Chapter 505: Proving Grounds

The Proving Ground's staging area was unlike any dungeon space Bruce had entered before.

It was a wide, circular chamber constructed entirely from pale soul-stone. High walls rose toward a domed ceiling that emitted its own soft, even light, leaving no shadows anywhere in the room. There were no shelves, decorations, or unnecessary features. Everything about the chamber was deliberately plain.

At its center stood a single black stone pillar, waist-high, its surface smooth and polished.

Several arched doorways lined the perimeter, each leading to what Bruce assumed were individual session chambers. At the moment, every doorway was dark and inactive.

Only one soul occupied the staging area.

He was an older Awakened dressed in dark grey, with the composed, professional demeanor of someone who had spent years working in a training facility. He gave the three of them a polite nod as they entered.

"Welcome. First visit?"

"Yeah."

"I'll walk you through the process. Touch the pillar to select a session. It will present you with several options. Choose what you want, and the corresponding doorway will activate. Sessions begin as soon as you cross the threshold."

He gestured toward the black pillar.

"The pillar also tracks your performance across sessions and can provide recommendations if you want them."

Bruce nodded. "How specific are the simulations?"

"Very."

The attendant's expression remained calm.

"The Proving Ground has records of several thousand beast types across multiple ranks. If you've fought a particular beast before and want to practice against the same type, the simulation will be essentially identical. If you want to practice against something you've never encountered, the simulation will be based on our records."

He paused.

"Our records are reliable."

"Can we practice against beasts above our rank?"

"Yes, but the pillar will warn you before the session begins."

The attendant's expression became slightly more serious.

"The simulations are safe in the sense that they cannot truly kill you. However, if you fail badly enough, they can still damage your soul-body. Injuries sustained within the Proving Ground also heal more slowly than natural injuries."

He tapped one finger against the pillar. "The risk assessment is accurate. If the pillar tells you a session is dangerous, believe it."

"Understood. Thank you."

"Good training."

The attendant stepped aside.

Bruce approached the pillar and placed his palm against its polished surface.

A soft light immediately rose from within the stone.

Above the pillar, words formed in the same clear script used throughout the city.

[Single-Beast Practice.]

[Multi-Beast Practice.]

[Environmental Hazards.]

[Tactical Scenarios.]

[Party vs. Party.]

[Custom.]

Bruce studied the options.

He wanted to test several things today.

First, he wanted to practice the enhancement seals on Kael and Theron under controlled conditions. He needed to determine how long the seals actually lasted, how effective their range was, and how much their performance degraded during prolonged combat.

Second, he wanted to test first-principle writing against beasts stronger than those he had previously encountered. He needed to understand exactly how his writing scaled against stronger opponents.

Finally, he wanted to see how the three of them functioned as a party against encounters larger and more difficult than the battles they had faced so far.

They would eventually have to deal with D-rank threats.

It was better to discover their weaknesses here than in an actual dungeon.

"Multi-beast practice first," Bruce said. "Three groups. Increasing difficulty. We'll practice the enhancement seals and standard combat together."

"Agreed," Kael said.

"Let's do this," Theron added.

Bruce selected Multi-Beast Practice.

The pillar presented another set of options.

He configured the session for E-rank beasts, three successive groups, with the difficulty increasing from standard to challenging.

One of the doorways across the chamber suddenly activated, filling with pale light.

Bruce glanced at his companions. "Let's go."

The three of them stepped through.

The first group was a pack of flame-manes, nearly identical to the Deepwood packs they had fought the previous day.

Bruce had expected as much. He had specifically requested standard E-rank beasts for the opening encounter.

The fight went exactly as it should have.

Before the battle began, Bruce inscribed an enhancement seal onto Kael and another onto Theron.

This time, both of them accepted the seals without hesitation.

The glowing marks settled onto their forearms.

Their perception sharpened almost immediately.

The flame-manes charged.

The pack was eliminated in less than a minute.

The simulation was remarkably accurate. The flame-manes moved exactly as their real counterparts had. Their essence waves were absent—the Proving Ground did not reproduce that particular aspect—but everything else about their behavior was nearly identical.

Bruce paid more attention to the enhancement seals than the battle itself.

He tracked their duration carefully.

He had suspected they would last for an hour or two based on the manual's description, but he wanted an exact figure.

When the first battle ended, Kael's seal remained at full strength.

So did Theron's.

They crossed the training chamber—a broad expanse of neutral soul-stone designed solely to contain the simulations—and approached the next encounter area.

The second group materialized ahead of them.

Five Deepwood foxes. Two silverbark hounds.

The foxes were the perception-interfering variety Bruce had fought yesterday, while the silverbark hounds were solitary hunters. The combination was clearly designed to disrupt party coordination.

They engaged immediately..Theron's enhancement seal proved useful almost at once.

His scythe found openings in the foxes' movements with considerably greater accuracy than it had the previous day. He killed two foxes during his first exchange.

It was the first time Bruce had seen Theron display that level of pure reaper combat ability.

Kael's enhanced perception proved equally valuable.

His flames swept through wider arcs, catching foxes in positions they normally would have escaped from.

Bruce dealt with the silverbark hounds.

Several ink bullets struck the first, forcing it to change direction, while a single root seal caught the second hound and held it in place just long enough for Kael's fire-lance to punch through its chest.

The second battle ended roughly two minutes later.

Bruce checked the seals. Still active. Still at full strength.

"Good," he murmured.

They continued.

The third group was something Bruce had never encountered before.

A single large beast materialized in front of them.

It stood on four thick legs and was roughly the size of a draft horse. Stone-colored armor plates covered its body, overlapping from its shoulders to its hindquarters. Its head was thick and blunt, while two small, bright eyes watched the three of them with an intelligence noticeably greater than that of the previous beasts.

Its claws scraped against the simulated stone floor.

The sound was harsh enough to make Bruce's attention sharpen.

"Bruce," Kael said quietly. "What is that?"

"I don't know." Bruce studied the creature. "I didn't choose a specific species. The pillar selected a challenging E-rank beast at random."

The warning glyph had appeared when Bruce selected the difficulty.

He had seen it but continued anyway. He had wanted something difficult.

Now he had it. The beast suddenly charged.

Bruce's expression hardened. "Spread out!"

The creature crossed the distance almost instantly.

The battle lasted nearly ten minutes.

The beast was later identified by the pillar as a Stone-Plated Gorelocke, a species native to a dungeon Bruce had never visited.

It was fast.

Far faster than its size suggested.

Its armor was dense enough to deflect Bruce's ordinary ink bullets, while Kael's fire-lances needed sustained output to penetrate the stone plates. Theron's scythe could cut through the softer joints between the plates, but doing so required precision that the beast's constant movement made extremely difficult.

Bruce quickly realized that ordinary combat wasn't going to be enough.

So he tried something he had deliberately saved for a stronger opponent.

First-principle writing.

As the gorelocke lowered its head and charged, Bruce wrote a single word in the air.

'Stop.'

The word committed.

The invisible force struck the beast. For a brief instant, the gorelocke's entire body locked in place.

One second.

No more.

The effect was dramatically shorter than it would have been against a weaker target.

But one second was enough.

Kael thrust out his hand. A concentrated fire-lance erupted forward and punched through the armor covering the beast's shoulder.

The gorelocke roared and resumed its movement.

Bruce immediately followed with another word.

'Slow.'

The word committed. The beast's movements visibly deteriorated.

Not dramatically. But enough.

Theron stepped in. His scythe swept forward in a long, controlled arc and cut deeply into the joint behind the gorelocke's front leg.

The beast stumbled.

Bruce raised his hand again. 'Bind.'

The word struck the beast's hind legs. The seal held. For approximately two seconds.

But two seconds was enough.

Kael's next fire-lance tore through another armor plate and burned directly toward the creature's chest.

The gorelocke staggered. For the first time, it stopped attacking.

Its intelligence became obvious as it attempted to disengage, backing away from the three of them.

Theron didn't allow it. He closed the distance in two strides.

His scythe flashed. The blade tore through the beast's throat.

The gorelocke froze. Then its body dissolved into pale particles.

Silence settled over the simulated chamber.

Bruce, Kael, and Theron stood where they were, breathing heavily.

Kael wiped a hand across his forehead. "That was an actual fight."

"Yes," Bruce replied.

Kael looked toward the place where the beast had disappeared.

"The gorelocke wasn't a standard E-rank, was it?"

"No." Bruce shook his head. "That was high-E. Possibly bordering on D-rank."

Theron lowered his scythe and examined the blade.

"I used almost half my reserves in that fight."

"Me too."

Bruce looked down at his hand. The experience had confirmed something important.

"The first-principle words cost significantly more against resistant targets."

Theron looked at him.

"Because of the difference in rank?"

"Partly."

Bruce thought about what he had just experienced.

"The stronger the target, the more force my writing has to exert to impose the principle on them. Against weaker creatures, the words commit easily. Against stronger creatures, I'm effectively forcing the principle against their resistance."

He paused. "So yes. It's a scaling problem."

Kael frowned. "How bad does it get?"

"At D-rank and beyond, the cost will continue increasing."

Bruce glanced toward the empty chamber. "Eventually, I'll reach a point where the cost begins to fall again. If Yolen's explanation is correct, that should happen somewhere around S-rank."

Theron raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because that's when I stop writing against the realm and start writing with it."

Neither Kael nor Theron immediately answered.

Bruce continued. "Until then, the cost curve will be unfavorable."

Kael gave a quiet sigh. "That's a long way to go before the curve turns around."

"It is."

Bruce looked at his companions.

"Which is why I won't rely on first-principle writing for every fight."

He raised one hand and glanced at the enhancement seal still glowing faintly on his skin.

"The enhancement seals are far more efficient. I'll use them whenever they can accomplish what I need."

"And first-principle writing?"

Bruce's expression became serious.

"Only when a seal can't do the job."

A flat, administrative voice suddenly echoed through the chamber.

[Session complete.]

[Return to the staging area or continue to another session?]