Chapter 148: Clearing The Jaguar Malfunction.
The safe room was a chamber about fifteen feet square, with a single bench carved into the wall and a soft light that seemed to come from the stone itself. No monsters. No traps and red veins pulsing through the walls.
Team Soup filed in and collapsed.
Renna dropped onto the bench and immediately lay down, clutching her bow to her chest like a stuffed animal. Emric sat on the floor with his back against the wall, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Lyra stood near the doorway with her spear leaning against the wall, arms crossed as she stared into space.
Holden sat on the opposite side of the room.
His eyes were on the floor, but he wasn’t really seeing it.
He was thinking about the totem.
The Royal craftsmanship. The deliberate engineering. Someone had taken a natural disaster and turned it into a weapon.
And this wasn’t the first time.
"Lyra," he said.
She looked over.
"Hmm?"
"Come here for a second."
Lyra pushed away from the wall and walked over, sitting beside him on the floor. She was close enough that their shoulders touched.
Holden lowered his voice.
"That totem on the first floor. Royal enchantments. Synthetic frenzy-magic. Someone modified a natural system and turned it into a weapon aimed at me specifically."
"Yes. Maeve said..."
"It’s not the first time someone has done that."
Lyra went still.
"During the entrance exam," Holden continued. "Day one at the Academy. The combat trial. Do you remember what happened?"
"You mean the Shadow Jaguar?"
"Before the Jaguar, there was a moment."
Holden paused.
"The trial was supposed to be a standard Rank 1 beast encounter. Wolves, or something basic. Then the system glitched. The cage for a completely different monster opened."
Lyra frowned.
"A Rank 1, 5-Star Shadow Jaguar."
"Exactly."
"Way above what any freshman should have faced."
"I remember the reports. They said it was a malfunction in the arena’s beast-release system."
"That’s what they said."
Lyra studied him.
"You don’t think it was a malfunction."
"No."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You’re saying someone manually released that Jaguar on purpose? During your first exam?"
"Day one," Holden said. "Before anyone knew who I was."
His gaze hardened.
"Someone was watching me from the very first hour."
Lyra’s hand found his.
"That’s..." She hesitated.
"Who would do that?"
"I’m going to find out."
Holden tapped his earpiece and switched to Maeve’s private channel.
"Maeve. You there?"
A burst of typing came through the radio, fast and rhythmic.
"I’m here. Status?"
"Floor one cleared. We’re in a safe room. I need you to do something for me. It might require digging through some old records."
"I like digging. What do you need?"
Holden explained.
The entrance exam. The Shadow Jaguar. The supposed malfunction. The fact that the beast shouldn’t have been part of the rotation.
Maeve went silent for about ten seconds.
Then the typing started again, faster this time.
"The Academy’s beast-release system runs through a central server that logs every command," Maeve said, her voice shifting into the sharp, focused tone. "If the Jaguar was released manually, there should be a command log with a digital signature attached. The Academy archives old exam data, but the raw server logs are buried under about six layers of security."
"Can you get to them?"
"Already in."
More typing.
"Okay. I’m in the archived server logs for the entrance exam period. Filtering for beast-release commands during the combat trial."
A pause.
"Found it. Standard release commands for the wolves."
Another pause.
"And then..."
Maeve’s typing stopped. "There’s a manual override command. Executed fourteen seconds before the Jaguar’s cage opened. It bypassed the automated system entirely."
"Who sent it?"
"Checking the digital signature now."
The typing slowed.
This time, every keystroke sounded deliberate.
"The signature is encrypted with an Instructor-level clearance key. Cross-referencing..."
A longer pause.
"Got it."
Maeve’s voice became quieter.
"The key belongs to Instructor Vespera."
Holden wasn’t surprised. Some part of him had suspected it for a long time.
But hearing it confirmed was different.
"Vespera," he said flatly.
"The same Vespera who made you her personal disciple. The same Vespera who sent us to the outpost. That Vespera."
"Yeah."
Lyra’s grip on his hand tightened.
"Holden," Maeve said carefully. "She put a Rank 1, 5-Star beast in your exam on your first day. If you hadn’t survived..."
"I know."
"What are you going to do?"
Holden was quiet for a moment. Then he reached up and switched his radio to a different channel.
One Vespera had given him when he became her personal disciple.
He pressed the call button.
Three rings.
Then a click.
"Voss."
Vespera’s voice sounded cold and flat, as if she’d been expecting this call.
"Instructor. We need to talk about the Shadow Jaguar."
Silence.
Then Vespera laughed. It was a short, humorless sound.
"Took you long enough."
Lyra’s eyes widened. She could hear both sides of the conversation through Holden’s earpiece.
"You don’t deny it," Holden said.
"Why would I? The evidence is in your sister’s hands, isn’t it? Maeve is thorough. I would have been disappointed if she couldn’t find it."
"Why?"
Holden’s voice remained calm.
"I was a slum kid on his first day. No reputation. No connections. No value to anyone. Why release a Rank 1, 5-Star Shadow Jaguar on me?"
"Because I needed to know what you were."
"What I was?"
"I needed someone to retrieve the Ashen Lotus from the Crimson Wastes. The Lotus grows in a zone saturated with Abyssal energy. Anyone with impurities in their foundation would struggle to survive there."
Vespera paused.
"I needed a disciple with an absolutely flawless energy foundation."
"And you thought I might have one?"
"I watched you in the waiting area before the exam, Voss."
Her voice remained completely calm.
"You were surrounded by nobles who had trained for years. Children with private tutors, family techniques, expensive pills. And you were sitting in the corner, breathing."
Holden’s fingers tightened slightly around Lyra’s hand.
"Your breathing technique was perfect," Vespera continued. "Not good for a beginner. Perfect. The rhythm, the depth, the efficiency. I’ve seen Rank 3 masters with worse fundamentals."
She paused.
"A slum orphan with no training, no resources, and perfect breathing. That gave me two possibilities. Either you were a natural prodigy of impossible rarity, or you had access to something that was refining your foundation from the inside."
Holden said nothing.
"I needed to know which one."
"So you released the Jaguar."
"Yes."
"You gambled with my life."
"I tested you."
"You released a Rank 1, 5-Star beast on a sixteen-year-old."
"I don’t gamble on weaklings, Voss."
The words hung in the air.
Lyra stared at the earpiece like it had personally insulted her.
Renna had sat up on the bench, her face caught between horror and fascination. Even Emric had put his glasses back on and was watching Holden with wide eyes.
"So the Lotus mission," Holden said slowly. "The disciple selection. The tournament. All of it was just you testing a theory."
"The theory proved correct."
Vespera’s voice remained steady.
"Your foundation is flawless. Whatever you have inside you, it’s the real thing. I made the right call."
"And if you’d been wrong?"
"Then I would have mourned briefly and found another candidate."
Holden actually laughed. It was short and sharp, surprising even him.
"You’re insane."
"I’m effective. There’s a difference."
Holden leaned back against the wall.
His hand was still intertwined with Lyra’s. His expression was unreadable.
"Here’s how this is going to work, Instructor."
Vespera said nothing.
"I’m currently inside an S-Class Spire the Emperor built to kill me. I’m going to clear it. Every floor. Every trap. Every monster."
He paused.
"And when I walk out of here alive, you’re going to owe me a favor."
"A favor?"
"A huge one."
Holden’s tone was almost casual now.
"The kind of favor that makes you uncomfortable when you think about it. Because you put a Jaguar on a sixteen-year-old kid on his first day. Whether your theory was right or not, that debt doesn’t disappear just because I survived."
Silence filled the channel.
Then, very faintly, came the ghost of something that might have been approval.
"Clear the Spire first, Voss."
A pause.
"Then we’ll talk."
The line went dead.
Holden lowered his hand and looked at his team.
Renna’s mouth was hanging open. Emric blinked rapidly, clearly still processing everything he’d just heard.
Lyra simply shook her head, disbelief written across her face.
"Did you just blackmail your Rank 4 instructor from inside a death trap?" Renna asked.
"Technically, it was future blackmail."
Holden stood and stretched.
"I have to survive first."
Holdeolooked toward the exit.
"Rest time’s over. Five more floors to go."
Renna groaned and reluctantly grabbed her bow.
"Why do I feel like the next floor is going to be worse?"
"Because it probably is," Emric said.
Renna stared at him.
"You could have lied."
"I don’t see the tactical value."
"Of course you don’t."
Holden opened the door.
"Come on."
Team Soup followed him out of the safe room and back into the Spire.