Harris opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. He shut it again and turned away, giving a stiff shake of his head.

"You do have a working system now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good enough for me..."

Damon watched the expression pass over his face and found it difficult to name. It wasn’t anger, exactly, and it wasn’t fear either, but something caught uneasily between the two.

Before the silence could settle too heavily over the room, Kara Voss stepped forward. Her eyes, the same pale gray as her uncle’s, moved over Damon with an open, unguarded curiosity.

"So you’re the one who cracked my brother’s Shell."

Damon tensed slightly. "I am."

"Good."

She said it without any trace of malice, then turned toward the equipment lockers as if the matter had already been decided and there was nothing more to say about it.

Damon blinked. "Good?"

"Matthew’s been insufferable ever since he hit B-Rank. Someone had to knock him down a peg. Shame you only managed a crack."

She reached back for her gauntlets and began strapping them on.

"Maybe next time."

By then, Ren Halwick had already made his way to the portal platform, his tower shield resting against one shoulder as he studied the shimmering tear in reality. Up close, the portal looked like a vertical gash of pale blue light, its edges rippling softly, like water disturbed by an unseen hand.

"Standard D-Rank rotation," Ren said in his usual low, even voice. "Goblins in the outer tunnels. Slimes near the water sources. Dire wolf alpha in the central chamber, if nobody’s cleared it yet."

"Should be straightforward," Kara said. "Basic formation. Ren takes point. I handle damage. Harris keeps us patched up. And Persival..."

She glanced back over her shoulder, a faint smirk lifting one corner of her mouth. "Try not to end up in the infirmary for a third time."

"I’ll do my best."

Damon drifted toward the edge of the prep chamber, stopping by the equipment rack bolted into the stone wall. The D-Rank gear was all standard issue: leather chestpieces, steel longswords, basic vambraces.

Nothing enchanted, and nothing likely to hold up against more than a few direct hits. Still, it was better than the gym clothes he had on now.

He took a chestpiece from the rack and strapped it on. The leather was stiff from repeated use, and the buckles had been worn smooth by dozens of students before him.

It fit well enough. The longsword he picked next was lighter than it looked, its grip shaped for a hand a little larger than his own. He adjusted his hold and tested the balance in his palm.

It would do for now.

"Right, I almost forgot."

Kara had wandered over while he was getting geared up, her gauntlets already strapped on and faintly warm.

"Since you’re the lowest level among us, you’d be better off breaking away once we’re inside. Farm a little experience for yourself. We’ll make sure nothing too nasty gets the jump on you."

Damon raised an eyebrow. "You want me to farm slimes?"

"Would you rather go straight for goblins?"

He gave it some thought. Slimes were at the very bottom of the food chain in any dungeon, slow, predictable, and barely capable of hurting a Resonator with his vitality.

But they were also the safest way to figure out how his abilities worked in a real fight. Matthew had been a trial by fire. A few slimes would be more like a controlled burn.

"No," he said. "I want to get comfortable first."

"Good answer." Kara’s smirk returned. "Ren, you hear that? The new guy’s got patience."

Ren Halwick was still at the portal platform, his tower shield braced against his shoulder.

"Patience keeps you alive," he said without looking back. "Most first-years don’t learn that until somebody loses a limb."

"Cheerful as always," Kara muttered. She clapped Damon on the shoulder, the heat from her gauntlet seeping faintly through the leather. "Alright, Persival. Let’s see what you can do when the target isn’t my idiot brother."

The portal flared as the station’s automated systems finished their final checks, and a synthesized voice rang through the chamber.

[PORTAL D-7: STABLE]

[ASSIGNED TEAM: REGISTERED]

[ENTRY AUTHORIZED]

Ren shifted his shield and nodded toward the portal. "Let’s move."

***

The transition went more smoothly than he’d expected. There was no lurching, no spinning, none of the nausea the textbooks had warned about. Just a brief sweep of cold against his skin, like passing through a curtain of water, and then the world settled into place around him.

The D-Rank dungeon turned out to be a cave system. Its walls were rough, natural stone, broken up here and there by clusters of bioluminescent moss that bathed everything in a pale blue-green glow.

The air was cool and damp, carrying the faint mineral scent of underground springs.

Behind them, the portal shimmered like a vertical tear of light anchored to the cave wall. Their way out.

"Formation," Ren said quietly.

The team moved into position with practiced ease. Ren took point, his tower shield angled forward. Kara stepped to his right, close enough to strike past him, but with enough room to stay clear of his backswing.

Harris settled into the middle, his potion satchel already open.

Damon took the flex position, hanging slightly back and to the left where he could keep the whole formation in view.

"Harris," Ren said. "Map."

Harris pulled a small tablet from his satchel. The screen flickered for a moment before resolving into a rough layout of the cave system.

"The outer tunnels split in three directions. The east tunnel leads to a water source. Slimes. The west tunnel dead-ends at a goblin nest. The north tunnel goes deeper. That’s where the dire wolf usually spawns."

"Persival, you head east," Kara said. "Get yourself familiar with the area first. When you’re done, head west to the goblin nest. That’s where we’ll be farming."

"Got it."

"Oh, and make sure to share the spot. By now, a bunch of other rookies are probably already at the water source farming too."

Damon nodded and broke away from the formation, heading east down the tunnel Kara had indicated. The bioluminescent moss grew thicker along this route, casting everything in that pale blue-green glow.

His footsteps echoed softly against the stone, and behind him, the sounds of his team faded into silence.

The tunnel sloped downward for a few meters before opening into a wide, shallow cavern. A spring bubbled up from the center of the floor, its water crystal-clear and faintly luminescent, feeding a small stream that disappeared into a crack in the far wall.

And scattered around the spring, as promised, were the slimes.

Each about the size of a large dog, their bodies translucent and faintly blue, sliding across the wet stone with a soft, wet sound. They moved without urgency, drifting toward the spring and away again in a slow, aimless rhythm.

Damon had read about slimes a hundred times. Basic dungeon fauna. No bones, no organs, no intelligence to speak of. They absorbed nutrients through the water and defended themselves by enveloping threats and secreting a mild acidic compound.

To a normal human, dangerous.

To a Resonator with [VIT 16], barely an inconvenience.

He drew the longsword and approached the nearest slime. It noticed him, or sensed him, anyway, and shifted its body toward him with a wet squelch.

"Alright," Damon muttered. "Let’s see how this works."

The slime lunged. Or tried to. Its movement was so slow that Damon sidestepped it without even thinking. [AGI 19] made the thing look like it was moving through honey.

He brought the longsword down in a simple vertical slash. The blade cut through the slime’s body with almost no resistance, splitting it cleanly in two.

Both halves wobbled for a moment, then dissolved into a puddle of faintly glowing blue liquid.

A notification pulsed at the edge of his vision.

[SLIME DEFEATED]

[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 5]

[SLIME ESSENCE +1]

[SOVEREIGN’S TRIBUTE: +1]

"Wait... tribute?"