September 2027, Earth

  Leo's summer break passed by pretty quickly.

  He ended up skipping the last few weeks of class after the high school playoffs. Everyone kept shoving random things at him to sign or pestering him with questions about Yuna.

  Yuna herself seemed to have disappeared from his life as quickly as she had reappeared. She never messaged him again, and he felt too awkward to initiate a conversation.

  He had no idea what that girl wanted.

  So he ended up staying at home and bumming around.

  His parents were obviously very curious about this Yuna girl, but Leo just told them she was just mooching off his fame. They ended up telling him he was too good for her and to ignore that silly distraction.

  Cultivating and Lifebonding made his days fly by fast. The mindless rhythmic sense of progress made the hours and months blur together.

  His father was very interested in his lifebound flying sword.

  Guys in this world were obsessed with toys like spiritual flying cars and weapons. But a lifebound flying sword held a special place in everyone's heart. After all, it gave you the ability to fly under your own power and represented the pinnacle of personal combat capability.

  The flying sword was a work of art. Obsidian steel composite formed the core, T2 material bonded seamlessly with T3 formation substrate. The result was midnight black metal shot through with purple veins, each one a formation channel etched into the darkness.

  The blade caught the light in ways that seemed almost alive, the purple veins pulsing faintly whenever Leo connected to it.

  But the true beauty lay on the inside. Although he couldn't fully understand the technical details, the Lifebonding process made him intimately aware of his sword's inner workings. Using advanced material technology, the masters had managed to add formations inside the blade itself.

  He speculated that the g-force bleeding formation and the divine sense recovery network were too high end to be engraved on T2 material alone, so they had to incorporate a mix of T3 to handle the formation load.

  His father helped him come up with a name for the sword. Moonrider.

  "You know," his father said, turning the blade over in his hands, "I always told myself I'd get around to Lifebonding eventually."

  Leo sat across from him at the kitchen table, watching his dad examine the purple veins running through the dark metal.

  "What happened?"

  His father shrugged. "Life. Work. Your mother and I were saving for the house, then saving for you, then I made partner and suddenly I was working eighty hour weeks." He traced one of the formation channels with his finger.

  "Every year I'd look at the new models and think, maybe next year. And then the next year's specs would be even better, so I'd tell myself I didn't really miss out on anything."

  He handed the sword back to Leo.

  "The swords just keep getting better. When I was your age, a Nascent Soul power level sword would have cost a fortune. Now it's standard issue for NFL athletes." He smiled, a little wistfully.

  "So I never felt too bad about it. Always figured I'd have time later."

  "I'll buy you one," Leo said. "Once I get drafted by the NFL. Forget the Eclipse. I'll get you the La Ferrari Monza."

  His father laughed. "The Monza? That's twelve million dollars, Leo."

  "T3 flying sword with T5 forbidden formations," Leo said, grinning. "You'd look good on it."

  "I'd have to advance to Gold Core just to use the thing."

  "So advance to Gold Core."

  His father leaned back in his chair, still chuckling. "You know what? If you get drafted by the NFL, your mother and I will both advance to Gold Core. We've been putting it off for years, saving money for your future." He reached over and ruffled Leo's hair.

  "If you make it to the league, we won't have to worry about that anymore. We can finally spend some of that cultivation fund on ourselves."

  Leo ducked away from his father's hand, but he was smiling.

  "Deal," he said.

  —

  Leo finished his lifebonding with his flying sword around mid-September, and immediately set off, eager to try it out.

  The flight from home had given him too much time to think. Leo had too much stuff to chew on. He felt like he had been exposed to too many unanswered questions. Too many decisions. Things he wasn't ready to handle.

  When the familiar sight of the Yale Bulldogs training complex came into view below, something in his chest loosened. The forty acres of warded ground spread beneath him like his private estate, and he once again came back to the place he spent the better part of last year.

  As painful as training was last year, at least he didn't need to think. He just had to endure. And to be honest, some simple goals were exactly what he needed.

  Wind rushed past his face as he descended, and he slipped his Moonrider back into his dantian as soon as he got off. It felt like coming home.

  Coach Marcus Williams stood at the entrance to the strength and conditioning center, arms crossed over his Yale athletics jacket. His eyes tracked Leo's descent with professional assessment.

  "She's treating you well," Williams called out as Leo walked over.

  "I love her." Leo couldn't keep the grin off his face. "Named her Moonrider."

  Williams nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

  "You're going to look great with it on the field. Sponsors will be chasing you by week two."

  Leo hadn't considered that angle. He filed it away for later.

  "Dr. Reyes is expecting you," Williams continued, already turning back toward his office. "Don't keep her waiting."

  The walk to the conditioning wing gave Leo time to think about the problem he'd been avoiding. His spiritual root had grown by forty points since his last assessment. A jump that would raise questions from anyone paying attention.

  He couldn't explain that. Wouldn't explain that.

  Dr. Reyes looked up as he entered her office.

  "Leo. Good to see you back." Her clinical tone carried a warmth underneath. "We have a lot of work ahead."

  Leo took a breath. Straightforward, then.

  "I need to tell you something. My spiritual root has grown. Significantly." He met her eyes. "How it happened is something I can't share."

  Reyes studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded, unsurprised.

  "Everyone has their secrets," she said, turning to pull up his file on a projection talisman. "Most of the starters in the Collegiate League have had some opportunity or another. What matters is what you do with it."

  She gestured to the assessment platform.

  "Now. Let's see what we're working with."

  The holographic figure cycled through its familiar sequence. Squats, lunges, lateral shuffles, explosive jumps. Leo moved through each prompt with fluid precision, his body remembering the movements he had repeated every week last year.

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  When the sequence finished, Reyes studied the projection floating above her control talisman. Numbers cascaded down in columns of soft blue light.

  "Your divine sense has grown well." She tapped a figure on the display.

  "6305 Si. Even greater growth than the amount we projected last season."

  Leo allowed himself a small smile. The discipline of maintaining fifteen-hour divine press cycles, nearly every day since March, had paid off.

  Reyes swiped to the next screen and paused. Her eyebrows rose by a fraction of an inch.

  "Let's see here." She read aloud, her voice carefully neutral. "Spiritual Roots: 25 Wood, 15 Fire, 26 Earth, 13 Metal, 61 Water."

  Leo stood a little straighter. He had earned that 61. Literally died for it.

  "That Water root is exceptional," Reyes said, turning to face him fully. Her clinical mask softened.

  "Whatever opportunity found you, it found you well." She gave him a rare wink. "Your secret stays in this room."

  "Thank you."

  Reyes pulled up a new display, two training regimens side by side.

  "This changes your options. I can design a Water-focused program that maximizes your strongest element. You would see faster gains in water-aligned techniques, water-based recovery, water-aspect conditioning."

  She gestured to the second column. "Or we continue with holistic five-element training. A little faster progress across the board due to your improvement in spiritual roots, but balanced development."

  Leo considered for only a moment.

  "Holistic," he said. "I might have more opportunities in the future."

  Reyes smiled, a genuine expression that crinkled the corners of her eyes.

  "Smart." She closed the display and leaned back against her desk, arms folded. "If you ever launch an expedition to explore the catacombs in the future, I want in."

  Leo laughed. "Deal."

  Reyes smirked. "It was a joke. You can't afford my salary. Go report to training field two and gear up, Harrison is already getting ready to spar."

  ---

  Leo pulled on his practice jersey, smoothing the fabric across his chest. The deep Yale blue felt noticeably more powerful than his high school stuff. He ran his fingers along the reinforced seams where defensive formations lay dormant, waiting to activate upon impact.

  And there it was, number 17.

  He had picked it for a simple reason. This season, at seventeen years old, he intended to win a college championship. The number would serve as a reminder every time he suited up.

  Training Field 2 sprawled before him as he emerged from the locker room. The field stretched two hundred meters in each direction, formation pylons humming with dormant energy at regular intervals. The fort structures rose at opposite ends, their bunker positions and defensive walls casting long shadows across the artificial turf.

  Harrison Rockefeller stood near the center of the field, already armored. The competition gear hugged his tall frame, the Yale bulldog emblazoned across his chest plate in silver thread that caught the light. His great sword hung across his back, the blade's edge shimmering.

  Harry turned at the sound of Leo's approach. His classically handsome features arranged themselves into something approaching sheepishness.

  "Hey." Harry raised a hand in greeting.

  "Look, I wanted to apologize. For kind of pressuring you into this."

  Leo tilted his head. "Pressuring me?"

  "Coach Williams told me to challenge you. Said he wanted to see what you could do against a Flyer." Harry's jaw tightened. "I'm really not looking forward to getting my ass beat, for the record."

  Leo stopped walking. A grin spread across his face.

  "What do you mean?"

  Harry stared at him like he had grown a second head.

  "I mean I watched your match against Mateo Thandril. The full unclassified VR version." He shook his head slowly.

  "That video is insane, Leo. Absolutely insane. And most of the internet commentators don't even realize they're watching a four times slowed version."

  Leo felt his grin widen.

  "So. Are there going to be any more monsters like that this season?"

  Harry's expression shifted. He couldn't meet Leo's eyes.

  "Mateo is at Harvard now. He broke through to Foundation Establishment soon after your match."

  "That's not fair," Leo said. He meant it to sound light, joking. It came out flat.

  "Literal gods should be prohibited from playing."

  Harry pointed at him. "You have six thousand Si. Most people would trade divine blood for that kind of divine sense."

  Leo laughed despite himself. The sound echoed across the empty training field. "Fair point."

  But the laughter faded quickly. He looked at Harry, really looked at him. The Rockefeller heir stood with easy confidence, his posture relaxed, his equipment pristine. And even he seemed worried.

  "How do we win the championship?" Leo asked. "If a literal divine child is on the world's best College Team?"

  Harry's expression changed. The worry melted away, replaced by something harder. Something that looked almost like hunger.

  "This time you're not fighting alone." He stepped forward, clapping a hand on Leo's shoulder. "If it comes down to it, we make it five on one. We can beat him together."

  Leo took a look at Harry's face. Harry seemed unconvinced himself saying it.

  "Or we can beat him on points. I heard he's playing soldier." Harry helpfully offered.

  Leo reached for his helmet, lifting it from under his arm. He settled it over his head, feeling the internal padding conform to his skull, the formation arrays activating with a soft hum. Through the visor, the training field sharpened into crystalline focus.

  "I'll be counting on you guys this year," he said.

  Harry's flying sword hummed beneath his feet as he rose into the air. The great sword slid from his back, settling into a two-handed grip that spoke of years of drilling. Spiritual energy gathered around the blade, dense and heavy, warping the light around its edge.

  Leo called Moonrider with a thought.

  The Peak Tier Three weapon shot from his dantian, its obsidian material drinking in the sun. Leo rose to match Harry's altitude. Fifty meters. A hundred. The training field shrank beneath them, the fort structures becoming toys, the formation pylons becoming pins in a map.

  "Ready when you are," Harry called across the distance.

  Leo closed his eyes. Extended his divine sense in an omnidirectional sphere. The world bloomed into three-dimensional awareness.

  He opened his eyes. Grinned behind his helmet.

  Then he moved.

  Moonrider screamed through the air. The g-force bleeding formations activated instantly, drinking the brutal acceleration that should have crushed his organs against his spine.

  Leo laughed.

  Pure, unfiltered joy bubbling up from somewhere deep. He carved a diagonal line across the sky, reversing direction at an angle that would have snapped an unprotected neck. The formations sang with discharged energy, converting lethal force into a wake that trailed behind him like a comet's tail.

  Up.

  He pulled vertical. Straight vertical. The kind of climb that used to knock him out instantly. The formations drank and drank, and Leo kept climbing, kept accelerating, kept grinning beneath his helmet.

  Harry barely got his great sword up in time when Leo came plummeting back down.

  The clash rang across the training field. Leo was already gone, corkscrewing away, testing, playing. He dove toward the ground at a seventy-degree angle, pulled out at the last possible moment, felt the formations strain and hold, then rocketed skyward again in a perfect vertical V.

  "What the hell," Harry grunted, deflecting another strike that came from directly above. Gravity spell arts flared around his blade, trying to lock Leo's position, trying to create a zone of increased weight that would slow the assault.

  Leo punched through it. The formations on his uniform flared, bleeding off the gravitational pressure. He spun Moonrider beneath his feet, executing a vertical climb that should have been impossible, and dove straight down at Harry's exposed back.

  The strike connected. Leo felt the impact through Moonrider's blade, the satisfying resistance of metal meeting metal. But he pulled back at the last instant, bleeding momentum from the blow, turning what would have been a devastating hit into a tap.

  Harry's armor flashed yellow anyway. A registered strike.

  "Shit!" Harry tumbled forward through the air, his great sword swinging wild as he fought to recover. His flying sword wobbled beneath him, responding to his sudden loss of balance. For three heartbeats he spun, arms pinwheeling, gravity spell arts firing in desperate bursts to stabilize his orientation.

  Leo held position, watching. Waiting.

  Harry finally righted himself, chest heaving, great sword raised in a guard that protected nothing. His visor turned toward Leo.

  "You pulled that hit."

  "I have more things I wanted to try."

  Harry glowered.

  Leo pulled his lifebound lightsaber from dantian. The weapon ignited, humming with contained energy, and began orbiting his body in wild patterns. It spun around his torso, swept past his shoulders, darted toward Harry's blind spots while Leo pressed the frontal assault with Moonrider.

  Harry tried an area technique. His great sword swept in a massive horizontal arc, spiritual energy exploding outward in an expanding crescent of cutting force.

  Leo was above it. Below it. Behind Harry before the technique finished resolving.

  The duel devolved. Harry stopped attacking entirely, his great sword becoming a desperate shield against the lightning storm of strikes coming from every conceivable angle. He spun, blocked, adjusted, and Leo was already somewhere else.

  The third-person perspective made it trivial. Leo could see Harry's weight shifting before Harry knew he was moving. Could read the intention in his spiritual energy before it became action.

  The lightsaber caught Harry across the back. The armor registered a hit, flashing yellow.

  Leo didn't let up. He pressed harder, Moonrider singing, lightsaber spinning, his body executing maneuvers that treated vertical and horizontal as equally comfortable planes of movement.

  ---

  Alessandra Medici leaned against the observation railing, her dark hair pulled back in a practical ponytail. Beside her, James Park-Sinclair watched the aerial display with a quiet focus.

  "Well," Ellie said. Her voice carried a strange mixture of admiration and something else. Something calculating.

  "That's certainly something."

  Above them, Leo executed a rolling strike that forced Harry to block with the flat of his blade, the impact driving the Rockefeller heir back three meters through the air.

  "Think we can actually win the collegiate national championship this year now that he's on the roster?" Jimbo asked, leaning on his greatbow.

  "Look at him." Ellie tilted her head back, watching Leo cut across the practice field. His body snapped between positions like something broken and reassembled mid-flight, each angle violent and precise and somehow beautiful. "He's absurd."

  "Would it look bad if I took a stab at him?"

  Jimbo turned to look at her. His expression remained neutral, but something flickered in his eyes.

  "You know full well that Kim Yuna has claims on him."

  Ellie pouted, making her look younger, more petulant.

  "Samsung has lots of heirs. Kim Yuna? Puh-leeze."

  "She's the old ancestor's favorite."

  "So?" Ellie waved a dismissive hand. "As long as we end up on the same team in the catacombs, anything can be overcome. I'll save his life. He'll fall for me. Happens all the time in the dramas."

  She pressed a hand to her heart, affecting a dreamy sigh.

  "A useful lieutenant is way better than some far-away sugar momma."

  Jimbo raised one finger and pointed at the figures in the sky.

  Leo had just executed a maneuver that involved stopping dead in mid-air, letting Harry's desperate counterattack sail past, and then striking from two directions simultaneously with his flying sword and his lightsaber.

  Harry's armor lit up from both sides.

  "You seriously think," Jimbo said slowly, "that you can save his life?"

  Ellie's pout turned into a scowl. She punched Jimbo in the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince despite his cultivation.

  "You shouldn't stomp on little girls' dreams."

  "Compared to Leo," Jimbo said, rubbing his shoulder, "you're practically ancient."

  Ellie punched him again. Harder.