“The three main factors are the quantity and quality of monster cores,” Sofia said, “which floors you’re delving, and finally, the number of weekly outings.”

  The third surprised Natalie. “How often you’re delving?” It didn’t line up with Te’s modus operandi—always reward merit, not effort.

  “Te wants to ence hard work in some way, I suppose. Have rewards to those pushing the hardest, even if they’re not the most adept.” She shrugged. “If I had to guess, it’s not the biggest factor. But Instructor Lauer mentio, so.”

  “And how do they track all that?”

  “Without people cheating?”

  “Seems like they could buy cores and lie about it.”

  “Te’s able to detect how retly a core’s been gathered.”

  “How?”

  “Devices.” Another shrug.

  “And why ’t someone pay a higher rank to collect them? Then pass it off, so it’s ret?”

  “You slept through the whole css, didn’t you?”

  “Jay doesn’t let me sleep,” Natalie said sourly. “She forces me to suffer.” But she did zo, regardless of her friend’s efforts to keep her scious. Even when she wasn’t zoned out, the informatio in one ear and out the other.

  “Well, like I said, in modern days, they use various tech to handle most of it,” Sofia said. “Before, to my knowledge, they kept profiles of students and pared expected results. Aberrant cases, those who deviated too far, were ied, and most is of cheating were uhed through … whatever methods they used. And wheers were caught, they leveled suffitly devastating sequeo persuade most opportunists to not even try. Te’s been pying this game for a long time. They know their way around keeping students in line.”

  A long time. Yeah. Millennia. Sometimes it was hard to textualize just how old this institution was. Sure, ba those days, Te didn’t look anything like this—that is, modern—but the academy had been formed shortly after Aradon’s first settlers. The world had always needed delvers dragging up valuables from the dungeon.

  “Tech,” Natalie repeated. “What kind? How does it work?”

  “We’ll be getting them week, right before the dungeon opens. Devices that fix under your delver’s badge and traovement, and the quantity of essence expelled near you. Along with Te’s inal measures, cheating’s bee, I assume, close to impossible.” She shrugged. “Though only close. I’m sure appropriately enterprising individuals —and do—ma. The question is why, really. High risk, high effort, low reward. Because even in the best case, you have to keep your results reasoo your performan css.”

  So if you weren’t much of a delver, and that was clear in daily life, then you couldn’t cheat much, either. The only situation she imagihe effort being worth it was someone inpetent cheating to scrape by a ‘passing’ grade for the prestige that came with being a Te graduate.

  “Huh,” Natalie said thoughtfully. She’d known there would by systems in pce, but hearing the details was iing.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just w.”

  Ahead, the fight was ing up. Natalie, and likewise Sofia, had been keeping a passive eye on the batants. Not just because knowing her cssmates’ skill sets was useful, but because there lenty to learn from each of them. One of the most crucial skills o be a successful delver tability, because no two enters were the same. Simir to how csses and skills had few to no limits in how they might ma, the monsters, traps, and youts of the dungeoed in simirly infinite variance.

  So, breaking down how elements ied: how two of her cssmates applied or took advantage of their skills, their teammates’, and their enemies’, was a close approximation of hoerson might analyze a dungeon enter. Natalie found her brain ing passively, even while talking with Sofia. She might not be able to pay attention in css, but bat? Breaking down fighting styles? She could do that all day.

  “You pick your extracurricur, yet?” Natalie asked.

  Sofia turo her, raising an eyebrow. “Small talk? With me?”

  Natalie paused, realizing the world had ended. She grimaced. “It’s dark times we live in.”

  Sofia ughed. Natalie thought it eously unfair how cute the noise was. She also pointedly ighat she’d had the thought.

  “We should spar after css,” Sofia said. “We o get a handle on how our styles have ged. Jordan, too. If we want to be a team, we’re going to have to know each other, inside and out.”

  Was it Natalie, or were actal innuendos ing more frequently, these days?

  Also.

  That thought, bined with Sofia. ‘Knowing her inside and out’.

  Uh.

  Her mi briefly white.

  From horror.

  Not …

  Definitely horror.

  “Sure,” Natalie said, her brain failing, briefly, to structure more reasohoughts, and saying whatever came to mind. In this case, agreeing to Sofia’s offer for spars. “What time?”

  Sofia seemed surprised she’d agreed so easily. “Whenever. We’ll ask Jordan when she’s done.”

  They watched the fight , and she caught Sofia eying her. It was … a fair rea. That exge of theirs had been surprisingly easygoing. Very uhem.

  Natalie wasn’t sure why it had been so. Sofia’s presence was still distinctly infming, but not as much as bae. She guessed with so many other things going on, Sofia just wasn’t … well, the biggest thing in Natalie’s world, retly.

  She meant that in a bad way. The biggest roadblock. Her rival. Sofia wasn’t—

  Anyway, she hadn’t been sitting in Natalie’s thoughts, aggravating her. And they weren’t each other’s rivals in the way they’d been bae. The two big fish in a tiny pond, desperately struggling to pull ahead of each other.

  But in these new circumstances, Sofia as a teammate, with everyone else their rivals. It was far from ideal. Natalie would never like the irritating woman, but maybe she could grow on her. Some sort of horrible li, but ultimately tolerable.

  Even that, though. Sofia growing on her. What had the world e to?