Chapter 13: Lessons in Diminishment
Combat training assembled in the western yard, where the morning sun conspired with a sadistic instructor to create optimal suffering conditions.
Orin stood among forty first-terms, sorted by birthstone like produce at market. Green-stones occupied the front rows, spines straight with inherited certainty. Blue-stones clustered middle distance, competent enough to matter, limited enough to know it. The three blackstones, Orin included, were relegated to the back corner like footnotes in a text nobody planned to read.
Varen prowled before them, all coiled violence and professional patience. His green birthstone caught light as he gestured, punctuating his lecture with the casual threat of hands that had converted flesh into past tense.
"Combat cultivation is symbiosis between technique and essence. Your birthstone provides raw capacity. Training shapes that capacity into function." He stopped, surveyed the assembled students with the enthusiasm of a butcher evaluating livestock. "Green-stones, you'll focus on essence-enhanced martial forms. Speed, strength, precision augmented beyond human baseline. Blue-stones, you'll learn enhancement patterns for durability and support roles. Blackstones..."
He looked directly at Orin and the two others, his expression suggesting they were problems he'd been assigned to solve through attrition.
"Blackstones will condition their bodies to compensate for negligible essence capacity. You'll never match green or blue-stones in direct confrontation. Your value lies in persistence, endurance, accepting roles that don't require excellence. Survival over victory. Service over glory."
The speech arrived like a diagnosis of terminal mediocrity, prescription for a life lived horizontally while others climbed.
Maya stood beside Orin, one of the three blackstones the academy had admitted out of obligation... or cruelty, the upside for her was no tuition fee, the token acceptance that a blackstone was basically monster fodder, if training didn't kill them first. She'd been at the weaving ceremony, had watched Orin pass trials that should've eliminated him. Now she stood rigid, jaw clenched, probably tasting the same bile he was swallowing.
"Pair off for conditioning drills. Green with green, blue with blue, black with black. Begin."
The yard exploded into motion. Green-stones moved with essence-fueled grace, their practice combat flowing like choreographed violence. Blue-stones were methodical, enhancing specific attributes for specific techniques. Solid, functional, the reliable machinery of military force.
The blackstones stood looking at each other, three defective products wondering how to simulate value.
"Well," Maya said quietly. "Guess we're supposed to pretend we're training while the real students actually improve."
The third blackstone was a boy named Derrick, maybe sixteen, built like a sapling that hadn't decided whether to grow or collapse. His eyes held the particular emptiness of someone who'd given up before arriving.
"I'm just here because my father thinks military service might build character, I'm 'lucky' I was awarded the other token slot." His voice was flat, resigned. "We both know I'll wash out by midterm, if I don't die first. This is theater with uniforms."
"So you're not even trying?" Maya's anger found a target, displaced rage settling on available victim.
"Trying implies possibility of success. Blackstones don't succeed here. We exist as cautionary tales for people with actual birthstones." Derrick shrugged, the gesture encompassing his entire philosophy. "I'll go through motions, fail respectably, return home and work father's business. At least I'll have proven I tried before accepting my predetermined worthlessness."
The logic was depression calcified into worldview, self-fulfilling prophecy wearing pragmatism's clothing.
"You're pathetic," Maya said.
"Yes. But at least I'm honest about it."
Orin watched them spiral into mutual resentment, two drowning people fighting over who deserved the anchor more. Around them, green-stones were executing flawless combinations, their birthstones flaring with channeled essence. Real cultivation, real improvement. Everything the blackstones were denied by genetic lottery.
Except Orin wasn't actually limited anymore. Fifty-six strength could shatter bones. Fifty-three dexterity could move faster than most green-stones managed. He was standing among defectives while containing veteran-level capabilities, performance art masquerading as limitation.
*Show them nothing. Stay weak. Survive.*
"Fox!"
Varen's voice cut through his contemplation like a blade finding ribs. The instructor was approaching, his expression suggesting he'd noticed Orin's lack of participation.
"You're not drilling."
"Waiting for instruction, sir."
"Instruction is to pair off and condition. You're standing here contemplating your naval like some philosopher who's lost his scrolls." Varen gestured toward Maya and Derrick. "These are your fellow blackstones. Partner with one. Practice basic forms. Prove you can follow simple directions."
Orin partnered with Maya because Derrick looked like physical exertion might kill him through exhaustion. They faced each other in the yard's corner, ignored by students who mattered.
"Basic conditioning drill," Maya said, mimicking Varen's cadence. "I throw a punch, you block. We alternate until one of us collapses or loses the will to continue existing."
"Inspiring summary."
"I've had fifteen years to perfect my cynicism. It's my only developed attribute." She threw a lazy jab, telegraphed enough that blocking was formality. "You know this is pointless, right? We're theater. Background extras in a story about people with real birthstones achieving real things."
Orin blocked, countered with equally gentle strike. Performance for anyone watching, careful calibration of apparent weakness.
"Maybe theater is practice for when the audience stops watching."
"Poetic. Also delusional." She blocked his counter, reset. "You passed the trials, Fox. I saw you. That physical course, the essence control, even lasting three minutes against Varen. That's not blackstone performance. That's something else."
"Luck."
"Luck is what green-stones call it when blue-stones succeed. When blackstones exceed expectations, it's called suspicious." Her next punch had more force, frustration channeling through her fist. "What are you hiding?"
The question landed precise, scalpel finding the thing you'd been protecting. Around them, real students were improving through actual training. Here in the corner, two blackstones were having a conversation dressed as combat drill.
"Same thing everyone hides," Orin said. "The gap between what we are and what we're pretending to be."
"Cryptic philosophy is just cowardice with vocabulary." Maya's eyes were hard, polished by years of being told her existence was burden. "But fine. Keep your secrets. Just don't expect solidarity from people you won't trust."
They continued drilling, mechanical repetition of basic forms that wouldn't improve either of them. Muscle memory for techniques they'd never use in real combat. Training that was really just containment, keeping blackstones occupied while real cultivation happened elsewhere.
An hour passed. Two. The sun climbed toward noon, baking the yard into an oven. Green-stones were still fresh, essence enhancement maintaining their performance. Blue-stones were flagging, pushing through baseline human limitations. Blackstones looked like they were dying slowly through each repetition.
Varen called halt, surveying the assembled students with clinical assessment.
"Green-stones, adequate performance. Continue refinement of your third-form transitions. Blue-stones, work on enhancement efficiency. You're burning essence too quickly for sustained engagement." He turned toward the blackstones. "You three are dismissed. Your conditioning doesn't require supervision. Practice basic forms in your own time. Try not to hurt yourselves with the complexity."
Casual dismissal, confirming their irrelevance. The blackstones were afterthoughts, check-boxes in diversity quotas, bodies to fill space in memorial gardens when casualties were needed.
Maya left without speaking, her anger a living thing that consumed her from inside. Derrick slouched away like gravity had won a decisive victory. Orin remained, watching green-stones continue training, studying their techniques with Essence Sight that mapped their circulation patterns.
"Still here, Fox?"
Varen approached, his expression suggesting mild curiosity about why defective equipment hadn't removed itself from the premises.
"Watching the forms. Learning through observation."
"Ambitious. Also futile. Watching doesn't embed muscle memory. Practice does." He paused, studying Orin with uncomfortable focus. "But you already know that, don't you? You've got training somewhere. I saw it during your exam. Someone taught you to move, to target, to read opponents."
*Three contractors I drained. Their techniques embedded in my nervous system like stolen photographs.*
"Books and street fights."
"You keep saying that. I keep not believing it." Varen crossed his arms, green birthstone visible, a reminder of the power differential. "Here's what I think: You're hiding something significant. Either you're a genetic sport with unusual capacity, or you've found a way to enhance beyond blackstone limitations. Either way, you're anomaly that threatens established hierarchy."
"And?"
"And I haven't decided whether to report you or study you." He said it casually, like discussing weather or philosophy. "Anomalies are useful when they're controlled. Dangerous when they're independent. You're currently independent, which makes you a variable I can't predict."
The confession was surprising in its honesty. Most people wrapped threats in euphemism. Varen was offering clarity like a gift before violence.
"What do you want?"
"Truth would be refreshing. But I'll settle for watching you more closely, seeing how the anomaly develops." He turned to leave, paused. "One more thing: the academy has informal hierarchies beyond official structure. Green-stones dominate through birthright. Some of them will test you, try to confirm that blackstones know their place. When that happens, and it will happen, you've got choices. Submit and survive. Resist and get destroyed. Or reveal what you're hiding and accept the consequences."
"Which would you choose?"
"I'd burn the hierarchy down and salt the earth where it stood." His smile was brief, bitter. "But I'm constrained by employment and pragmatism. You're just constrained by desperation. That makes you more dangerous than you realize."
He left Orin standing in the yard where the sun was cooking stones into weapons of ambient violence. Around him, green-stones continued training, perfecting techniques that would let them kill efficiently. Beautiful and terrible, violence cultivated into art form.
Orin watched them, Essence Sight mapping their patterns, downloading their methods into his growing catalog of stolen knowledge. Each observation was a small theft, intellectual parasitism that would let him mimic their capabilities without revealing his own.
*How many people do I steal from before stealing becomes my fundamental nature?*
The question tasted like copper and philosophy, unanswerable and persistent.
Footsteps approached from behind, multiple sets, coordinated. Orin turned, found five green-stones arranged in casual semicircle. Students he recognized from morning assembly, their birthstones glowing softly with circulating essence.
The leader was a boy built like aristocratic violence, features arranged in patterns that suggested expensive breeding and cheaper morality. His smile was all teeth, predatory warmth.
"You're Fox. The blackstone anomaly." Not a question. Statement of fact delivered with the confidence of people who'd never questioned their right to make statements. "We're curious about you. Wondering if your trial performance was genuine capability or just elaborate fluke."
Orin said nothing, calculating odds and outcomes. Five against one, all green-stones with essence enhancement. He could probably take them, drain them, add their cultivation to his collection. But that would reveal everything, destroy the performance, confirm every suspicion.
"Nothing to say? That's disappointing. I Heard you had personality to match your impossible birthstone." The boy stepped closer, invading space like it was his inherited right. "Here's what's happening: You're going to demonstrate your capabilities. Show us how a blackstone passed trials designed to eliminate defectives."
"Or?"
"Or we demonstrate ours. Show you what happens when hierarchy asserts itself against anomalies that forget their place." His smile widened. "Your choice. Perform willingly, or get educated through creative violence."
The other four were spreading out, boxing him in, standard pack tactics for cornering prey. Their birthstones were flaring brighter now, essence flooding their systems in preparation for whatever they'd decided was about to happen.
*Submit and survive. Resist and reveal. No third option except the one I make.*
Orin's void stone pulsed against his palm, hungry and eager. It could drink them all, consume their essence, leave them hollowed. But doing so would confirm he was a predator wearing the victim's skin.
The sun beat down, indifferent and absolute.
Five green-stones waited, cruelty dressed as curiosity.
And Orin Fox stood between performance and revelation, calculating which would cost less and suspecting the answer was neither.