December 2026, Earth

  It took until mid-December before Leo's homeroom teacher was able to track him down.

  Leo didn't think it was his fault. He had totally intended to attended his classes. In fact, he'd been looking forward to it. He really wanted to. But one thing led to another, and it was yet another semester of not showing up to school.

  This year was worse than the last. At least last year Leo had been on campus. People knew he was alive. They saw him in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the library. Teachers could confirm his existence even if his attendance record looked like Swiss cheese.

  This year, the Flying Aces program had granted him an "athletic pass," and all inquiries about Leo's whereabouts were answered with a variation of "Leo Chen is engaged in approved athletic development activities and can do whatever he wants."

  The Exeter High School administration only knew something about Leo being important for the high school Flying Aces playoffs and so they stopped asking questions.

  Even Leo's parents had no idea where he was.

  "Where are you staying?" his mother had demanded during their last phone call, sometime in late October.

  "Yale."

  "Yale? Why are you not in school? Why are you going to Yale? Why not Harvard?"

  His father had eventually intervened, extracting a promise that Leo would come home for Thanksgiving dinner. He had. For approximately four hours. Then he vanished back into the training complex, muttering something about recovery protocols and scheduled conditioning sessions.

  This year, aside from his grand entrance on the first day of school Leo had not set foot in Exeter again.

  His homeroom teacher, a patient woman named Ms. Patterson who taught junior-year English Literature, would have never found Leo if not for a rumor. Word had spread through the Exeter High School faculty lounge that one of their students was training with the Yale Bulldogs' Flying Aces team.

  Ms. Patterson made seventeen phone calls before someone at Yale Athletics finally confirmed that yes, Leo Chen was on-site, and yes, he had been there since September.

  She found him in Training Hall C, balanced upside-down on a stability platform while Dr. Reyes called out corrections to his form.

  "Core tighter. You're compensating with your hip flexors again."

  "Mr. Chen!"

  Leo's concentration broke. He wobbled, caught himself, then rotated smoothly to an upright position. Ms. Patterson stood at the entrance to the training hall, professional attire slightly rumpled, expression hovering somewhere between relief and exasperation.

  "Ms. Patterson." Leo stepped off the platform. "Hi."

  "Hi. That's what you have to say. Hi." She pulled out a tablet, scrolling through what Leo recognized as his student file.

  "You have attended zero days of class this semester. Zero. You missed the October midterms. You missed the November progress assessments. You have turned in no assignments. You have responded to no communications from the school. Your parents claim they don't know where you are. I was preparing to file a truancy report."

  "I've been busy."

  "I can see that." Ms. Patterson looked around the training hall. The formation platforms, the cultivation-enhanced equipment, the glass-walled specialized training chambers. "This is... quite a facility."

  Dr. Reyes approached, wiping her hands on a towel. "You're the high school teacher?"

  "I'm his homeroom advisor. And his English Literature instructor." Ms. Patterson extended a hand. "Margaret Patterson."

  "Sandra Reyes. Strength and Conditioning." Dr. Reyes shook her hand, then turned to Leo with an expression of mild annoyance.

  "You didn't tell me you didn't clear things up with your high school."

  "Sorry, I forgot, I've been busy."

  Dr. Reyes sighed and turned back to Ms. Patterson.

  "How much trouble is he in?"

  "Significant trouble. The school needs documentation that he's engaged in legitimate educational activities, or we're required to report him to the academic truancy division." Ms. Patterson's tone was firm but kind.

  "I understand athletic development is important, but he's still a minor. He still has academic requirements."

  Dr. Reyes walked to her office, rummaging through a drawer. She pulled out a stack of pre-printed forms and a pen.

  "We do this for the collegiate athletes all the time. Academic credit for practical training, it's an established pathway for student-athletes with intensive schedules." She began writing, her handwriting a confident scrawl.

  "Let's see. Sports Nutrition, that's three credits. Leo's been following a precisely calibrated nutritional protocol for three months, he can probably lecture on macronutrient timing better than most registered dieticians."

  She flipped to another form.

  "Health Education, two credits. He's learned about cardiovascular development, muscular adaptation, recovery protocols, and the biological foundations of physical cultivation. Very educational."

  Another form.

  "Kinesiology Independent Study, three credits. Analysis of human movement patterns in high-performance athletic contexts. He's done more motion analysis than most college seniors."

  She added a fourth form to the stack.

  "And Physical Education obviously. Four credits. I'll note that he's exceeded all standard benchmarks for his age group."

  Ms. Patterson watched this process with growing incredulity. "You can just... handwrite transcripts?"

  "I'm a licensed educational consultant in addition to my coaching certification. Yale Athletics maintains accreditation for exactly this kind of situation." Dr. Reyes signed each form with practiced efficiency, then stamped them with an official seal she produced from another drawer.

  "There. Twelve credits of legitimate academic work, all A grades, all properly documented."

  She handed the stack to Ms. Patterson.

  "The paperwork will hold up to any audit. NCAA is totally okay with it, and I bet whatever high school you are from will be too." Dr. Reyes smiled.

  "Leo is receiving an ivy league education in human performance and athletic development."

  Ms. Patterson examined the forms. They were professionally formatted, officially stamped, and appeared entirely legitimate even though they were made up on the spot.

  "This covers the fall semester," she said slowly. "What about spring?"

  "He'll continue training. I'll continue documenting his educational progress." Dr. Reyes shrugged.

  Leo watched this exchange with a mixture of relief and bemusement. He hadn't actually thought about school since September. The training schedule consumed his days, and the Azure Profound Continent consumed his nights. He had completely forgotten about it.

  Ms. Patterson tucked the forms into her bag. "I'll need to discuss this with the administration. There may be additional requirements, standardized testing, at minimum."

  "Send me a list. I'll sign whatever you want." Dr. Reyes glanced at her watch. "Leo has a conditioning session in ten minutes. Is there anything else?"

  "I..." Ms. Patterson looked at Leo; really looked at him for the first time since arriving. Three months of intensive training had transformed him. He stood differently, moved differently, carried himself with a physical confidence wasn't there last year. Last year he was a zombie, this year he looked like an athlete.

  "Are you happy?" she asked finally.

  Leo considered the question. "I'm working toward something that matters. I'm getting better every day. I have a goal and a path to achieve it."

  "That's not what I asked."

  "Then yes." Leo smiled slightly. "I'm happy."

  Ms. Patterson nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll make sure the school knows you're... accounted for. Try to answer your phone occasionally. Your parents worry."

  "I'll do that."

  She left the way she'd come, clutching the stack of fabricated transcripts.

  Shortly after, Coach Williams pushed through the training hall doors. The former NFL Flyer moved with purpose, clipboard tucked under one arm, his face set in an expression Leo had learned to recognize as 'significant news incoming.'

  Behind him walked a young woman in Yale athletics gear, her credentials marking her as one of Williams' graduate assistants.

  "Leo. Dr. Reyes." Williams nodded to each of them in turn.

  "We need to talk. There's been a change of plans."

  Dr. Reyes set down the tablet she'd been using to review Leo's progress.

  "What kind of change?"

  "A fundamental one." Williams turned to Leo. "Hand your lifebound sword to my assistant. She's going to take it to be engraved."

  Leo blinked. His La Ferrari Eclipse hung in his dantian, a constant presence since his parents had gifted it to him.

  "It's going to be good for you. I'll explain." Williams' tone brooked no argument. "For now, hand it over."

  Leo pulled out the Eclipse from his cultivation. The blade hummed faintly as he passed it to the assistant, as if protesting the separation. She accepted it with both hands, treating the lifebound weapon with appropriate respect, then departed through a side door.

  Williams handed a sheet of paper to Dr. Reyes.

  "New training protocols. Read through them while I explain."

  Dr. Reyes scanned the document, her eyebrows climbing progressively higher as she processed its contents. She said nothing, but her expression shifted from confusion to surprise to something approaching professional excitement.

  "I met with my mentor yesterday," Williams began, settling onto one of the training benches. "Nascent Soul Master Huang Weilin. I explained your situation to him, Leo. Your cultivation level, your divine sense development, your competition timeline."

  "We spent four hours working through the problem. Well, to be honest, it was more like him teaching me about it."

  He paused, gathering his thoughts.

  "The conclusion we reached is that everything I... we've been doing has been wrong. Not completely wrong, the physical conditioning is very important. But our strategic approach has been fundamentally flawed."

  Leo sat down across from the coach, giving him full attention.

  "We've been treating your weaknesses as problems to solve."

  "You can't react fast enough to Gold Core attacks, so we drill reaction speed. You aren't strong enough to damage properly armored opponents, so we work on maneuverability. Your defensive capabilities are insufficient, so we train parrying and evasion."

  "All reasonable approaches. All completely missing the point."

  Williams pulled out a small tablet, activating a display that showed Leo's training metrics over the past nine weeks.

  "These are symptoms, not causes. We've been addressing symptoms while ignoring the underlying condition." He pointed to a graph showing Leo's divine sense measurements.

  "When you started, your divine sense sat at approximately 3000 Si. Sixteen weeks later, you're at 3900 Si. That's a 30 percent increase in just over three and a half months."

  Leo nodded. He'd felt the growth, his awareness expanding week by week, his ability to perceive and process spatial information sharpening with each training session.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "If this growth rate maintains you'll hit 6,700 Si by January of your junior year. That's when the next CFL season begins." Williams set down the tablet.

  "Do you understand what that means?"

  "My divine sense will be two to three times everyone else's."

  "Exactly. And that changes everything." Williams stood, beginning to pace. "We've been training you to play as a Collegiate Level Flyer. Foundation Establishment cultivation, Foundation Establishment equipment, Foundation Establishment tactics. That's a disservice to your potential. Instead, we need to treat you as an NFL Level Flyer."

  Dr. Reyes looked up from the protocol sheet. "These training methods... I've never seen anything like them. Third Person Perspective? Complete visual deprivation? Direct divine sense weapon control?"

  "Because they're NFL techniques. Completely different paradigm from collegiate play." Williams turned to Leo.

  "Let me give you some context. When I played professionally, my divine sense was around 5,000 Si. That was considered pretty good for the era. I had a good career; All-Pro selection, championship ring, the whole package. Then the Treaty of Great Restraint happened."

  Leo recognized the reference. The Treaty of Great Restraint had brokered an uneasy armistice between the Earth and Catacombs. It had established limits on the power that could be deployed in the Earth-Catacombs war. More relevantly for sports, the Earth didn't need to spend all of its resources fighting the war. So now the country had a lot more resources that could be used for sports.

  "Before the Treaty, Tier 5 formations were strategic military assets. They were the pinnacle of American military might. Everything made was sent directly to the frontlines." Williams' expression grew distant, touched by old memories.

  "After the Treaty, the Formation old ancestors had nothing to do and started to draw for the NFL. Suddenly Foundation Establishment Flyers were wielding Nascent Soul level power. The game transformed overnight."

  "And It was impossible to keep up," Leo said quietly.

  "Realm suppression." Williams nodded. "Didn't matter how good my techniques were, how sharp my instincts had become. When your opponent operates two full realms above your cultivation base, experience and skill simply cannot close the gap. I was outclassed in every engagement."

  "Every veteran, including me, was released immediately."

  He resumed pacing, his footsteps echoing through the empty training hall.

  "I've spent the years since training my divine sense, maintaining my Foundation Establishment cultivation, hoping to reach 20,000 Si and return to professional play. But that's beside the point."

  "What matters is that NFL Flyers today face the exact same problem you do: their actual combat power sits two realms above their cultivation base. Their Foundation Establishment bodies cannot react at Nascent Soul speeds. Their physical capabilities are fundamentally inadequate for the power level at which they operate."

  "How do they compensate?" Leo asked.

  "They lean entirely into their divine sense." Williams stopped pacing, turning to face Leo directly. "Theoretically, someone could exist who combines exceptional spell talent with exceptional divine sense, a true combat prodigy who masters both paths."

  "In practice, most NFL Flyers today are former Formation Masters. They developed massive divine sense through years of intricate formation work, then transitioned to professional sports because it offered faster advancement."

  "Why would Formation Masters want to play football?"

  "Economics." Williams smiled thinly. "The Full Breath Recovery Technique made mass formation drawing the best way to increase Divine Sense. Supply increased, prices collapsed. A Formation Master with 20,000 Si faces a long, expensive road to reach the Foundation Establishment limit of 100,000 Si. The NFL offers a faster path."

  He pulled up another display, this one showing footage of professional matches.

  "Flying Aces at the NFL level is incredibly demanding on divine sense. You're processing Nascent Soul level combat speeds, tracking multiple opponents, coordinating with teammates, all while maintaining absolute control over your equipment. It drains divine sense reserves at phenomenal rates."

  "But the teams provide access to spiritual veins that allow rapid recovery. You burn through your divine sense in a Quarter, then refill it in the team's cultivation chambers. Rinse and repeat. Growth that would take years through formation work happens in months through professional play and training."

  The footage showed an NFL match in progress. Leo watched, recognizing the differences from collegiate play immediately. The Flyers moved differently, sharper, more angular, their trajectories jagged and unpredictable. They looked like lightning bolts, zigzagging through three-dimensional space with impossible precision.

  "Modern NFL Flyers are like you, in a way. Their bodies can't keep up with their power. Their physical reactions are too slow for the combat speeds they face. So they bypass physical reaction entirely." Williams froze the footage on a Flyer mid-maneuver.

  "Notice anything unusual about the helmet?"

  Leo studied the image. The helmet was fully enclosed, just a painted on visor where a real one should have been.

  "It's opaque. They can't see out."

  "Correct. NFL Flyers are completely blindfolded during play. They don't use their eyes at all." Williams tapped the display.

  "Think about the pathway from stimulus to response when you rely on vision. Light enters your eyes, gets converted to neural signals, travels to your visual cortex for processing, gets interpreted by your conscious mind, triggers a decision, sends motor commands to your body."

  "Even at Foundation Establishment, that chain takes measurable time. At Nascent Soul combat speeds, it's far too slow."

  "So they use divine sense instead."

  "Divine sense perceives directly. No conversion, no processing delay, no conscious interpretation required. When your divine sense detects an incoming attack, the information is already present in your awareness. It doesn't need to travel anywhere or be decoded. The response can be instantaneous because perception and action originate from the same source."

  Williams advanced the footage, showing the Flyer in motion. The cultivator's movements were inhuman, acceleration and direction changes that should have been physically impossible, trajectories that seemed to ignore momentum and inertia.

  "The key technique is called Third Person Perspective. You extend your divine sense in all directions simultaneously, creating a spherical awareness bubble centered on your position. Everything within that bubble; enemies, allies, projectiles, terrain, is perceived all at once, in real-time, without the need to 'look' at anything. You see yourself from outside yourself, as if watching a game piece on a board."

  "That sounds... disorienting."

  "It is, initially. The human mind isn't designed to process omnidirectional awareness. And not all Formation Masters can learn it, many spend years before giving up their NFL dreams. The divine sense becomes the primary sensory modality, with physical senses relegated to backup status or ignored entirely." Williams deactivated the display.

  "Once you achieve Third Person Perspective, everything else follows. Your body becomes just another object in your awareness field. Something to be moved and positioned like any other piece. Control shifts from internal to external. You stop inhabiting your body and start commanding it."

  Dr. Reyes interjected, "The g-forces involved in those maneuvers... they're extreme. How do the players survive?"

  "Physical conditioning." Williams nodded toward her. "The body still experiences the forces, still needs to withstand the stress. That's why your work remains critical, Dr. Reyes."

  He looked to Leo.

  "But the control mechanism changes. Instead of your brain sending signals to your muscles, your divine sense manipulates your position directly through your lifebound equipment. The body is along for the ride."

  Leo processed this information, fitting it into his understanding of cultivation mechanics.

  "You mentioned weapon control. How does that change at the NFL level?"

  "Weapons manipulated by body parts are too slow. Your hand moves your sword, but your hand moves because your brain told your muscles to contract. That neural pathway introduces delay. NFL Flyers prefer lifebound weapons that can be controlled directly by divine sense, cutting out the physical intermediary entirely."

  Williams smiled. "This is why the lightsaber, which is virtually unknown at the collegiate level, is common in the NFL. The lightsaber provides its own power source, you don't need to channel spiritual energy through your body to activate it."

  "The only thing required for control is divine sense manipulation. You will the blade to move, and it moves. Like another piece on the chessboard."

  "And what else?"

  "Top NFL Flyers, those approaching the one hundred thousand Si limit of Foundation Establishment, often forgo personal weapons entirely. Their divine sense is strong enough to seize objects directly from their environment. Enemy weapons, defensive projectiles, even other players. They turn the entire field of play into their arsenal."

  Williams pulled up another clip, this one showing a legendary NFL highlight. A Flyer with no visible weapon danced through enemy fire, and as Leo watched, flak projectiles curved mid-flight, reversing course to streak back toward the defenders who had fired them.

  The Flyer seemed untouchable, reality itself bending to accommodate their will.

  "As a countermeasure, all personal weapons in the NFL are lifebound. A lifebound weapon resonates with its owner's soul, it can't be seized by external divine sense without overwhelming the bond. But flak projectiles can't be lifebound. They're manufactured ammunition, fired and forgotten."

  "So there's an invisible battle constantly occurring during NFL matches, as defenders project their divine sense to prevent Flyers from seizing incoming fire and redirecting it."

  "However don't dream of trying this technique yourself, divine control of objects far ways takes about 40,000 Si minimum. Although you won't be able to seize weapons there's no need for you to waste time lifebonding with your lightsaber." Williams consulted his clipboard.

  "I've already arranged for modifications to your La Ferrari Eclipse. I brought over a Nascent Soul formation master to reconfigure the weapon for NFL-style operation. Full divine sense control, removed physical control interfaces, optimized for Third Person Perspective integration."

  Leo felt a flutter of anxiety at the thought of his weapon being modified by a stranger. The Eclipse had served him well, had saved his life multiple times in the Azure Profound Continent. But he trusted Williams' judgment, and if this was what reaching the next level required...

  "What about my training schedule?"

  "Complete overhaul." Williams handed him a second document. "Starting today, you will train blindfolded at all times during Flying Aces practice. You will not be permitted to use your hands for weapon control. All sword manipulation must occur through direct divine sense command. Vision and physical grip are now prohibited."

  Leo scanned the schedule. It was brutal, hours of sensory deprivation exercises, divine sense extension drills, Third Person Perspective cultivation techniques he'd never heard of.

  "We're bringing in specialized coaches," Williams continued. "Instructors who trained NFL Flyers specifically in these methods. Dr. Reyes will continue your physical conditioning, but the combat training will shift focus entirely toward divine sense integration."

  "This will delay my joining the practice squad," Leo observed.

  "Significantly. You won't be ready to participate in team drills until at least March." Williams met Leo's eyes. "But when you do join... you'll have capabilities no one at the collegiate level can match. Your divine sense will exceed most professional Flyers. Combined with NFL-tier control methods, you'll be functionally untouchable."

  Dr. Reyes looked up from the protocol sheet. "The physical requirements here are actually less intense than what we've been doing. More focus on g-force tolerance, less on agility and stamina."

  "NFL Flyers don't need physical strength for combat, their divine sense handles weapon manipulation. What they need is the ability to survive extreme acceleration without losing consciousness or internal coherence. Blackout resistance, spatial disorientation tolerance, vestibular adaptation." Williams nodded toward her. "Adjust his conditioning program accordingly."

  "Already making notes."

  Leo sat with the information, letting it settle. Nine weeks of intensive training, and now everything changed. His divine sense had grown fast enough to justify an entirely different approach.

  "You mentioned I'd need about 7,000 Si to barely be adequate for NFL methods," he said. "I'm at 4,000 now. That's still a significant gap."

  "Which is why you're starting preparation now, rather than waiting until you hit the threshold. Third Person Perspective would normally take years to develop properly. The neural pathways you had used all through your life will need to be rewired."

  "Luckily you are young and have the brain plasticity to do so. By beginning training immediately, you'll be able to play by March if you can master it."

  ---

  The first time Leo experienced 9 Gs sustained for thirty seconds, he understood why Dr. Reyes had made him sign additional liability waivers.

  The centrifuge chamber hummed around him as the arm accelerated, pressing him into the reinforced seat with the weight of nine copies of himself. His vision tunneled immediately, the world collapsing to a grey pinpoint as blood drained from his brain. His chest compressed, each breath a war against the force crushing his ribcage. The pressure suit inflated automatically, squeezing his legs and abdomen to force blood upward, but it only delayed the inevitable.

  The Divine Sense Press had been brutal, but at least it possessed a certain mercy. The agony peaked and ended. The suffering had a definitive and quick conclusion.

  G-force training offered no such kindness.

  Modern sports medicine had evolved to a precise art. Dr. Reyes knew exactly how far to push a human body before catastrophic failure and more importantly, how to hold it at that threshold. Spiritual medicines could repair burst capillaries in the eyes. Formation-enhanced monitoring could detect the exact moment consciousness began to slip. Recovery techniques could pull a cultivator back from the edge of death just to push them toward it again.

  Leo spent hours each day in that centrifuge, his body learning to endure forces that should have killed him. His cardiovascular system adapted, developing enhanced blood pressure regulation. His neck muscles strengthened to support his skull against forces that wanted to tear his head from his spine.

  And when the blackouts came, because they always came, he trained to recover.

  "Again," Dr. Reyes' voice crackled through the helmet speakers.

  Leo's awareness snapped back into existence. One moment nothing, the next moment everything. He'd been unconscious for approximately 2.3 seconds according to the monitoring systems. In an NFL match, 2.3 seconds was an eternity. A Nascent Soul-level attack could cross the entire field three times in 2.3 seconds.

  "Recovery time is improving," Dr. Reyes noted clinically. "You're down to 2.3 seconds of total cognitive impairment. We need to reach 0.7."

  The centrifuge began accelerating again.

  Dr. Reyes had calculated that maintaining consciousness through certain maneuvers was physiologically impossible. The human body simply could not prevent blood drainage during rapid vertical transitions. No amount of conditioning would change fundamental fluid dynamics.

  So instead of trying to prevent blackouts, they trained Leo to recover from them instantaneously. To snap back to full awareness the moment blood returned to his brain. To resume combat operations with zero transition time between unconsciousness and action.

  It was, Leo reflected as the world greyed out again, deeply unpleasant.

  Third Person Perspective training made the centrifuge seem like a pleasant afternoon nap.

  The technique required Leo to extend his divine sense in all directions simultaneously while suppressing his normal visual processing. Simple in concept. Nightmarish in execution.

  Most people went their entire lives without appreciating how effortless sight truly was. You opened your eyes and the world appeared, fully formed, requiring no conscious effort to interpret. Objects had depth and color and meaning.

  Your sense of self existed naturally at the center of your visual field, an unquestioned anchor point for all perception.

  Third Person Perspective demanded the complete dissolution of that framework.

  Leo sat blindfolded in the training chamber, divine sense extended in a sphere around his position.

  He could perceive the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the equipment scattered throughout the space. He could sense his own body from the outside, an object among objects, no more privileged than the training dummies or the weapon racks.

  And it felt wrong.

  His brain screamed in protest. Every instinct he possessed demanded that he open his eyes, that he return to normal perception, that he stop this unnatural violation of how consciousness was supposed to work. The sense of self that had anchored his existence since birth found itself unmoored, floating in an awareness that had no center, no privileged viewpoint, no here.

  "You're collapsing the sphere again," his specialized coach observed. Her name was Lin Mei, the Flyer Coach for the New England Patriots who now consulted for Yale during the offseason.

  "You keep pulling your divine sense back toward your body. Stop doing that."

  "I'm trying," Leo gritted out.

  "Don't try. The effort itself is the problem. You're still treating your body as the center of perception. It isn't. Your body is a piece on the board. You are the player. Your body is a piece. Separate the two"

  Leo attempted to release his attachment to his physical form. His divine sense wavered, the spherical awareness flickering and distorting.

  "Now you're losing coherence. You've overcorrected. Find the balance."

  There was no balance. There was only the crushing wrongness of perceiving himself from outside himself, of seeing his own back and front and sides simultaneously, of existing everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Coach Mei sighed. "We'll resume in twenty minutes. Take a break before you rupture something."

  Leo tore off the blindfold, gasping as normal vision flooded back. The training chamber snapped into familiar two-dimensionality. His sense of self slammed back into his body with almost physical force.

  He sat on the floor, breathing heavily, feeling like something essential had been scraped raw inside his skull.

  ---

  That night, Leo logged into the Azure Profound Continent and did absolutely nothing productive.

  He lay flat on the grass outside their hidden base, staring up at the artificial sky, letting his mind go blank. Mike was offline, taking care of his kids. Kevin was drawing some formations on some shells. Arthur sprawled nearby, content to enjoy his retirement.

  "Rough day?" Arthur asked eventually.

  "They're all rough days."

  "Yeah." Arthur stretched luxuriously. "I've been thinking. We've been grinding pretty hard since we got here. Months of constant progress, constant danger, constant advancement. Maybe we need to blow off some steam."

  Leo turned his head. "What did you have in mind?"

  Arthur's smile held a distinct edge of mischief. "Well, I had Kevin make us a treasure UFO..."