38: Promotion
The eastern bypass was a small narrow descending stair-and-ledge route that the launch-week design had built as the trial's exit passage from the inner shrine to the cleft's amphitheater, and it was, by the small careful design ethic, a route that the trial's victorious candidate could walk in roughly two in-game hours unmolested by any of the launch-week mob spawns that haunted the cleft's main approach — and at the change of the in-game small hour two and a half hours into the descent, when I had cleared the last switchback and was perhaps three hundred meters above the amphitheater's eastern rim, the cult's slow ceremonial bell rang.
It rang once.
Then it rang twice.
Then, after a small visible space of three breaths, it rang a third time.
The three-time alert.
Lin Mo at the amphitheater had, in our small private exchange three days ago, given me the bell's three-time alert as the small specific signal: the cleft scout has returned.
I stopped on the ledge.
I drew the Black Iron Heavy Blade.
I sheathed it again. The launch-week design's small careful etiquette around the cult had been clear. The cult was not hostile. The cleft scout was not, by the older Beigong Yan's small private read, expected back at the shrine for six in-game days. The bell ringing three times at this exact moment — three hours after I had begun my descent from the trial — was the small careful launch-week signaling that the cleft scout had, by some small prior schedule of his own that the older Beigong Yan had not been able to fully model, returned earlier than expected.
The small careful margin Beigong Yan had given me — *four in-game days for me, six for him* — was no longer a four-day margin. It was, by the small mathematical reading of his early arrival, a margin of perhaps a few in-game hours.
I had not anticipated this.
I had not anticipated this because I had assumed, in the small careful trust I had developed in the older Beigong Yan as a fair narrator, that his estimate had been correct. The launch-week design team had given Beigong Yan the best available estimate. The estimate had been wrong because the cleft scout had, between the older Beigong Yan's last model update and this morning, made a new decision that the older Beigong Yan had not been able to update for.
The cleft scout was a player. Players made new decisions.
I unfolded the small careful tactical assessment.
I was three hundred meters above the amphitheater. The amphitheater was on the cleft's main approach, at the third turn. The Abandoned Shrine was at the cleft's far end, perhaps four hundred meters above the amphitheater on the original approach. The eastern bypass had taken me down past the shrine on the eastern flank and was now descending toward the amphitheater along the cleft's eastern wall. From my present ledge, the shrine was perhaps two hundred meters above me on the cleft's western face — a steep cross-cleft traverse if I attempted to reach it from here, perhaps thirty in-game minutes if I did the climb cleanly.
The cleft scout was — by the bell's three-time alert — in the cleft below the shrine, at the amphitheater or just above it.
He was not, yet, at the shrine.
I had perhaps thirty in-game minutes to reach the shrine before he did, if I traversed the cleft from here.
The traverse would put me, for the duration of the climb, in clean line of sight of any player at the amphitheater or above.
I would be visible.
The cleft scout would, by the small precise observation that had marked him over the past in-game week, see me on the traverse within the first three minutes of my climb.
He would understand what I was doing. He would have to choose: continue toward the shrine and reach the cache before I did, or break off the approach and intercept me on the traverse.
If he was tactically sound he would intercept me on the traverse, because intercepting me on the traverse would be the move that prevented me from reaching the cache at all and that delayed his own approach by perhaps fifteen in-game minutes — a small price for the certainty of preventing my acquisition.
If he was tactically sound and emotionally grounded he would intercept me on the traverse and would, having intercepted, attempt to negotiate.
If he was tactically sound and emotionally Pang-Xunwei's-brother he would intercept me on the traverse and would attempt to kill me.
The launch-week design had identified him, through the older Beigong Yan, as a man whose pseudonymous-account history contained three doxxes and one small harassment. He was, by the small empirical model, the third option.
I committed to the climb.
I jumped from the ledge to the cleft's western face at a clean three-meter horizontal, caught the slate buttress with my off hand, swung up to the next ledge with the small disciplined Berserker upper-body strength the new STR +20 had given me at promotion, and started up.
The launch-week pass-through carried the small ambient of the cleft's pre-noon air across the avatar's exposed forearms. The launch-week design's small careful environmental mod included a faint chill at this elevation. The Black Iron Heavy Blade across my back rode steady. The bond icon in the corner of my UI, brightening by another small click, was perhaps another in-game hour from full re-bond engagement at the foothills' edge.
I climbed for three minutes.
At three minutes I felt — by the small careful pass-through fidelity of the Premium pod — the small subliminal cue of being watched. The cue was the small clean *someone is observing you from the elevation above and to your right* sensation that the launch-week pass-through engine had, by the small clean decision of the launch-week sensory team, calibrated to fire at the small precise moment another player's character camera focused on you at distance.
I did not turn my head.
I kept climbing.
***
The cleft scout dropped from a small ledge above me at the four-minute mark.
He landed at a controlled three-meter drop with the small disciplined posture of an Assassin-class avatar, perhaps Lv 21, in a dark slate-grey tunic with the inner-circle Tianxia three-stroke crest at his shoulder and the small additional gold fleck of intelligence-cell affiliation at the lower curve. His face was a younger version of Pang Xunwei's, by perhaps eight years, with the same small precisely-modulated mouth and the same yellow-amber pre-rendered iris that the Tianxia inner-circle clearly favored as a cosmetic option.
He landed on the small ledge two meters below me on my approach line.
He blocked the climb.
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
"Bladeless."
"Hu Mingjie."
His eyes did not move. He had not, I noted, expected me to have his name. The older Beigong Yan's small private recognition had, in the small careful design ethic of the trial, included the cleft scout's identity. Hu Mingjie had not, in the small careful Tianxia inner-circle privacy protocols, expected the launch-week design to share his name with a candidate.
He recovered the small composure within half a heartbeat.
He said, "You took the cache key."
"I took the cache key."
"You will not reach the cache before I do."
"You are below me on the climb."
"I am below you. I will, however, reach the cache first because the small particular ledge above us, which the launch-week design has not yet patched, has a hidden five-meter shortcut that brings a player directly to the shrine's eastern wall in under three in-game minutes. The shortcut is not on any wiki and was not, in the small private read of the cleft I have been doing for two in-game weeks, on any of the launch-week design team's posted patch notes. I learned it by accident. It is the small specific reason I have arrived at the cleft today instead of in six in-game days. I am about to use it. You will not reach the cache."
The launch-week design's small careful generosity had, in the older Beigong Yan's hands, given me a four-day margin.
The launch-week design's small careful generosity had not anticipated Hu Mingjie's hidden five-meter shortcut.
The launch-week design's small careful generosity had been wrong.
I held his eyes.
I said, "Hu Mingjie."
"Mn."
"You will reach the shrine before me."
"I will."
"You will not reach the cache."
"I will reach the cache."
"You will not reach the cache because the cache is keyed to the cache key. The cache key is in my inventory. The cache key is keyed by the launch-week design to the Pioneer's chain icon. You do not have the chain icon. You do not have the key. You can stand at the eastern wall seam for as long as you like. The cache will not open."
He was still for the small space of one heartbeat.
He had not, I noted, known that the cache was keyed to the chain icon. He had assumed, by the small careful read of the eastern seam's mechanic that he had developed across two in-game weeks of patient observation, that the cache was a Lv-12 perception unlock that any player with sufficient perception could activate. The launch-week design had concealed the chain-icon requirement deep in the small private side-passage's first interaction layer. The chain-icon requirement was, in the small precise launch-week design ethic, the small private hard wall the launch-week design team had placed between Tianxia and the cache.
Hu Mingjie had not had the design's interior knowledge.
The older Beigong Yan had given me the design's interior knowledge by the small generous mechanic of the *He Knew Your Sister* recognition. The recognition had, in the small private dialogue at the side passage, included the cache key as a quest item. The cache key had, in the small specific tooltip the design had attached to it, included the implicit information that the cache was chain-icon-keyed, by the small simple syntax of *use at the eastern wall seam* — a launch-week design syntax that, on a Lv-12 perception read, would have been ambiguous about the Pioneer prerequisite.
Hu Mingjie had not had the cache key. He had not seen the tooltip.
I had.
I held his eyes.
I said, "You can come up the cleft's hidden shortcut. You can reach the shrine in three in-game minutes. You can stand at the eastern wall seam for the rest of the launch week. The cache will not open for you. The cache will only open for me. If you would like to escort me to the shrine and observe me opening the cache, I will permit you to observe. If you would like to take a portion of the cache as a small private settlement of this cleft's small private dispute, we can negotiate. If you would like to attempt to kill me on this ledge to take the key from my body — the launch-week design's death-and-loot system does not, by the small careful design ethic, allow quest items to be looted off a player corpse. The key is bound to my Pioneer status. Killing me will accomplish nothing."
Hu Mingjie was very still.
The launch-week pass-through carried, at this distance, the small slow steady breathing of a Tianxia inner-circle Assassin who had been holding a small precise tactical advantage for two in-game weeks and who had, in the past forty seconds, lost the entire tactical advantage to a small piece of design knowledge he had not realized he did not have.
He inclined his head a precise full inch.
He said, "Bladeless."
"Mn."
"My brother told me you were interesting."
"Mn."
"He did not tell me you would have read the cache's chain-icon binding before reaching the cache."
"Your brother does not have the launch-week design team's interior model of me. The interior model has been, in the past three in-game days, updated."
"Mn." He was still for one more breath. "Pang-ge will want the cache."
"Pang-ge will not get the cache. Pang-ge can have, instead, the small civic story of a Tianxia inner-circle scout who was seen, by no fewer than seven cult-ranked players in the cleft amphitheater, attempting to intercept the Pioneer on the cleft's eastern face in the launch-week's seventh hour of an in-game day. The story will be on the public chat scroll within forty-five in-game minutes of your descent from the cleft. The story will be, by the small careful framing the cult's pseudonymous accounts will provide, a story that Pang-ge will not want on the public chat scroll. The story will be — small. The story will damage Pang-ge's small careful reputation as a productive but discreet inner-circle operator. The story will, by the small mechanism of internal Tianxia politics that the older Beigong Yan has, in the small private dialogue with me, been kind enough to model — get Pang-ge moved sideways into a less productive role. Pang-ge would prefer that this story not be on the public chat scroll. Pang-ge will, in the small precise way of older brothers everywhere, blame his younger brother for the story."
I held his eyes.
I said, "You may withdraw. You may withdraw cleanly, and the story will not be on the public chat scroll. You may withdraw, and the cult's pseudonymous accounts will receive a small private DM from me asking them to refrain from posting the story. You may withdraw, and the small civic damage to Pang-ge will not be inflicted. You may withdraw, and we may, at some later in-game date, revisit the cleft's small private dispute on terms more favorable to your brother."
"And if I do not withdraw."
"If you do not withdraw, the cache opens for me anyway, the story goes on the chat scroll anyway, your brother is moved sideways anyway, and you have additionally — by the small public framing — been identified by name. You will, on the launch-week server, become the small specific scout who was outwitted by a Lv-19 indie on a cleft's eastern face on the seventh hour of the seventh day. You will not, in any future Tianxia operation, be deployed as a scout again. Pang-ge will have, additionally, lost a younger brother to a small civic embarrassment. Pang-ge will, in his small private way, blame you for this for the rest of your in-game career."
The launch-week pass-through carried, very faintly, the small careful sound of Hu Mingjie's launch-week-rendered exhale in the cleft's pre-noon air.
He inclined his head a precise final quarter-inch.
He said, "Bladeless."
"Mn."
"You are, the launch-week design willing, going to make a great deal of trouble for my brother."
"I am going to make a great deal of trouble for your brother. I am also, this morning, willing to spare him the small specific trouble of the present cleft incident if you withdraw cleanly."
"Mn."
He held my eyes.
He said, "I withdraw."
He turned. He climbed back up the small ledge above us in three controlled steps. He paused at the lip of the ledge. He turned his head over his shoulder for one final look.
He said, "Bladeless. You have, this morning, made a real enemy of my brother."
"Pang-ge has been a real enemy since the trade-instance pavilion. We are only, now, formal."
"Mn."
He vanished over the lip.
The launch-week pass-through carried the small soft sound of his receding footsteps for perhaps ten seconds. Then nothing.
I climbed up the cleft's western face for the next twenty in-game minutes. I reached the shrine's eastern wall. I drew the small dark bronze key. I placed it against the seam.
The seam dissolved.
The hidden side-passage opened into the small unmarked chamber the older Beigong Yan had described. The cache was on a small low altar at the chamber's far end. The three items sat in their small launch-week-rendered display: the small Lv-30 stat-bonus stone, the small Lv-30 Berserker mastery scroll, and the small unnamed bronze key with a stylized cloud-pattern etched along its haft.
I picked up all three.
> *Ding!* [Quest Item Acquired: Stat-Bonus Stone (one-time use, +5 to all base stats permanent).] > *Ding!* [Quest Item Acquired: Berserker Mastery Scroll (one-time use, advances any Berserker skill by +20 mastery).] > *Ding!* [Quest Item Acquired: Floating Cloud Sect Vault Key (Lv 80 Hidden Heritage Class trigger, bound to Pioneer).]
I tucked the three items into the small private inventory slot.
I left the chamber. The seam re-sealed behind me.
I crossed the shrine's eastern face to the cleft's main approach. I started down toward the amphitheater.
The cult's bell, somewhere below me, rang once. The single ring was Lin Mo's small acknowledgment that he had observed Hu Mingjie's withdrawal and was logging the small civic record for later use.
I walked down.