The VIP suite's bed was extraordinary. Luna hated every minute she spent in it.

  Not the bed's fault—the mattress was engineered for human comfort, and it delivered on that promise flawlessly. The problem was that Luna wasn't quite human anymore, and whatever her body needed from sleep, four walls and recycled air couldn't provide it. She lay in the darkness and felt the forest's absence like a missing tooth—a gap where something vital should have been, her senses reaching for rhythms that simply weren't there. When she'd slept on bare earth between the grass-stalks two nights ago, she'd dropped unconscious in minutes. The forest had wrapped around her and synchronized, heartbeat to wind-pulse, breath to growing things, Aether soaking through her skin like rain into parched soil.

  This room was a coffin with excellent thread count.

  She thought about her father—whether he'd spent decades in their house quietly starving for something he couldn't name. Whether the ache was inherited or hers alone. The questions circled without answers, and eventually exhaustion dragged her under into the shallow, fitful rest that was the best this place could offer.

  Morning. Tinkerlings delivered breakfast—warm bread with golden crust, alien fruits, smoked meat, and a faintly luminescent tea that slightly enriched her Mana with each sip. Luna ate slowly for the first time in days, giving her enhanced senses the attention they deserved.

  Mia would lose her mind over this bread. The image arrived fully formed—the dramatic gasp, the rapid-fire analysis of crumb structure and caramelization, Sam nodding along with that transparent adoration he still believed he was hiding. Luna set down her cup and felt the emptiness of their absence.

  Half a day's travel to Zone 3. But first—the information she'd paid for.

  The plaza's atmosphere had changed overnight. People moved with new wariness, glancing sidelong at neighbors they'd trusted yesterday. Craig's exposure had introduced a contagion of suspicion that would take time to burn through. Mike—the murderous Cleric—sat apart from everyone, healing a woman's scratched arm wound with the mechanical diligence of someone performing mandatory community service. Nobody else sat within ten feet of him.

  Cerfi detached from the generator as Luna approached.

  "You slept poorly," the automaton observed. "Nature-aligned Races often report difficulty resting in enclosed spaces. The balcony door is unlocked, should you stay again—open sky within the barrier provides roughly seventy percent of the restorative benefit of unshielded forest."

  "I'll remember." Luna settled onto the stone bench near the central pillar. Diana had already appeared near the Terminal and Thomas sat on a low wall, notebook ready. Both greeted her with a nod. "I still need the Rank and Attribute breakdown."

  "Ah, the foundational knowledge that the System's initial messages rather unhelpfully neglect." Cerfi's tone carried editorial displeasure aimed at whatever authority had designed the Tutorial's onboarding. "Shall we discuss this publicly, or do you prefer privacy?"

  "Public is fine."

  "Efficient. I'd rather explain this once than fourteen times." The automaton settled into its lecturing stance. "Ranks first, since those generate the most confusion. The progression runs: Bronze, Iron, Steel, Titanium, Mithril, Orichalcum, Starmetal, Godsteel, Absolute. Nine tiers. Anything above Mithril exceeds the scope of this Tutorial. Really, I doubt any of you would encounter an Orichalcum in your lifetime, let alone anything beyond."

  Luna committed the sequence to memory. Titanium between Steel and Mithril—that placed Cerfi a full tier below the Ogre Shrum she'd spotted in the forest. Granted, there was more than two times level difference between them, so Luna would still bet on the robot if she had to.

  "The critical principle is that Rank represents a qualitative difference in how a being channels Aether—not merely a numerical multiplier. Each Rank tier increases baseline Aether Shield quality and penetration by roughly three levels plus twenty percent. Physical and magical capabilities differ by approximately thirty percent between adjacent tiers." Cerfi's eye pulsed. "In practical terms: your Steel-rank arrows treat Bronze-rank Aether Shields as barely present and cut through Iron-rank defenses with significant advantage, all other things being equal. Against a fellow Steel-rank opponent, you'd be fighting on an even ground."

  "What about level differences across Ranks?" Luna asked. "Could a high-level Iron fighter overcome a low-level Mithril?"

  "Level and Rank influence separate but overlapping systems. Each level increases your base physical stats by approximately three percent, additively—this compounds substantially over time but does not change your Attribute Rank. Separately, each level strengthens your Aether Shield's offensive penetration and defensive resistance. These are the two variables that determine combat outcomes: your default physical and magical capabilities on one hand, and your Aether Shield parameters on the other." Cerfi raised a finger. "The Shield parameters often matter more than the physical ones. A Level 70 Iron combatant could defeat a Level 20 Mithril—not through physical superiority, which would still favor the Mithril by a wide margin, but because fifty more levels of accumulated Shield penetration cuts through even vastly higher-Ranked defenses, and fifty levels of Shield density absorbs blows that would otherwise be devastating. If it's a level 50 Iron, though, their Aether power would be roughly equal, but the level 20 Mithril would be faster, tougher and stronger."

  Thomas's pen was scratching at speed. Diana stood motionless, lips moving silently.

  "Now, regarding Attributes." The automaton ticked off silver fingers. "Five core measurements, rated F through SS. Strength and Agility are the most intuitive—raw force and speed respectively, though, as an example, running speed requires both, as Strength provides the acceleration and Agility the control." Those two Cerfi covered briefly, then moved on to the less obvious interactions. "Constitution scales not only your physical resilience but your Aether Shield's durability, and—critically—Shield regeneration depends on both Constitution and available Mana. When your reserves drop low, your Shield weakens. Managing Mana in a fight isn't just about having power for Skills. It's about keeping your primary defense intact."

  Luna thought about Craig's Knight growing more conservative in the later stages of their fight. Not fatigue—Mana depletion, thinning her Shield, her body instinctively compensating.

  "Arcana governs Mana capacity and spell potency. The primary Attribute for pure casters and the reason Wizards hit devastatingly hard but burn out fast." Cerfi paused with particular emphasis on the last Attribute. "And Insight—the one newcomers consistently underestimate. Insight governs perception in both the mundane and magical sense. Think of it as your consciousness's resolution. At F-rank you perceive the world as an unenhanced human. At A-rank—your Huntress Form's level—you process sensory information at a depth that would overwhelm most neural architectures. Insight also directly affects Mana recovery, because absorbing ambient Aether is fundamentally a perceptual process. You must sense the energy before you can draw it in."

  That explained everything—the symphony of the forest in Class Form, why her recovery outpaced other participants, why dismissing her Form felt like pulling gauze over her senses.

  "Your Class inverts the typical caster profile," Cerfi continued. "Low Arcana, exceptional Insight. You'll never match a Wizard's peak magical output, but you'll recover combat effectiveness way faster."

  "What about training? Can Attributes be improved outside of leveling?"

  "Training improves your Attribute Rank directly—physical conditioning raises Strength, dedicated perceptual exercises sharpen Insight, and so on. This is slow work with diminishing returns at higher grades, but the gains are real and permanent. Note that leveling does not change your Attribute Rank. An F-rank Strength at Level 1 remains F-rank at Level 100—the level amplifies what's already there through the three-percent-per-level modifier, but it doesn't transform the underlying grade. Only training, certain Perks, and Rank advancement can do that."

  "Rank advancement?"

  That was very interesting, and important. She already knew from experience that just a single Rank difference with other Tutorial participants gave her an edge, but there were still many Ranks beyond Steel. She wasn't even halfway to the top, closer to the bottom, really.

  "At certain level thresholds—25, 50, 100, and higher—you gain the opportunity to advance your Class Rank. The specifics constitute a separate information bundle." Cerfi's tone carried the particular inflection of a merchant who'd identified an upselling opportunity and wasn't ashamed of it. "Shall I add it to your tab? It's rather costly, but..."

  "Later," Luna said. She stood from the bench, organizing the framework into tactical shapes. At least now she could roughly evaluate the strength of her opponents based on the combination of their levels and Rank. "The Guide Challenges. I want to start."

  "Oh!" Cerfi sounded excited. "Finally some entertainment. For me."

  "Just a question... would you go for the kill?"

  "Ha-ha, fair enough. Don't worry, miss primate, I don't kill the Challengers, only break their Aether Shields—" Cerfi said before adding with a smile, "—except for the Final Challenge. That one is deadly."

  And somehow Luna felt a chill as she looked at the curve of the automaton's mouth. And so she decided to limit herself to the first three Challenges for now... or ever.

  Tier 1 lasted eight seconds.

  A Tinkerling—Bronze rank, Level 5, armed with a miniature sword and shield—assembled itself from Cerfi's box with the usual mechanical fanfare and charged Luna across the sparring circle with commendable aggression and no meaningful chance of success. Bronze rank against Steel was barely a contest, and she was two levels above it. Luna let it throw one combination to confirm the construct's movement patterns—thrust, slash, shield bash, technically clean but operating on parameters so far below her own that it felt like facing a child—then put an arrow through its center mass. The shaft punched through the shield, through the arm, through the torso, and scattered components across the stone.

  [Guide Challenge—Tier 1 Complete]

  [Reward: 200 Sanctum Points]

  Polite murmurs from the dozen onlookers who'd lingered after the lecture. Luna collected her arrow from the debris and nodded to Cerfi.

  "Tier 2."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Three Tinkerlings this time, still Bronze, same Level 5 parameters, but operating in coordinated formation. They assembled simultaneously and spread into a triangle without instruction—one advancing directly, two flanking wide, the spacing between them deliberate with enough distance that Luna couldn't cover all three approach vectors at once.

  Interesting, she thought. The formation was the challenge, not the power level. Each individual construct was as trivial as the first, but their coordination forced her to make choices about priority and positioning that a single opponent didn't require.

  The center Tinkerling rushed first—the bait, she realized immediately, because the flankers accelerated the moment she oriented toward it. Classic hammer-and-anvil, the frontal attacker fixing her attention while the wings collapsed inward.

  Luna didn't take the bait. She pivoted toward the left flanker and put an arrow through it mid-stride, the shaft catching it square in the chest and sending it skittering backward in a shower of silver parts. Before the components finished settling she'd already rotated, drawn, and released again—the right flanker caught her second arrow through its shield arm and crumpled, its approach vector collapsing into a heap of disconnected gears.

  The center Tinkerling reached her three seconds later, alone, its formation advantage reduced to a solo charge that Luna ended with a casual sidestep and a third arrow delivered at point-blank range into the top of its head.

  [Guide Challenge—Tier 2 Complete]

  [Reward: 500 Sanctum Points]

  Twenty seconds, maybe. Luna felt a flicker of disappointment—she'd hoped the coordination would present at least a novel problem, but the Bronze-to-Steel gap made even clever tactics irrelevant when the constructs couldn't survive a single hit. She also noted with disappointment that she hadn't received any EXP for them, and that wasn't because of the level and Rank difference—even with those there would've been at least some advancement. It seemed the System just didn't register the kills to begin with.

  "Why no EXP?" Luna asked.

  "Because they are, technically, a part of me. So I recover all of their Aether after they are slain."

  "Makes sense."

  Luna didn't know if Cerfi had a limit on how many Tinkerlings it could create, but it would've been so easy to level up everyone on low levels if they were giving free EXP.

  "Tier 3, then," she said.

  Cerfi's eye brightened. "Now we're getting somewhere."

  The box hummed differently this time—deeper, longer, the internal mechanisms working harder. Components emerged not as the familiar palm-sized gears and plates but as larger, heavier pieces that clicked together with sounds like hammer strikes on an anvil. The assembly took twenty seconds instead of five, and what stood on the plaza stones when it finished was something categorically different from the Tinkerlings.

  Five feet tall. Broad enough to fill a doorway, with limbs proportioned for power rather than speed—thick legs, arms that ended in hands capable of gripping a full-sized weapon. Its body was darker than the Tinkerlings' polished silver, carrying a gunmetal sheen that Luna's Insight registered as denser, more tightly woven Aether. Two blue eyes instead of one, set wide in a head that sat lower on its shoulders, giving it a hunched, bull-like profile. The sword in its right hand was no miniature—a proper short sword, slightly curved, shimmering with Mana enhancement that pulsed visibly along the fuller.

  [Tinkerbot (Iron)—Level 10]

  Iron rank. Three levels above her. The Rank difference meant Luna's Steel-grade attacks still carried inherent advantage, but three levels of accumulated Aether Shield density narrowed that edge considerably. This construct wouldn't pop like the Tinkerlings. It could take hits. It could fight back.

  And the sparring circle that Cerfi had marked out before the first fight was only thirty feet across.

  Luna assessed the geometry with the quick precision her Insight afforded her. Thirty feet of diameter. She stood near one edge, the Tinkerbot near the center. Fifteen feet of separation—well within her effective range, but also well within the distance the construct could close in a single aggressive burst. Her bow needed space. This arena didn't have much.

  "Same rules," Cerfi announced, and something in the automaton's tone carried the particular interest of a craftsman watching their work perform under pressure. "You lose your Aether Shield, you lose. No leaving the circle. Failure means no further Challenges. I should also mention—the Tinkerbot's combat intelligence is significantly more sophisticated than the Tinkerlings'. It learns, it adapts, and it doesn't repeat mistakes. I'm quite proud of it."

  "Ready," Luna said. She already had an arrow nocked.

  The Tinkerbot didn't charge.

  It advanced—steady, measured, sword held low in a guard that covered its center mass while leaving both hands free to redirect the blade into any angle. Each step was deliberate, closing the distance by perhaps two feet at a time, its twin blue eyes fixed on Luna's bow hand with the calculating attention of something that understood exactly what it was facing and had decided that patience was the optimal counter.

  It knows I need range. It's denying me the option of a clean opening shot by refusing to overcommit.

  Luna released anyway. The arrow crossed fifteen feet in a fraction of a second—but the Tinkerbot was already moving, its torso pivoting just enough that the shaft caught its left shoulder instead of center mass. Metal shrieked and sparks flew. The arrow tore through the outer plating, gouging a furrow across the shoulder joint, but the construct's Iron-rank Shield absorbed the penetrative force before the shaft could reach the critical mechanisms beneath.

  Wounded but functional. The Shield held where it mattered.

  The Tinkerbot didn't flinch. The impact cost it balance for perhaps half a second, and it used that half-second to cover six feet of distance in a low rush that turned the stumble into a lunge.

  Luna backpedaled, drawing as she moved—a difficult shot, retreating footwork fighting her draw arm's stability. She released at ten feet. The Tinkerbot brought its sword up in a diagonal guard, and the arrow rang off the Mana-enhanced blade, deflected into the stone at its feet with a crack that sent sparks skittering.

  It parried an arrow.

  The realization arrived alongside a spike of something Luna hadn't felt since facing the Goblins guarding the Totem—not fear, exactly, but the sharp-edged alertness of a predator encountering something that might bite back. Level 10, combat intelligence above the Tinkerlings, and it had read her shot trajectory well enough to interpose a blade. That wasn't luck. That was prediction.

  She reached the circle's edge with the Tinkerbot eight feet away and closing. No more room to retreat. Luna dropped her bow shoulder, ducked the horizontal slash that whistled over her head—fast, the displacement barely sufficient, the blade's passage ruffling her hair—and rolled laterally across the stone. Not graceful. Not the clean sidestep she'd used against the Tinkerlings. A scrambling, ground-eating roll that bought her five feet of separation and put her back in the circle's interior with the Tinkerbot between her and the edge.

  She came up with an arrow drawn, released from one knee at twelve feet, and this time the Tinkerbot couldn't parry and close simultaneously. It chose to advance, trusting its Aether Shield, and the arrow punched into its right hip joint with a sound like a pickaxe hitting ice. The construct staggered—its right leg momentarily losing articulation, the hip mechanism grinding—but it recovered within a stride, compensating for the damage by shifting its weight onto the undamaged left leg and converting its forward momentum into a lunging overhead strike.

  Luna threw herself sideways. The sword hit the stone where she'd been kneeling and cracked it—genuinely cracked the plaza flagstone, a web of fractures spreading from the impact point. That was a real force. Level 10 Iron Strength, amplified by the construct's weight and delivered through a Mana-enhanced edge. If that connected with her body, her Shield would absorb it, but not comfortably.

  She gained her footing, drew, and fired in a single fluid motion that her B+ Agility made possible and her A-grade Insight made precise. This arrow found the gouge her first shot had carved in the Tinkerbot's left shoulder—the same wound, reopened and deepened. The construct's left arm spasmed as something critical in the joint finally severed. The limb dropped to its side, still attached but no longer functional.

  The Tinkerbot adapted instantly. It shifted to a one-handed grip, sword in its right, and came again—slower now, the damaged hip dragging slightly, but with the mechanical determination of something that didn't experience pain or discouragement, only tactical recalculation.

  Luna let it get close to ten feet and fired twice in rapid succession. The first arrow hit center mass and the Tinkerbot's Shield flared visibly this time—a shimmer of blue light across its torso that meant the defensive layer was finally thinning under accumulated damage. The second arrow, half a second behind the first, struck the same spot before the Shield could regenerate.

  It punched through.

  The shaft buried itself four inches into the construct's chest cavity. Something inside made a sound like a clock unwinding—springs releasing, gears disengaging, the organized complexity of Cerfi's engineering falling into entropy. The Tinkerbot's twin eyes flickered asynchronously, one dimming before the other, and it took one more step forward with the mindless persistence of momentum before its remaining leg locked, and it toppled forward onto the stone.

  [Guide Challenge—Tier 3 Complete]

  [Reward: 1000 Sanctum Points]

  [Current Sanctum Points: 4,750]

  Luna stood in the sparring circle, breathing harder than she had in any fight since the goblin camp. Not from exhaustion—her Mana and stamina were both well above critical—but from the sustained focus the engagement had demanded. Forty seconds, perhaps. Four arrows to kill, one deflected, every shot requiring genuine aim rather than the casual precision the Tinkerlings had allowed.

  The plaza had gone quiet. Not the appreciative murmuring of Tier 1 or the polite interest of Tier 2. This was the silence of people who'd just watched something they needed to think about before they could react to it—a fight that had looked, for several seconds, like it might have gone the other way if the archer had been slightly slower or the construct slightly faster. A fight beyond what most here were capable of.

  Thomas had stopped writing. His pen hovered above the notebook, forgotten. Diana's hands were pressed flat against her thighs, her knuckles white. Catherine, who had joined the spectators at some point, leaned forward against the wall, her scarred face carrying an expression that mixed professional assessment with something less clinical. Even Garrett had uncrossed his arms.

  Cerfi's Tinkerlings collected the Tinkerbot's scattered remains with notably more care than they'd shown the smaller constructs—the pieces were heavier, more complex, and the little servants struggled with components that outweighed them. The automaton itself regarded Luna with its eye bright, its mechanical face somehow conveying the impression of someone reviewing interesting test results.

  "You adapted your positioning three times under pressure and correctly identified the accumulation strategy—wearing down the Shield through repeated strikes to the same location rather than spreading damage across multiple points." The eye pulsed. "The Tinkerbot's parry surprised you."

  It wasn't a question, but Luna answered anyway. "Yes."

  "Good. It should have. That particular combat reflex took me sixteen iterations to program correctly." Something in Cerfi's tone carried the unmistakable warmth of professional satisfaction. "The fourth tier deploys three of these working in tandem. The fifth tier..." Its eye held steady on hers. "The fifth tier is me. Restricted to Level 15 output, but with my full combat intelligence and decades of accumulated tactical data. Nobody has completed it in my four iterations working as a Guide for newly Integrated Realms."

  "I'll be back for them," Luna said. She wasn't sure what to think of Cerfi's final Challenge, but she decided to attempt the fourth when she was a few levels higher and more experienced.

  Her gaze moved across the small crowd gathered in the place before walking to where Catherine waited at the circle's edge.

  "Tier 4 would've been something," the Rogue observed.

  "Something embarrassing." Luna knew better than to try a challenge she wasn't ready for.

  "Fair enough." Catherine shrugged. "I bet you're the only one in our Zone—if not the entire Tutorial—who could take that level 10 robot on day three. Now, I want to try the first two challenges for myself..."

  Luna considered it, then said, "Or we can move out to Zone 3 while it's still early, and you can try your luck there. Unless you need more points right now?"

  "No, I don't, not really."

  Luna nodded before meeting eyes with Diana, Thomas, and Garrett who had already approached them as well.

  "Let's talk business then..." Luna said after she confirmed her current party.

  While traveling on her own would've been faster, there was strength in numbers. And, more importantly, if she truly wanted to conquer this Trial and save the Grove, she needed reliable allies who could fight like a team.

  And what better opportunity for team training could there be than traveling across half the forest?