Chapter 23: My Wolf Has A Skill Tree And I’ve Been Ignoring It The Whole Time?!

Soren stared at the sponsor letter in his hand, but he wasn’t reading Lior Vasquez Sr.’s name anymore.

A translucent blue window had just overlaid his vision, casting a faint, cold glow over the heavy parchment.

It was a notification. He had seen plenty of them since waking up in this world, but the border on this one was lined in red.

[DING! — Bond Tier system unlocked.]

[Trait: [Primordial Tamer’s Heart] now permits Tier visibility.]

[WARNING: This is normally a Council-restricted feature. Accessing this data without clearance violates Bureau Code 44-A.]

[Authorization: APPROVED BY UNKNOWN.]

Soren blinked. The red border faded into a stead blue. A secondary screen dropped down, displaying Grimm’s silhouette.

He looked down at the white wolf.

She couldn’t see the screen, but her ears twitched as if she could hear the system’s hum.

For the first time, Soren realized he had been treating her like a cheap tool.

Next to her 3D wireframe model, a list of five distinct tiers cascaded down the screen. He had only been operating at Tier 1 wasting her potential entirely.

Soren sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor and went through the sheet.

[Bond: Grimm]

[Current Status: Tier 1]

[Tier 1 (Active) — Shadow Step: Short-range tactical relocation via shadow. | Stillness: Complete suppression of biological noise.]

[Tier 2 (Locked) — Voidwalk: Long-distance shadow travel, bypassing physical barriers. | Mute: Total silence enforced within a ten-foot radius.]

[Tier 3 (Locked) — Pack Sense: Distributed spatial awareness through any shadow the Bond has previously touched.]

[Tier 4 (Locked) — DATA REDACTED]

[Tier 5 (Locked) — DATA REDACTED]

Grimm pushed her cold muzzle into the palm of his hand. Soren looked at the progression requirements.

There were no experience bars or combat quotas.

The mechanic was entirely intimacy-gated.

Tier advances required trust events like moments of profound, mutual vulnerability between tamer and beast.

You couldn’t just grind wolves in the forest to level up. You had to mean it.

"What are you staring at?" Selah asked.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed, the frost on her knuckles having finally retreated.

"System sheet," Soren said. "Checking Bond Tiers."

Selah frowned.

She closed her eyes for a moment, her brow furrowing in concentration. A second later, she opened them and shook her head.

"I don’t have one. The academy registry treats me as a tamer, but the system treats me as a fused entity. I can’t see anything."

Soren looked at her.

Hovering directly above Selah’s head was a small, chained dial.

It was a Bond Tier meter, currently locked tight at zero, entirely hidden from her own view.

Before he could respond, a frantic knock echoed against the door of their dorm room.

Soren stood up and pulled the door open.

Maren stood in the hallway.

Right now, she was crying.

Her jaw was set in a rigid, painful line, and her academy jacket was misbuttoned, slipping off one shoulder.

She pushed past Soren without an invitation, stepping into the room and wrapping her arms around herself.

Grimm’s ears flattened, but the wolf didn’t growl.

"I didn’t know where else to go," Maren whispered.

"Everyone else looks at me like I’m already dead."

"What happened?" Soren asked, closing the door.

"Instructor Vesna," Maren said, shivering.

"She was reviewing our files for the Trial. She pulled me aside. She told me my transfer story had a redacted section."

Selah stood up, the temperature in the room dropping slightly. "Everyone in Class Z has redacted sections. That’s why we’re here."

"No," Maren said, shaking her head frantically. "You don’t understand. I was in the Western Continental Fracture six weeks ago. They told me I was evacuated on a Bureau transport bus. They told me I hit my head and had amnesia."

She looked at Soren, her eyes wide and hollow.

"Vesna told me the bus never made it out. I didn’t survive the Fracture." She pressed a trembling hand against her own chest.

"Something inside the Fracture found my body. It walked me out. I don’t know if I’m the same person who got on that bus, Soren. I don’t know what I am."

A Fracture entity wearing a student’s skin?

In any other class, she would have been executed on the spot by the Bureau.

Soren didn’t flinch, just looked at her, processing the problem. "Are you hungry?"

Maren blinked, the tears stopping. "What?"

"If you were going to kill us, you would have done it," Soren said evenly.

"You’re terrified. That means whatever is inside you is either very human, or it’s scared of the same things we are. Sit down. You’re safe here."

Maren let out a broken sob and collapsed into the chair by the desk.

By looking at her without terror, Soren realized he had just pulled her directly into his orbit.

You collect them like trading cards, master, a voice purred in his head.

Soren’s jaw tightened.

He was tired of being pushed around by the system, by the academy, by the voices in his head.

You wanted me to rank up, Soren snapped back internally, aiming the thought like a weapon. Stop whining when I actually do the work.

For a split second, the system froze.

[DING! — Obsession Index: -1]

[Current Obsession Pressure decreased.]

Soren exhaled slowly. Yara liked it when he pushed back.

Subservience increased her obsession; defiance commanded her respect.

It was the inverse of the Bond Tier mechanic.

Trust advanced the Bond Tier, but asserting authority reduced the Obsession Index pressure.

He finally had his hands on the steering wheel.

Selah placed a hand on Maren’s shoulder, her frost cooling the panicked girl’s skin.

"I’ll take her down to the infirmary to get a sedative," Selah muttered to Soren. "Keep the door locked."

Selah guided Maren out into the hallway, leaving Soren alone with the white wolf.

◆◆◆◆

Soren sat back down on the cold stone floor.

Grimm crawled forward and rested her heavy head on his knee.

"You need a trust event," Soren whispered to the wolf. "You need me to bleed a little."

Grimm didn’t move, but the air around her seemed to thicken, the shadows in the corners of the room stretching toward her like reaching fingers.

"I don’t have a plan," Soren said.

"Selah and now Maren... they are all looking at me like I know how to navigate this. Like I’m some sort of mastermind but I’m completely empty. The Fracture is going to rip this building apart in thirteen days, the Bureau is actively hunting us, and I have absolutely nothing. I’m just waiting for the floor to cave in, and I’m terrified."

Grimm’s ears flattened against her skull.

The shadows in the room violently snapped to her fur, clinging to her like liquid ink.

The confession of helplessness from her Master was the vulnerability the system demanded.

[DING! — Massive Trust Event Recognized.]

[Bond Tier 2 unlocked.]

[Voidwalk available. Mute available.]

Grimm stood up.

She took one step forward and stepped entirely into the dark shadow cast by Selah’s bed.

She vanished.

A second later, the shadow beneath Soren’s own chair rippled.

Grimm climbed out of the two-dimensional darkness as if stepping out of a pool of black water.

She placed her front paws on his lap, curled her body into a tight circle against his chest, and immediately fell asleep.

Soren rested his hand on her white fur.

He finally had a way out.

But two floors up, a shadow that did not belong to Grimm suddenly writhed against the stone.

It bled directly out of the wall in Lior Vasquez’s private, single-occupancy suite.

Lior was sitting at his desk, re-reading his father’s letter about a ’Class Z asset of interest’

A letter identical to the one Selah had received.

Sitting at Lior’s feet was a massive Crowned Lion, its mane glowing with a faint, rolling golden heat.

The lion’s massive head snapped toward the corner of the room. It saw the unnatural shadow detach from the stone wall and stretch upward.

The lion roared.

The sound was a blast of force that shook the dust from the heavy rafters and rattled the glass windows of the academy.

Two floors down, Soren felt the violent vibration rattle his teeth and in his lap, Grimm’s shut eyes snapped open.