Calvin stood in the center of the road, hands warm in the pockets of his vest. Standing with your hands in your pockets was frowned on in Gadveran military doctrine, he was told, but Calvin felt like he’d earned it. Sixteen years getting beaten by a Malkenrovian Frontliner counted as an achievement.

“You’re late. I’ve only got half an hour left.” Calvin said as Brendan and Charlotte approached at the head of a battered army of twenty-five hundred. Half their original number. To cement his image as a fake, Calvin pulled out a bag of roasted nuts and began eating them in front of them.

“The real one is halfway back to the Capital.”

Which was a blatant fabrication. The real one was standing in front of them, eating nuts like a cunt.

Brendan narrowed his eyes, joined by Charlotte.

“You left the place undefended?”

“Yeah, I sure did.” Calvin said with a grin. “Let me let you in on a little epiphany I had whilst I was kicking your butts all over the jungle. ‘victory goes to the cruelest.’ War is the arena of the finest bullies, and the best move is usually the one that makes your opponent cry the most deliciously bitter tears. Simple as that.”

“What’s your point?” Brendan asked with a hard edge.

“You tipped your hand yesterday. You wanted me. You wanted me real bad, So I decided to remove myself from the equation.”

Nadia had reported the desperate effort Brendan had gone through to take Calvin alive, and that was mirrored by Charlotte’s behavior.

“I figured, can a ragged group half as big as it was when it started out hold onto this choke point after I’ve had a week of R&R?” he glanced over his shoulder to the empty-seeming fort, hastily constructed by human hands.

“I doubt it.” He pointed at Charlotte. “All you’ve got is her, and she has to sleep sometime. When she does, you’re going to wake up to your world being on fire.”

Actually, Calvin was planning on choking them on poison in their sleep to preserve their valuable loot. It was the polite thing to do.

Charlotte drew attention to herself when she tugged on Brendan’s reigns. The dark-haired general glanced over at her and she wordlessly nodded towards the road. The two of them slunk off, leaving Calvin facing the Ilethan army, who were noticeably less-than friendly toward him.

Calvin had to keep his hands from drifting toward the back of his belt, where he’d squirreled away Steam.

It should be relabeled Freezing Mist. He thought sourly as Charlotte and Brendan conferred.

If things went poorly, Calvin would make a quick escape and things would go back to the way they were before, but if this worked, they would leave, and he’d have this particular bend in the road to himself.

Finally they came back, and Calvin could feel the resignation in the man’s gaze.

“What happened to the hundred and fifty men who were stationed here?” he asked.

“They fought bravely,” Calvin said, to keep breathing while the poison melted their lungs.

“And they’re all dead?”

“To the last.”

Brendan’s fist tightened on his saddlehorn.

“We’re leaving,” He said with finality. “There’s no sense wasting more men on this little bend of road.”

Calvin felt the wave of relief spread through the gazes of the Ilethan soldiers around him.

“Damn.” Calvin muttered. “You sure you don’t wanna stick around? I had some fun activities planned.”

Brendan sent him one last snarl before he turned his Guar around and began leading them away. Charlotte on the other hand, nudged her daintier Guar closer, casting an appraising gaze over Calvin.

“Are you a fake, though?”

“Hard to tell, right?” Calvin asked, pulling out a knife and knicking the tip of his finger, showing the blood.

“It’s dupdomancy, a flesh and blood copy of my actual matter.”

“Young man, you look no heavier than a hundred and fifty pounds, but you’d have to be level thirteen at dupdomancy before you could copy yourself, and that just isn’t possible.”

“You know your stuff,” Calvin said. “Why isn’t it possible?”

“It takes a dozen years of practice, or hundreds of Supporters to master a Bent Ability to that level at your age. I don’t see hundreds of Supporters.”

She frowned, glancing around. “Matter of fact, you’ve used far more Bent than you should have, and last I checked, Supporters are considered taboo by the Gadveran military.”

She rapped her delicate fingers on the saddle, her nails clicking against the shellacked surface.

“You’ve got a Bent draining mutation, don’t you, boy?”

Calvin gave her a wide smile.

“Tell you what,” She said, slipping off a bangle made out of a glass tube shaped into a circle, sloshing with black Bent inside.

“I’ll give you this reservoir, if you tell me how you came across that mutation.”

Calvin could tell her how he got the mutation, which wasn’t exactly possible to duplicate. In fact, he could tell her anything he wanted, and she’d have to take his word for it. One lie, and it would be a quick and easy way to get his first reservoir.

And that was the trap.

“Sorry,” Calvin said, nodding to her. “As tempting as that is, my real body is a dozen miles away already, and there’s no way for me to get it to him in time.”

If Calvin accepted the deal, even with a well-crafted lie, he was fairly sure he’d blow his act as a fake and she’d jump on him right then and there.

“No problem. I look forward to the next time we meet, Mr. Wasp.”

“Please,” Calvin said with a dignified bow, “Call me Mr. The Wasp.” There was no way he was giving the Ilethan Sorceress his name, from his own lips. Who knew what she’d be able to do with it?

“Sorcerers cursing a man’s name is a myth, Mr. The Wasp, designed to control the ignorant with fear.” Charlotte said with a warm smile.

“Yeeeah, I’ll take my chances.” Calvin said with a shrug.

Charlotte’s warm smile evaporated as she lost interest in him, turning her Guar aside and digging her heels into its side. The pebble-skinned lizard gave a grunt and began trotting away.

Give ‘em some feathers and a beak and they’d be riding chocobos. As it stands, the closest approximation I can come to is..Hadrosaurus?

Calvin ignored Elliot’s musing, focusing on his own musing instead, all while keeping an eye out for an unexpected attack. A last vengeful arrow to the brain would mean the end of all his clever plans.

I Wish I had some way to summon myself as a Chained Spirit. Then I could apply Continuity and Bent, and basically solve the fear of death problem while tripling my available Bent, under the assumption that my copies couldn’t make more copies.

A good assumption to make. Just peering through the code, I can see six reasons why Consume wouldn’t work with a Duped body and…hey…That’s interesting.

What?

Gimmie a minute.

The sound of faint clicking, like gaming chips rattling against each other at a steady pace echoed through Calvin’s mind.

Calvin, you’re a genius!

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Calvin said, backing toward the fort, keeping his eyes on the retreating Ilethans.

Okay, so you can’t eat yourself. Gross. But maybe you don’t have to.

“Explain.”

Child skills create a virtual shared space where the Parent skills are both able to donate their abilities to the Child. These donated Abilities are then translated into something compatible with the Child.

“And?”

Calvinian Summoning has Mass Splitting and Shaping from Dupdomancy baked into it, Along with the core mechanics of Chained Spirit.

“I still don’t see where you’re going with this.” Calvin said.

Your child skill creates something of an indirect link between Chained Spirit and Dupdomancy. I think I can manually scrub one of your Ability slots in Calvinian Summoning, and replace it with one copy-pasted from Chained spirit. The skill will then be translated by the System into a format compatible with Dupdomancy, since it’s in a Child Skill. Then I can scrub a Dupdomancy slot and paste the reformatted Ability in.

“So, take the best Abilities from each and swap them over at the price of losing access to the ones I like the least.”

Exactly.

“Sounds good,” Calvin said, turning back to the fort once the enemy was out of view.

“Goddamn that was a stupid plan,” Baroke said as Calvin walked through the door. Calvin’s legs felt like they’d turned to jelly. The muscular Gadveran looked like he’d swallowed something disgusting.

“It’s only stupid when it doesn’t work.” Calvin said, leaning against the solid wooden wall as soon as he was out of sight, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

“Veyers, keep the watch going. We don’t know for sure if they’re actually leaving.”

“Sir.” The young lieutenant nodded.

“And what’s the legality of a captain reselling unused weapons and armor?” Calvin asked, thinking of the hundred and fifty men who’d died choking on their own lungs. If he wanted to get this castle done quickly, he needed to hire a lot of women, and damn what they thought of him.

“Dubious.”

“It’s good steel in perfect condition. Find a legal way for us to profit off of it.”

“There’s no…”

“Everyone gets a share. Talk to Sergeant Fleck. The old man’s sure to know a couple ways to dodge battlefield looting legislation.”

“Sir.” Veyers gave him a stiff salute and hurried off.

“What are you, a pirate now?” Grant asked, watching Veyers hurry off.

“Simply a man who doesn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.” General Andra set him on this task expecting to give him a couple years to cool off away from the capital, and away from Kala.

“Man?” Grant scoffed.

It was a win-win situation for her. Either Calvin was kept out of trouble for a couple years, his spunk cooling off while they dealt with the Iletha situation, or he returned home victorious, with her land-based invasion problems solved.

Calvin knew which one would go better for him.

If he was out of the public eye long enough, he would fade into obscurity, and becoming Wizard King was off the table.

So stupid bureaucratic rules that prevented him from reselling the kit in front of him were going out the window.

Every single purple-faced Ilethan corpse lining the wall was wearing kit equivalent to roughly two Stones.

Each of them had been carrying a good blade, and armor that, once bleached of the Ilethan colors, would be more than welcome among Gadveran nobles looking to save a few stones on gear.

If Calvin took ten shares and divided the rest among the company, he’d have about eight men’s worth of gear. Of course, there was no way they would be able to get full price for them in such a clandestine arrangement, so Calvin could really only expect to walk away with about three Stones.

It wasn’t nearly enough. Calvin’s fist tightened as he resisted the urge to pace. He needed to attract enough camp followers to fast-track the fort building.

How about letting your men do the hiring for you?

Explain.

What do you think they’ll spend their money on, should you give them shares of today’s loot?

Beer? Maybe set aside some money for starting a business after the war?

Seriously?

What?

How can you spend so much time plotting to hire whores and not have this occur to you? Women: Your men will spend the money on women. You give soldiers spending money and they’ll spend it on women.

So If I tell Perthea that we’ll have cash in a week, women will organically arrive to lighten our pockets, no hiring or cajoling required on my part. While they’re here, we can make use of them.

There you go. All you have to do is make this a safe place for them to ply their trade and you’ll have all the women of negotiable virtue you need.

“You doing all right?” Ella asked, waving a hand in front of his face. “You kind of went blank.”

“Just thinking,” Calvin said, eyes refocusing on the steel-clad Genosian. Her size and armor reminded him of Karen.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I find her so comfortable to work with. That and the love-potion.

Calvin crossed his arms, thinking with a deep frown. The last time he’d been ambushed by Kala and Ella had included a blindfold, and in the camp, Calvin usually didn’t get to go to bed until the night was pitch black.

Ah hell, I almost died half a dozen times so far. I’m gonna find out where that Tattoo is.

That’s the spirit!

…Right after I revisit my bulleted list of things I need to work on.

Nooo, goddamnit.

Read it back to me, I know you have it.

Meditation Maxed out for ShadowBoxing Raise Calvinian Summoning to 20 or higher Chained spirit 15 or higher, turn Nadia: SIPHON Break level 5 on YPiiAC, Fishing, Beli Ma. Raise physical Abilities: workout every day.

Cross off number four and five. I already did four and number five is a given, it’s redundant.

Calvin looked at the list and decided to focus on Meditation, Via Shadowboxing. He could level Meditation along with his lower level abilities, such as Hunting. Once he hit level fifteen at Meditation, he could switch gears and aim for Siphon for his Chained Spirit.

At level fifteen… Calvin did a little math in his head. Fifteen squared divided by sixty… A Chained Spirit would last for over two days, while Dupdomancy would last barely more than an hour, and Calvinian Summoning would last just under four hours.

Chained spirit was the epitome of long-term summons.

Over the course of two days, Nadia could drain quite a lot of Bent on his behalf. Having a political barrier between himself and the women he’d be draining was also a good plan.

Besides, it was better than giving her the Bent ability and having her turn on him.

It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that she might use her powerful mental Abilities to take control of him and flip their roles. Calvin wasn’t going to pick Bent for her until his Mind rivaled hers.

And if that never happened, Oh well.

In the meantime, Calvin wanted to focus on the physical boosts from Hunting Abilities and the Stability boosts from raising Fishing. He really wanted to see if he could reach the exploit he’d noted at level fifteen.

“You still look pretty blank.” Baroke said peering into his eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I’m planning. Shut up.” Calvin grunted before looking around. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. I need a good place to meditate.”

“Well, let’s get you away from the wall, captain,” Baroke said, putting a hand under Calvin’s elbow and pulling him to his feet. “Last one exploded.”

When did I sit down? Calvin thought as a wave of tiredness washed over him. He bit back a yawn as he stumbled forward.

Sure I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep the last couple days, but it’s not that bad is it?

“Let’s get you to your bunk. The guys have set up a tent for you already. You can meditate there.”

Calvin waggled a finger at his friend. “I know you’re just trying to get me to sleep, but to prove I don’t need it, I’m gonna go ahead and meditate on my bunk for the next hour. Wake me – get me up around dinner time.”

“Sure, Captain,” Baroke said, pulling open the tent-flap and lightly shoving Calvin in.

Calvin collapsed into the double-sized captain’s cot, nearly breaking the wooden frame. He was instantly asleep.

Calvin didn’t wake up for seventeen hours.