Corbyn nodded.
"What can you tell me?" Corbyn said. "About fighting someone you haven’t assessed yet?"
Ishtar sat down on the bench beside him.
"You watch," she said. "In the first thirty seconds of any fight the other person tells you everything you need to know. How they carry their weight. Where their eyes go before they move. What they do when they’re uncertain." She looked at him. "Most people stop watching once a fight starts. They react instead. Reaction is slower than anticipation."
"And if I anticipate wrong?" Corbyn said.
"Then you adjust," she said. "And you watch again."
She stood.
"Go eat," she said. "Then class. Ask Lyra about Sovereign Pressure today."
Corbyn stood and picked up his bag.
"Ishtar," Corbyn said.
"Mm," Ishtar said.
"When you manifest for the duel," Corbyn said. "Full manifestation. What’s the honest assessment of how long I can hold it given where my channels will be?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"At ninety percent stability?" she said. "With the foundation Cole is building? Sustained hold of two to three minutes before significant strain. Possibly longer if you don’t panic." A pause. "Don’t panic."
"That’s not a long time," Corbyn said.
"No," Ishtar said. "It isn’t. Which means when I appear, something needs to happen quickly." She looked at him with those gold eyes. "That is what these three days are for."
Breakfast.
Lyra was already at the commoner table when Corbyn and Dex arrived. No folder this time. Just her tray and a communication device open to what looked like a database of student match records.
She looked up when they sat down.
"Sovereign Pressure," Corbyn said.
"Good morning," Dex said, to no one in particular.
Lyra set the device on the table between them.
"Passive field ability," she said. "Activates from the user’s body and radiates outward to approximately twelve meters. At SS-rank it’s strong enough to slow physical movement and disrupt mana flow in anyone below S-rank." She turned the device so Corbyn could see the screen. "The disruption isn’t complete. It doesn’t block mana. It creates resistance. Like trying to push through water instead of air."
"How does it affect summoning?" Corbyn said.
"That’s the part I couldn’t find clear records on," Lyra said. "It’s designed to counter fighters and standard summoners. Nobody has faced it with a Calamity-class bond before so there’s no data." She picked up her fork. "My best guess is that the pressure affects the initial summoning more than the sustained manifestation. If you can get through the first ten seconds of establishing the connection the bond should be strong enough to hold on its own."
"Why ten seconds?" Corbyn said.
"Because that’s how long it takes for a manifestation to move from initial draw to stable state," Lyra said. "The draw is when you’re most vulnerable. Once it’s stable you’re channeling an existing connection rather than building one from nothing."
Corbyn thought about that.
"He activates the pressure early?" Corbyn said.
"Thirty seconds in," Lyra said. "Every recorded match. He lets opponents feel normal first so they don’t prepare for it." She looked at Corbyn directly. "Summon within the first fifteen seconds. The manifestation will stabilize before the pressure peaks."
Corbyn looked at her.
She’d gone through twelve match records and mapped Stellan’s activation timing to a fifteen-second window.
"Thank you," Corbyn said.
Lyra picked up her fork.
"Don’t thank me," she said. "Just use it."
Dex looked between them.
Then he looked at his breakfast and ate without comment.
Day two.
Footwork again. Better than yesterday. Cole introduced a new element — simultaneous movement and mana awareness. Walk the pattern while holding the pulse behind the sternum. Don’t lose either.
Corbyn lost one consistently while doing the other for the first thirty minutes.
He kept dropping the pulse when his feet got complicated and dropping his footwork when he tried to hold the pulse.
Then something shifted.
He stopped thinking of them as two separate things competing for attention.
They weren’t.
Cole had said it on day one. The body is the power. The mana tells it what to do.
They weren’t competing. They were the same thing.
He ran the pattern clean.
Then again.
Then a third time.
Cole stopped walking his circuit and stood watching.
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
"Again," Cole said.
Corbyn ran it again. Clean.
Cole made a note on his paper.
"What changed?" Cole said.
"Stopped treating them as separate," Corbyn said.
Cole looked at him.
Then at Ishtar on the wall.
"Aldric figured that out in his second week," Ishtar said.
Cole glanced at her.
"Did you tell him what to look for?" Cole said.
"No," Ishtar said. "I was curious whether he’d find it himself."
"And now?" Cole said.
"I was curious again," Ishtar said.
Cole almost smiled. Almost.
He turned back to Corbyn.
"Tomorrow morning," Cole said. "Test the summon before you come to me. If the stability reads above ninety hold for a full sixty seconds before doing anything else. Let the connection establish completely." He looked at Corbyn steadily. "The duel is at ninth hour. You’ll have time."
"Understood," Corbyn said.
Cole picked up his things and paused.
"One more thing," Cole said. "When Ishtar manifests fully tomorrow the arena is going to feel it. Every person in that gallery. Stellan’s Sovereign Pressure operates in a twelve-meter radius. A full Calamity-class manifestation has no radius." He looked at Corbyn evenly. "It fills the space. Keep that in mind."
He left.
Corbyn stood in the early morning light and thought about that.
Ishtar had come down from the wall.
"He’s right," Ishtar said. "Though I’ll add something he doesn’t know."
"What?" Corbyn said.
"I won’t be fighting at full capacity tomorrow," Ishtar said.
Corbyn looked at her.
"This is an academy duel between students," she said. "Not a gate. Not a war." She met his look directly. "If I operate at what I’m actually capable of inside that arena the building will need significant repairs. Several students will require medical attention." A pause. "Including students on your side."