Chapter 247: Three Days, Nine Meters
Doyen found the deep cut on the second pass.
"Stop him moving. Left flank, forward of the hip."
Glitch had spent the first ten minutes of the examination in an excellent mood. He had won a fight the previous afternoon, eaten twice since, and saw no reason for a medic to interfere with either achievement. Being held still changed his opinion of the visit immediately.
"That’s not a scratch," Doyen said as she worked the light along his flank. "The rest are on the surface. This one’s through the hide and into the muscle layer, and it’s been open overnight."
"How bad?"
"Not bad. Clean edge. Something sharp cut him rather than tearing through." She probed the margin, and Glitch’s tail struck the examination platform once. "No tendon involvement. Nothing structural. His plating’s intact everywhere I’ve checked."
"So he’s fine."
"He’s fine, and he’s not going anywhere near a sparring hall for three days."
Jin had expected the restriction. The number still landed harder when someone else said it.
"Three."
"Three, and I’ll tell you why because I’d rather you understood it than merely complied." Doyen sat back. "The wound will close if the tissue underneath stays still. Every hard turn, every brace, every time he throws a hundred and forty kilos through that hip, it opens a millimeter and starts over."
"And if it keeps opening?"
"Then three days becomes ten. If it gets contaminated, it becomes something I have to write up properly." She began closing the wound. "He can walk and eat, which he’ll do anyway. Light positioning is fine. No sparring, no hard turning drills, no maximal Acid Breath, and nothing that puts real load through that side."
"Understood."
Doyen glanced up. "You’re not going to ask whether two days would do?"
"No."
"Everyone asks whether two would do."
Two months ago, I probably would have.
He checked the ladder afterward from the bench outside, with Glitch’s chin resting across his boot.
[MERIDIAN THIRD-CLASS LADDER — CHALLENGE RANGE]
[Astor, J. — Rank 35]
[Legal targets: Ranks 34–30]
The board had moved since the assembly. Two of the five names in his range were new, and one belonged to a student who had climbed three places in six days. Everyone had heard the same announcement and started moving at once. The route from thirty-five to twenty would not wait in a neat line for him.
He did not file a challenge.
Three days before he can train hard. Call it four before he’s sharp. Then whatever preparation the match needs.
Filing early would not make Glitch heal faster. It would only commit them to a date before Jin knew what the next fight required.
A message arrived while he was reading.
Voss:Clean win. The bait was better than I gave you credit for. Voss:I’ve filed on 39. Don’t get comfortable at 35.
Jin considered several replies and sent the shortest one.
Astor:Wasn’t planning to.
Flicker’s ward smelled of warm mineral and disinfectant, and Verrick had already moved the cone before Jin arrived.
"Nine meters," Verrick said. "I extended it two days ago. She’s seen the new distance once and didn’t finish."
"And today?"
"Today we find out."
The circuit ran along the mat, around the cone, and back. Nine meters was one more than eight, almost nothing on an ordinary floor and another eighth of everything Flicker could currently manage.
Glitch came in with Jin and lay at the mat’s edge. It was as much involvement as his restriction permitted, which he clearly considered inadequate.
Flicker stood when she saw him.
She handled the outbound leg well. Her left foot still traveled too far, and she corrected with a half-spread of her wings on the third and sixth steps, but she no longer looked like something learning to walk. Now she looked like something walking badly and refusing to stop.
At the cone, she stood for eleven seconds while Jin watched the linked display.
[Thermal: rising — within range]
[Respiration: elevated]
[Elemental pathway activity: baseline]
Pathways quiet. That’s the one he actually watches.
She turned and started back. The return leg was always worse, and at about seven meters she wobbled badly enough that Glitch’s whole body tightened. Jin felt the impulse rise through the bond and stop there. Glitch had learned that propping her up ended the session and made the distance meaningless.
Flicker caught herself. Her wings opened wide for a full second before she got the wandering foot underneath her again.
She finished at nine meters and sat down four centimeters past the marker, breathing hard and looking entirely pleased with herself.
Verrick was already reading the monitor. "Thermal peaked inside range. Respiration’s elevated and recovering at the rate I want. Her pathways stayed quiet through the whole circuit. That’s a good session."
"So nine is the new circuit."
"Nine is a distance she has walked once." Verrick capped his pen. "I’ll want three or four more attempts before I write it down as her circuit, and I want the six-hour readings on every one. You know this."
"I know. I like hearing it anyway."
"Mm," Verrick said, which from him was almost warm.
Jin opened his legal challenge range again that evening with Glitch asleep against the wall. This time he read the profiles instead of counting places.
Rank 34 had a Silver-quality beast at 3-Star, with too little recent footage for Jin to price the matchup properly. Rank 33 looked beatable and offered two places. Ranks 32 and 31 offered useful jumps of three and four, but their matchups were no safer than the top of his range and would consume the same preparation window.
Then he opened Rank 30.
[Rook, D. — Third Class, Rank 30]
[Contracted beast: Flint — Shardback Jackal]
[Bronze Quality | Rank 1 Novice, 7-Star]
Seven-Star.
A full Star above Glitch in raw development, on a beast of the same Quality tier. Whatever else Flint could do, it would do with more output and recovery behind it.
Jin pulled the arena footage expecting a ranged skirmisher. Eleven minutes into the first recording, he stopped watching the beast and looked at the floor.
Flint fired hardened mineral quills from its back and flanks, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, and occasionally in a spread. About half of them missed. Every missed quill stayed where it landed, driven into the poured floor at an angle.
By the seventh minute, the arena had lines in it.
Jin paused on an image of an opponent trapped in a corridor two meters wide. Flint had missed for most of the match, yet somehow every successful dodge had helped put the other beast exactly where Dalen wanted it.
He’s building the room.