Transmigrated Into A Women Dominated World

Chapter 276

Zaeryn sat with that for a moment. So, Athea had actually made this happen?He was angry at her, and had been for a long time, and the anger came with its own gravity. It pulled everything she did toward the worst possible reading.

Whatever Athea decided about him, he was always going to suspect the motive. Always going to assume the strategist before the mother. It was easier that way. It meant he never had to be surprised by her, and never had to soften toward her, and never had to ask himself whether the distance between them was as fair as he’d decided it was.

But this. This was something he could not bend toward a worse reading no matter how he turned it.

He needed this. He needed it badly.

When his mind came back to the room, Lysara was still watching him, and he had the sense she had given him the moment on purpose.

"Who are they," he asked.

"The instructors," Lysara said.

"Yes."

She nodded once, the question apparently a reasonable one. "We’ve only selected a handful for now. Enough to cover the abilities you currently carry. As your range of abilities grow, we will adapt to it." She paused. "On that, Daphne will need to test you from time to time. Nothing formal. A scan, a short session, occasional follow-up. The point is to monitor your unusual situation. See if there are any side effects and to confirm what’s new. We will make our adjustments to your training from there."

"All right." Zaeryn was satisfied with that. He was so excited. Although he hid it well from Lysara and appeared as if this news didn’t change anything.

"As for the people themselves." She named them.

Zaeryn nodded as she began, and as the names came he registered each one carefully, holding them in his mind the way he held anything he knew he would need to remember later. Four of them, just as she had said. Two Tier 2 instructors and two Tier 3.

Lysara moved through them at an unhurried pace, pairing each name to the discipline they would carry him through.

The first two covered the Tier 2 ground. Ingrid had given him four abilities, and although they’d come from the same source, they didn’t run on the same principle. Three of them, Kinetic Repulsion, Concussive Blast, Kinetic Rupture, were kinetic-force work, the same family of raw projection.

The fourth, Sensory Jolt, was a different discipline entirely. Psionic. A separate Vitae signature in everything but origin. So there were two instructors for the Tier 2 slot, one for each.

The Tier 3 pair was cleaner. One for Vitae Weaving, the constructs and shaping and fine control. One for Kinetic Acceleration, the speed work, the brief reality-bending bursts that he still didn’t fully trust himself with.

Four instructors. Four disciplines. One ability each, except where two of them shared a source.

"Each of them has spent a lifetime in one ability," Lysara said. "That’s the point. You won’t be learning what they read in a manual. You’ll be learning what they’ve actually held in their own hands."

"Understood," Zaeryn said, and he meant it more than the word suggested.

There was something quietly clarifying about hearing the arrangement laid out this way, the recognition that what she was offering him was not merely instruction but the accumulated lifetime work of four women who had each, in their own discipline, become the kind of master that the rest of the Queendom measured against. He would not be borrowing technique. He would be borrowing experience.

"That’s the start," Lysara said. "If your situation changes, the roster will change with it. That’s the entire point of the arrangement."

Zaeryn took a breath, and then, before he had quite decided to, he asked the question that had been sitting at the edge of his mouth for the last several minutes.

"Are you also going to train me?" he asked.

There was only one answer he wanted from her right now, and that was for her to say yes. He had wanted to ask Lysara for weeks, ever since the first time he had felt the full weight of Mireille’s power up close and learned that she was mentored by the high commander.

If he wanted to truly master his abilities who in this entire Queendom, would be a better teacher than the high commander?

Lysara looked at him for a moment longer than she had looked at him at any point in the conversation so far. He could not read what was behind the look, and he suspected she meant for it to be that way.

When she finally answered, her voice carried the same even measure it had carried throughout the entire briefing, and that, more than anything else, told him she had taken the question seriously.

"Not yet," she said, letting the answer sit a moment before she went on. "But I won’t say never. We’ll see what abilities and Vitae tiers you pick up. If something comes in that no one else on the roster can take you through, I’ll take the session myself."

Without further comment, she stood. Zaeryn rose with her without thinking.

She crossed to the door and pressed the panel beside it, and the heavy doors slid apart with a low hum. She paused there a moment, half-turned toward him, the late afternoon light through the reinforced glass behind her catching the edges of her shoulders.

"That’s all for now," she said. "Your specialists will be in touch within the week. Go find Daphne. She’s supposed to run some tests on you."

"Cool. More tests." Zaeryn said it without enthusiasm.

"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Noctis, you have no choice but to comply." She did not smile when she said it. But there was something dry underneath the way she said it, and Zaeryn could tell she was enjoying herself a little.

Zaeryn walked out.

★★★

Zaeryn made his way to the Chief Scientist’s chamber.

He stopped at the door and waited a few seconds for the system to register him, knowing Daphne would see him on her console the moment he arrived.

After a small delay, the door slid open, and he walked inside.

Daphne was standing at the center of the room. She looked up the moment he walked in, her eyes finding him before the door had even finished opening behind him.

"You’re here." She straightened. "Let’s take your blood sample before I forget what you’re here for."