Chapter 123: Feed Is a Powerful Motivator
The morning practical tested command response and coordination rather than strength or destructive power, which was unfortunate. Breaking something would have required far less thought.
The training hall had been converted into an enclosed obstacle course filled with rubble, hanging screens, loose gravel, moving targets, blind corners, and brightly marked hazard zones. Mechanical arms rattled against metal sheets to create distractions, while several sections forced beasts to move beyond their tamers’ direct line of sight.
The exercise separated beasts that merely followed orders from pairs capable of adjusting together under pressure. Jin understood that perfectly well.
His sleep-deprived brain simply objected to demonstrating it.
"Blue marker," the instructor called.
A panel opened inside the course, and Jin spotted the correct route a moment too late.
"Right—Glitch, right!"
Glitch had already started toward the left opening. He corrected instantly, claws skidding once against the gravel as he changed direction, but the hesitation still cost them time.
At the next section, a moving training target rolled across Glitch’s path. The lizard’s attention locked onto it as it passed a striped hazard zone, and Jin saw the boundary one step later than he should have.
"Stop!"
Glitch froze with one foreclaw suspended above the painted line.
The target continued rattling past him. Several beasts in nearby lanes lunged after identical decoys and entered the hazard zones, triggering penalty lights, but Glitch remained where he was despite the frustration pressing through the bond.
"Forward. Ignore the target."
He obeyed.
The instructor glanced down at her tablet as they passed.
"Late warning," she told Jin. "Excellent stop response."
Fair.
The first part was his fault. The second belonged to what Glitch had learned inside the quarry, and Jin could feel the difference every time the lizard caught an order and committed to it without hesitation.
The pattern continued through the course. Jin reacted half a beat late at another junction and almost sent Glitch toward the wrong marker, but Glitch corrected cleanly. When a metal screen slammed down behind him, he changed direction at Jin’s command without wasting time turning to investigate the noise.
Then a target appeared beside a blind corner.
Glitch didn’t charge. He waited for confirmation even though impatience surged through the bond, claws flexing against the floor while the target moved past.
Two nights ago, that restraint would have been impossible. Now he trusted Jin’s orders even when he couldn’t see the reason behind them, and the same discipline that had prevented another death in the quarry produced some of the cleanest command responses in the hall.
The instructor noticed.
She didn’t assume anything impossible. A Grey Rock Lizard following commands well was simply a well-trained beast, and the public explanation was already sitting neatly beside Jin’s name.
His C-Rank Data Appraisal talent helped him study Glitch’s habits, identify mistakes, and build efficient training routines.
It was sensible, boring, and close enough to the truth that Jin didn’t need to correct it.
Then the course found the weakness neither discipline nor clever commands could hide.
A moving target rolled behind a hanging screen, and Glitch lost sight of it. From Jin’s position, the screen blocked the far side of the course as well. He could hear the mechanism moving, but the distracting metal impacts around the hall made it impossible to determine which direction it had taken.
"Hold."
Glitch waited, body tense as the target moved somewhere behind the barrier.
Jin listened for another second and guessed left.
"Circle around the left side."
Glitch obeyed perfectly.
The target emerged on the right.
A penalty light flashed, and by the time Glitch changed direction, the target had already crossed its scoring line. They had responded correctly using the wrong information.
No amount of discipline could create knowledge they didn’t possess.
Jin watched the target disappear into its housing and thought of movement beneath mineral dust. Tremor Sense would have changed that entire section.
Glitch had failed to locate the hidden target for the same reason his avatar had failed to locate the mantis underground. Once vision disappeared, he had no secondary sense capable of tracking movement through the floor. Better coordination let them make cleaner use of the information they had, but it couldn’t provide information that wasn’t there.
The quarry contained the solution.
They only needed eight more fragments.
Jin and Glitch finished above average. They earned excellent marks for command response and the best stop-command time in their group, but Glitch’s ordinary speed and their slow navigation through the blind sections kept them away from first place. Jin’s delayed reactions cost several additional points on top of that.
A good result, even if it wasn’t a perfect one.
The instructor stopped them after the course.
"His discipline has improved quickly," she said, glancing at Glitch. "Especially under distraction."
"I’ve been studying what causes him to overcommit," Jin said.
True.
He simply didn’t mention that the study material involved Glitch being murdered by an underground mantis.
The instructor nodded as though the explanation confirmed exactly what she expected from someone with Data Appraisal. Around them, several students looked toward Glitch with mild interest. The supposedly useless Iron-quality lizard was still slow and unimpressive beside many of their beasts, but he was no longer behaving like one.
Glitch sensed the attention and lifted his head.
He remained privately offended that disciplined obedience earned less admiration than smashing through the course would have. Good behavior, in his opinion, suffered from poor presentation.
Once the final group completed the exercise, the instructor called everyone together.
"Meridian’s first ranked combat practical for the Regular Combat Program will begin tomorrow at two in the afternoon."
Jin suppressed a yawn.
"Students have been paired against opponents of broadly comparable combat rank. Victory will not be decided by knockout alone. Command quality, positioning, terrain use, control of your beast, and protection of your tamer marker will all contribute to your score."
A display behind her activated, listing the safety rules. Excessively dangerous attacks were prohibited. Instructors would supervise every match, and the academy’s barriers would intervene before a beast or student suffered a lethal injury.
Performance would also influence access to limited training resources.
Jin’s eyes opened slightly wider.
"The highest-ranked student will receive seven days of standard beast-feed credit. Second place will receive five days. Both semifinalists will receive three."
Now Jin was completely awake.
Seven days of feed.
His inspection work eased the cost of maintaining Glitch, but it didn’t remove it. A full week of academy feed would give him breathing room instead of merely delaying the next problem.
Glitch, meanwhile, had stopped listening at combat practical.
An opponent. A real fight against something that could fight back.
Jin wanted the feed, and Glitch wanted violence.
For once, their interests aligned perfectly.
The matchup board appeared. Jin scanned the first-round list until he found his name.
Jin Astor — Grey Rock Lizard
vs.
Corven Ashe — Stonehorn Ram
The public information beside Corven’s beast listed it as Bronze-quality and Rank 1 Novice, 3-Star.
Same combat rank as Glitch.
A better quality, and a much larger body.
Corven stood two rows across the training hall. He was not laughing or celebrating the matchup. He studied the board for a few seconds, then glanced toward Jin with the focused expression of someone measuring an opponent rather than dismissing one.
Beside him stood the Stonehorn Ram.
The beast was broad and low, with a plated skull, heavy shoulders, and thick horns built for impact. It looked less like an animal and more like a section of wall that had developed legs and an attitude.
According to public expectations, the result was obvious. A Bronze-quality charging beast should overpower an Iron-quality Grey Rock Lizard.
Jin couldn’t use Acid Breath in a public academy match. Lesser Regeneration and Corrosion Resistance needed to remain hidden, and the Engine couldn’t help once the fight began.
They would enter with what everyone already knew Glitch possessed: Harden, his body, and their coordination.
That was all.
Across the hall, the Stonehorn noticed Glitch watching. It lowered its horns and scraped one heavy hoof across the training floor.
Glitch stared back, entirely too pleased.
After two nights of enemies hiding beneath the ground, his next opponent had made the considerate decision to stand above it where he could hit it.
Jin looked at the posted feed reward once more, then shifted his attention back to the Ram. Its weight sat heavily toward the front, and its stance widened before it pushed from the rear legs. Even that single scrape revealed how it prepared to charge.
The familiar machinery inside Jin’s mind began turning.
For once, beast and tamer reached the same conclusion for completely different reasons.
They needed to win.