The sparring ground was a vortex of noise, but for Ren, it was utterly silent. He stood in the center of the arena, across from Anya Volkov, the world contracted to the space between them. He saw the arena not as a field of combat, but as a cage of her design.
"Do you accept the challenge, Initiate Ren?" Instructor Borin's voice boomed, a formal note of procedure in a circus of spectacle.
To refuse was to lose face. To accept was to play her game. He had to rewrite the board.
"I accept," Ren's voice was calm, carrying a quiet authority that momentarily silenced the crowd. He looked directly at Anya. "On one condition."
Anya's eyebrow raised a single, curious millimeter. She had not factored this variable into her equation.
"A simple spar is meaningless," Ren continued, his voice steady. "A demonstration requires stakes." He paused, letting his words hang in the air. "I will fight. But we will wager."
A gasp rippled through the student body. The dud was making demands of the genius.
"Name your terms," Anya said, her voice cool, intrigued.
"The prize you offered me before," Ren stated plainly. "A Grade-4 Tempest Wolf Spirit Core." He saw a flicker of confusion in her eyes. "I will wager that core against an item from you. A public wager, recorded by the instructor."
Lin Fei howled with laughter. "He's insane! He's betting a treasure he doesn't even have yet!"
But Anya's mind was already calculating. By accepting the core as his to wager, she was acknowledging the legitimacy of their prior interaction. It was a subtle power play. "A clever gambit," she conceded. "And what item do you wish me to wager?"
This was the critical move. Ren's research in the archives had not only been about his bloodline, but about its artifacts. He had cross-referenced GAMA records with public auction catalogs and noble house inventories. He knew the Volkov Industrial Consortium, for all its technological focus, had a vast collection of historical relics.
"Your father, Chairman Volkov, possesses a small collection from the pre-imperial 'Age of Harmony'," Ren stated, his voice clear and precise. The students stared, dumbfounded at his knowledge. "In that collection is an object designated as Lot 734 from the Eldoria Imperial Auction. A simple, storm-grey bracer, noted as being Aetherically inert and cracked. A worthless curiosity. I want that piece of trash."
The absurdity of the request stunned the crowd into silence. He was wagering a priceless Grade-4 Spirit Core, a treasure that could define a young cultivator's career, for a broken piece of junk from a museum collection. It was the most lopsided, idiotic wager anyone had ever heard. It was an act of such profound, pathetic humility that it circled all the way back around to being suspicious.
But Anya Volkov did not see a fool. She saw an enigma playing a game she didn't understand. Why that specific piece? What did he know? The intellectual puzzle of him, the unsolvable equation, became exponentially more complex. His request was so illogical it had to be based on a logic she couldn't perceive. And her curiosity, her defining trait, was an insatiable hunger. She had to know.
A slow smile spread across her face. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated intellectual fascination. "An eccentric choice. But a deal is a deal. I accept your terms. The Tempest Wolf Core against the Storm-Worn Bracer."
She turned to the instructor. "Master Borin, please record the wager."
Borin, looking utterly baffled but bound by the rules, grunted and made the notation. The stage was set. Anya's goal: to force him to reveal a measurable truth. Ren's goal: to win a relic that might hold the key to his entire existence.
"Are the combatants ready?" Borin roared.
Anya settled into a graceful stance, her hands glowing with a soft, crystalline light. The Aether around her began to hum, a symphony of controlled power.
Ren stood opposite her. He did not move. He did not channel. He simply waited.
The cage door was locked. The game had begun.