Chapter 17: Competition Day
The waiting room smelled of ozone, nervous sweat, and the cheap, sugary scent of synthetic energy drinks. It was a holding pen for cattle, albeit cattle with six-figure cybernetic augmentations.
Su Yuan sat on a metal bench bolted to the floor. He was the only one not pacing.
To his left, a boy from the Cybernetics Department was hyperventilating while his optical implant cycled through colors—red, amber, red again. To his right, a girl with a family crest embroidered on her silk combat gi was sharpening a dagger that didn't need sharpening, the sound a rhythmic *shhhk, shhhk* that grated on the nerves.
Su Yuan closed his eyes.
Inside his skull, the Logic-Core hummed. It was a cool, sterile sensation, like pressing a forehead against a windowpane in winter.
**[ Current Physiological Status: Nominal. ]**
**[ Heart Rate: 58 BPM. ]**
**[ Cortisol Levels: Suppressed. ]**
The panic of the room washed over him but found no purchase. The implant Wei had drilled into his mastoid bone acted as a breakwater, shattering the waves of emotion before they could touch his reasoning. He didn't feel fear. He processed the probability of injury (24%) and the likelihood of victory (88%).
He checked the network.
**[ Active Nodes: 2,145. ]**
**[ Total Available Computation: 14% of Sector Grid Capacity. ]**
They were watching. Not through the cameras—Lin would catch that—but through the connection. Two thousand souls in the slums, the factories, and the dorms were subconsciously tuned to his frequency. They didn't know *what* they were watching, only that the "System" in their heads was buzzing with anticipation.
Su Yuan was the server. Today, he was running a live demo.
"Cadet Su Yuan."
The voice came from the doorway. A proctor, holding a datapad, looking bored.
"You're up. Bracket C. Match 4."
Su Yuan stood. He adjusted his standard-issue grey fatigues. They were loose, unarmored, and looked like pajamas compared to the carbon-fiber weave the other students wore.
"Good luck, trash," the girl with the dagger whispered as he passed. She didn't look up from her blade.
Su Yuan paused. The Logic-Core analyzed the comment.
*Intent: Intimidation.*
*Value: Null.*
He kept walking.
***
The Arena was a cavernous dome of steel and reinforced glass, designed to amplify sound. The roar of the student body hit Su Yuan the moment he stepped out of the tunnel. It was a physical wall of noise—jeers, whistles, the stomping of boots on metal bleachers.
High above, in the VIP boxes, the faculty and the corporate scouts sat behind soundproof glass, sipping tea. They were the buyers; the students in the pit were the product.
Su Yuan walked to the center of the ring. The floor was hard-packed synthetic earth, scuffed from the previous matches.
"Opponent entering," the announcer's voice boomed over the PA, distorted by feedback. "From the Heavy Ordnance Division... Zhu 'The Bastion' Hong!"
The opposite gate hissed open.
The ground shook. Literally.
Zhu Hong didn't walk; he stomped. He was wearing a Class-C 'Ironclad' exoskeleton. It was an industrial-grade rig, yellow paint chipping off the massive hydraulic shoulders, re-purposed from deep-sea mining to skull-crushing. The servos whined with a high-pitched keen every time he moved a limb.
Zhu wasn't just a student; he was a walking tank. His face was visible through the open visor—wide, fleshy, and split by a grin that suggested he enjoyed hurting things smaller than him.
The crowd went wild. They loved the tanks. They loved the crunch.
Su Yuan looked small standing there. A twig facing a bulldozer.
"Begin!" the referee shouted, scrambling up a safety ladder to get out of the blast radius.
Zhu Hong didn't waste time with a bow. He vented steam from his shoulder ports and charged.
It wasn't a run; it was an avalanche. The exoskeleton weighed half a ton. Momentum alone would turn Su Yuan into paste if he connected.
**[ Threat Analysis: Kinetic Impact. ]**
**[ Velocity: 8.4 meters/second. ]**
**[ Recommended Counter: Dodge. ]**
*Too simple,* Su Yuan thought.
If he dodged cleanly, they would see the skill. If he moved like water, Lin—watching from her hawk's nest above—would confirm he was the Black Tortoise spy.
He had to be garbage. He had to be the lucky cripple.
Zhu was five meters away. Four. The massive hydraulic fist pulled back, preparing to piston forward.
Su Yuan waited.
The Logic-Core counted down the milliseconds. *3... 2... 1...*
Zhu punched. The air pressure alone ruffled Su Yuan's hair.
Su Yuan didn't step aside. He tripped.
He let his left knee buckle completely, collapsing his center of gravity. To the audience, it looked like terror—like his legs had turned to jelly. He fell backward, flailing his arms in a panic.
The hydraulic fist occupied the space where his chest had been a microsecond prior. The wind of the passing blow slapped his face.
"Whoa!" The crowd gasped, half-laughing.
Su Yuan hit the dirt hard. He rolled, scrambling on all fours like a frightened crab.
"Stand still, rat!" Zhu roared, turning the massive suit. The servos screamed. He raised a steel-plated boot to stomp Su Yuan into the dirt.
Su Yuan scrambled back, kicking up dust. He looked pathetic. He looked desperate.
But his eyes were clear. Behind the veneer of panic, the Genesis Protocol was overlaying a blueprint on the yellow armor.
**[ Schematic: Ironclad Mark IV. ]**
**[ Weakness Detected: Thermal Exhaust Port, lumbar region. ]**
**[ Status: Active venting. ]**
The suit generated massive heat. To keep the pilot from boiling, the vents on the back had to cycle air every twelve seconds.
Zhu stomped. The earth cracked where his boot landed, missing Su Yuan's fingers by an inch.
Su Yuan yelped—a convincing, high-pitched sound—and rolled between the mech's legs.
"Get back here!" Zhu tried to turn, but the heavy armor had a turning radius of a small truck. He had to pivot his hips, planting his feet to rotate the chassis.
*Now.*
Su Yuan was behind him. He was still on the ground, looking like he was trying to crawl away.
He pushed himself up, feigning a stumble, his hand flailing out as if to catch his balance against the back of the mech.
It looked like a clumsy slap. A desperate attempt to find purchase.
**[ Skill Activation: Primary Shockwave Fighting Technique. ]**
**[ Output: Focused. Needle-point. ]**
**[ Source: 23 Soul Units borrowed from User: Blacksmith_04. ]**
Su Yuan's palm made contact with the heat vent.
He didn't push. He pulsed.
He sent a compressed spike of vibration directly into the intake fan.
The *Shockwave* technique was usually a blunt instrument, a shotgun blast of air. But guided by the Logic-Core, Su Yuan turned it into a scalpel. The vibration hit the fan blades spinning at 4,000 RPM.
*Ping.*
It was a small sound, lost in the roar of the crowd. The sound of a ceramic bearing shattering.
The fan wobbled. At that speed, a wobble was catastrophic. The blades clipped the housing, shattered, and jammed the exhaust port.
Su Yuan fell back into the dirt, covering his head, looking for all the world like he was waiting to die.
Zhu Hong finished his turn, raising both fists for a hammer blow. "Goodnight, trash!"
The fists came down.
Then stopped.
A siren shrieked from the suit. A gout of black smoke belched from the lumbar vent, followed instantly by a hiss of emergency coolant dumping into the core.
**[ WARNING: CORE TEMPERATURE CRITICAL. ]**
**[ AUTOMATED SHUTDOWN INITIATED. ]**
The suit froze. The hydraulics locked up. Zhu Hong was trapped in a two-ton statue of yellow metal, his arms raised in a victory pose he couldn't finish.
"What?" Zhu shouted, his voice muffled. "Move! Damn it, move!"
The cockpit heated up. Fast.
Su Yuan lay on the ground, peeking through his fingers.
Ten seconds later, the emergency release popped. The chassis hissed open, and Zhu Hong tumbled out, red-faced, sweating profusely, and retching from heatstroke. He hit the ground and didn't get up.
The Arena went silent.
The referee blinked. He looked at the frozen mech, then at the vomiting pilot, then at the skinny boy lying in the dust.
"Winner... by technical malfunction... Su Yuan!"
The boos started immediately.
"Bullshit!"
"Fix the damn gear!"
"He didn't even touch him! He just fell over!"
Debris rained down from the stands—empty cups, wrappers. Su Yuan stood up slowly, dusting off his knees. He hunched his shoulders, looking sheepish, playing the part of the bewildered lottery winner.
He walked toward the exit tunnel, head down.
But as he passed under the VIP box, he risked a single glance upward.
Instructor Lin was standing at the glass. She wasn't booing. She wasn't drinking tea.
She was perfectly still, her grey eyes locked on him. She wasn't looking at his face. She was looking at his hands.
*She saw it,* the Logic-Core noted. *Or she suspects.*
**[ Faith Generation: Minimal. ]**
**[ Crowd Sentiment: Hostile. ]**
*Let them hate,* Su Yuan thought, stepping into the shadows of the tunnel. *I just made the Top 50.*
***
The locker room was empty. The other competitors were glued to the monitors, watching the replays, arguing about maintenance budgets and faulty servos.
Su Yuan sat on a bench, stripping off his shirt. His back was bruised from the roll, a purple welt forming over his scapula. Pain was useful. It grounded him.
"You have a very strange definition of fighting."
Su Yuan didn't jump. He turned slowly.
A man was leaning against the lockers at the far end of the row. He was young, handsome in a sharp, predatory way, wearing a tailored suit that cost more than Su Yuan's entire life earnings. He had a datapad tucked under one arm and a silver pin on his lapel: *The Engineering Guild.*
"Luck is a skill," Su Yuan said, pulling a fresh shirt over his head.
"Is it?" The man walked closer. He moved with the lazy confidence of someone who owned the building. "I watched the telemetry, Su Yuan. That mech didn't just fail. The exhaust fan shattered. Specifically, the ceramic bearing on the tertiary intake."
He stopped a few feet away.
"The odds of a bearing failing at the exact moment your hand 'accidentally' slapped the vent are roughly one in three million."
Su Yuan tied his shoelaces. "I should buy a lottery ticket."
The man chuckled. It was a dry, rasping sound. "I'm Bai Mu. Top 3. Tech-Integration specialist."
Bai Mu. The name was famous in the Academy. The prodigy who had built his own drone swarm at age twelve. He wasn't just a fighter; he was an architect of violence.
"What do you want, Bai Mu?"
"I want to know how you did it," Bai Mu said, his smile dropping. "I checked your file. F-Rank talent. Garbage meridians. No implants registered. Yet, you dismantled a Class-C rig with a touch."
He leaned in, his eyes narrowing.
"Did you use a jammer? A magnetic pulse ring? Tell me. I like clever tricks."
"I tripped," Su Yuan said, standing up. "Ask the referee."
Bai Mu stared at him for a long moment. Then, he tapped his datapad.
"We're in the same block for the next round," Bai Mu said softly. "I don't use heavy armor, Su Yuan. I use seeking drones with razor-wire filaments. They don't have exhaust ports."
He turned to leave.
"Don't trip," Bai Mu called over his shoulder. "My drones react to sudden movement. You might lose a nose."
Su Yuan watched him go.
The Logic-Core was already running simulations.
**[ Opponent: Bai Mu. ]**
**[ Style: Remote Drone Control / Zone Denial. ]**
**[ Win Probability (Current Assets): 12%. ]**
Su Yuan sat back down. The high from the victory evaporated, replaced by the cold math of survival. Twelve percent.
He needed more power. The *Shockwave* was a gimmick. Against a drone swarm, he needed area of effect. He needed speed.
He closed his eyes.
*Genesis. Show me the User Map.*
The darkness of his mind lit up. The constellation of souls swirled around him.
He zoomed in on the sector labeled **[ Academy Dorms ]**.
There were lights there. Students. Rivals. Some of them had joined the network for the "meditation aid" he had anonymously marketed on the local message boards.
He scanned their skills.
*User: Wind_Walker_99 (Dorm 4B).*
*Skill: Gale Step (D-Rank).*
*User: Circuit_Breaker (Engineering Dept).*
*Skill: Electro-Magnetic Sense.*
Su Yuan's mind raced. He couldn't steal their skills—not permanently. But he could borrow the processing power. He could create a composite skill.
"System," Su Yuan projected. "Create a new Quest."
**[ Awaiting input. ]**
"Target audience: All users with sensory or speed-based cultivation," Su Yuan ordered. "Quest Name: *Catching Flies*. Objective: Track and swat fifty flying insects in under five minutes."
**[ Calculating Reward... ]**
"Double the reward," Su Yuan said. "And add a sub-routine. I want their neural data on *tracking small, fast-moving objects*."
**[ Quest Generated. Broadcasting... ]**
Across the city, and in the dorm rooms above him, dozens of students paused what they were doing. A golden prompt appeared in their vision. It seemed silly. *Swat insects?*
But the reward was pure dopamine. Pure clarity.
They started hunting flies.
Su Yuan opened his eyes. He felt the data trickling in. The triangulations. The reflex adjustments. The predictive algorithms of swatting something that moved erratically.
He was crowd-sourcing a missile defense system.
Su Yuan stood up. He cracked his neck.
Let Bai Mu bring his razor-wires. Su Yuan was about to download the collective reflexes of a hundred bored students.
He walked out of the locker room, into the corridor that led to the Core Chamber access lift. He wasn't Top 10 yet, but the competition wasn't over.
He needed to see the prize.
***
The entrance to the Core Chamber was guarded by two automata—sleek, faceless droids with plasma rifles built into their arms.
Su Yuan stopped at the viewing window.
Beyond the thick glass, the Chamber hummed. It was a cylindrical room, bathed in blue light. In the center, suspended in a magnetic field, was a shard of crystal the size of a man's torso.
*The Source.*
It wasn't just energy. It was solidified data. It was a piece of the Old World's server architecture, calcified into pure power.
The Genesis Protocol woke up.
It didn't just speak; it *heaved* in his mind. A desperate, starving lurch that nearly brought Su Yuan to his knees.
**[ CRITICAL ASSET DETECTED. ]**
**[ DESIGNATION: FRAGMENT 4. ]**
**[ REQUIREMENT: CONSUME. ]**
The hunger was so intense Su Yuan tasted metal. The Logic-Core spiked, trying to dampen the urge, but the Protocol was screaming.
*Consume. Consume. Consume.*
"Easy," Su Yuan whispered, pressing his hand against the cold glass. "We have to win it first."
**[ Win is insufficient, ]** the Protocol hissed, its voice layering over itself like a chorus of ghosts. **[ If we enter, we do not leave with a sample. We absorb the Matrix. ]**
"That will kill the Academy's power grid," Su Yuan noted.
**[ Irrelevant. ]**
Su Yuan looked at the blue crystal. He saw the power radiating from it. If he fed that to the SoulNet... he wouldn't just be calculating odds. He could rewrite the rules of the fight.
He could delete Lin. He could erase the poverty of the slums.
Or he could burn out every brain connected to him.
"Hey! You!"
A guard droid stepped forward, its rifle whining as it charged. "Restricted Area. Step away from the glass."
Su Yuan pulled his hand back. The print of his palm faded from the condensation.
"Just looking," Su Yuan said.
"Look from the stands," the droid synthesized. "Cadet."
Su Yuan turned and walked away. The hunger of the Protocol slowly receded, settling into a dull, throbbing ache in the back of his teeth.
He checked the time.
Two hours until the next match.
Bai Mu and his drones.
Su Yuan touched the implant behind his ear.
"Time to study," he muttered.
He found a quiet corner in the corridor, sat down, and closed his eyes.
*Connect.*
He didn't go to the ocean this time. He went to the data stream of the "Catching Flies" quest.
He watched a thousand imaginary flies die in a thousand different minds. He watched the hands move. He watched the eyes track.
He began to learn.
Not how to fight. But how to see the patterns in the chaos.
And in the darkness of the SoulNet, Su Yuan began to weave a net of his own.