Chapter 54: Sparring With Amber

Evren dismissed his Frost-Bane Cleaver back into his spatial ring, walked over to the weapon rack and picked up a broad-bladed wooden practice sword.

Amber loosened her wrists, and her wooden practice saber clicked against the courtyard stone.

"Raise your guard," she instructed, her voice turning into that of a seasoned squad commander. "And don’t look at my blade. Look at my shoulders. The blade only goes where the body sends it."

Evren took a deep breath. He held the heavy wooden blade in both hands, widening his feet and lowering his center of gravity.

"Ready," Evren said.

Amber stepped forward in a blur, her wooden practice sword darting straight for his right ribs.

Evren reacted on pure instinct. He swung his sword down with massive force to swat hers away.

But his blade cut through empty air.

Amber had already shifted her weight to her back foot, letting his clumsy downward swing carry his upper body forward.

Before Evren could recover his balance, Amber stepped inside his reach. She lightly tapped the side of his wrist with the flat of her wooden saber, while her left palm pressed firmly against his chest. At the same time, her right foot hooked behind his ankle.

Evren stumbled backward, his boots scraping across the courtyard until his back hit a stone pillar.

Amber lowered her wooden saber with a teasing smile on her lips.

"Point one to the teacher," she chuckled. "You’re still fighting like a sledgehammer, Evren. You have enough raw strength to punch through a mountain, but if you miss, your entire chest is wide open."

Evren rubbed his ribs and shook his head with a laugh. "You’re fast."

"I’m not fast," Amber said, walking over to him. "You’re just telling me where you’re going to strike before you even move your hands."

She didn’t keep her distance this time.

Amber stepped right up against his side, reaching her arms around him to manually fix his posture.

Her warm hands pressed firmly against his sides to straighten his spine. She rested one hand against his lower abdomen and used the other to pull his right shoulder back into line.

Evren could feel the warmth radiating from her skin and the sweet scent of jasmine in her dark hair.

"Feel that?" Amber murmured, looking up into his eyes. Her dark eyes were soft, filled with complete trust and fond affection. "Your core has to stay locked. When an enemy attacks, you don’t brace like a wall to take the impact. You let their momentum slide off you, then you take their balance."

Evren looked down at her close face, smiling faintly. "Show me."

Amber stepped back three paces and raised her wooden saber again.

"Watch my hips," Amber said.

She lunged forward, thrusting her practice blade straight toward his collarbone at medium speed.

This time, Evren didn’t swing like an axe. He kept his core tight, slid his left foot half a step to the side, and tilted the flat spine of his wooden sword at an angle.

Amber’s wooden saber glided harmlessly along the smooth oak of his practice blade, missing his neck by two inches.

In that exact split second, Evren turned his hips, stepped inside her guard, and gently wrapped his free left arm around Amber’s waist, halting her forward momentum.

They stood chest to chest in the middle of the courtyard, breathing softly in the evening air.

Amber looked up at his face, slightly surprised, before a bright, breathless smile spread across her lips. "Now that," she whispered, resting her palm against his chest, "was a real parry."

Evren chuckled softly, resting his hand comfortably on the curve of her waist. "Good teacher."

"Don’t get cocky," Amber teased, lightly tapping his chest with her knuckles. "That was only half-speed. We have fifty more repetitions before dinner."

Up on the third-floor terrace, the cool mountain breeze rustled the leaves of the stone planters.

Zephyra stood quietly by the stone railing, looking down at the two of them in the courtyard. The RX-9 medical droid hovered silently two paces behind her on its magnetic tracks.

Zephyra’s violet eyes watched Evren and Amber laugh together as they reset their stances.

In the dark fighting pits of Arena #9, physical strength had always been paired with cruelty, electric shock collars, and bloody screams. The strong ruled by crushing the weak into submission.

She had never seen an S-Rank fighter use this level of power with such calm patience and gentle warmth.

Zephyra looked down at her own steady hands, feeling an unfamiliar warmth settle in her chest.

—

The following morning, sunlight streamed across the mahogany desk in the study.

Evren and Amber were sitting together, enjoying a breakfast of warm pastries and fresh coffee, when a firm knock sounded on the door.

"Come in," Evren called out.

Mikay walked into the study, wearing a clean charcoal suit and carrying a slim tablet under his arm.

"Morning, Boss. Morning, Vice-Chairman," Mikay smiled, taking a seat across from them. "I have the full morning report on Sector One and Sector Four."

"How are the mines running?" Evren asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Better than expected," Mikay said, tapping his tablet. "That fifteen million dollar wire transfer cleared the site account yesterday afternoon. Garon already placed the orders for ten heavy laser-drill rigs, and the ventilation contractors are arriving at noon."

Mikay turned the screen toward Evren.

"As soon as the miners heard about the thirty percent wage raise and the eight-hour shift cap, morale went through the roof. Daily ore extraction is already up fifteen percent since yesterday. The men are working with actual pride."

"Good," Evren nodded with satisfaction. "Treat people right, and the results follow. What about the smelting foundries I asked you to look into?"

Mikay’s smile turned confident.

"There are four major smelting plants in Sector Four," Mikay explained. "Prescott owns the largest one, which controls seventy percent of the city’s smelting capacity. That was the foundry they used to pause our ore processing contracts."

Mikay tapped the screen, bringing up two company profiles with official evaluation stamps.

"The other two independent foundries are owned by veteran smelters who were on the verge of bankruptcy because Prescott kept undercutting their prices. I met with both owners late last night."

"What are their terms?" Evren asked.

"The first facility, Iron-Spire Smelting, has four operational blast furnaces and a dedicated rail spur," Mikay said. "The owner agreed to sell the entire plant, land deed, and equipment for fourteen million dollars. The second one, Vulcan Refineries, is slightly older with two blast furnaces and a raw ore yard. He’s asking eleven million."

"Twenty-five million total," Amber calculated, looking at the specs. "That should be more than enough capacity to smelt every ounce of ore coming out of Sector One."

"Exactly," Mikay nodded, sliding the tablet over to Evren. "I have the preliminary purchase agreements drawn up and verified by our legal team. The wire transfer is queued up in our escrow portal, just pending your final authorization, Boss. Once you sign off, I’ll submit the deeds to the Commerce Bureau and have the ownership transferred by this afternoon."

Evren picked up his phone, opened his Apex VIP banking app, and scanned the encrypted escrow QR code on the tablet.

He approved the transaction using his fingerprint and a soft chime sounded from his phone as the app processed the transfer.

The screen refreshed, displaying his updated master account overview and recent transaction history:

[Apex VIP Master Account]

Available Balance: $1,365,047,542.50 USD

Recent Transactions:

- 25,000,000.00 USD | Commercial Escrow — Iron-Spire and Vulcan Refineries (Today)

- 15,000,000.00 USD | Sector 1 Mining Infrastructure and Wage Reserve (Yesterday)

On Mikay’s tablet, the escrow portal flashed green with verified proof of payment.

"Funds cleared," Evren said, locking his phone and setting it on the desk. "Finalize the deeds, take over the keys, and have our engineering team start upgrading their furnaces today. Make sure all the smelting workers keep their jobs, with the same safety standards and thirty percent wage bumps as our miners."

"Right away, Boss," Mikay beamed. "What about the fourth plant?"

"The fourth plant has an exclusive contract with Prescott that expires in twenty-eight days," Mikay added. "The owner told me that once it ends, he won’t renew with Prescott. He wants to work with us instead."

"Tell him we’ll be waiting with an offer the day his contract expires," Evren smiled.

Lord Alistair Prescott had thought he could choke Apex into submission by blocking their Sector One ore from being smelted. He thought wealth without infrastructure was a castle built on sand.

Now, Apex owned its own smelting infrastructure.

Every single pound of raw mana crystal dug out of Sector One would be processed in Apex’s own furnaces, refined by Apex’s own workers, and sold under Apex’s own name.

Evren looked out the large glass window toward the city skyline.

Veridia was completely secure. The mines were producing, the foundries were burning, and the guild was thriving.

Tomorrow morning, they would set out for the Imperial Capital.