Chapter 78: Seven Dungeons Could Wait
Chapter 78: Seven Dungeons Could Wait
For several seconds, the rest of Meridian disappeared.
The arrival terminal had not become quiet. Announcements overlapped with beast cries, security instructions, and the movement of a thousand students. Jin simply stopped hearing most of it while he stared at the four lines on his screen.
[New Region Detected: Meridian Shelter]
[Local Environment Scan Initiated]
[Multiple Compatible Dungeon Signals Detected]
[Available Downloads: 7]
Seven.
Shelter 7 had only ever given him two. One hollow, one drain, and Jin had squeezed every useful thing he could from both before leaving.
Meridian already had seven signals available, and he had not even made it through the terminal. The scan was still going.
The part of him built for grinding wanted to sit down in the middle of the concourse and open every single one.
Glitch felt the burst of excitement through their bond. His tail snapped once, and his head turned quickly as he searched for whatever had caught Jin’s attention.
It was a phone.
The device meant absolutely nothing to him.
That did not reduce his excitement at all.
"Are you coming," someone said beside him, "or do you plan to enroll in the terminal?"
Milo stood at Jin’s elbow. Bristle, his broad little Bronze Ridgeback pup, waited calmly by his feet. The beast looked well fed and wore a proper harness.
Milo carried the nervous, helpful energy of someone determined not to be late on his first day. He had also attached himself to the only other student he sort of knew.
Jin looked at the seven available downloads one last time.
Then he dismissed the notification.
Registration mattered more. Without registration, he had no dorm, no meals, no beast allowance, and nowhere private enough to use any of those dungeons.
They had waited this long.
Another hour would not kill them.
"Yeah," Jin said as he put the phone away. "I’m coming."
The school intake path led them out of the terminal and onto the grounds of Meridian Beast High School.
Jin abandoned any hope of understanding the entire campus at a glance almost immediately.
The place had been designed around beasts.
Its walkways were broad enough for large partners to move beside their Tamers without forcing everyone else aside. The training buildings had thick walls and reinforced plating. Several still carried old claw gouges across their surfaces, left by creatures Jin had no interest in meeting.
Open combat fields stretched between the buildings beneath bright artificial suns. The beast infirmary covered more ground than Jin’s entire residential level back home. Dormitory towers stood beside protected training sectors, with loan-equipment stations and resource counters running between them, all crowded with students.
Nearly every student had a beast nearby.
Jin’s Data Appraisal activated almost without conscious effort as he walked. He read rank and quality from passing creatures because he could not seem to stop himself.
Most were 2-Star or 3-Star.
Bronze-quality beasts were common. Silver-quality beasts were not rare enough to draw a crowd. Many belonged to species the Astor family could never have purchased.
A slightly older student crossed the concourse in front of them with a large, silent creature pacing at his heel.
Jin’s talent marked it as 4-Star before he could look away.
He remembered that.
He had defeated a 4-Star boss four times, but each victory had relied on prepared ground, gathered information, and a trap designed around that exact enemy.
That had nothing in common with the real Glitch standing in the open against a 4-Star beast.
From Jin’s shoulder, Glitch watched the larger creatures go by with bright, fearless interest. He seemed to regard them as a collection of things he might someday be allowed to bother.
There was no hesitation in him at all.
Jin envied that a little.
Milo talked for most of the walk. Jin did not mind. It filled the silence, and now and then he said something useful.
The registration hall was efficient in a way that felt almost impersonal. Long rows of intake stations processed new students with the steady rhythm of a machine.
Jin sat at the terminal assigned to him and began reading.
Every word.
Two stations away, Milo had already skimmed through his own confirmation and finished. After waiting for a minute, he leaned over.
"You know those are just the standard scholarship terms, right? Everyone gets the same ones. You can confirm them."
"People who call something ’standard terms,’" Jin said without lifting his eyes, "usually mean terms they’re hoping you won’t read."
Milo opened his mouth.
Then he thought better of it, closed it again, and pulled his own confirmation back onto the screen.
Good.
He was not careless. He simply had not been sent away by a father whose final warnings included read everything before you sign it.
Jin worked through the agreement clause by clause. He compared each one against what Renata Vos had said during the interview, looking for the hidden point where the school took advantage of him.
He found nothing.
Tuition was fully waived for the school year. The dormitory was included. Three standard meals were provided each day. He would receive a monthly allowance of standard Iron-quality beast feed. Basic medical care covered one registered contracted beast. Training equipment could be borrowed.
There was no compulsory service agreement after graduation.
The scholarship could only be cancelled for serious misconduct or repeated academic failure.
A separate clause confirmed that his provisional placement in the combat program had no effect on the scholarship itself. Failing the assessment could remove him from the program, but it could not take away his housing or meals.
Everything matched.
Vos had told him the truth. The contract promised exactly what she had.
Jin confirmed the agreement.
[Enrollment Registration: Complete]
[Scholarship Benefits: Active]
[Dormitory Assignment: Confirmed]
[Meal Access: Active]
[Beast Nutrition Allowance: Available for Collection]
Meal Access: Active.
Three meals every day, starting immediately.
Glitch’s monthly feed was covered too.
Neither Jin’s food nor Glitch’s would need to come from the Astor family budget anymore.
He let himself feel the relief for a moment before following the terminal’s instructions to the next station.
Beast verification.
Exactly what Marrow had said would happen during the call.
At the medical station, a pale band of light passed over Glitch’s body.
Jin kept his expression neutral while some primitive part of him waited for an alarm to sound.
The result appeared.
[Registered Species: Grey Rock Lizard]
[Registered Quality: Iron]
[Combat Rank: Rank 1 Novice]
[Combat Level: 2-Star]
[Physical Condition: Healthy]
Nothing unusual.
Every detail was valid.
Glitch’s impossible progress, his added skills, and all the experience he had accumulated still existed only in the avatar. Until Jin performed a Sync, there was nothing strange for the scanner to detect.
The attendant examined the results and lifted one eyebrow.
"Well developed for an Outer Ring Rock Lizard. His muscle condition is good, and he’s been kept clean. Most Iron-quality beasts arriving from outer shelters are underfed."
She looked up at Jin.
"Someone has been taking proper care of this one."
"Data Appraisal," Jin said, giving a small shrug. "I used it to schedule his meals and recovery. That’s most of what a C-Rank support talent is useful for."
Every word was true.
It simply left out almost everything important.
The attendant accepted the explanation, added a note to the record, and did not search for a mystery when she had no reason to believe one existed.
Glitch hated the entire procedure.
He endured the scanner with obvious insult. When the attendant tried to place him on a weighing platform, he decided the platform was an enemy and attempted to attack it.
Jin had to drag him back before he could bite it.
"He’s fine," Jin said, restraining the lizard. "He just dislikes being measured. And handled. Sometimes being looked at."
"Spirited," the attendant said carefully.
She completed the rest of the reading from farther away.
As soon as verification cleared, Jin’s combat placement notice appeared.
[Initial Placement: Regular Combat Program — Provisional]
[Seven-Day Physical Assessment Period Begins Tomorrow]
[Failure Result: Transfer to Standard Mixed Curriculum]
[Scholarship Status: Unaffected]
Jin read the notice, and his actual problem settled into focus.
Meridian now possessed an official baseline for Glitch.
It was recorded under Jin’s name and timestamped less than an hour ago.
Grey Rock Lizard.
Iron.
2-Star.
Healthy.
A clean entry in the school’s system.
Behind the Sync button waited an unknown amount of stored growth, along with two skills no Grey Rock Lizard should possess.
If Jin brought an ordinary 2-Star Glitch into the assessment, he could lose the combat placement they had bled to earn.
If Glitch appeared far stronger than the official reading Meridian had just taken, experienced instructors would notice.
Kade Marrow would notice first.
Then they would ask questions Jin could not answer.
He did not decide what to do while standing beside the terminal.
He only stored the problem away, cold and precise.
Tonight, he would have to choose.