Chương 80: Skin in the Game

"Hey Tom, how's it going?" Leo found Tom in the Yale student section of Harvard Stadium, twenty rows up from the field. The repair crews were already out on the turf below, and the crowd was still buzzing from the duel. Tom was hunched over his phone, talking fast, one finger jammed in his other ear to block out the noise. He glanced up.

"Hey Leo, you were great. Give me a moment. Kind of busy." He went back to his call. Then he stopped. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at Leo. Looked down at the field, where teams of cultivators knit the turf back together. Then back at Leo. He shut off his phone with a click.

"Wait. What are you doing here? Weren't you just down there?" Leo followed his gaze. A repair crew was arguing over who was going to deal with the ten-meter crater near the south fort. One of them kicked a chunk of stone into the hole and threw up his hands.

"I got disqualified," Leo said.

"Yeah, we heard." Tom's jaw tightened.

"That was such bullshit. There's no way you should have been kicked out. We're trying to figure out what strings to pull, who to talk to, how we can get you back in the game." By now the whole section had noticed. The kid from the duel, the one who had just ridden a divine serpent like a water slide, was standing in the student section with his hands in his pockets. Phones came out.

"The NCAA officials got really mad at me and Coach Williams," Leo said.

"Started shouting at us about the integrity of the game. When I started questioning the strength of Mateo's divine power and why it was so abnormally powerful, they shouted louder." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"My head started hurting from all the shouting, so I just left and came to find you. Trying to get me back in is a lost cause. We already knew I was going to be disqualified." Tom opened his mouth.

"Besides," Leo said, and pointed upward. Giant projections floated above the stadium dome, broadcasting a live feed of the two locker rooms. On the Yale side, the camera showed twelve cultivators in full armor, helmets under their arms, laughing and talking. At the center of the group, grinning wide, stood Zhao.

"We still have a game to win." Tom looked up. The rest of the section followed his gaze. The twelve members of the Yale Flying Aces squad stood up together. They put on their helmets. They walked toward the tunnel. The section around Leo must have been the only ones paying attention to the projections, because when they started pointing and roaring, it took a few seconds for the rest of the stadium to catch on. The sound spread like a wave.

Section by section, three hundred thousand people remembered that although they had come to watch two boys fight, there was still a game to be played. Someone in the row behind Leo leaned forward.

"Zhao is back?"

"Yeah." Leo turned around.

"We brought him back months ago, we put together a plan after our Week 3 Harvard Game. I would take out Mateo and get disqualified. Zhao subs in. Zhao has been doing targeted practice against Harvard with the rest of the team for weeks." He grinned.

"I'm here to cheer along with you guys. We've got a game to win." The section erupted. Coolers that had been smuggled past security cracked open. Beers appeared. Chips and hot dogs materialized from bags that definitely hadn't been searched. The atmosphere shifted from a desperate duel to the comfortable chaos of a tailgate. Someone shoved a beer and a hot dog at Leo. He reached for both. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Dr. Reyes in the hallway off to the side. She was staring at him. Arms crossed.

Leo took only the hot dog. He had already fought with her just to get permission to leave the medical room and sit with Tom. The woman had threatened to strap him to a gurney if he did anything stupid. He decided he'd rather not poke the bear. He dropped into the seat next to Tom. Took a bite of the hot dog. Settled in. After spending the entire day in the spotlight, he was going to enjoy the rest of it from the stands.

"Too bad Matt and Vivian can't make it," Tom said, scrolling through his phone.

"They said they were busy with some schoolwork or something." Leo shrugged.

"I'm sure they'll turn up sooner or later." His phone buzzed. He checked the message and smiled.

"Speaking of which, they're asking for our section number. Let's make some room." The fans shuffled and rearranged. Seats were cleared. A few minutes later, Matt and Vivian appeared at the top of the aisle, escorted by two security guards who looked like they had questions they weren't allowed to ask. Matt and Vivian were covered in dirt. Smudges of soil across their faces and dust caked in their hair.

They had thrown on Flyer Seven jerseys at some point, but the jerseys were a few sizes too big and did a poor job covering the military camouflage underneath. They apologized to the security guards, who glared at them for a long moment before leaving. Tom looked at the dirt. Looked at the camouflage peeking out from under the jerseys. Looked at Leo. Leo smirked. Tom decided not to ask questions.

"Good to see you guys," Tom said, and reached into a nearby cooler. He pulled out three beers.

"Hey!" Leo protested.

"If Reyes isn't letting me drink, it's not fair if you guys start."

"It's okay, Tom," Vivian said. She settled into her seat and pulled out her phone, texting her parents she was okay.

"We don't drink anyway. We don't need alcohol to have fun." Matt and Tom exchanged a look of shared disappointment. The announcer's voice cut through the stadium. The amplification formations carried his words to every corner of the dome.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your visiting team. The Yale Bulldogs!" The group of friends turned to watch. Five flying swords launched from the tunnel in a tight V formation, banking hard around the perimeter of the field. They lapped around the stadium, trailing colored qi streams behind them, close enough that the audience could feel the wake. The crowd roared louder with each pass. On the ground, Shawn led the Soldiers into the fort, shouting out orders.

Dee was already at his flak cannon, fingers dancing across the formation interface. Leo took another bite of his hot dog. There was a fight to finish. A game to watch. And for the first time all season, he was going to enjoy it with his friends. -- You might think that after such a duel, a Flying Aces match would feel like a letdown. But almost everyone in the stadium had bet money on the game. Especially the Yale crowd.

With the odds they had gotten going in, each person stood to make a small fortune if Yale pulled off the upset. And that looked far more likely now that Mateo was off the field. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Meanwhile, every Harvard fan who had laid down bets expecting free money suddenly realized their life savings were at risk. If anything, the cheering and chanting grew more vicious. The rivalry more heated.

As they say, never get between a man and his meal. Security had to break up fights in the lower sections and eject fans from the stadium. A group of Harvard alumni nearly came to blows with a pack of Yale fraternity brothers over a spilled beer that everyone knew was really about a five-figure parlay. The Harvard versus Yale championship match would be remembered as the last great old school Flying Aces game ever played.

Many of the old generation, who grew up watching Flyers and their spell arts dueling in the skies, despised the shift the NFL had taken toward third person perspective and lightning based movement. The strength and power were clearly higher, but longtime fans argued that the romance of a cultivation duel in the skies was lost in the blistering fast, hard to track modern NFL game. The Harvard team represented concentrated talent.

They had no problem recruiting the best players in the entire collegiate field, all chasing an easy championship ring. The Yale squad represented the pinnacle of teamwork. They had been playing together for years and had spent weeks preparing to pick apart the Harvard super team. The duel between Leo and Mateo would end up as just a footnote in their long, distinguished careers. But the match between Harvard and Yale would be a true classic. The kind of game that old men argued about in bars decades later.

The kind that coaches used as film study for generations. A showcase of preparation and teamwork dismantling raw, overwhelming talent. It's funny how history works sometimes.

The final buzzer sounded and the Yale section shook itself apart. Leo's voice was hoarse. Tom voice was hoarse. Matt had lost his voice entirely. Vivian had stopped pretending she was above it all somewhere in the second quarter and was hoarse too. The stadium lights came up to full brightness. Hundreds of thousands of fans stayed in their seats, replaying the game to each other in excited conversations.

"The look on their faces," Tom said, grinning so wide it looked painful.

"When Zhao and Ellie ran that cross pattern in the second quarter. Their whole defensive line just froze."

"Dee's threading was insane," Matt croaked.

"He had their Flyers dodging shots that weren't even aimed at them. They were flinching at ghosts." Leo leaned back in his seat.

"Did you see Harry in the third quarter? He baited their captain into a one-on-one and just dismantled him. The guy didn't even realize he was eliminated until his armor lit up."

"That's when it turned," Tom said.

"You could feel it. The whole Harvard section just went quiet."

"Not all of them went quiet," Leo said. Tom laughed.

"No. No they did not." It had started in the third quarter, when the scoreboard made it clear that Yale had figured Harvard out and a comeback was unlikely. The Harvard fans, already uncomfortable from the grey-robed cultists kneeling in their midst, found a target for their frustration. The first shoving match broke out in the lower bowl. A group of Harvard students turned on the nearest cluster of grey robes and started shouting.

The cultists tried to maintain their composed worship posture, which lasted right up until someone dumped a beer on them. Then it was a brawl. Security poured into the section. More fights erupted two sections over. By the middle of the third quarter, every grey-robed cultist in the Harvard stands was being escorted out by security teams, surrounded by jeering fans who pelted them with hot dog wrappers and empty cups.

"Couldn't have happened to nicer people," Vivian said flatly. Leo looked around. The stadium was being emptied section by section, each block of seats held in place until security waved them forward. Armed cultivators stood at every exit. The process was slow and methodical.

"Why is there so much extra security?" Leo asked.

"This is way more than we started with." Tom pulled up something on his phone.

"So. After the week three Harvard game, the odds of Yale winning the conference championship and the national title got really good. Like, really good."

"How good?"

"Good enough that a lot of Bulldogs doubled down. Big wagers. Some people put everything they had on us." Matt winced.

"Which pushed the odds back down," Tom continued.

"So then a bunch of cultivators on the other side loaded up on a Harvard victory. Treated it like a sure thing. Free money." He gestured at the armed figures stationed at the exits.

"Those aren't regular stadium security. That's military. Brought over from the Boston Catacombs garrison." Leo stared at them, trying to look for a familiar face.

"There are people in this stadium who just lost their life savings," Tom said.

"Some of them probably can't afford next month's spirit vein fees. That's the kind of thing that makes people do stupid things."

"It gets worse," Vivian said. She had her phone out, showing an article.

"The state regulators had to step in and take over the sportsbooks. They can pay out the Harvard-Yale loss. Barely. But if Yale wins the national championship..." She trailed off and showed her screen to Leo. Leo read the numbers in shock.

"They don't have the money," Vivian said.

"If we win it all, the sportsbooks can't cover the payouts." Their section was finally waved forward. They filed down the stairs and through the exit tunnels, funneled between rows of military cultivators. The Yale fans around them were electric. Phones were out everywhere, screens tilted toward friends, betting apps refreshing with updated payout numbers. Two guys in front of Leo grabbed each other by the shoulders and started jumping up and down, screaming about a five-figure parlay.

"Bro, I put my entire spring tuition on this game," someone said, tears in his eyes.

"From my student loan."

"I told you! I told you Yale was going to cover!" Every few steps, someone recognized Leo. A hand would reach out, grab his shoulder, shake him.

"Leo! Leo, my man, I'm your biggest fan. I mean that. Your biggest fan."

"You just paid off my spirit vein fees for the next two years, brother."

"Can I get a photo? My girlfriend didn't believe I was sitting in the same section as you." A red-faced alumni in a Yale sweater vest grabbed Leo's hand with both of his and shook it vigorously.

"Young man, I have been a Bulldog for thirty-seven years. Thirty-seven years. This is the greatest day of my life. Better than the birth of my son!" Leo smiled and nodded and kept moving. Tom ran interference, gently peeling fans off Leo's shoulders and steering him through the crowd. They emerged into the cool evening air outside Harvard Stadium. The parking lots were chaos. Fans milled in dense crowds while waiting for their transportation boats.

Security cordons directed and organized the lines, keeping groups separate from each other.

"Leo!" Coach Williams stood near the VIP transport area. He waved Leo over. Behind him, the rest of the Yale squad waited beside a long flying boat, its hull engraved with Yale blue formations. A security detail of twenty armed cultivators flanked the vessel.

"Team's heading back to Yale together," Williams said.

"Escorted. Get on." Leo turned to Tom, Matt, and Vivian.

"Go," Tom said.

"We'll find our own way back." Leo jogged over and climbed aboard the flying boat. The squad greeted him with backslaps and shouts. He found a seat near the front, next to Coach Williams, as the boat lifted off and banked south. The security escort, three smaller crafts bristling with defensive formations, took up positions around them. Leo watched the lights of Cambridge shrink below. Then he turned to Williams.

"Coach. Is what happened today going to be okay? Are we going to have to worry about blowback from people losing that much money?" Williams reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a folded slip of paper and handed it to Leo. Leo unfolded it. It was a betting slip stamped with a sportsbook seal. Yale Bulldogs to win the National Championship. Five hundred thousand dollar wager. Odds: 20 to 1. Payout: Ten million dollars. Leo stared at it.

"Your new backers wanted you to have it," Williams said.

"Incentive to win the whole thing."

"Ten million dollars," Leo said.

"If we win." Leo looked at the slip again. The number was staggering. But what caught his eye was the odds line.

"Wait. People were really giving twenty to one?"

"Seems stupid in retrospect," Williams said.

"But at the time, after seeing your loss Week 3 against Harvard, the sportsbooks thought it was free money. A literal divine domain, and it was boosted with illegal empowering formations. Twenty to one looked generous." Leo folded the slip carefully and put it in his pocket.

"If you win," Williams said, "you probably won't collect the ten million in cash. The sportsbooks won't have it. You'll likely be paid in restructured equity." Leo frowned.

"Just some stock I share with hundreds of thousands of people?" Williams leaned back. Outside, the Massachusetts coastline slid past in a ribbon of lights.

"Money is immortal potential, Leo."

"The fight isn't about the Thousand Talents program anymore, Leo. It's about who controls the sportsbooks. Multiple Nascent Souls depend on the revenue those companies generate to fund their daily cultivation." He held up a finger.

"If Yale wins the championship, those companies go bankrupt. The fans who bet on Yale end up controlling them. New ownership. New money. New spiritual qi flowing to new people." Leo was quiet for a moment.

"So now we're fighting for someone else's profit?"

"Not just profit, but their cultivation. The Nascent Souls who currently control the books, and the Gold Cores who stand to replace them." Williams looked at Leo.

"If the current owners lose, they'll be arrested for boosting Mateo with illegal formations. They won't be able to maintain their daily cultivation. Their divine infant will starve. They'll regress back to Gold Core." Leo went quiet. A Gold Core cultivator lived over three hundred years. A Nascent Soul lived over six hundred. Double the lifespan. Double the time to accumulate power, influence, wealth. Without it, they would lose centuries of life.

"A new set of Gold Cores will take their place," Williams continued.

"And with fresh equity stakes in the companies, they'll be able to purchase the infant transformation pill and form their own nascent souls." Williams fixed Leo with a steady look.

"For some of these cultivators, this has literally become a deathmatch. The Nascent Souls stand to lose three hundred years of life. The Gold Cores stand to gain it. That's what's riding on your games, Leo. Centuries of human life." Leo felt the weight of the betting slip in his pocket.

"Coach. I'm going to make some powerful enemies." Williams didn't sugarcoat it.

"You already have. You entered a life or death feud with powerful cultivators the moment you first faced Mateo back in January. We all just didn't realize it yet." He looked at Leo.

"So it's better that you win. Cut off their livelihood. Force them down to Gold Core. Defang them before they can come for revenge." Leo said nothing.

"And who knows," Williams said.

"The Gold Cores who break through because of your victory? You'd be the reason they formed their nascent soul. They would owe their Dao to you. That kind of debt doesn't fade with time." The flying boat banked over the Connecticut coastline. The lights of New Haven glimmered ahead.

"It's not just a game anymore Leo. It's literally life or death now." Leo leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. The betting slip sat in his pocket like a lit fuse.