try attacking from outside the arena."

Jin looked up once more, fixing the height in his mind.

"This isn’t a torso-tag exercise," Ashdown continued. "A clean touch alone doesn’t eliminate anyone. Controlled beast combat is permitted. Deliberate lethal or maiming attacks mean disqualification. If someone is hurt, we assess whether they can continue; being the target of a foul doesn’t automatically put them out. Obey a stop immediately."

Nobody was talking now.

"The horn ends the melee the moment ten tamers remain. Ten tamers, not ten beasts. Your starting positions are on your cards."

Jin’s card placed him at seventeen on the east side. Lucian had position four, far across the arena. Those were starting numbers, not their seeds; somebody had already asked an official twice.

Lucian caught his eye and lifted his card.

"No danger of standing together," he said.

"Good luck."

"You too."

Lucian slapped his shoulder and headed west with Kite. Jin watched him go, then turned toward his own disc.

Forty metres inward, blocks and a short timber wall formed a rough L. Someone in the queue had called it the Elbow. The blocks sheltered its north side; the timber wall ran down the east. Its west and south sides opened onto broad lanes.

There was a gap through the northern blocks, wide enough for Glitch. Jin wanted that route available if the open sides became crowded.

At sixteen stood a fourth-year with a heavy, short-legged lizard. At eighteen, a girl with a Hornback Boar was studying the same cover. Farther round stood Vasha. She saw Jin, then looked away to inspect her own approach.

The horn sounded.

Jin sent Flicker ahead before running. She swept across the Elbow and banked low, showing him empty sand beyond the wall. Glitch kept pace beside him.

The boar was faster. Its tamer pointed toward the western opening, but the lizard from sixteen moved to contest her approach. She checked rather than let its jaws reach her beast’s flank. The beasts collided shoulder to shoulder, and Jin reached the cover while their tamers were occupied.

He crouched briefly behind the north blocks to look around. Glitch held the southern opening; Flicker perched on the timber wall, watching the lane beyond the northern gap.

A shriek drew Jin’s eyes upward. Two birds separated over the western side, and one climbed beyond the marked height. A flag rose, pointing first at the bird, then at its furious tamer.

That student stayed in the fight. Jin brought his attention back down.