Chapter 69: Full fledged Squad

Rain opened his eyes to the soft, pale gray of early morning filtering through the thin curtains of his C-dorm room. The room was cold, the ambient heating unit in the corner emitting its usual low, mechanical whine without producing much actual heat.

He didn’t linger under the thin blanket. He swung his legs over the edge of the narrow mattress, his feet hitting the cold linoleum floor. His chest felt slightly tight, his HP sat at 118 out of 160, the residual soreness from the Husk Regent’s heavy spatial impact still lingering in his ribs, but his mana was fully restored at 20 out of 20.

As his boots touched the floor, a familiar semi-transparent blue window flared to life in his center of vision:

[Daily Quest: Body Before Power — Triggered!]

[Goal Requirements: 100 Push-ups, 100 Sit-ups, 100 Squats, 5km Run]

Rain didn’t hesitate. He dropped straight onto his hands, keeping his core tight and his elbows tucked close to his ribs.

One, two, three.

The rhythmic, practiced repetition took over. He pushed through the set of one hundred push-ups without stopping, his palms pressing flat against the cold floor. His chest burned slightly where the internal bruising was still healing, but he kept his breathing steady, counting each repetition silently in his mind. He flipped onto his back immediately, locking his hands behind his head for the sit-ups, pulling his upper body up until his elbows touched his knees.

Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.

He stood up, planted his feet shoulder-width apart, and drove through the squats, keeping his spine straight and his weight back on his heels. Once the hundredth rep was complete, he grabbed his worn athletic shoes, pulled them on, and stepped out into the quiet, fog-shrouded dorm corridor.

The five-kilometer run took him around the long outer perimeter fence of the C-building complex, three full laps along the packed dirt track where the grass had died off for the season. He kept a steady, rhythmic pace, feeling the cold air fill his lungs, clearing out the lingering fog of sleep.

As he finished the final lap and crossed the threshold back into his room, shutting the door behind him, the blue interface flashed brightly:

[Daily Quest: Complete!]

[Rewards Applied: +1 Strength, +1 Endurance]

Rain wiped a light layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm and called up his full status window:

[Status Panel]

[Name: Rain]

[Level: 12 (XP: 786 / 1,100)]

[HP: 118 / 160]

[Mana: 20 / 20]

[Strength: 29]

[Agility: 20]

[Endurance: 27]

[Intelligence: 25]

[Synthesis Credits: 327]

[Bound Skill: Flash Step: Zero Drag (Rank SSS)]

He sat down on the edge of the wooden desk, looking at the numbers hovering in the dim light.

Twenty-nine Strength. Twenty-seven Endurance. Level twelve.

’I need to get back inside a rift,’ he thought, his blue eyes staring through the semi-transparent text at the blank wall opposite his bed. ’The Husk Regent gave me seven hundred experience points, but twelve to thirteen takes eleven hundred. If we clear two baseline D-rank rifts this weekend with the new party, I can hit level thirteen before the mid-term evaluations start.’

The hunger for growth wasn’t a sudden, chaotic urge; it was a cold, precise necessity. Every stat point he gained made his Zero Drag faster, his strikes heavier, and his margin for error wider when stepping into uncatalogued territory.

Then his mind shifted to the other side of his life, the side that didn’t involve monster blood or black-market fences.

Miss Ebony’s sharp, stern voice echoed in his memory from her lecture two weeks ago: Class placement is not a permanent label. You are assigned to Class C based on your initial evaluation, but your permanent academic record is determined by continuous performance, written combat theory exams, and mandatory practical modules. Neglect your baseline coursework, and you will find yourselves downgraded to remedial status regardless of your private combat records.

Rain rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a quiet breath.

He had missed two evening study blocks this week alone because of the drainage rift run and the core liquidation with Gideon. His practical grades in Class C were solid whenever he was present, but the academy administration didn’t care about off-the-books achievements. If he kept skipping theory lectures and practical drills to hustle credits for Corwin’s debt or run independent breaches with Nyra, his class rank would slide. Falling behind would strip him of his high access privileges and lock him out of the advanced classes.

’I’m balancing on a razor’s edge,’ he realized plainly. ’If I focus entirely on the debt and the rifts, I ruin my standing at the academy. If I focus entirely on my classes, Corwin’s deadline crushes Peter and me before the semester ends. I have to push both at the same time.’

He stood up, walking over to the small wall mirror hanging above the sink.

He stripped off his shirt and looked at his reflection. His shoulders were broader, his chest more defined from the rapid attribute scaling of the past month. But then his eyes fell on the dark, frayed cotton hoodie hanging on the back of his chair.

The right sleeve was torn near the cuff where a Ridgeback spine had grazed it during his very first rift run. The left hem was scorched dark from a stray spark in the lower drainage tunnels, and the dark gray fabric was faded and stretched from weeks of sweat, dirt, and repeated hand-washings in the dorm sink. It was the only hoodie he owned that fit over his combat gear, and it looked like something dragged out of a salvage heap.

He pulled up his phone, opening the campus supply portal.

He tapped through the clothing catalog, selecting a simple, reinforced black tactical hoodie made of durable synthetic weave, two plain dark cotton shirts, and a pair of sturdy, water-resistant cargo trousers designed for outdoor field exercises.

He moved to the checkout screen. The total came to 180 credits.

A few weeks ago, spending 180 credits on clothes would have meant skipping meals at the cafeteria for a week and a half. Rain stared at the prompt, his thumb hovering over the screen for half a second, before he hit the payment authorization button without looking back.

[Transaction Complete: 180.00 Credits Transferred to Campus Supply Logistics]

[Order Ready for Express Pickup at Station Locker #14]

Rain put his phone down and looked at his hands.

’Twenty-four thousand six hundred and twenty credits left,’ he thought softly. He felt a strange, quiet sensation settle in his chest. For the first time since he had awakened in the school infirmary with two fused F-rank skill disks in his soul space, he wasn’t worrying about where his next meal was coming from. The money was real. The capital was real.

He took a quick, cold shower, dressed in his remaining clean undershirt, and headed down to the C-building lobby to grab his pickup package from the automated locker before meeting Peter.

The locker opened with a quiet, pneumatic click. Rain pulled out the brown paper package, tore open the seal, and pulled out the new black hoodie.

The synthetic fabric felt thick, smooth, and slightly elastic, engineered to flex with broad movements without tearing under tension. He pulled it over his head. It fit comfortably across his broad shoulders, the dark hood falling cleanly around his neck, smelling faintly of factory-fresh materials. He tossed his old, torn hoodie directly into the recycling chute near the station entrance, not giving it a second glance.

"Rain!"

Rain turned toward the voice. Peter was hurrying down the station stairs, his dark green student jacket zipped up to his chin. He looked entirely different from the trembling mess he had been hours ago. He had washed his face, combed his messy hair back, and was clutching a neat leather folder against his chest containing his official student credentials.

"Morning," Rain said, stepping onto the outdoor platform as the morning commuter train pulled up to the curb with a long hiss of air brakes.

"I got everything," Peter said quickly, stepping into the train car beside Rain. He tapped the leather folder. "My valid student ID, my physical medical clearance from the campus clinic, and my secondary talent registration sheet. I double-checked all the stamps this morning."

"Good," Rain said as the doors slid shut and the train began its smooth, electric glide toward Sector Four. "We meet Nyra and Theo in front of the main administrative annex."

Rain pulled up his own student terminal on his phone screen, double-checking his digital credentials. His digital profile displayed his photo, his enrollment number, his Class C standing, and his official skill registry status:

[Cadet Profile: Rain]

[Class Standing: Class C]

[Rank Classification: F-Rank

[Bound Skill Registry: Impulse (F-Rank, State Indenture Grant)]

Rain looked at the line for a long second.

That was still the name on file, the exact disk he’d been handed at his own Resonance Ceremony. Impulse. A low-tier kinetic push barely strong enough to clear debris off an industrial vent, the kind of disk every batch-two F-rank walked away with and spent the rest of their life quietly resenting. As far as the registry was concerned, that was still the only thing bound to him, filed once at eighteen and never touched again, because nobody had reason to look twice at an F-rank result.

What the paperwork didn’t know, what nobody knew, was that Impulse hadn’t existed inside him in its original form for weeks now. It had been fused, along with a second disk nobody else even knew he’d ever held, into something the registry had never been designed to recognize. Flash Step: Zero Drag lived in the exact slot the old file still described as Impulse, invisible to anyone who hadn’t watched it happen.

That gap, between what the paperwork said and what was actually true, was the only reason he’d been able to move beneath the radar for so long.

"Rain," Peter whispered, leaning slightly closer as the train rattled through the elevated rail bridge over the river. "Are you sure about Theo? What if he tries to push us around once we get inside the licensing center?"

"He’ll try," Rain said plainly, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the city skyline outside the window. "Then he’ll realize it doesn’t work, and he’ll focus on getting the paperwork signed so he can get his C-rank promotion evaluation."

"Right," Peter breathed, taking a deep breath and sitting back in his seat. "Right."

The Municipal Portal Licensing Office in Sector Four was a sprawling, multi-story glass-and-concrete administrative fortress that handled every independent hunter registration, rift contract approval, and municipal safety bond in the northern ward.

The front courtyard was packed with hundreds of people even at seven forty-five in the morning. Fully armored guild scouts in polished steel gear rubbed shoulders with independent salvagers carrying heavy lead containment crates, municipal auditors in sharp gray suits, and groups of young cadets anxiously checking their document folders.

Nyra was waiting near the main glass entrance, wearing her sharp leather jacket and black boots. Beside her stood Theo, his broad frame leaning against a stone pillar, his arms crossed tightly over his tight tactical vest. He was holding a metal coffee cup in one hand, looking around at the crowd with an expression of intense boredom.

When Theo saw Rain and Peter walking up the stone steps, his dark eyes scanned Rain’s new black hoodie for a fraction of a second before he let out a short, nasal grunt.

"You’re three minutes early," Theo said, setting his coffee cup down on the ledge behind him. "At least you know how to use a watch."

"Morning, Theo," Rain said calmly.

Nyra stepped forward, her dark hair pulled back neatly, her sharp eyes taking in Peter’s nervous posture and his leather folder. "Peter, right? Rain told me you’re joining the roster for logistics and perimeter tracking."

"Y-yes," Peter said, holding out his folder. "I have all my forms stamped. Physical clearance, talent registration, and my municipal background check."

Theo snorted, looking down his nose at Peter. "An F-rank carrier. Great. So our party consists of an upper-threshold D-rank vanguard, that’s me, a D-rank, an F-rank and a kid who looks like he’s going to throw up on his own boots."

"Theo," Nyra said, her voice dropping an octave into a cold, dangerous warning tone. "We talked about this last night."

Theo threw his hands up in mock surrender, though a smirk stayed on his face. "Hey, I’m just stating facts for the record. Let me handle the desk clerk. If an unattached party shows up with two F-ranks on the roster, the clerk is going to try to dump us into the high-friction review queue."

They walked through the heavy glass doors into the main registration hall.

The interior was vast, noisy, and illuminated by glowing blue information banners hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of service windows lined the back wall, each guarded by a heavy brass barrier and a municipal clerk reviewing digital application files.

Theo pushed his way toward Window 14, where a middle-aged woman in a crisp blue municipal uniform was typing rapidly on a holographic console.

"Next," the clerk said without looking up.

Theo stepped up to the counter, slamming his dark metal D-rank guild token down onto the glass surface with a sharp clack.

"Independent party registration," Theo declared loudly, leaning his heavy forearms on the counter. "Four-man roster. Standard D-rank clearance threshold."

The clerk picked up the metal token, tapped it against her reader, and finally looked up, her eyes flicking over the four of them.

"Roster documentation," she requested neutrally.

Nyra handed over her D-rank credential card and her signed bond signature. Theo produced his own stamped evaluation papers from the Vane Dynamics cadet program. Rain and Peter handed over their digital student ID links and their physical health sheets from the academy clinic.

The clerk scanned the documents one by one. When she reached Rain’s and Peter’s files, her hand paused over the holographic console. Her eyebrow shot up.

"Two F-rank cadets?" she asked, looking up at Rain and Peter with open skepticism. "An independent party registration requires at least two party members holding D-rank or higher to balance the per-capita risk assessment for municipal rifts. Furthermore, F-rank independents are subject to a mandatory three-hundred-credit secondary administrative audit fee per individual."

Peter’s face went pale. "Audit fee?"

"It’s standard municipal bureaucracy," Nyra interjected smoothly, stepping up alongside Theo. "They charge extra fees for F-ranks because the city’s insurance algorithms consider cadets a higher mortality liability in public rift zones."

"The fee is three hundred credits per F-rank applicant," the clerk repeated, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "Six hundred credits total, in addition to the standard five-thousand-credit municipal performance bond. If you cannot pay the secondary audit fee immediately, your application will be transferred to the secondary review board, which takes fourteen business days."

Fourteen business days would destroy their timeline for Corwin’s debt.

Theo opened his mouth, clearly about to launch into an arrogant rant about his family lineage, but Rain stepped past him before he could utter a word.

Rain pulled out his phone, holding it over the counter’s payment scanner.

"Charge the six hundred audit fee and the five-thousand-credit performance bond to this account," Rain said calmly, his blue eyes holding the clerk’s gaze. "Process the immediate registration."

The clerk stared at him for a second, surprised by the absolute lack of hesitation from an F-rank cadet. She pressed the terminal interface against his phone screen.

[Transaction Confirmed: 5,600.00 Credits Transferred to Municipal Portal Authority]

[Remaining Account Balance: 19,020.00 Credits]

The clerk’s console flashed bright green as the payment cleared instantly. The skepticism vanished from her face, replaced by the swift, efficient professionalism reserved for clients with liquid capital.

"Payment verified," the clerk said, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard. "Bond deposited into escrow Account #4092. Safety compliance waivers acknowledged."

She picked up four dark silver metal plates from a drawer beneath the counter, tapped them against the master scanner to encode the registration data, and laid them out on the glass counter.

"Congratulations," the clerk said flatly. "You are officially registered as an Independent Rift Tactical Unit under Municipal License #881-B. Your clearance allows you to bid on public Class-D rift contracts within the greater metropolitan sector starting immediately."

Theo picked up his dark silver plate, inspecting the engraved numbers on the surface. He looked at Rain, his jaw twitching slightly as he realized Rain had just dropped over five thousand credits in two seconds without even consulting the rest of the team.

"Well," Nyra said, a proud, triumphant smile breaking across her face as she took her plate. "It’s official. We’re a legal team."

Peter held his silver plate with both hands, staring at it as if it were made of solid gold. "A legal license. We actually have a legal license."

"Don’t get sentimental," Theo grunted, slipping his plate into his tactical vest pocket, though he couldn’t hide the genuine satisfaction in his eyes. "We have the license. Now we need to pull a contract. I want a Class-D rift run scheduled for Saturday morning at the latest."

"I’ll monitor the municipal bidding board tonight," Nyra said, looking at Rain. "I’ll find us a high-yield Class-D breach in the secondary industrial sector."

"Sounds good," Rain said, slipping his plate into his pocket. He checked his phone. It was twelve-forty. "I have to head back to campus. I have a meeting at two o’clock at the athletics facility."

"A meeting?" Theo sneered slightly. "For what? You taking a remedial tutoring class?"

"Powerball," Rain said simply, turning toward the glass exit. "See you guys later."

Theo stared after him, his brow furrowed in utter confusion. "Powerball? The sport?"

Nyra just shook her head, a small laugh escaping her lips as she watched Rain walk out into the sunlight.