There were ten finalists.

  One was Archmund.

  One was Mary. She’d been instructed to lose to peasants if it seemed like they had any real potential, yet she’d won three matches. She’d beaten Beatrice Bckstone because Beatrice’s skills were genuinely cking. Rory Redmont had thrown his match against her. One of the commoners she’d faced had been a snot-nosed six-year old who’d clearly been forced into the matter by his parents and who was more interested in drawing pictures in the dirt.

  So realistically, there were only eight people who he could recruit for his honor guard.

  He didn’t really count himself. He didn’t want to become the “wielder” of the Gemstone Rapier. He didn’t want the thoughts embedded, those thoughts of nobility and arrogance, in it to permanently etch themselves into his soul. He already had enough of that in spades. He had a whole bunch of other things he wanted to be.

  One of the winners was Xander Cooper. Xander, through sheer luck and doubtless some skill, had won all four of his matches. He was prideful and confrontational and didn’t understand economics or fiscal policy, but then again he was like ten. Archmund recognized he was instinctively mentally diminish Xander’s achievement — he’d removed the truly difficult opponents from the running, by fighting them himself to defeat rather early, so as not to skew the results, and that meant Xander had been beating up other commoners, many of whom were actually just really bad — but the fact remained that Xander was actually pretty good at this. For a commoner with no formal training.

  Archmund was actually looking forward to this. To a chance to face Xander “fairly”. As fair as three extra months of practice could be.

  As he stood on the center stage of the colosseum, he could feel his father’s pride. After a bombastic thanks to everyone for attending, Barst had yielded the role of announcer and emcee to Archmund’s father.

  “If you are so eager to swear your lives to Granavale,” the Lord Reginald Granavale said, “then I might grant you some of the hallowed weapons from the deepest vaults of our House.”

  To avoid highly visible public rejection and the besmirching of Granavale honor, the Lord Granavale had spent some time privately talking with all of the winners and their parents about the true meaning and implications of accepting Gemstone. It was rather like a college career talk, except actually binding. Archmund hadn’t gotten a chance to listen in, because his father still though of him as a goofy and infinitely spoible little boy, and so he was still operating off of half-formed assumptions about what it meant to be “endowed with Gemstone” or a Hero and all that those entailed.

  His father lifted a Gemstone Rapier into the sun with a gloved hand. Soon, dusk would come, but for now the weapon still caught the light, glittering like a needle of gold. The crowd roared.

  “Behold this Gemstone Rapier! It bears the essence of the ancient noble dueling forms, far elevated above these boyish sparring. Those who come to know the Gem shall come to know themselves.”

  His father never handled Gemgear without a glove. Perhaps that was wise, to prevent tainting them with his own magic. Archmund hadn’t bothered with that precaution at all. Yet that hadn’t seemed to matter: none of the things he’d casually handled registered in his System, only the things he’d actively tried to use.

  The crowd roared in response.

  “And now, my son, Archmund Granavale,” his father said. “One of the few to win all of his battles.”

  Archmund stepped forward. The crowd cheered, rather loudly. He wondered how many of them were forcing it, how many of them actually liked him, but then again it didn’t really matter, did it? If anything, his opponents had been tougher than everyone else’s, and he’d acted to keep things banced rather than pying for an unfair advantage.

  His father presented him his Gemstone Rapier, which he’d already fed his magic into, in a box lined with bck felt. He picked the Rapier up and felt his magic come into sharp focus as he reunited with his power.

  The Rapier had been added into the churning circuit of his soul, if Raehel’s understanding of metaphysics was correct. It was always passively draining some of his power, and holding it close reunited him with a part of his soul.

  He held the bde up to catch the afternoon sun to the cheering crowd. He ever so slightly increased the flux of his magic, just enough so the knowledge of the bde but not its arrogance fed back into him. He dropped the bde to his side and gave it a fancy twirl, not unlike Gelias’s “Second Form: Wind Cutter” technique. He held the bde in front of him and poked at the air performatively, like the “Second Form: Mantis Dancing” technique. The crowd roared in excitement, far louder than before, with the occasional battlecry and holler.

  “Though those of noble blood cleave to the Gem quicker, those granted the gift of Gem may one day attain the heights of that power,” his father said, ostensibly to the nine kneeling winners but actually for the crowd. “You shall one day equal in deed and technique what my son knows instinctively upon wielding the bde.”

  Mary gnced up at him. She seemed to be smirking. She mouthed “instinctively” at him. He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, especially in front of such a rge crowd.

  He slid the Gemstone Rapier into a set of straps on his belt and bowed to the crowd and their cheers.

  And now they began a slightly modified ceremony for the other nine victors, in order of increasing performance. Archmund presented the bdes to five of them, as his father handled the others.

  He didn’t recognize anyone except Mary and Xander. He’d have to ask his father for full profiles to review when he had an opportunity. On the surface, they were the honor guard for House Granavale, but practically, he wanted them to answer to him. And he didn’t want them pnning on backstabbing them, even if there was a reasonable chance he’d win.

  He came to the very st victor.

  Xander Cooper knelt before him. Archmund held in his hands the st of the bck felt rapier boxes.

  “Do you accept this gift of Gem, ordained by the Emperor and the Heavens above,” Archmund said, grateful that he’d practiced the words enough to not stumble over them, “and so swear to serve House Granavale until Heroism or death?”

  “I do so swear,” Xander said. It was a far cry from the st time they’d spoken, a few weeks ago, when he’d procimed he had no need for noble charity. Maybe he was the kind of person who liked to feel that he’d earned whatever was given to him, even if he hadn’t been. But then again no one truly earned everything. The circumstances of birth were a blessing nothing could repce.

  “Then rise,” Archmund said, lowering the bck felt box and opening its lid. “Rise and take your pce as one of the Bejeweled Elite.”

  Xander reached for the rapier and grabbed it gingerly. Briefly, Archmund wondered if he was about to get stabbed. He had an awfully annoying amount of these intrusive thoughts. But Xander seemed more than content to simply marvel at the bde. It was probably the most wealth he’d ever seen in his life, which reminded Archmund that he had no real idea what retive wealth was even like in this world. He only understood the rough orders of magnitude — A noble’s lunch was a commoner’s month’s work, roughly, give or take 50% or so, which was a huge margin of error, but these were the figures he was working with.

  The ten of them assembled at the edge of the circur stage, facing the crowd. As they’d been instructed privately, they raised their rapiers and caught the afternoon sun.

  “With your selection, Granavale County shall join the ranks of the noble houses who stand respected in the halls of power,” the Lord Reginald Granavale said. “We join those who have tamed their Dungeons, who sit among the peers of Omnio as equals, and who enrich the Empire through our contribution. May the blessings of the Goddess and the grace of the Gods Above shine upon you all.”

  This was the part where they were supposed to feed their power into the bdes. Archmund did, charging his Rapier with his magic and feeling it flow back into him. He could feel the sense of pride and nobility that such an elegant weapon entailed.

  Hmmm. He’d have to take measures to stop the sense of superiority the weapons imposed from leading to abuse.

  “It is our duty,” he said, breaking from the script, “to live, fight, and die in service of the people of Omnio. For you may not have been born nobility, yet now you stand endowed with their duties.”

  A solemnness fell over them, though perhaps he was imagining it. His words only carried weight because of the circumstances of his birth, not because of any special achievement of his own

  “Well said,” his father said. “Now, may our best and strongest step forward. For our st match, we shall demonstrate the true power of Gemstone to you who have gathered here today, the people of Granavale County. For our final match, this time empowered by the Gem, I am proud to announce two individuals who bested every opponent put before them: Xander Cooper and my son, Archmund Granavale!”