October 2026, Earth

  It was week nine of Leo's intensive training program. He had made great strides and improvements, shoring up a lot of his weaknesses. Dr. Reyes and Coach Williams were very impressed by his discipline and rapid increase in skills.

  Of course, this was all due to having eight extra hours to either train or blow off steam in the Azure Profound Continent.

  However, now was the beginning of competition preparation, and Leo's lack of training equipment in Azure Profound Continent began to really hinder him.

  Yale's Flying Combat Simulator was the size of a regulation CFL field. Using a combination of advanced formations, banks of NVIDIA TPUs, and state-of-the-art holographic projectors, it would allow players to simulate holographic recreations of CFLs matches, and do targeted repeated training.

  "Begin scenario seven," the system announced. "Two-on-one engagement with integrated flak support."

  The holographic opponents materialized. Gold Core level cultivators rendered in flickering blue light, their movements trained on large datasets of matches. Each armed with different spells, weapons, and tactics that were found in regulation play.

  And below them, the flak emplacements opened fire.

  Explosive rounds of compressed Qi screamed upward, detonating in spherical bursts designed to deny aerial space. At least the flak gunners didn't incorporate additional skills. But even area denial required constant repositioning, constant awareness, constant adaptation.

  Leo lasted fourteen seconds.

  The first opponent closed while he dodged a flak burst, green blade slashing through his guard before he could recover. The second opponent caught him on the reset, punishing his predictable evasion pattern with a thrust that would have pierced his lung in real combat.

  "Scenario failed," the system announced. "Time survived: fourteen seconds. Average for a freshman: forty-two seconds. Recommendation: improve reactive maneuvering and spatial prediction."

  Leo reset, breathing hard. "Again."

  Twelve seconds.

  "Again."

  Sixteen seconds.

  "Again."

  A combination attack he never saw coming, both opponents reading his tendencies and converging simultaneously.

  The problem was obvious. In the Azure Profound Continent, he'd trained against Arthur, Mike, and Kevin. Foundation Establishment cultivators with predictable patterns he'd learned to read over weeks of repeated combat. They used lightsabers, theatrical weapons with consistent properties. They fought fair, or at least, in the limits of human imagination.

  In the Collegiate Flying Aces League (CFL), combat was a completely different beast.

  Collegiate Flyers used custom Gold Core level lifebound weapons, each one unique, each one capable of techniques specific to its wielder. They augmented their attacks with spell arts that transformed simple sword strikes into area-denial weapons. They moved in ways that defied the physical limitations Leo had internalized during training.

  And the flak. The endless, omnipresent flak.

  CFL-tier gunners trained for years to develop target-switching speed. They could track multiple Flyers simultaneously, predict evasion patterns, lead shots with inhuman precision, and even curve shots midair if the Flyer dodged.

  A competent Gunner could deny entire sections of the combat zone, forcing Flyers into killboxes where enemy cultivators waited to finish them.

  Leo's lightsaber training had made him good at aerial combat.

  CFL required something else entirely.

  He needed to stop flying his sword and start becoming his sword. The distinction seemed semantic but represented a fundamental shift in combat philosophy. Flying meant directing, giving commands, receiving responses, operating the weapon as a vehicle.

  Becoming meant unity, no separation between intention and execution, no lag between thought and movement, sword and body acting as a single entity that could will itself through impossible trajectories.

  Collegiate Flyers didn't dodge flak. They simply weren't where the flak was aimed. They didn't parry attacks. They existed in positions where attacks couldn't reach.

  Leo understood the theory.

  He had no idea how to practice it.

  ---

  That night, in the Azure Profound Continent, he explained the problem.

  "You hit a wall," Arthur observed. The old man sat cross-legged in their underground base, cleaning his Eclipse with a silk cloth. "Happens to everyone eventually."

  "I need to train against real Gold Core opponents," Leo said. "With real weapons and real spell arts. And I need flak, actual anti-air suppression that I can learn to read and evade."

  "The Pond Gazing Sect has four Gold Core cultivators. We could arrange some... involuntary sparring sessions." Mike suggested

  "Their combat styles are ancient cultivation world garbage," Kevin interjected. "Leo needs to train against CFL-style opponents, which means modern techniques, modern equipment, modern tactics. The Pond Gazers fight like it's still the archaic era."

  "Then we need equipment." Arthur said, expression shifting into something calculating. "Gold Core divine weapons. Flak batteries capable of tracking high-speed aerial targets."

  "Where exactly do we acquire those?" Leo asked.

  "We buy them. Or we take them." Arthur's scarred face split into a humorless grin.

  "I did some reconnaissance while you were training. The Pond Gazing Sect's armory is pathetic. Foundation Establishment weapons mostly, a few low-tier Gold Core pieces."

  "So we look elsewhere," Mike said.

  "There's an immortal city about three hundred kilometers southeast. Crimson Lotus City. Major trading hub for this region." Arthur pulled out a rough map he'd stolen from someone, spreading it across the stone floor.

  "Population around fifty thousand, mostly mortals and Qi Refining cultivators. Governing power is the Crimson Lotus Merchant Alliance, a coalition of trading families that pooled resources to maintain independence from the major sects."

  Kevin looked over. "What's their military strength?"

  "Six Gold Core elders for official defense. Maybe a dozen more scattered across the allied families. Nascent Soul backup from some distant patron sect, but response time would be measured in hours minimum." Arthur tapped the map.

  "More importantly, they're traders. They stockpile goods for resale. Crimson Lotus City has a warehouse full of T3 weapons somewhere."

  "You want to rob an entire city," Leo said flatly.

  "I want to rob specific targets within a city. The Merchant Alliance treasury. Or a few private collections from the wealthier families. Maybe the Heavenly Arms Pavilion if we're feeling ambitious. They're the primary weapons dealer for the region; Gold Core equipment is their specialty."

  Mike opened his eyes fully, clearly interested. "What about resistance? Six Gold Core cultivators isn't trivial."

  "Two La Ferrari Eclipses." Arthur gestured between himself and Leo. "We can outrun any Gold Core in this world. The issue is identification. We need to find the valuable targets, grab them, and then run away faster than they can imagine."

  "Spirit stones," Kevin added. "We need spirit stones most of all. Commissioning proper training equipment will require capital. Tier 3 formation work is expensive, even with our skills."

  "How long would this take?" Leo asked.

  "Reconnaissance first. One week to scout the city, identify targets, map guard rotations." Mike estimated.

  Arthur interrupted, "Too long. Let's just go now, we have two Eclipses. We can just smash and grab stuff. Here's my idea. We go find the weapon shop, pick our weapons, and then make a run for it."

  ---

  The plan, if you could call it that, fell apart within the first three minutes.

  Crimson Lotus City sprawled across a fertile river valley, its architecture a blend of traditional cultivation world aesthetics and practical mercantile functionality. Warehouses clustered near the docks. Mansions crowned the surrounding hills. The central market district pulsed with activity even at this late hour.

  The four of them descended from the clouds in tight formation. The plan was simple: land on the roof of the Heavenly Arms Pavilion, breach the building, grab every Gold Core weapon they could stuff into their storage rings, and leave before anyone could mount an organized response.

  The first problem emerged when they reached the Pavilion.

  "That's not a weapons shop," Kevin observed, hovering a hundred fifty meters above what their stolen map indicated should be their target.

  "That's a brothel."

  The building below featured red silk banners, suggestive imagery carved into its facade, and a steady stream of male cultivators entering through its ornate front doors. Feminine laughter drifted up from open windows. The sign above the entrance read, in elegant calligraphy that only Leo could read: "House of Crimson Pleasures."

  Arthur remained silent, which was itself an answer.

  "Can you read that?" Arthur pointed at a larger building three blocks east, its roof bristling with defensive formations. "What's that one?"

  Leo squinted, channeling qi to enhance his vision.

  "Jade... Harmony... Bank."

  "Banks have vaults. Vaults have valuables." Arthur was already angling his Eclipse toward the new target. "Change of plans. We hit the bank first, acquire capital, then purchase weapons legitimately."

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "That's not what 'legitimately' means," Mike muttered.

  "It's legitimate if we pay for them."

  "With stolen money."

  "Still counts."

  They descended toward the Jade Harmony Bank in a shallow dive, wind whipping past their faces. Leo's divine sense swept the building, cataloging guard positions.

  Two Gold Core cultivators on the main floor. One in a back office. Seventeen Foundation Establishment guards distributed throughout. A massive vault door on the basement level, sealed with at least three interlocking formation arrays.

  "I count three Gold Cores," Leo reported. "Plus guards. We should probably plan how to..."

  "I'll handle the Gold Cores." Arthur's hand rested on his Eclipse's hilt. "You keep the Foundation trash off our backs. Mike and Kevin, you're on vault duty. Crack it open, grab everything portable, signal when you're done."

  "We don't know the formation types," Kevin protested. "Without analysis time..."

  "Too late," Leo shrugged. "He's already off."

  Arthur went through the ceiling rather than around it, his Eclipse converting to blade configuration mid-descent and carving a three-meter hole through tile, timber, and defensive wards. Debris exploded downward. Screams erupted from below.

  Leo followed through the breach, his sword igniting as he dived in. The bank's interior was lavish. Marble floors, silk tapestries, jade countertops where tellers had been conducting evening transactions.

  Those tellers were now scrambling for cover, their Qi Refining cultivation wholly inadequate for the violence unfolding around them.

  The first Gold Core cultivator responded with impressive speed. A middle-aged woman in banker's robes, her aura flaring bright silver as she drew a sword from a spatial ring and lunged toward Arthur's descending form.

  Arthur's Eclipse swept toward her in a crimson arc.

  She parried. The impact sent her sliding backward across the marble, feet carving grooves in the stone, but she stayed upright. Her eyes went wide...

  Then she opened her mouth and screamed.

  An alarm. The sound was spiritually enhanced, piercing through walls and formations, echoing across the entire district. Every guard in the building would have heard it. Every cultivator within three blocks would have heard it.

  The woman retreated through a side door, still screaming, her voice somehow growing louder as she fled. Arthur lunged after her, but suddenly the main entrance exploded inward.

  A massive rhinoceros covered in bronze plate armor charged through the wreckage, a Gold Core cultivator mounted on its back. The cultivator wielded a hooked spear that crackled with lightning Qi, his face twisted in righteous fury.

  "THIEVES!" he bellowed in Common. "THE JADE HARMONY BANK IS UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE IRON RHINOCEROS SECT! SURRENDER OR..."

  Arthur's Eclipse punched toward the rhinoceros's skull.

  The beast lurched sideways with surprising agility. The blade carved a furrow across its bronze armor instead, sending up a shower of sparks. The rider's spear swept down, forcing Arthur to disengage or lose an arm.

  "What's he saying?" Arthur asked Leo, circling for another angle.

  "Something about an Iron Rhinoceros Sect."

  The rider shouted something else, spear leveling toward Arthur's chest.

  "He says we've made enemies of the Iron Rhinoceros Sect and their Nascent Soul ancestor will..."

  Arthur threw a formation-inscribed knife at the man's throat.

  The cultivator deflected it with his spear. In that moment of distraction, Arthur closed the distance...

  And the rhinoceros headbutted him.

  Two tons of spiritual beast slammed into Arthur's torso, launching him backward through a silk tapestry and into the wall beyond. Stone cracked. Dust billowed. The rhinoceros snorted triumphantly and pawed at the marble floor.

  Arthur emerged from the rubble with his robes torn and his expression murderous.

  "I'm going to make that thing into boots."

  "Focus!" Leo parried a spear thrust from a guard. "Mike, Kevin. Vault status?"

  No response from Mike. Kevin's voice echoed from below:

  "Working on it! The formations are more complex than..."

  An explosion shook the building.

  "...expected," Kevin finished.

  Leo kicked the guard in the chest, sending him tumbling into two of his colleagues, and sprinted for the basement stairs.

  Behind him, Arthur and the rhinoceros rider had resumed their duel, neither able to land a clean hit. The beast's bulk kept interfering with Arthur's angles, while the rider couldn't match Arthur's speed.

  The basement was filled with acrid smoke. Kevin stood before the vault door, which now featured a jagged hole approximately one meter in diameter. Smoke rose from his robes. His eyebrows were mostly gone.

  "Booby-trapped," Kevin explained. "The third layer had a cascading destruct sequence. I contained most of it." He gestured at the hole. "But I need another twenty minutes to widen this enough to get through."

  "We don't have twenty minutes. Where's Mike?"

  "Logged out. His kid woke up."

  "Of course." Leo peered through the hole into the vault. Neat shelves lined the walls, holding weapons, armor, jade slips, and what appeared to be a Golden Flame Jade deposit just sitting in the open.

  The ceiling shook. Dust rained down. The sounds of combat from above had intensified. Multiple voices now, multiple weapon impacts.

  "Reinforcements," Leo said. "We need to speed this up."

  "Formation work cannot be rushed." Kevin's hands moved through a complex series of gestures, qi flowing from his fingertips into the vault's remaining wards.

  "If I make a mistake on layer four, this entire basement fills with poison gas."

  Leo shouted over. "Just trigger it."

  "What?"

  "The formation. Set it off. You'll die, sure, but you'll respawn in three days. We can't afford twenty minutes."

  "Catch." Kevin tossed his storage ring to Leo, who snatched it from the air. Then Kevin plunged both hands directly into the formation matrix surrounding the vault door.

  The reaction was immediate.

  Green gas erupted from hidden vents in the walls, floor, and ceiling. The vapor was thick, oily, carrying the stench of rotting vegetation and something chemically acrid beneath it.

  Kevin's body convulsed as the poison flooded his lungs, his skin blistering and blackening in the span of two heartbeats. He collapsed, twitching, his cultivation base unable to resist whatever alchemical horror the bank had installed as its final defense.

  Leo was already moving.

  He threw himself backward up the stairs, his Eclipse humming as it flew him away. The green cloud pursued him like a living thing, tendrils of vapor reaching up the stairwell, but he stayed ahead of it... barely.

  A wisp caught his trailing sleeve and the fabric dissolved, leaving his forearm exposed to air that suddenly felt blessedly clean by comparison.

  ---

  The main floor was chaos.

  Arthur stood at the center of a whirlwind of violence, his Eclipse carving through three Foundation Establishment guards who'd made the mistake of trying to flank him simultaneously.

  The rhinoceros lay on its side near the shattered entrance, its bronze armor cracked and leaking blood from a dozen wounds. Its rider was nowhere to be seen.

  But there were new arrivals.

  A woman in flowing white robes hovered near the ceiling, her hands weaving through a complex seal sequence. Ice crystals formed in the air around her, coalescing into spears that launched toward Arthur in a continuous barrage. Gold Core, Leo's divine sense confirmed. Peak Gold Core, probably.

  A second cultivator, male, heavyset, wielding a massive iron club, had engaged Arthur directly, forcing the old man to split his attention between aerial bombardment and ground-level assault.

  "We're leaving!" Leo shouted, sprinting toward the ruined entrance. "Kevin's down, I looted the vault, we need to go NOW!"

  "I'm AWARE!" Arthur parried the club, redirected an ice spear with his off-hand, and kicked the heavyset cultivator in the knee with enough force to shatter bone. The man went down screaming.

  Leo's Eclipse shifted to offensive configuration as he burst through the entrance and into the street.

  The street was far from empty.

  At least thirty cultivators had gathered outside the Jade Harmony Bank, drawn by the alarm and the sounds of combat. Most were Foundation Establishment; merchants, guards, curious onlookers who'd made the mistake of getting too close. But three more Gold Cores stood at the crowd's edge, their auras flaring as they assessed the situation.

  His Eclipse blazed with crimson fire as he flew above the crowd.

  Arthur erupted from the bank behind him, trailing ice shards and blood, some of it his own. The white-robed woman pursued, her hands still weaving, more ice spears forming with each gesture.

  "North gate!" Leo called out. "Its the closest! The city formation has sealed the sky!"

  They shot upward, breaking free of the street-level chaos and climbing toward the rooftops. Behind them, the three Gold Cores who'd been observing launched into pursuit. The white-robed woman followed as well, her ice spears tracking Arthur with uncomfortable accuracy.

  Leo's divine sense swept ahead, mapping their route. The north gate was a mile away. Between them and escape lay a commercial district, a residential quarter, and the outer wall itself, a forty-meter barrier of spirit-reinforced stone topped with defensive formations.

  "Incoming!" Arthur barrel-rolled left, evading an ice spear that would have taken his head. He answered with a burst of flame from his Eclipse, forcing the white-robed woman to break off her attack and shield herself.

  One of the pursuing Gold Cores, a young man in black robes with dual swords in hand, closed the distance with frightening speed. His cultivation base was solid mid-Gold Core, and his movement technique was refined. Professional.

  He reached Leo first.

  The dual blades came in from opposing angles, a scissoring attack designed to limit evasion options. Leo twisted, his Eclipse flaring, and deflected the right-hand blade while ducking under the left.

  The young man's eyes widened; he hadn't expected a Qi Refining cultivator to read his technique so cleanly.

  Divine sense. Leo's months of agonizing training had refined his spiritual awareness and reaction speed far beyond what his cultivation base suggested. He could see the young man's next three moves before they happened, could feel the subtle shifts in qi that preceded each attack.

  But seeing attacks and having the physical capability to avoid them were different things.

  The left blade came around for a second pass. Leo blocked, but the impact sent shockwaves through his arm. His Eclipse's formations absorbed most of the force, converting it to heat that bled off as harmless light, but the young man was already pressing the advantage.

  Strike after strike, each one heavier than the last, each one forcing Leo to give ground.

  "Little thief!" The young man's voice was calm, almost conversational.

  "Your treasure is impressive. I'll be sure to treat it well after I've removed it from your corpse."

  Leo wasted no breath on a response. He dove, angling toward the rooftops below, using the architecture to break line of sight.

  The young man followed, but the move bought Leo two seconds, enough time to change direction and rocket toward a narrow alley between two warehouses.

  The alley was tight. Too tight for comfortable combat. The young man hesitated at the entrance, unwilling to sacrifice his cultivation advantage.

  Leo burst out the other end and immediately climbed, his Eclipse screaming as it pushed toward maximum speed. Wind tore at his robes. His qi reserves drained faster than he'd like, feeding the treasure's hungry formations.

  Arthur caught up with him a hundred meters later, the white-robed woman falling behind as the old man's Eclipse outpaced her movement technique. Blood dripped from a gash on Arthur's forehead, and his left arm hung at an angle that suggested the shoulder had been dislocated.

  "Two more behind us," Arthur reported, still accelerating. "Whats the plan?"

  "Right there. We'll need to punch through the gate formation."

  "What tier?"

  "Hopefully tier three."

  Arthur's expression darkened. "We'll manage. Usually these formations are much better at keeping things out than in"

  The residential quarter passed beneath them in a blur of tiled roofs and walled gardens. Cultivators emerged from their homes, drawn by the commotion, but none joined the pursuit. This was Gold Core tier combat. No sane Foundation Establishment cultivator would involve themselves.

  The wall loomed ahead, its stones glowing with embedded formations. The north gate was a massive arch sealed by a shimmering barrier of translucent energy. Guards stationed on the wall's top had already spotted them; crossbows loaded with formation-enhanced bolts tracked their approach.

  Arthur said. "I'll open the gate! You keep them off of me."

  "On it!" Leo spun, orienting himself backward while maintaining his momentum.

  The pursuing Gold Cores had consolidated into a loose formation: the young man in black, a heavyset woman with a war hammer, and an elderly figure whose aura felt slippery and indistinct.

  They were a quarter mile back and closing.

  Leo raised his Eclipse, the blade converting to ranged configuration. Fire gathered at its tip, compressing into a fireball. He released.

  The projectile screamed across the gap and detonated between the three pursuers. They scattered, the young man diving left, the heavyset woman right, the elderly figure simply vanishing. The explosion bought ten seconds of chaos, enough for Arthur to reach the gate.

  Arthur's Eclipse slammed into the barrier.

  The impact produced a sound like a mountain splitting. Cracks spiderwebbed across the translucent surface, spreading from the point of contact in fractal patterns.

  Arthur struck again. And again.

  The third blow shattered the barrier entirely. Shards of crystallized qi exploded outward, scattering like glass, and the gate stood open.

  "GO!" Arthur plunged through the gap.

  Leo followed, twisting to avoid a crossbow bolt that would have pierced his lung. The bolt passed close enough to tear his sleeve, and then he was through, outside the city, the wilderness spreading before him in moonlit expanse.

  Behind them, alarm bells began to sound. The city's main formation would be activating soon, a dome of protective energy that would seal Crimson Lotus City against external threats. Anyone inside when it activated would be trapped until the authorities stood down.

  Anyone outside would be free to disappear.

  "Two miles to the logout point," Leo called, checking his mental map. They'd scouted a safe spot earlier, a dense forest near the city.

  The pursuing Gold Cores burst through the gate seconds later.

  Arthur's voice cut through the wind as they raced over the darkened forest canopy.

  "You got the goods, right?"

  Leo patted his storage ring. "Tens of thousands of spirit stones. Maybe more. I didn't have time to count. Plus a couple Tier 3 Gold Core artifacts. A spear and a shield, at least."

  Arthur's bloodied face split into a grin. Blood from his forehead wound had run into the creases around his eyes, giving him the appearance of a man wearing a mask made of red paint.

  "Good job."

  Something sailed through the air toward Leo. He caught it reflexively: Arthur's storage ring.

  Arthur was already turning, his Eclipse pivoting in the air, orienting himself toward the three Gold Cores who had just cleared the city wall.

  "Arthur..."

  "Catch you offline." Arthur grinned and reset his dislocated shoulder against his sword, racing to intercept their pursuers.