"Then buy more." He closed his comms.Qiqi had meant to check how the other schools' fans were betting. She refreshed her screen and froze.His odds had fallen off a cliff. Down to fifteen hundred.Her own hundred million hadn't moved the line. The Federation was huge. Her money was a drop. Someone else had just flooded the pool—a single bet, on Ethan Su to win the individual title, for ten billion dollars."Ethan. Someone—someone bet on you. Ten billion." Her brain stalled. It wasn't a hundred. It was ten billion. Who dropped that kind of money on an E-rank Farmer when every bookmaker in the country had him at four thousand to one?He leaned over. Duan craned in too. When he saw the number, he whistled."Now that's nerve. Somebody's got guts. I put my entire life savings on you too, Ethan. You'd better win. Otherwise I'm moving into your house and eating your food forever."He said it light, but his hand went to his comms and checked the balance like a man checking a pulse. Duan was

"That referee's an Imperial Martial professor. Very good healer." Duan followed Ethan's gaze. "See his left arm? Gone. Three years ago he stayed behind to cover a retreating squad. He's running a prosthetic now. He can still use his Class, but it cost him. That's why he's back here instead of at the front."Ethan understood. A top healer was exactly what the front needed most. He'd heard enough in Gordon Tang's voice to know how bad it was. The only reason this man was here was the arm.He looked at the empty sleeve, then away.Ba Wang didn't stop at Timala. He took all three of West Region's attackers before fatigue finally drove him off, and a teammate replaced him. He was the fifth-strongest in his own school. One of their SS fighters had lost to him. The rest of Military Martial's performances were fine, but nothing after Ba Wang could match it. They cleared all ten of West Region without their SS and SSS once touching the ring.Other rings burned hot

"He's everything they said." Chao Wang's jaw tightened. The speed and strength weren't close. They were a wrecking ball. Outside of the three SSS-ranks, he couldn't name a single person on the roster who'd take Ethan. This year's title, once again, ran through Special Academy.Worse, every other fighter had a history. You could study them. The Farmer was brand-new. Nobody knew his depth, nobody knew his skills, nobody knew how to plan for him. One stroke was all he'd shown so far. South Frontier was a top-twenty school in the country, and one stroke had been enough.When Ethan stepped up and put away all ten of South Frontier's fighters while breathing evenly, and every one of theirs walked off bleeding, the crowd stopped pretending it was a setup. The weight of it landed. None of them had believed in him at the start. None of them had put him on their betting slip.Somebody checked the pool.Not many people had bet on Ethan. But the money was there. And

"You sure you're okay?" Two hours of rest, and Qiqi was still pale. Ethan frowned at her.There was something odd about Qiqi, he'd noticed from the first day. A pull, almost like shared blood. But he was certain he'd never met her before, and certain his family had no connection to hers.She shook her head. "Spirit doesn't come back fast. You recover it through meditation or sleep — sleep is fastest. It was noisy out there today. I couldn't settle enough to meditate. I barely got anything back."Ethan nodded, not quite able to feel it. His own spirit had never run dry. Whenever he needed it back, he pulled out the cauldron and it refilled on its own. He had no frame of reference for what she was talking about.Back at their quarters, Qiqi went straight to her room. Ethan, left with nothing to do, looked at the dirt yard and felt something he had been born with start humming in his bones. He pulled out the hoe and went to work on the few hundred squa

On the Imperial Martial viewing stand, Chao Wang watched Ethan plant his feet and start swinging the hoe, and turned to Duan Zhao."Duan Zhao. What is your junior doing?""With respect, sir — Ethan is a Farmer." Duan Zhao's face didn't move. "Everyone knows farmers love working the land. He sees all this soil, and he gets the urge. I think we can all understand."Chao Wang's mouth twitched. He looked away. He was not, he decided, going to dignify that with a reply.The other schools' teachers were just as lost. One of them muttered that the boy had to be sandbagging — no sane fighter spent the opening hours of a three-day monster hunt on his knees. Another said it was arrogance. A third just shook his head and gave up trying to explain it. Round two ran three full days. Plenty of time. But that didn't mean you spent it pretending you were at home on a weekend. Did he look down on every other contestant that badly?Ethan had no idea what