“We’re not going down the Mon in the city?”

  Dario shook his head as he led them through the bustling streets of Veinora, heading for the outskirts. “There’s a shortcut.”

  Matteo whispered another curse, looking over his shoulder for the tenth time. “Why did I let you talk me into this? There are so many ways this can go wrong.”

  “And yet, worrying about them won’t change a thing, will it? Better go with the flow, bro. How did you end up there in the first place?”

  “Like I said, it’s a long story. I got into contact with Luciano because he was the only Coral level Controller around here. Controller aura is rare and he could get me a steady supply in exchange for pearls.”

  “He puts his own Ki in a battery? Or how does that work?”

  “That’s the easiest way, yes. As a Coral, his passive regeneration is high enough to do that. There are also certain kinds of plants that emit Controller aura, like these flesh-eating fungi that work in huge networks, with a central intelligence controlling the others. It’s quite fascinating, really.”

  Dario smiled as Matteo went on enthusiastically, seeming to forget his worries for a moment. “Certain kinds of insects have them too, different types of ants and spiders, where queens or kings control a swarm even from large distances. But those are hard to find and I didn’t want to waste time hunting for them.”

  “So that’s how you got into debt with this guy?”

  Matteo shook his head. “No, that’s just how we got in touch. The costs did begin to add up, and as we talked more, he learned that I had studied the mental effects of certain plants, so eventually he offered me a deal. I’d help run some experiments in exchange for aura. But then I wanted to do a whole bunch of other experiments, which needed a lot of equipment, so I ended up taking out a loan and…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Anyway, long story short, an experiment went horribly wrong and a bunch of expensive stuff blew up. So I’ve been paying off that debt ever since. It’s almost cleared, though.”

  They remained silent for a while as they passed through a particularly busy street, hawkers shouting at them to enter their gym or buy their pills.

  “And until you pay him back, you’re stuck in that compound? That’s why you never came down to visit, or wrote, like you promised?”

  “It’s not like they’re actually holding me prisoner, it’s more like an unspoken understanding that he wouldn’t risk me running off without having paid my debts. So that’s why I stayed, but I did write. You never got my letters?”

  “Nope. You didn’t get suspicious when nothing came back? Mom really didn’t take well to it, Matteo, she’s been worried sick.”

  “What would you have me do, Dario? As I said, it’s not like I could have just walked out of there.”

  “You made a promise! You could have at least fucking tried. While you were doing your experiments, I was the one who had to deal with-” he broke off, shaking his head. “You know what, never mind.”

  They walked quietly for a long while, both of them looking angrily ahead, until the noise began to fade around them as they neared the outskirts, the streets growing wider and the buildings less tall.

  Matteo was first to break the angry silence.

  “So, tell me about these shortcuts you’re looking for.”

  “I need shortcuts to get to Coral. Nika, that’s my friend’s name, is crazy ambitious and wants to hit Coral in three months. So I’m trying to keep up.”

  “...But without doing any training.”

  “Let’s say no training that can’t be done from a hammock.”

  “Of course, the hammock, how could I forget. Well, I don’t have an easy answer for you. If I had a pill that could get someone to Coral as easy as snapping their fingers, I’d be pretty damn rich by now. But I do know of a process that might help you find shortcuts. It’s something new, called the hypothetico-deductive method.”

  “That’s a mouthful. You come up with that yourself?”

  “No. You remember I used to exchange letters all the time, with people on different floors? It’s what got me interested in experiments in the first place. Most everyone in Tenjou learns from these ancient tomes or old masters, always repeating the same old wisdoms about Tenjou, or the nature of Ki, or about the Dao, all of which we’re supposed to take at face value. But there are a few people, or in some cases small groups of people, that have come to question this ancient wisdom. It started with a few people who got to thinking: if we don’t want to blindly accept what is written in an old book, then how else would we gather knowledge? How can we separate truth from falsehood?”

  Dario nodded. That sounded sensible. Better to trust your own eyes and ears compared to what some old master told you. JeeJee, for example, was full of trogcrap, telling him that those cursed rectal pills worked faster, when in reality they were just cheaper.

  “After a lot of back and forth over the last years, this small community has reached some consensus on this new method. One makes observations, formulates hypotheses, makes a prediction based on said hypotheses, then tests the predictions. In other words: look at stuff, make a theory, test the theory.”

  “Okay. How does that help me?”

  “Well, let’s walk through it. Why do you think it’s possible to get to Coral without training to begin with? I assume it’s based on some observation?”

  “Err… Well, first I was told you had to reach some percentages of fat and muscle or whatever, right?”

  Matteo nodded.

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  “But then, that doesn’t make sense. I saw this guy who could change his muscles somehow, some Ki art using flesh aura and stuff, but it didn’t bring him to Coral. Instead, it has to be something else, something to do with Ki. And where there’s Ki, there can be shortcuts.”

  His brother smiled, but it was brief and shallow. They were digging into this to avoid the real problem, which was still hanging over their heads, leaving Dario tense.

  “I’d come to that same conclusion myself. An excellent start to the application of this method. You have observed something that refutes the initial hypothesis. The next step would be either to formulate a new hypothesis that can explain the observations, or to make further observations if more information is needed.”

  “Hmm. I don’t really have a theory yet. Why have you been training all the time, if you came to the same conclusion?”

  Matteo shrugged. “We don’t need to understand the precise mechanism and the theory behind it to know that it works. Cultivators have progressed to Coral through this form of extreme training while cycling their Ki for probably thousands of years. Safe to assume other methods are inferior.”

  Dario fell silent for a while. If this method didn’t work out, he was going to be pretty stuck. That damn Houjo trainer would be waiting for him like a starved hound. He’d never met the man, but he’d bet a fat pouch of pearls that the guy was a sadist.

  “There’s got to be something. You’re saying I should make more observations? Of what?”

  “Well, ideally you would observe the process of ascending to Coral. But you could start by just looking at cultivators. Compare the two of us, for example. I should be pretty close to Coral, maybe a month or two of training.”

  They’d gone past the outskirts of Veinora and were out in an open field now, with faint mists of water, air and plant aura hanging above blades of grass or clustered around lone trees. Matteo opened his arms as if to pose for Dario, who began to push more Ki into his eyes.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything different that catches your eye.”

  Dario sidled up to his brother, holding his own arm next to his, giving both a close look. “Your Ki is different, but that’s obvious,” he muttered. “Besides that… You have more of it. But having more Ki by itself probably isn’t a good theory?”

  Matteo shook his head. “A good hypothesis must be clear and precise, as well as testable and falsifiable. So at the least, you’d have to be more precise.”

  “Yours is somehow more spread out, but…” he trailed off, feeding more Ki into his eyes to get a better view, but the surrounding aura became too bright. “Ugh, this damn floor is too bright. Let’s go down first, then I’ll have another look.”

  “Sure. Wait, where are we actually?”

  “It should be just a bit further down there.”

  They followed a well-trodden path with bits of garbage littering the sides, until even the grass cleared out and there was only a patch of dirt with a few scattered boulders left. Eventually, even that dirt cleared, leaving only the crystal floor and a nearly-translucent Mon ahead.

  Dario smiled as he kicked a bit of dirt away, kneeling to peer down through the crystal. “Man, I’ve always wondered what it would look like from up here. Can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent staring up at this place.”

  “Wait, we’re above the Belt?” Matteo asked, walking carefully up to the edge of the Mon.

  “Yup. This is where they dump the trash from.”

  “And how exactly is that a shortcut? We both know the trashheaps well enough to know that they don’t provide a soft landing.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got just the thing.” He pulled out some bits of liana cuttings he’d taken from the jungle, placing them in a crack in a boulder. After feeding it some plant Ki, it grew quickly and he wrapped it twice around the base of the boulder, just to be sure. Then, he let it hang down over the edge of the Mon before turning back to Matteo.

  “This is our ride.”

  “You’re a plant cultivator now, too?” Matteo let out a wistful sigh as he looked at the liana. “I’ve really been missing out on things, huh?”

  Dario’s expression was serious as he nodded. “Yeah. Lots of stuff happened.”

  It looked like Matteo was about to say something else, but when the silence stretched on, Dario began growing out the liana. After some careful testing, they found the best way to wrap their feet into the liana to get a foothold, then hung on tight as Dario fed a steady stream of plant Ki into it so that it brought them slowly down.

  They eventually got off and touched down on one of the largest piles of trash. Dario put his arms to his sides and breathed in deep. “Home sweet home.”

  A nearby trashgoat came closer, stomping its hooves on the garbage as a threat. “Beat it buddy,” Dario said, flaring his Ki. “This is our territory.” The trashgoat bleated angrily but left them alone, so they began to make their way down the trashslope, Matteo holding a handkerchief to his face.

  “Puh. I think I need a minute to adjust after a year away from this place. Smells a lot more sour than I remember.”

  “It’s just cause this is the fresh part. The outer layers aren’t that bad.”

  “Mm. If you say so. Oh, should we do another test? I’m curious what you’ll-”

  “BAAAAAHH!”

  The chorus of goat screams had both brothers twisting around, eyes widening. “Oh crap, the bastard went and got the cavalry.”

  “Umm.. Should we-” Matteo began, but then he saw that Dario was already running.

  “Come on!” he shouted back, laughing.

  Half a dozen goats began to hop down the mound of trash, charging their force attacks. Matteo had to throw himself out of the way of the first white cone of force, rolling down until he scrambled to his feet and hurried after Dario, who was laughing wildly as he leapt over an old crate, throwing out a flash of light that blinded a goat coming in on his flank.

  Matteo sent out a stream of purple Controller Ki, dominating the middle goat in a pack of three that was ready to scream, turning its head to the side at the last moment. Its attack took another goat in the side and it was sent flying, bleating as it tumbled down over the refuse.

  He found himself laughing too, feeling like he was ten years younger as they ran and jumped and rolled over the mounds of trash. His clothes ripped but he didn’t care and, in that moment, the worries of debt and pills faded from his mind.

  When they went over a peak and rolled all the way down into the outer layers, the last of the goats finally gave up. They ended up laying on their backs, chests heaving as they caught their back.

  “Shit, I think I lost a shoe,” Matteo said. Dario twisted his head to look at one foot sporting a torn woollen sock, then burst out laughing. After a moment, his brother joined in, too.

  “Do they usually team up on you like that?”

  “No,” Dario said, “but I was bullying them for a bit after reaching Amber. Guess I deserved that one.”

  Again, silence stretched as they sat, looking at each other, smiles slowly fading. This time, Dario was the first to speak.

  “...Sorry I punched you.”

  Matteo nodded, seeming to hesitate as he thought of what to say, so Dario went on.

  “Look, maybe it’s not fair for me to blame you for everything. I’m sure things haven’t been easy for you, either. But after you left, I felt… responsible for her, I guess? It took me a long time to realize that I’d been pushing away my own dreams, as long as it would make her happy. It was only a few weeks ago that I was ready to admit I also wanted to climb.”

  “I get that you blame me. I’ve had plenty of time to think about how things went down and, if I’m being honest, there’s a lot of guilt there. I can’t say it was wrong, but I do think it was selfish of me. I kept telling myself it’d be fine, I’d visit all the time, but then things got all messed up and… I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  It felt like there was a lot more to be said, but Dario grinned at Matteo. “Look at us all serious and grown up. It’s a reunion! This is supposed to be fun. Come on!”

  He clasped Matteo’s wrist, pulling him up, and when they set off to their mother’s house, he felt a lot lighter.