Leo's Dorm at Exeter

  The VR pod's lid hissed open and Leo sat up in his familiar dorm.

  He examined his Moonrider hanging in his dantian and the freshly inscribed counter formation. He finally had a direction.

  He climbed out of the pod and stretched. The clock read 2:47 PM.

  Tom was sitting cross-legged on his bed with a laptop balanced on one knee, spreadsheet glowing on screen.

  "There he is." Tom closed the laptop. "You look... cheerful. That's new."

  "I have good news."

  "Yeah?"

  "I think I can beat Mateo at the conference championships."

  Tom blinked. "Wait, seriously? You figured something out?"

  "I figured a lot of things out."

  "Leo, that's..." Tom trailed off.

  "What's wrong?"

  "What? Nothing. That's great news."

  "Tom."

  "It's great news."

  "You're hiding something from me. I can tell."

  Tom exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. "Do you follow the news? Like, at all?"

  "I've been a little busy finding a solution to Mateo." Leo reached for his phone in his pocket.

  "Don't." Leo's hand stopped mid-air. "Don't open that."

  Leo pulled his hand back slowly. "That bad?"

  "So. After Mateo beat us at the Harvard-Yale game, Harvard's been on a roll. They're 4-0 now. The media made a huge deal about Mateo. Talking about how he must be the greatest of all time."

  "Did anyone manage to beat him?"

  "Beat him?" Tom almost laughed. "Nobody's even made him try. Foundation Establishment kids getting swatted out of the air in under ten seconds."

  "Okay. That's fine. I have a plan for..."

  "I believe you. And I want you to know, me, the guys at Yale, we're backing you. One hundred percent. Hundreds of thousands of people believe in you."

  "So what's so bad about this?"

  Tom rubbed his neck. "You know what the Thousand Talents Plan is?"

  "No."

  "Okay. So back in 2008, right after the financial crisis, China launched something called the Thousand Talents Plan. They offered cultivators from all over the world free spirit vein access. And the timing was perfect, because the global economy had just cratered."

  "Did it work?"

  "Thousands of cultivators took the deal. Some of them were American. The FBI lost its mind. A few professors at major universities got arrested for secretly maintaining dual spirit vein contracts with Chinese institutions." Tom shifted on the bed. "The point is, the concept works. Offer free spiritual qi to the best cultivators in the world and they'll come to you."

  "What does that have to do with Mateo?"

  "Everything." Tom leaned forward. "Congress just proposed the Cultivator Talent Acquisition Act. The press is calling it America's Thousand Talents Plan for the Catacombs. The idea is to identify high-potential cultivators from the Catacombs and recruit them to Earth. And here's the kicker." Tom held up a finger. "Recruited talents get their spirit vein fees waived for the first twenty years."

  Leo stared. "Twenty years?"

  "For a Gold Core talent, that's four hundred thousand a year they're saving. Eight million dollars over the term. Funded by taxpayer spirit veins."

  "That's..." Leo did the math in his head. "That's an enormous amount of money."

  "A huge deal. And Mateo's become the poster child for the whole program. Every network is running the same angle. Look at this incredible talent, look how he's dominating Earth-born cultivators, imagine if we had a thousand of him. The sports coverage turned into political coverage basically overnight."

  "But Mateo's father came here on his own. He wasn't recruited by any program."

  "Doesn't matter. The narrative is already built. Mateo proves the concept. A divine child, crushing everything in his path, representing the future of American cultivation. The pro-Thousand Talents crowd is using you as exhibit A." Tom rubbed his temples.

  Leo felt something cold settle in his stomach. "Using me how?"

  "You're Earth's best junior talent and Mateo just publicly embarrassed you at Harvard-Yale. So now you're the cautionary tale. See what happens when we invest in homegrown cultivators instead of recruiting from outside? They lose."

  Leo sat on the edge of his bed. The good mood from five minutes ago felt like it belonged to someone else.

  "The really ugly part," Tom continued, "is what it means for ordinary cultivators. Four hundred thousand a year in waived spirit vein fees per recruit. Multiply that by a thousand talents. That money comes from somewhere. Either taxes go up, or the existing spirit vein allocation gets redistributed. People who are already struggling to maintain Foundation Establishment are looking at this program and seeing their fees increase so some Catacombs prodigy can train for free."

  "And somehow my name keeps getting dragged into the middle of all this."

  "Your name is the middle of all this." Tom held up both hands. "Stay out of it."

  "I wasn't planning on getting into it."

  "Good. Stay off TikTok. If you need to know something, ask me. I've got the contacts, I've got the updates, I'll tell you whatever you need to know."

  Leo stared at the phone. He put it back in his pocket.

  "Is there any good news?"

  Tom thought about it. "Coach Williams has been looking for you."

  Leo looked up.

  "Came by the dorm twice while you were in the pod. Left a message with me. Sounded like he wants to apologize." Tom shrugged. "Seemed genuine."

  Something loosened in Leo's chest. He'd been chewing on his fight with Williams for days without knowing how to approach it. Williams reaching out first made it easier.

  "I'll head over now," Leo said, standing.

  "Remember, don't look at the news."

  "Thanks, Tom. I'll keep it in mind."

  ---

  Leo pulled Moonrider from his dantian and lifted off from the dormitory quad, angling northwest toward the Bulldogs training complex.

  Halfway across, his divine sense caught something. A presence. Behind and above, maybe two hundred yards back. Whoever it was had decent concealment, enough to fool a regular cultivator. But Leo's third person perspective picked him up clearly. Gold Core strength.

  He kept flying toward the training center. Whatever this was, he'd rather deal with it on friendly ground.

  He touched down on the concrete sidewalk outside the main entrance. Moonrider vanished back into his dantian. He took two steps toward the doors.

  The parking lot exploded with light.

  Camera flashes. Dozens of them. From behind parked cars, from the bushes, from a van with its side door already open. Figures surged toward him, recording talismans floating above their heads like a swarm of luminous insects.

  "Leo Chen!" A woman in a pressed blazer shoved a talisman toward his face. "Harvard is 4-0 and Mateo hasn't lost a single match since your game. Have you quit Flying Aces because you feel you can't compete?"

  He stepped back. Another reporter filled the gap.

  "Leo, what do you think about the speculation that Earth-born cultivators simply cannot match the Catacombs divine children? Do you think the Thousand Talents Plan is the right approach?"

  "No comment." He tried to move toward the entrance.

  A third reporter cut him off. "Leo Chen, the Cultivator Talent Acquisition Act goes to committee next week. Do you support recruiting Catacombs talents or do you believe domestic programs deserve more funding? The public wants to know."

  "I don't have a side. I'm a student. Excuse me."

  "Sources say your performance against Mateo was so one-sided that Coach Williams considered cutting you from the roster. Can you confirm..."

  The main doors banged open.

  Shawn walked out with half the Bulldogs defensive line. They all wore expressions that suggested the reporters had about four seconds to reconsider their life choices.

  "Alright." Shawn's voice carried across the lot. "That's enough. Back up."

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  He walked straight through them, shoving his way through and forcing the mob apart. He put one hand on Leo's shoulder and steered him toward the entrance.

  "Come on, rook. Inside."

  The Soldiers closed ranks behind them. One of them gave a heavyset reporter a glance. "Facility's closed to press. You all know that."

  The doors sealed shut.

  Shawn released Leo's shoulder. Up close, the big man looked tired.

  "Sorry about that. Those leeches have been camped out here for three days trying to push some kind of angle. We've been running a rotation just to keep them off the practice fields."

  "Three days?"

  "Ever since the Harvard-Yale game. Every outlet wants a quote from a Bulldog, and you're the one they want most." Shawn shook his head. "Don't give them anything. Don't engage. Don't even look at them funny, because they'll screenshot it and write a think piece."

  "Tom told me to stay off social media."

  "Tom's a smart kid. Listen to him." Shawn folded his arms. "Look, something about this whole Thousand Talents push feels wrong."

  "Wrong how?"

  "Wrong like coordinated. Three days ago nobody cared about Catacombs recruitment policy. Harvard beats us and suddenly every major network is talking about it. Senators are making statements. Think tanks are publishing white papers. All at once."

  Shawn's jaw tightened. "Somebody is spending money to make this a story."

  Leo didn't know what to say.

  "Just keep your head down," Shawn said, his voice softening. "Don't go outside anymore. They can't get to you if you're here."

  He clapped Leo on the shoulder once, hard enough to rock him sideways.

  "Williams is in training field one, by the way. He's expecting you."

  ---

  Coach Williams was waiting on the training field.

  The arena lights were off. Williams stood near the fifty-yard marker with his hands in his jacket pockets. He saw Leo approaching and gave a short nod, then started walking along the sideline.

  Leo fell into step beside him.

  For a few seconds, neither of them said anything. Their footsteps were quiet on the field.

  "I want to explain myself," Williams said. "Sometimes sports isn't just about sports. There are a lot of stakeholders with interests in how things play out. And as a coach, I have to consider everyone's interests. Sometimes that means making calls I'm not proud of."

  Leo was quiet for a few steps. "That doesn't really sound like an apology, Coach."

  Williams stopped walking. He looked at Leo directly.

  "You're right. It doesn't." He exhaled. "I'm sorry, Leo. Personally. I wasn't strong enough to protect you from the schemes going on behind the scenes. I knew what was happening and I let it happen because I was weighing interests instead of doing what was right. That's on me."

  Leo didn't know what to say to that. He nodded.

  Williams started walking again. His voice settled back into its usual register.

  "When I say stakeholders, I mean it literally. You keep hearing that word because it's the word that runs everything."

  "What does that have to do with us?" Leo said. "With Yale? With our championship run?"

  Williams sighed. "You've heard this phrase before. Money is immortal potential."

  "Yes."

  "But have you truly considered what it means?"

  Leo shrugged. "If you want to increase your cultivation, you need to make more money."

  "That phrase hides one very important point." Williams slowed his pace. "It divides society into strata. A minimum wage worker can maintain Qi Refining easily. An office professional can afford Foundation Establishment if they're frugal."

  Williams continued. "Most people assume the pattern holds for Gold Core. Same dollars, same spirit veins, bigger numbers. Save enough, work hard enough, and you can become a Nascent Soul."

  "Can't people start a business and make lots of money?" Leo asked.

  "People try. Then a Nascent Soul notices, copies what you are doing, and undercuts you until you fold. Maybe they offer a little compensation and buy you out, but nothing that lets you live for centuries as a Gold Core."

  "America talks about equality. Meritocracy. Cultivation for all." Williams' voice was flat. "That's true up to Foundation Establishment. After that, the gates close."

  They walked past the home team's fort structure, the Gunner bunkers empty and dark.

  Williams continued. "Flying Aces generates real revenue. The kind of revenue that funds Gold Core cultivation. Nascent Soul, if the program is successful enough. Which means the owners and investors behind these programs have interests. They won't accept a loss on their investments."

  "And with the Thousand Talents Act on the table?"

  "The stakes get higher. If the government starts importing Gold Core talents from the Catacombs on waived fees, that's direct competition for every domestically cultivated Gold Core trying to make a living. The teams that recruit Catacombs talents early get a massive advantage. The ones that don't get left behind."

  They reached the far end of the field. Williams stopped and turned to face him.

  Leo stared at the empty arena. All of it suddenly looked smaller than it had a month ago.

  "I finally have a path forward," Leo said quietly. "A way to beat Mateo. And now hearing all this, everything just seems wrong."

  Williams studied him for a long moment.

  "The good news is at the end of the day, this is still sports. There are rules. And within those rules, you get an opportunity to play. They can stack the cards against you, but they can't take the field away from you. Once you're in the air, the only thing that matters is whether you can beat Mateo."

  He started walking again, back toward the training center. Leo followed.

  "Also," Williams said. "Isn't this exactly what you're cultivating?"

  Leo looked at him.

  "The Heart of Flesh. You think that's something you achieve in meditation? Sitting cross-legged on a mountain somewhere?" Williams smiled.

  "This is it. Right here. Your personal struggle for cultivation against the man-made dao. The systems people build to lock others out. The pressure they apply to make you quit. This is the fire of life."

  "You might not realize it," Williams continued, "but you have a lot of supporters. And most of them aren't cheering because they want the Thousand Talents Plan to fail. They're cheering because you represent the opportunity to shine bright enough to grab your immortal potential with your own hands. This is exactly the second chapter of the Heart of Flesh. Igniting the desire for life."

  "You sound like you've seen this before."

  "I have. The former teammate I told you about. The one that cultivated the Heart of Flesh. He faced persecution, pressure from sponsors, media campaigns designed to break him. He stuck to his principles." Williams paused. "And then he pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NFL history."

  They reached the training center. Williams' office door was ahead.

  "Money is immortal potential is too simplified. It's backwards." Williams leaned against the doorframe. "If you have the immortal potential, money will naturally flow from it. People have already set the stage. All the eyes are watching. Now all you need to do is beat them at their own game."

  Williams gestured for Leo to go inside.

  ---

  Leo spent a while catching Williams up. The paper Mateo had slipped him during the coin toss. The divine domain amplification array on it. How Leo had taken it to a formation master and had a counter formation engraved. He kept the details vague, and Williams didn't press.

  Williams sat on the edge of his desk and held out his hand. "Let me see it."

  Leo drew Moonrider from his dantian and handed it over.

  Williams turned the sword slowly, squinting at the formation scripts engraved along the blade. He tilted it under the desk lamp.

  "Honestly, I have no idea how to evaluate this." He looked up. "You're telling me this can counter whatever they're using to cheat?"

  "I don't have a way to verify the effect," Leo said. "But I trust the formation master who engraved it. And I trust Mateo. If he gave me the formation, there's probably a way to beat him."

  "Can we just reveal the formation publicly?" Leo asked. "Accuse him of cheating outright."

  "Life isn't that simple." Williams set Moonrider down on the desk carefully. "My hands were already tied at the Yale Bowl. The conference championship will almost certainly be played at Harvard. We'll have even less to work with there."

  Leo took the sword back and returned it to his dantian.

  "Let's move on to the biggest problem," Williams said. "You're telling me that to operate this formation, you need someone to transmit you spiritual qi?"

  "Dee and Shawn could feed me during the match."

  "During regulation, sure. If you end up facing Mateo in the team game, the defenders can funnel you energy and maybe you take a quarter off Harvard."

  Williams leaned back. "But for rest of the game, Harvard's flyers will be pressuring our fort and forcing touchdowns. And you can bet their squad will be prepared to down every Yale defender even if you're fully functional."

  "So what then?"

  "You take out Mateo early. Before the regulation match. Challenge him during the coin toss." Williams watched Leo's face. "Just like you did the last time you faced him at the high school playoff finals."

  Leo let out a breath. "I can't believe it comes down to the coin toss again."

  "The coin toss is actually the most important part of the game. Always has been. Settling grudges during the toss is extremely common, and for one very specific reason." Williams let himself smile. "You can cheat to your heart's content in the coin toss. After all, it's just a coin toss."

  Leo stared at him. "Is that really okay? Cheating?"

  "Think of it as evening the odds. Mateo probably wants a fair match with you. And although you're still Qi Refining, we're just..." Williams waved a hand vaguely. "Leveling the playing field."

  "That sounds like self deception with extra steps."

  "There will be two components," Williams said, ignoring that entirely. "The first and most difficult part is transmitting spiritual qi to you during the toss. I need to know if you have any pieces you can play. Whether your formation master can help, for instance."

  Leo thought for a moment. "Lord Newmont still owes me a favor. He visited me while I was recovering after the battle of Fort Cambridge."

  Williams' eyebrows rose. "I'm familiar with Newmont. That can work." He paused. "This part of the plan stays small. As few people as possible. Is there anyone you trust unconditionally?"

  "My teammates from the Catacombs. Tom, Matt, and Vivian."

  "That's enough. I'll talk to Newmont personally." Williams stood and moved behind his desk, pulling open a drawer. "Next. Combat planning against Mateo."

  He spread a projection talisman across the desk surface. A flickering replay of Leo's fight with Mateo at the high school playoffs appeared.

  "The biggest problem is Mateo's grey-out ability. He's going to use it to disable your Moonrider. But the good news is that the grey-out only severs your divine sense link. The passive formations will still function. The counter-formation keeps running, the qi transmission keeps running."

  "So I'll need something like the formation pivot I used in the finals."

  Coach Williams nodded. "Which is why your lightsaber needs to be reconverted back to a La Ferrari Eclipse."

  Leo nodded slowly. It seemed fitting, relying on his trusty Eclipse to fight Mateo. He could live with that.

  "Next," Williams said. He turned off the projection talisman and looked at Leo directly. "We need a way to actually injure him. You can't just win the coin toss. You need to remove Mateo from the game."

  "How? He'll be wearing T4 armor and he's a divine child."

  "There's only one way, considering his revealed strength." Williams said it plainly. "Poison."

  The word sat between them.

  "Poison?" Leo's voice was tight. "How can I do that to him? He gave me the formation. He's trying to help me."

  "And what do you think he's trying to help you do?" Williams said. "Mateo probably wants the same thing you do. For all these stakeholders to disappear and let the students fight it out fairly. The poison gives him that. It takes him off the board cleanly, removes him from the political game for one match. Harvard has to play Yale straight up, without their ace."

  Leo clenched his fists.

  "You poison Mateo. Take him out. Then you'll be ejected from the game. That means the match falls on Harry and the rest of the flyers. If we bring back Zhao, we can probably win." Williams folded his arms. "But that's on them. Your job is the coin toss."

  "I don't know about this, Coach."

  Williams studied him for a long moment.

  "The poison will probably be trivial for Mateo to shake off if he wants to. He's the divine child, after all. You're not harming him." Williams leaned forward. "You're giving him a choice. A way out of the machine that's using him as a political prop. And if I had to guess, that's exactly what he wants."

  Leo sat with that for a long time. It felt wrong.

  "I need to think about it."

  "That's fair."

  "I'm serious, Coach. I'll do the training. I'll prep for the coin toss. But the poison..." Leo shook his head. "I'm not agreeing to that tonight."

  Williams nodded. "Spend the rest of the season at the facility. We'll bring in combat instructors to teach you how to duel. You've got time before you need to decide."

  Leo stood. He was halfway to the door when Williams spoke again.

  "Leo. For what it's worth, I wouldn't ask if I thought there was another way."

  Leo didn't turn around. "I know. That's what bothers me."