Extra's Path To Main Character-Chapter 12 - 11 - The Performance [1]

The monitoring assignment passed without incident — which was to say it passed exactly as planned. Amaron spent fourteen days alone in a temporary shelter near a Grade 1 rift in the fifth district, recorded mana pressure readings at the required intervals, performed structural assessments that confirmed the rift was stable and posed no immediate risk, and filed daily reports with the Guild’s monitoring office that were thorough, unremarkable, and exactly what an F-rank support contractor was expected to produce.

He also spent fourteen days training without observation.

By the end of the assignment, his mana control had advanced to the point where he could manifest external force for a count of five hundred. His reserve had climbed past twelve hundred units. He could sense ambient mana in a radius of roughly eight feet. And he had confirmed, through careful testing against the rift’s low-level mana output, that the Void System’s null signature was functioning perfectly — even when he was actively channeling mana, his external presence read as zero to anyone who might scan him.

He returned to Valdenmere on the morning of day fifteen, filed his final report, collected his commission, and went back to work at the cartographer’s shop as if he had spent two weeks doing exactly what the paperwork said he’d done.

Which he had. Technically. He had simply also done several other things the paperwork didn’t mention.

— ◆ —

Three days after his return, Elian found him at the Guild hall during the midday break and asked if he wanted to join a training session.

This was presented casually — the kind of offhand invitation that suggested Elian had been thinking about it for a while but had framed it as a spontaneous idea to avoid making it feel like pressure. Amaron recognized the tactic because he had watched Elian deploy it successfully on other people in his first life. It was a good tactic. It worked because it was genuinely low-pressure, not because it was manipulative.

"Training session," Amaron repeated.

"At the Guild’s practice grounds. This afternoon, if you’re free. Just sparring, mana control exercises, basic combat drills. Nothing serious. Livia’s coming. A few others from the auxiliary ranks." Elian said this with the easy confidence of someone who assumed the answer would be yes but was prepared to accept no without issue. "You’ve been doing support work for a while. Thought you might want to see how the combat side trains." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Amaron ran a rapid internal assessment. Risk: moderate to high. Performing weakness under direct observation during active training would require precision he had not yet tested under those specific conditions. Potential exposure: significant, if he made a mistake. Strategic value: minimal, unless he counted maintaining his relationship with Elian as strategic value, which he was trying not to do because categorizing human relationships as strategic assets was the kind of thinking that had left him with no human relationships in his first life.

"All right," he said.

Elian’s expression did something Amaron couldn’t quite parse — surprise, maybe, or satisfaction, or both. "Good. Fourteenth hour. Eastern practice grounds. Bring water. You’ll need it."

— ◆ —

The eastern practice grounds were a wide, flat section of the Guild’s outer campus where Hunters trained in combat techniques, mana manipulation, and coordinated team maneuvers. It was well-maintained, heavily used, and visible from multiple angles, which meant that everything that happened there had an audience whether the participants intended it or not.

Amaron arrived at the fourteenth hour and found approximately fifteen people already present — a mix of D and C-rank Hunters, a handful of F-rank support contractors who looked as uncertain about being there as Amaron felt, and Livia Jewel, who was stretching near the far end of the grounds with the focused efficiency of someone who took physical conditioning seriously.

Elian was talking to a Guild instructor near the center of the grounds — a broad-shouldered woman in her forties who had the particular quality of someone who had spent enough time training other people that she could identify weaknesses from across a field. She looked at the assembled group, nodded at something Elian said, and raised her voice to address everyone.

"All right. We’re running a mixed-rank training session today. D and C-ranks, you’re working on advanced mana channeling and combat integration. F-ranks, you’re running basic drills with supplementary support from the higher ranks." She gestured to Elian and two other C-ranks. "Solhart, Maren, Kess — you’re supervising the F-rank group. Rotate them through the standard circuit. Keep it simple. No one needs to impress anyone. This is about fundamentals."

The group split. Amaron ended up in the F-rank section along with four others he vaguely recognized from auxiliary contract postings. Elian walked over, gestured for them to follow, and led them to a cleared section of the grounds where a series of training posts and mana-responsive targets had been set up.

"All right," Elian said, in the tone of someone who had done this before and knew exactly how to make it feel manageable instead of intimidating. "We’re starting with mana circulation exercises, then moving to basic striking drills, then coordination work. The goal isn’t to push you past your limits. It’s to show you what those limits are and how to work with them. Questions?"

No one had questions. They were F-ranks being supervised by a B-rank Hunter with a reputation for being genuinely skilled and genuinely decent. The primary emotion in the group was not curiosity. It was the desire to not embarrass themselves.

Amaron understood this. He had felt it in his first life more times than he could count.

— ◆ —

The mana circulation exercise was simple in concept: channel mana through your internal pathways in a controlled loop, hold the circulation for a count of thirty, release it smoothly without spiking your external signature. Standard D-rank training, scaled down for people with F-rank mana capacity.

For an actual F-rank, this was difficult but achievable with practice. For Amaron, who currently had over twelve hundred units of mana in reserve and control pathways refined to the point where he could manifest external force for extended periods, it was the equivalent of being asked to write his name with his non-dominant hand while pretending he’d never written before.

He watched the others attempt it first. One of them managed eight seconds before losing coherence. Another hit fifteen and looked genuinely pleased with herself. The third attempted it, spiked his mana signature badly enough that one of the nearby C-ranks glanced over to make sure he was all right, and sat down looking frustrated.

Then it was Amaron’s turn.

He stepped up to the practice position, placed his hands in the standard circulation stance, and began channeling mana through the simplest pathway in the manual — the one that looped from core to hands and back, designed for beginners who were still learning to feel their own internal movement.

He held it for thirty seconds exactly. No spikes. No visible effort. Clean release at the end.

Elian, who had been watching from a few feet away, nodded. "Good. That was solid. You’ve been practicing."

"Some," Amaron said.

This was technically true. He had been practicing. He simply had not mentioned that his practice involved significantly more advanced techniques than the one he’d just demonstrated, or that he’d deliberately throttled his circulation to approximately fifteen percent of his actual capacity to produce a result that would look appropriate for his registered rank.

"Run it again," Elian said. "Same circuit, but this time try to hold it for forty-five seconds. Push a little. See where your limit actually is."

Absolutely not.

"All right," Amaron said.

— ◆ —