Chương 94: Chapter 93 – Fully Loaded

Ant woke before the light did, which hadn't happened all tournament. The inn room still smelled of yeast from the bakery two doors down, working through the wall the way it had every night since they'd taken the room, and under it now something new — leather oil and cold metal, the crate Hazel had left propped open against the foot of the bed where he'd fallen asleep looking at it.

He lay there a moment, listening to Mahkir's breathing even out beside him, slow and deep, and let himself feel the quiet of having actually rested instead of just stopping. You're awake, Mahkir said, not opening his eyes. I can feel that too, unfortunately. Whatever's in your head is loud enough to wake a Kithren three rooms over. Sorry. I didn't say stop. One ear swiveled toward him. Go on, then. Put it on. I know you've been thinking about it since she left. He had.

He swung his legs off the bed and knelt by the crate, and in the grey half-light before sunrise the silver crawling through the ore looked less like decoration and more like it was breathing on its own, waiting on him to give it a reason. He picked up the breastplate first. [Brightvein Breastplate — Rare. Str +4, End +8, Agi +6. Skill: Damage Reduction — reduces incoming damage by 5% (passive).] The prompt arrived the instant it settled against him, same as it always had for Soul Render, same clean certainty, and he stood there a second just holding still, feeling for the difference. There wasn't much to feel yet. One piece rarely was. The gauntlets came next, cool against his palms until his own warmth started working into the metal. [Brightvein Gauntlets — Rare. Str +10, Agi +2, End +5. Skill: Overload — user may halve one stat's current value and apply that amount as a bonus to Strength for 1 minute. No cost.] Then the greaves, buckled at thigh and knee, the fit close enough that Hazel's measurements clearly hadn't been guesswork. [Brightvein Greaves — Rare. Str +6, End +6, Agi +6. Skill: 666 Roulette — spend 30 mana to gamble a random stat modifier, up to 50% in either direction, lasting 3 minutes. Outcome and magnitude fully random.] He read that one twice.

"Six-six-six," he said out loud, to nobody. Ask her about that name later, Mahkir said, one eye open now, watching him work. I want to hear the explanation. The boots went on last of the four, lighter than the old Traveler's Boots had ever managed, the sole barely registering against the floor when he stood. [Brightvein Boots — Rare. Agi +10, Magic +5. Skill: Speed Enhance — spend 30 mana to increase Agility by 50% for 1 minute.] He flexed his ankle, testing it, and felt the arch of his foot lean forward before he'd told it to. The helmet came off the crate's lid where Hazel had set it separately, and he held it a moment before putting it on, turning it over the way he'd turned the breastplate over the night before. [Brightvein Helmet — Rare. Magic +10, End +5. No skill.] Last, the ring — smaller than the others, easy to miss entirely if he hadn't known to look for it, a plain dark band with the same slow crawl of silver moving through it that everything else in the crate carried. [Brightvein Ring — Rare. Str +7, Agi +3, End +3. No skill.] He slid it on, and the moment it settled the prompt arrived one more time, longer than the others, the letters holding half a second before resolving. Six-piece Brightvein set detected.

Set Bonus — Resonance: +10% to all stats and pools while all six pieces remain equipped. The number that followed made him sit back down on the edge of the bed. User: Anthony Byrren User Level: 10 Str: 48 End: 46 Magic: 33 Agi: 56 HP: 77/77 Mana: 165 cap"Mahkir." He said it flat, still reading it.

"Look at this." Mahkir padded over and sat, tail curling neat around his front paws, waiting rather than asking, which was its own kind of asking.

"Forty-eight strength." Ant looked up at him.

"You're at thirty-one. I'm stronger than you now." Mahkir went still — the kind of still that came right before an argument he intended to win. Say that again.

"Forty-eight to thirty-one. I checked twice." He couldn't quite keep the grin off it, not this early, not after a night of actual sleep and a morning that had started with good news instead of bad.

"Might have to start carrying you." Care to put that to the test, Mahkir said, and there was nothing dry left in it at all — just the flat, immediate challenge of a creature that had never once backed down from being provoked.

"Not before you get your own piece," Ant said, laughing despite himself.

"Fair's fair." That settled him faster than anything else could have. Mahkir's ears came up properly, and he crossed to where the collar sat waiting on the crate's lid, holding still while Ant lifted it and worked it into place — throat first, then the two flexible guards easing back along his flanks, exactly where Hazel had measured them to sit. Nothing happened. Ant frowned, turning the collar's edge over where it sat against fur, checking the clasp.

"Should there be — " Wait, Mahkir said, and Ant felt it land through the bond before the prompt ever reached his own eyes, a low unfamiliar pressure like something large clearing its throat somewhere behind his ribs. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. No equipment framework detected for bonded Kithren. Generating.... Kithren Equipment slot created. [Collar — Rare. +15 to all stats and pools. Skill: Elemental Attack — Kithren's existing elemental affinity may now be channeled through any point of physical contact, not only its designated skill. Cost as per base skill.] Ant read it three times before he trusted it enough to say anything.

"There's never been a slot for this before," he said slowly.

"It just — made one." I felt that part. Mahkir's tail had gone still, the way it only did when his attention was genuinely caught rather than merely held. Like a door swinging open that nobody expected to use again.

"I've never even heard of a Kithren wearing anything that actually did something. Stats, a skill, any of it." He shook his head slowly.

"Not that I'd know if it had — nobody I ever met had a system that could even tell." Of course not. But there was less bravado in it than usual, closer to the register he'd used the night before, thanking Hazel properly. Read me the rest.

"Fifteen to everything. Str, End, Magic, Agi — all of it." He pulled the number up.

"You're at thirty-one, twenty-nine, forty-seven, forty-three." Forty-seven magic. The way he said it carried real interest, undisguised, nothing performed about it. And the skill?

"Says you can push fire through anything that touches something. Not just the breath anymore." Ant looked up at him.

"Claws. Bite. Whatever's closest." Mahkir didn't say anything for a moment, which from Mahkir meant he was already testing the idea against every fight he could remember losing ground in. That, he said finally, is going to be considerably more useful than you're giving it credit for.

"Still Flame Breath, though. Just not stuck coming out of your mouth anymore. Same thirty mana, however it actually leaves you." I can live with a toll booth. He stood, shook himself once, the collar sitting exactly where Hazel had built it to sit, not moving an inch. Well. Shall we go find out what forty-eight strength actually does against an opponent that isn't me?

The board outside the registration tents lit while they were still crossing the lane, the crowd around it thickening the way it always did — OATH OF DEFIANCE, MAHKIR vs. RAVENSWORTH, UMBRA, and beneath it, smaller, a note that hadn't been there the day before: COMMON — ROUND 4. Kalsar read it over Ant's shoulder, Xylock quiet behind him, still favoring the leg Rowan hadn't fully cleared.

"Ravensworth's bird. I watched them in round two — big, mean-tempered thing, likes to come in from height." He looked sideways at Ant, taking in the new plate without comment for a second longer than felt natural.

"You look taller."

"Feel it too." Ant flexed one gauntleted hand, testing the weight of it, finding almost none.

"Hazel outdid herself."

"She usually does." Kalsar's attention had already drifted past him to Mahkir, to the collar sitting new and dark against red fur.

"That for him?"

"First piece Mahkir's ever had built for him." Ant said it plainly, and Kalsar's face changed at the words in a way he didn't try to explain.

"System didn't even have a slot for it. Had to make one on the spot."

"Didn't know that was possible."

"Wasn't. Until this morning." They didn't get further into it before Duncan arrived at a jog, already talking.

"Marigolds' round ran early — caught the last of it on the way over. Talonstrike." He said the name like it had cost him something to watch.

"Didn't even look like it was trying. Opponent tapped before the second minute."

"And Blackthorn's bear," Rebekah added, arriving a step behind him with Lem trotting at her heel, "put someone through the arena wall. Not figuratively." Andy came up beside Kalsar without a word, arms folding over the rail's absence out here at the strip, gaze already tracking the far gate.

"Watched Ravensworth's bird in round two," he said, to Ant more than anyone.

"It's fast. Reads a fight better than most Common-grade Kithren have any business reading one."

"Could go either way," Kalsar said, not unkindly, the flat honesty he always led with when he didn't want to dress something up for anyone's benefit.

"You've had a good run so far, but this one's not going to be as easy as the last three. Don't let it rattle you if it doesn't go clean." Ant didn't correct either of them. Whatever was sitting under his gauntlets and Mahkir's new collar, neither man had any reason to expect it, and letting the fight say it instead of his own mouth felt like the better use of the morning.

Whoever he faced in the semis, whoever waited past that in the final — neither of them was today's problem, and today's problem was standing at the gate looking considerably less threatening than a moment ago it had. He crossed to the handler's strip with Mahkir at his hip, close enough now to feel the sand's early heat even through the boots, and knelt to check the buckle on the collar one more time out of habit rather than need. You're stalling, Mahkir said. I'm not stalling.

I want you to actually listen before the horn goes. That got him. Mahkir sat, ears forward, giving him the full run of his attention. Don't go all out, Ant said. Use what you need to win it and nothing past that. I want you holding back the claw work — whatever that fire actually does once it's not just breath anymore. Save it. He flexed his own gauntleted hand once, thinking of the roulette and the overload sitting unused. Same goes for me. Whatever we don't need today, we keep in reserve for the semis.

Better surprise there than here. Why. We just found out what half of them do. Because Marigolds' bird put someone away in under two minutes and Blackthorn's bear went through a wall, and neither of them's seen what you can do yet. I'd rather they keep guessing. He straightened, resting a hand briefly against Mahkir's shoulder, feeling the collar's plating shift under his palm, flexible until it wasn't. Win it clean. Don't show them anything we might actually need later.

Mahkir considered that for exactly as long as it took the horn to sound. Fine, he said, already moving. Clean, then. Though I reserve the right to be disappointed about it. Ravensworth's Umbra came through the gate the way Kalsar had described it — big for a Common-grade bird, wingspan wide enough to throw a real shadow across the sand, talons the length of fingers curling and releasing as it found its footing. It didn't waste time reading him.

It went straight up, the way it had clearly won every fight before this one, height and a diving strike meant to end things before they properly began. Mahkir wasn't where it landed. He'd moved before Ant had finished registering the wingbeat, faster than anything Ant had watched him do all tournament, and the strike that should have opened his back caught nothing but sand instead.

Umbra pulled up hard, wings hammering to reset, and Mahkir was already on him before the second attempt could get off the ground — one clean strike to a folded wing, no more force behind it than the fight actually needed, and the bird went down hard enough that it didn't try for height again.

It tried talons instead, low and fast, and Mahkir simply absorbed the first one against a shoulder the breastplate had already made harder to hurt, shrugging off what should have opened him the way it clearly had every other Common-grade opponent this bird had faced. The second strike he didn't bother dodging at all — just let it land, the passive reduction eating most of what should have connected, and answered with a swipe that put Umbra flat on the sand and kept it there. [Forfeit called. Round 4 — Oath of Defiance.] The whole thing had taken less time than Hazel's collar had needed to settle into place that morning. [Mahkir — 13, 675 / 16, 000 to Level 8.]"That's it?" Duncan, somewhere at the rail, sounding almost cheated out of a fight.

"Didn't even look tired." Kalsar hadn't moved from where he'd been standing, arms still folded, watching the sand like he expected the fight to somehow keep going without either combatant in it.

"That's not the same cat I watched take Redmoor's boar apart four rounds back." He said it slowly, working through it as he spoke rather than after.

"Not even close." His eyes went to the collar, then to the plating that hadn't taken a mark all fight.

"Whatever that armor's doing, it isn't just keeping him alive."

"Wasn't trying to be." Ant crossed the sand to meet Mahkir, close enough to see the plating along his flank hadn't so much as scuffed. Andy hadn't said anything yet, which from Andy usually meant he was still catching up to what he'd just watched. When he finally spoke, it came out quieter than his usual flat certainty.

"Told you it'd be a fight."

"You told me it'd be a fight." Kalsar didn't look away from Mahkir.

"I believed you."

"He wasn't supposed to make it look easy either way," Ant said.

"Told you to hold back." I did hold back. Mahkir sat, tail curling, entirely unbothered by a fight that had barely qualified as one. You should see what I look like when I don't.

"Save it," Ant said.

"For someone who actually makes you work for it." Semis, then. His voice had settled into anticipation rather than complaint. Whoever they draw me against, let's hope they're worth the trouble everyone's been promising me all morning.