Sovereign Cultivation Stage One was at forty-one percent and the movement integration had gotten good enough that Orion ran the thread continuously now, through training, through sparring, through breakfast and the walk between the manor and the training ground. The active circulation wasn’t always perfect. It frayed under high physical exertion and broke entirely if something hit him hard enough to spike his attention elsewhere. But it was there most of the time, quietly doing its work, the internal mana density building in slow reliable increments.

The system had revised its projection.

◈ SOVEREIGN CULTIVATION ◈

Stage 1: 41%

Projected completion: 7 days at current rate.

Element 7 [Stability Under Combat Pressure]: Active

Element 8 [Integration With External Skills]: Initiating

◈ ◈ ◈

Seven days. Five before the trial if the rate held. He’d have Stage One finished and two days to start Stage Two before walking into whatever Crane had arranged.

He was working through element seven, stability under combat pressure, which meant running cultivation during actual sparring rather than controlled drills, and Astra had been the one making that possible for the last five days.

She fought differently than Luna. Luna was instinct and overwhelming capability held deliberately in check. Astra was precision and timing and the specific controlled aggression of someone who’d spent two years being trained by people significantly better than her and had absorbed every lesson. She telegraphed less than anyone he’d sparred with. She made him work.

And every time she made him work hard enough that the cultivation thread frayed, he learned something about the boundary between sustainable pressure and spike disruption.

Useful data. Expensively obtained.

"Thread broke again," she said, after catching him mid-displacement with a wooden sword to the ribs that had more weight behind it than strictly necessary.

"Three seconds longer than yesterday," he said, breathing through it.

"Still broke."

"Still longer." He reset his stance. "Again."

She came again.

The thread held through the first exchange and the second and frayed on the third when she did the switching feint she’d developed specifically for him, the one that went high, dropped low, and committed to neither until the last half-second, and his attention spiked trying to read it.

He got the displacement off anyway.

Appeared on her left.

She was already turning.

He caught her wrist before the counter-strike landed and redirected it, using the technique Astra had corrected him on three days ago, meeting the movement rather than fighting it.

She stepped back. Looked at her wrist. Looked at him.

"You’ve been practicing that specifically," she said.

"You kept landing it," he said.

"So you studied the counter."

"Seemed more efficient than hoping you’d stop."

She looked at him for a moment with the expression that had stopped trying to recalibrate because it had apparently accepted that he was simply going to keep not fitting the model. She just worked with whatever version of him showed up now.

He appreciated that.

They were finishing the session when Doran arrived at a pace that was not his usual pace. Not running. Doran didn’t run anywhere because running announced urgency and Doran had learned from watching Orion that urgency was information you didn’t give away for free.

But his footfall was faster. And the expression when he came through the training ground gate was doing the controlled-neutral thing with more effort than usual.

"Seth," he said.

Astra turned immediately. Orion kept his expression even. "What."

"He went to the Patriarch this morning," Doran said. "I don’t know the full content but I know the subject." He paused. "Your summon count."

Orion looked at him.

"He argued that a candidate entering the selection trial with only one contracted beast is at a structural disadvantage compared to candidates with multiple contracts," Doran said. "And that the trial should require a minimum of two contracted summons for full participation."

"He proposed a rule change," Astra said flatly.

"He proposed a clarification of existing rules," Doran corrected. "There’s a precedent clause from forty years ago that was apparently never formally removed from the trial charter. A candidate with only one contract was historically considered to be competing in a limited capacity." He looked at Orion. "Seth found it. Had it formalized this morning."

Orion was quiet for a moment.

"The Patriarch agreed," he said.

"He didn’t disagree," Doran said. "Which for Father means the same thing."

Astra turned away and made a short sound through her nose that communicated everything she thought about that. She turned back. "Full participation affects the scoring. A limited capacity candidate can complete the trial but their results are assessed differently. They can’t place in the top rankings regardless of performance."

"And top rankings," Orion said.

"Determine which candidates receive academy recommendations," she finished.

There it was. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Seth couldn’t stop him from entering the trial. Couldn’t stop him from performing well. But he could make the performance irrelevant by reclassifying the category. Top marks in a limited capacity bracket didn’t translate to academy placement. They translated to a polite notation in the family records and nothing else.

Orion looked at the training ground. At the scorch mark still faintly visible in the corner from the crystal test. At the state of the stone after twelve days of continuous use.

"When does the rule take effect," he said.

"It’s already in the charter," Doran said. "Seth didn’t add it. He just had it formally acknowledged." He paused. "He scheduled an assessment of all candidates’ contract counts for three days from now. Official, in front of the family elders."

Three days.

Orion needed a second contract.

Which he’d been sitting on the resources for since day one and hadn’t done because the timing mattered and bringing another contracted summon into his situation before he understood the situation fully was the kind of move that created more variables than it solved.

The timing had just been decided for him.

He looked at his Mythic Energy count without pulling up the screen because he’d memorized it. Two hundred and sixty-six. He’d been building it for twelve days through mission rewards and combat bonuses and the steady accumulation of small completions.

More than enough for multiple summons.

He looked at Luna.

She was on the wall. Had been watching the entire exchange with the stillness that meant she was thinking something she hadn’t decided to say yet.

"Luna," he said.

"I know," she said.

Not angry. Not the possessive spike he might have expected from her ten days ago. She’d been different lately. More settled. Like some internal question had been answered gradually through the process of daily presence rather than through any specific conversation.

"Do you have objections," he said.

She was quiet for a moment. "I have preferences," she said. "Not objections." A pause. "Whoever master summons. They respect the order of things."

"The order of things," Orion said.

"I was first," she said simply.

"You were first," he confirmed.

She looked at him for another second. Then dropped from the wall. "Then no objections."

He turned to Doran. "I need a space."

"Here is fine," Doran said. "Or we can use the back section by the wall. More enclosed."

"Here," Orion said. "No point hiding it."

Astra looked at him. "You’re doing it now."

"Three days to the assessment," he said. "Doing it now gives me three days of contract time before I have to present it."

She looked at him for a moment. "How many are you summoning."

"One," he said. "Maybe two." He thought about it. "One today."

Voss appeared in the training ground gate at that specific moment with his satchel and his nothing-to-see-here walk and then immediately read the energy of the space and stopped. "I’m interrupting something."

"You’re about to observe something," Orion said. "Come in."

Voss came in. Took his window position.

Doran moved to the perimeter.

Astra crossed her arms and watched with the expression of someone who was already running analysis on whatever was about to happen.

Luna stood beside Orion. Not in front. Not behind. Beside. The specific positioning of something that had decided what it was and where it stood.

He pulled up the summoning interface.

Looked at it properly for the first time.

◈ MYTHIC SUMMONING SYSTEM ◈

[SUMMON]

Available: Elite Summon

Cost: 5 Mythic Energy per attempt

Mythic Energy Available: 266

Current Contracts: 1 [Luna :: Elite]

Contract Slots Available: Yes

◈ NOTE ◈

You’ve been sitting on this for twelve days.

The system has opinions.

◈ ◈ ◈

"Let’s go," he said.

The summoning circle appeared.

Different from a standard summoning circle, he’d noticed this the first time with Luna but hadn’t had another to compare it to. Standard circles were silver-white, geometric, twelve standard rune points in a fixed configuration. His were gold-tinted, the rune configuration non-standard, the pattern rotating slightly rather than static.

The Sovereign Core doing what it did. Attracting what it attracted.

The glow built.

Fast. Faster than the first time with Luna had been. The intensity climbing in under ten seconds to the point where Orion was squinting and Doran had turned his face slightly and Voss had put up a hand.

Astra didn’t move. She just narrowed her eyes and kept watching.

The light peaked.

Then dropped.