Tao! That shit who called me a shit was named Tao.

  And what was he waiting for to recognise me until I took my armour off? We’d never met without it. We had a brief encounter in the Lightning Garden, and we didn’t even lift our face ptes. The bck-and-yellow armour was worn by every fifth person here. He wore bck-and-yellow himself.

  The emblem!

  I had the Bck Lotus emblem on my chest. He’d been standing behind me, so he wouldn’t have seen it until I stepped out onto the ptform and turned around. And by the time his rotted brain put two and two together, the machine had already dismantled and packed away my armour.

  Now that I recognised Tao, the yellow-blue and yellow-purple armours just behind him also looked familiar.

  I didn’t want to talk to that bastard. It wasn’t just that he was one stage higher, he was also surrounded by the same kind of cronies. Still, I had to speak. Preferably in a way that wouldn’t get me punched in the face or make me look like a weakling.

  I mirrored his finger-pointing gesture.

  "Rotten grandson of some big-shot!"

  Tao clenched his teeth and narrowed his already narrow eyes, making his face look like the mask of some angry African idol.

  I stepped off the ptform, trying to walk around him, but he shifted half a step to the side and blocked the way.

  “You lied to me,” he said, with the tone of someone stating a fact. “Said you couldn’t buy essence. And today I find out some girl’s trading an entire batch of M2. Just so happens to be that same Zhang you had such a lovely time with in the Lightning Garden.”

  Better and better...

  “She’s only got twenty ampoules of M2, and it’s Point essence,” I said. “Thought you were after Palm.”

  “So now you’re not denying you had the means to buy essence?”

  “Before I got here,” I replied. “Now you and I have the same means. We’re in Yellow Pine,” I reminded him, tugging at the emblem on my jumpsuit.

  “I don’t like your tone,” he said.

  He was trying to provoke me, but I wasn’t quite sure what he was hoping for. That I’d start a fight? Or piss myself and miraculously spawn that bloody essence for him?

  I just needed to get him angry enough, and get myself worked up too, for the system to register a potential conflict and summon the Order.

  “Oh really? Then I’ll take my tone elsewhere, somewhere it won’t bother you!” I said as sarcastically as I could manage.

  I tried to walk around him again, but he blocked me once more.

  “What the hell’s going on up there?!” someone barked from the back of the queue. “Move it!”

  “Wait your turn!” Tao snapped back sharply.

  But the one at the back didn’t seem easily intimidated. A bulky red-and-yellow suit of armour stepped out of the line. A massive sword hilt rose above the right shoulder, higher than the wearer’s head.

  My interface couldn’t lock onto this character’s data, Tao was blocking most of the view, but the voice came through with full confidence.

  “If someone don’t start moving, I’ll put someone’s eyeball where the sun don’t shine, so move it!”

  Tao turned around indignantly, but the words that came out of his mouth didn’t match his combative posture.

  “I... Apologies. Get undressed. Quickly,” he snapped at the nearby crony in yellow-and-blue armour.

  The crony obeyed at once and sprang onto the ptform, acting as if everything was perfectly normal. The queue began to move again, but Tao didn’t stop pestering me, and people kept listening in.

  “Don’t think I’m just going to let you walk away!” he said.

  “All right, that’s enough for me,” I said. “Can someone call the Order?” I asked loudly. I was already boiling inside, but I couldn’t see any of them.

  They don’t chase rats here. They just don’t!

  And right then, a notification floated in front of my eyes:

  Incoming call: S. D. Mendoza

  Accept / Decline

  There’s someone who never sleeps and always keeps her finger on the pulse. Clearly, the beacon had alerted her to my status.

  More and more, I was starting to think Soro had no one to bme but herself for her death. If she hadn’t gone charging in on her own and had asked her master for help, things might have turned out differently.

  I focused on the “Accept” button and activated it with my will, no hand-waving or drawing extra attention.

  “Status?” Mendoza asked.

  I didn’t answer her directly. She could hear everything through the beacon anyway.

  The red-and-yellow armoured one had already stepped out of the queue. The curve of his bde swept down past his hip, the tip disappearing somewhere behind his knee. The thing was massive. And to be honest, the guy reminded me of Johansson. They had a simir aura.

  “What’s all this commotion?” he asked grimly, closing the distance with purpose.

  My interface finally gave a readout: R. J. Walker, te Stage Four.

  Tao looked like a cat caught knocking over the vase.

  “Commotion? This isn’t a commotion, sir. I was merely trying to figure out why this Lotus fellow’s behaving so rudely, lying about money and trying to intimidate me with his connections. No respect at all for Yellow Pine, sir!”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “I was intimidating you with connections? Which ones exactly? Do remind me.”

  “Uhm... your family!”

  “Who’s this prick?” Mendoza asked.

  “I’m an orphan,” I replied, then added for her benefit, “Tao.”

  “Ah, him...” she sighed as Tao started jabbering again.

  “See? He’s a bloody liar!” the bastard said and jabbed me painfully in the ribs with an armoured finger.

  “I told you the truth from the very first meeting. Zhang was there, she’ll back me up.”

  “Well I’ve got witnesses too!” Tao chirped smugly, first pointing to the crony who’d already removed his armour, then to another. After a pause, he noticed the ptform was idle again and, with a gnce, ordered the st one to go get undressed.

  “Ah yes… completely objective, unbiased parties!” I shot back, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Shut your mouth,” Walker said to me.

  Tao beamed.

  “Yes! You’d better…”

  “Be silent!” the armoured man barked. “Step to the left!”

  Tao froze. I wasn’t entirely sure who the order was aimed at, but I followed it anyway. Either way, it gave me a chance to walk past the bastard.

  “Are you deaf, Tao?”

  “S-sir…”

  “You can ‘sir’ your grandfather! In ten minutes, you’ll be reporting to him about what happened here! Get on the ptform — now!” Walker ordered, though the maniputors were still handling the other crony. “Not holding you up, cadet,” he barked at me.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  Yeah, this cultivator had the same aggressive aura as Johansson, but without the friendliness. So I legged it before the situation could change again.

  I walked quickly, barely gncing at the floor. The surfaces here were even, and not much ever y around. I just wanted to put some distance between me and Tao. Judging by everything, once he undressed, he’d be heading off to see his granddad, which meant the metro. I was going down there too, and I wanted to get on a carriage before he made it to the ptform.

  One thought was spinning round and round in my head: how could a respectable man have such a degenerate for a grandson?

  Fifth stage. Hall of Order. Zhang had spoken of Master Chen as the epitome of discipline, honour, rigour, and uncompromising principles. A man who gave lectures on responsibility and morality personally. And this… this was the result? A walking firework dispy of nepotism in human form. And the worst part, no one was surprised.

  I tried to imagine Novak in the same situation.

  Impossible.

  First of all, I couldn’t picture Novak with a scker grandson like that. Senior disciples used to joke that Kate was his granddaughter. But between Kate and that, there was a chasm. Sure, Novak showed her some favouritism, but Kate would never behave like this. But he also let Lina talk too much.

  “Judging by the sounds, you’ve already moved away,” Mendoza said.

  “Yes, Master. Almost at the metro.”

  “Good. So I take it this was a chance encounter?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed.

  “All right,” she repeated. “Then let’s settle the mentorship question.

  “D. S. Wilson. Late Stage Four. Sword Master. Doesn’t just work with discs. Full curriculum — Point included. I’ll send you the coordinates to his training hall. Thirty hours already paid for.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Though, judging by Rene’s hall, standard sessions were two hours long. That meant Mendoza had enrolled me for fifteen days. “Group lessons?”

  “Kind of. You thought you were getting thirty hours of one-on-ones with titled master? Even I’d go broke!”

  “Just checking. Thank you, Master,” I said again.

  “Think nothing of it. Just keep your eyes open, in case. You’ll probably be doing individual work with one of his senior students first. There’s loads of them. The pce is basically an open-door dojo. So keep your beacon close, and keep us informed about anyone who approaches you.”

  “Acknowledged,” I said.

  On the one hand, it looked like I was being used as bait again. On the other, I needed a training hall anyway. Halls were open to visitors, someone could’ve approached me even in a small hall. Hard to say what was worse, a dead-end or a crowded space.

  Mendoza wished me luck and disconnected, and I decided to change course. It was lunchtime, so I was going to head back to the dorm and heat up something pre-made. Then again, the hall’s location marker was retively close — not far from a metro station and a cafe Soro had once shown me.

  Turning it all over in my mind, I called Zhang.

  She picked up almost immediately.

  “Well?” she asked, skipping any greeting.

  I took a deep breath and exaggerated my compint:

  “Your loose tongue nearly got me killed. Tao almost tore me to shreds. Came at me over that essence trade of yours.”

  “Which I am doing,” she confirmed. “And I can’t exactly do it in secret. It needs advertising.”

  “So now I’ve got a mortal enemy thanks to a failed marketing campaign?”

  “Mortal enemy? Don’t be dramatic. I wish I had an enemy like that! I told you, his granddad pays handsomely to clean up after his messes. And judging by how you sound, he didn’t even give you a proper beating. Couldn’t provoke him better?”

  “They pulled us apart before I even had time to mention his mum,” I joked.

  “Careful with that!” Zhang warned. “His mother’s Master Chen’s daughter. Better not mention her at all. But the father — feel free. The old man can’t stand him.”

  “This is definitely a cultivator academy and not a soap opera, right?”

  “Big families don’t come without big drama.”

  “Chen’s a big family?”

  “Well, the family itself isn’t huge, Chen never had a son, but the old man’s Fifth Stage. There are only a few hundred like him. That carries weight.”

  “Weight his bratty grandson’s happy to throw around.”

  “Exactly. Just think of him as a zit on your backside. Painful, annoying, but not deadly. And by the way, my marketing strategy is doing just fine. I’ve almost traded everything. And I’ve got a request in for Wood.”

  “Nice! I was going to invite you to that cafe, but in that case, why don’t we meet at mine? I’ll cook something. We can swap ampoules while we’re at it.”

  “You mean you’ll defrost some ready-made meal and pour me a gss of that disgusting brew?”

  “And then we’ll go wild, madly and passionately counting ampoules and dividing the profits. Tell me that’s not romantic.”

  “My dream date!” Zhang snorted.

  MaksymPachesiuk