"The word from Percival is that we get to pick our first matches," Sam whispered to Hector. "The lords draw a number from a hat that corresponds to the order we arrived. Then that person issues a challenge. They take the numbers for both gladiators out of the hat and draw next. So you need to have a good idea of who would make a good match-up for you in advance."

Hector considered Sam's words. "Does it really matter? We fight everyone."

"The order matters. You get banged up your first fight, that makes your next one harder."

He nodded. The real question on his mind was why Sam would approach Hector with this information. Sam was probably the friendliest person here, it was true, but at the end of the day they were all opponents. Hector almost asked but decided to let Sam come to the point in his own time. It wasn't like he was busy.

The past three weeks had been good for him. He'd completed the tendons of his hands, arms, shoulders, and spine. Then he decided to do things a little out of order. He didn't intend to enhance his muscles using the cold forged method because he couldn't afford the imbalances. That meant he didn't need to worry about super-powered muscles ripping tendons.

So he'd started on his circulatory system instead of finishing all the tendons. He remembered the lessons given to Volithur and followed them with unerring accuracy. The heart had to be first. Within the heart itself, the fibrous skeleton that anchored the valves of the heart chambers to the walls had to be done first. It took Hector a long time to locate those targets with his weak mental sense, but he eventually succeeded and raised them to the peak of the fifth level.

The valves themselves came next. Then the internal surface of the heart chambers. By this point, Hector was feeling the increased strain with every heartbeat. He did upper chambers, then lower chambers. When all of that was done, he raised the muscles about halfway to to the peak and paused there. Laying on his bed no longer felt like running a marathon.

He enhanced the thick walls between chambers. Then brought the portion of the aorta and pulmonary arteries closest to the heart up to full strength. Finally, the muscles could be enhanced the rest of the way. His pulse, wild throughout the process, calmed significantly at that point.

Enhancing his heart had taken up most of a night, but getting the rest of the major arteries and then veins took about a week on their own. There were so many of the things and he had to find them with his sense. At least that sense was improving through repeated use. He might never approach the level of a natural like Volithur, but Hector knew he could get a lot better if he made a concerted effort.

Hector wanted to start on his lungs, but the tournament was beginning in just two days and he didn't know that it made sense to focus on organs. A boost to his respiratory system would be a huge boost to his endurance. That wasn't necessarily what he needed the most in the upcoming matches, though. He felt that letting the resources draw his cosmic energy more generally to all parts of his body made more sense at the moment. Muscles were the most important organ for the upcoming fight, after all.

Sam leaned closer. "So I'm proposing an agreement for the first match. If I get the lucky draw and pick you, then I get to win. On the other hand, if you pick me, then you get to win."

"Wait. Your big plan is that one of us throws the fight?"

"Just the very first match. We get to go into the next one uninjured."

"Don't you think the lords would object to that?"

"We put on a show. On my world, there were these big events where pro fighters would have matches. Only it was all fake. You couldn't always tell, though. Some of them were very convincing."

Hector sighed. He was being asked to sign up to be a pro wrestler. "Why not? I've already been a reality television star."

Sam looked at him like he was crazy. "What was that?"

"Yes, I agree to your proposition." He wasn't there to win the tournament, anyway. He was looking for his moment to escape. Sadly, so far the only place he wasn't under the careful eye of their level seven talent manager Percival was when he was in the barracks where he couldn't use any external manifestation of cosmic energy.

"Good! I knew you were a good guy, Hector. We both stand to win here. Whichever one of us loses, we both escape injury."

He had been training almost exclusively with Darius since his falling out with Jasmine. They had a solid understanding of what each wanted out of a training session. Also, every other partner was already taken. Jasmine trained with Carob now, which Hector didn't know what to think about. The loud-talking man giggled a lot during what was supposed to be sparring. Hector didn't care for that at all. He often found himself focusing too much on their interactions when he was supposed to be working with Darius.

"Hector!"

"Sorry."

"Quit obsessing over that loose woman."

Hector frowned. "Don't insult her like that."

"She's been with Micah, you, Sam, and possibly Carob. Those are just the ones I know of. A woman should not go around like that."

"Don't judge her just because you can't… you know."

Darius sniffed before shooting back in his old woman voice. "I can do that, for your information. My ability to procreate was taken from me, not my ability to fornicate."

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That answered a question Hector never knew to ask. They continued moving through the combat drills Darius liked so much. At dinner that night, they received triple the amount of uncut spirits as usual. Master Percival informed them that training for the following day would be limited to group stretching for an hour in the morning. Otherwise they would be expected to cultivate and body enhance.

Everyone stumbled to their bunks upon returning to the barracks. Soon the place was full of the sound of snoring. Hector tossed and turned, too woozy to sleep as the room spun about him. He seized chaos and cultivated for all he had. His efforts continued for quite some time, but eventually he must have slept because he woke to the voice of Master Percival calling them to breakfast.

Hector was happy for the abbreviated schedule, because he was mightily hung over and grateful to return to the barracks. Everyone else seemed to have similar thoughts. He checked his energy reserves and found them at about ten percent after all of the uncut spirits. It seemed far too little. Then again, the resources he consumed were drawing his reserves down.

He checked out his neighbors and felt his guts twist. Everyone else was entirely empty. With mounting horror, Hector ran his attention over everyone in the main room of the barracks. He was the only one with any energy at all. Even Micah, who was far along the road to being at the peak of level five for his entire body, was empty.

In other words, Hector looked suspicious as hell. He turned his attention inward and forced energy into his right lung. He drew energy back and forth, focused on that single organ to the exclusion of all else. Within half an hour, he was as empty as his peers. His lung, meanwhile, had risen about a tenth of the way towards full saturation. He couldn't feel a difference when he breathed, but any enhancement made a difference.

He got up to grab a drink of water and found he had picked up a follower. He pretended not to notice until he was in the reservoir room. Then he spoke without turning around. "Can I help you with anything, Jasmine?"

She responded with a kidney punch that almost dropped him.

He straightened up and turned to face her, body growing hot with anger.

Jasmine pushed him back. "I told you not to do it!"

"Do what?" He was ready to knock her out and she was accusing him of who knew what. He wasn't the one who was sleeping around. He wasn't the one attacking people from behind.

"I saw last night! You're killing yourself!"

The accusation doused his rage with ice-cold shock. People had seen him cultivating chaos. That was terrible news. Why had he done that? Other than the obvious reason that he had three goblets full of uncut spirits drowning his reasoning skills.

"It's fine," he said.

"You have no idea, do you? Damn rogue Xian. You think you figured out a clever hack to get ahead. It's poison, Hector. It's fucking poison. You are literally killing yourself."

"Yeah, I'm fine. And why do you even care?"

"Fuck you, Hector. Fuck you, fuck your self-righteous judgments, and fuck your special little technique. It's slow suicide and you can't take it back later. This isn't like eating ashes and drinking quicklime. You won't be able to undo the repercussions. It's your soul that you're killing."

"My soul, my business."

Jasmine swung a fist at him and he caught her wrist and held it. With her free hand, she reached out as if she was going to tear his heart out, but only pressed her palm into his chest. "Maybe I deserve a say in that, you fucking idiot."

"I thought you hated me."

She snatched both of her hands away from him. "You are a fucking coward." She spun to leave, then spun back. "Don't touch chaos, Hector. Just… don't."

Hector found himself still sitting by the cistern in the reservoir room when Darius came by for a drink. The eunuch eyed him as he sipped from the ewer. "You are dangerously distracted from your objectives, Hector."

"Don't I know it."

"What is your goal here?"

"Get stronger. Survive."

"That can't be all you're after. Do you know what people say of you, Hector? They say you're the man who could buy resources. Every time you complain that resources were expensive, the rest of us only hear that they were available at all. You have no idea what some of us went through in our pursuit of power. You… you could have stayed on your home world, worked in the dungeon, and bought everything you needed. Tian may be a shortcut for you, but it was the only option for the rest of us. Thus my question. Why are you here?"

Hector shook his head. "I guess I'm here for the shortcut."

"Shortcut to what? Power isn't an end, it's a means to an end."

He paused to collect his thoughts. "Darius, I want to go all the way to the top. That's my goal. To be a lord."

The Eunuch tittered a laugh. "A lord from outside of Tian? That is ambitious, Hector."

"Well, if that's too unrealistic, what is your goal?"

The smile came off of Darius's face like a mask being removed. "Revenge."

"Revenge? On who?" Hector recalled Darius had supposedly been the most powerful man on his world. It wasn't an unbelievable claim, given Darius was a level five Xian. There were a great many worlds out there where no one could match up to that.

Darius drew himself up to his full height. "I will not give you any names or identifying details. Suffice it to say that there is a man still alive who did great wrong to me. He maimed me and exiled me from the world of my birth. It's a hopeless goal I've set for myself, but I cannot help myself."

Hector felt his stomach drop as he stared at the eunuch. He knew first hand exactly what type of person it would be a hopeless goal for a Xian to seek revenge against. It was obvious to him that Darius spoke of rising up against a lord.

Darius the eunuch spoke of rising up against a lord who had maimed him.

He was finally seeing all the details that had slipped by unnoticed. Everything was so painfully obvious in retrospect. He'd only ever known of one other person who had been castrated. He remembered giving that person, that poor newborn baby boy, the name Darius – naming him after a father who died in a Xian invasion, head crushed like a grape.

Even the facial structure was there, if you squinted the right way to look past the feminine cast to the features. Darius looked a little like his father. Hector covered his open mouth with a hand as he stared. Stared for far too long.

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