Chapter 288: 288 | Being Obviously Smart is Boring [PS BONUS]
Felicity released my arm and positioned herself at my other side, creating a loose semicircle that faced the field. More students continued arriving, filtering into their respective groups with the slow inevitability of people who would rather be anywhere else. I tracked the arrivals with half my attention while Caden launched into a detailed breakdown of the tactical decisions he would have made differently during yesterday’s matches.
Camille appeared at the edge of my vision.
She walked with the same aggressive confidence she always carried, her two-tone hair pulled back tight and her expression locked in something that refused to acknowledge I existed. Her gym uniform fit her the same way it fit everyone else, which meant it emphasized everything and concealed nothing. The compression fabric outlined the full curve of her chest and the defined line of her waist and the substantial hips I had spent a portion of yesterday pressed against. She did not look in my direction. She did not adjust her trajectory to pass near me. She found a spot on the opposite side of the gathering area and began stretching with the focused intensity of someone who had decided physical exertion was preferable to emotional processing.
I understood the impulse.
Petra arrived three minutes later.
Her entrance was more subtle than Camille’s, which somehow made it more noticeable. She walked with the perfect posture of someone who had been trained from birth to occupy space correctly, and her black hair caught the light as it fell past her shoulders in a way that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe to maintain. Her emerald eyes found mine immediately, held for exactly one point three seconds, and then dismissed me with a deliberate turning of her head that was somehow more aggressive than Camille’s complete avoidance.
She positioned herself near the equipment rack, alone, maintaining distance from both Camille’s group and my own.
"Okay," Felicity said quietly. "So something definitely happened. Because Petra just looked at you like she was trying to decide between murder and something significantly more complicated than murder."
"Told you. Complications."
"You need to tell me everything."
"I really don’t."
"You really do. Later. Over food. With details."
Steele’s voice cut across the morning air before I could respond.
"Alright. Everyone form up. Three lines, staggered spacing, facing me. You have thirty seconds to make it happen."
The gathering dissolved into organized chaos as students scrambled to comply. I found myself in the middle of the second line, flanked by Caden on my left and a student from 1-A whose name I hadn’t learned yet on my right. Felicity ended up two rows behind me, which I could tell from the warmth of her presence without looking. Camille was somewhere to my far right. Petra was somewhere to my far left. Neither of them was close enough to cause immediate complications.
Small victories.
"Morning conditioning," Steele announced once everyone had settled. "For those of you who slept through orientation, this is a joint session between Class 1-A and Class 1-B. We run together. We suffer together. The point is not to break you. The point is to establish a baseline of physical capability that will serve as the foundation for everything else you learn at this institution."
She began pacing, her steps eating ground with easy efficiency.
"Today we start simple. Three mile run around the perimeter track, followed by obstacle course rotations, followed by partner conditioning exercises. The run is not timed. The obstacle course is not scored. The partner exercises are not competitive. Anyone who treats any of these activities as an opportunity to show off will be running additional miles until their legs fail. Questions?"
Nobody asked questions.
"Good. Begin."
The herd lurched into motion.
Running had never been my favorite activity, but the body I inhabited now made it significantly less objectionable than it would have been in my previous life. The Demigod trait translated into cardiovascular capacity that bordered on unfair, and I settled into a pace that let me observe without exhausting myself. The track wound through the training grounds and into the tree line that bordered the campus, creating a loop that took approximately fifteen minutes to complete at jogging speed.
Caden ran beside me, because of course he did.
"So I was thinking about what you did with the constructs," he said, his breathing remarkably steady for someone also maintaining conversation. "The part where you punched through Petra’s barrier. Your file says fifteen foot range, right? Documented specifications and all that?"
"That’s what the file says."
"But you were way further than fifteen feet when those constructs came through the window behind her. Like, significantly further. Like, might-need-to-revise-the-documentation further."
I kept my expression neutral. "Adrenaline does interesting things to Aspects."
"Does it though? I mean, I’ve never heard of adrenaline adding twenty feet to someone’s range. Emotional spikes usually affect power output, not spatial parameters. Different axis entirely."
"You sound like Percy."
"Percy sounds like someone who knows what he’s talking about, so I’m choosing to take that as a compliment." Caden’s grin flickered briefly into something more serious. "I’m not asking for confirmation. I’m just saying. I noticed. Marco noticed. A lot of people noticed. Whatever your file says you can do, it’s not the whole story."
"Most files aren’t the whole story."
"True. But most files don’t have discrepancies you can measure with a ruler and a stopwatch."
I glanced sideways at him. Caden’s usual goofball presentation was still there, the easy smile and the casual energy, but underneath it I could see the sharpness he usually kept hidden. The intelligence he deployed through social deflection rather than direct analysis.
"You’re smarter than you pretend to be."
"Obviously. But being obviously smart is boring, and being secretly smart while looking like an idiot means people underestimate you, which is way more useful."
"Sound strategy."
"Right? Marco figured it out like two years ago and hasn’t told anyone because he thinks it’s funny to watch other people get blindsided when I suddenly know what I’m talking about."
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