The Academy's grand atrium pulsed like a vein in overdrive—sunlight refracting through debt-prisms into kaleidoscopic tallies, every facet etching the global rate's latest dip: seven heartbeats per cycle, a feverish stutter that made gods sweat and F-ranks like Dylan Voss grin. Public reveal sealed, wyrm scalp auctioned into legend, hunter flips compounding his hedge to absurd heights—1,000+ micro-favors liquid, assets like echo-betrayals and glimpse-fragments stacking like unpaid IOUs on a creditor's desk. Volume 1's genesis? Buried under scales. Now, the wars began: debt as currency, thunder sold by the milliliter, outbidding the divine on live resonance TV.
Dylan slouched against a pillar in the atrium's undercroft wing, Elara Ketch at his elbow—ally co-signed, shadows still coiling from the nexus flip. The Valerian audit had bought a pause: clutch-cracks exposed on public feeds, House scrambling to hedge their eastern god-loans. Bounty frozen at 200 micro-favors, interest capped for 72 hours. But the syllabus whisper? It had ballooned to 8%, draconic terms decoding in blood-ink pulses: *Vein-tap complete. Key acquired: Syllabus of Scales – First Clause: Wars wage in interest. Outbid the rate, or owe the war.* His left wrist itched where the wyrm's heart-bond had etched it—a faint scale-rune, glowing when the global ticked.
"Pause is profit," Elara said, scanning a hovering ledger-scroll. Her scar caught the prism-light, twisting like a yield curve. "Your frame's viral: 'Dragonslayer Voss, F-rank audit on a god's bond.' Guilds ping every hour—offers to broker wyrm-debts. Churches want prayer-patches tuned to your storm-residual. But the Ledger calls: Dawn Collection 2.0. Deliver micro-thunder yields, or the hedge unravels."
Dylan flexed the echo-betrayal amp, +10% contingency edge humming. "Deliver? I'm the delivery now. Sell the thunder, buy the wars." Cynical calculus: core loop evolved. No more sewer rats or basement exams—Ch.1–20's grind forged into leverage. Public enemy #1 meant spotlights, but spotlights cast long shadows for auctions.
The atrium's central dais shimmered, the Ledger manifesting as always: hovering tome, pages flipping in phantom winds, ink bleeding accusations. **[DAWN COLLECTION: CYCLE 48 – POST-WYRM AUDIT.]**
**Participants: 147 (Solvent: 12 | Hedged: 3 | Overdrawn: 132).**
**Special Yield: Dragonslayer Tribute – Bids on Inherited Portfolio (12x Scale-Bonds).**
**Terms: Liquidate micro-assets. Public feed active. Interest: War-Rate (9% Compounding).**
Crowd swelled: B-ranks in guild leathers, C-ranks clutching prayer-scrolls, even a few A-rank brokers from the upper spires—eyes on Dylan like appraisers at a fire sale. Whispers slithered: *He flipped the hunters. House paused, but the wars? His doing.* Elara nudged him forward, shadows veiling their edges. "Your slot's headlined. Outbid 'em—frame debt as the new gold."
Dylan stepped to the dais, heartbeat thirteen syncing defiant against the global seven. The tome rustled: "Voss. Yield the tribute. Scales for bids."
He extended his palm, scale-portfolio uncoiling from his veins—not the full heart-core (auctioned in Ch.18), but micro-bonds: twelve slivers, each a 7% yield on wyrm-debt, tuned to war-frequencies. Recoil tax bit first—15% output hurt, numbing his arm. Smart: convert to precision. Echo-betrayal amped the flow, contingencies layering bids before they landed. The bonds arced blue, slamming the central page—prisms exploding in resonance fireworks, sunlight tallying yields live.
Gasps rippled; the feed chimed global, viewers spiking to 300,000 overnight. "Micro-thunder integration detected," the Ledger intoned, pages glowing. "Yield bonus: +22% (Public Frame Multiplier). Auction insertion: Debt Wars Slot – Live TV Bid for Wyrm-Scale Futures."
The holographic board materialized: ethereal numbers ticking, bids flooding from shadowed links. Guilds first: "Two hundred favors—forge-rights on scale-tempering!" Churches: "Three-fifty, prayer-stream bonds!" Then the divine pinged—a minor god's proxy, voice like thunder in fine china: "Five hundred. Essence-drop, war-blessed."
Dylan waited, thirteen ticks blending with the war-rate's nine. Let them burn. The Valerian woman—gold hair, eyes like fractured yields—emerged from the VIP fringe, her House aura a silk noose. "Six hundred. Liquid copper, clutch-stamped. And a truce: pause the audits, Voss. Wars suit us both."
Laughter bubbled in his throat, cynical and sharp. "Truce? That's debtor's talk. Seven-fifty. Not copper. Thunder by the milliliter—storm-residual from the Roost, tuned to your eastern cracks. Disrupt the clutch-leverage, or buy the patch. Plus collateral: one glimpse-fragment, futures of your overdraw."
The crowd inhaled; prisms refracted her flinch into a thousand appraisals. The proxy-god bid eight hundred—essence flickering, divine luck cracking under the frame. Bids climbed: nine, ten hundred. Elara's shadows whispered angles: *Gods overleveraged on prayers; guilds short on copper.* Dylan's assets hummed—victory micro closing the loop, syllabus key pulsing: *Outbid the rate.*
"Accepted," the Ledger rasped at twelve hundred. Board locked: *Dylan Voss: 1,200 (Leveraged Thunder).* The woman stood frozen, then melted into the crowd—truce shattered, wars declared. Yield deposited: favors swelling to 2,200 liquid, copper equivalents stacking, essence-drops for god-patches. But the system box flickered deeper.
**[YIELD PROCESSED: Scale-Portfolio Auction (1,200 Favors).]**
**Assets Updated: Thunder-Milliliter Bonds (10x, War-Tuned) + Glimpse-Patch (1x, Divine Futures).**
**Debt Accrued: War-Rate Exposure (9% Compounding – Syllabus Clause: Outbid or Owe).**
**New Opportunity: Live TV Slot – "Interest Wars Premiere." Stakes: Sell thunder, frame the gods. Or become the broadcast.**
The atrium dispersed in a debtor's haze, prisms dimming to war-red. Elara fell in step, ledger-scroll tucked. "TV? Resonance nets prime-time. Billions tuned—gods, guilds, every F-rank dreaming your grind. Outbid 'em live, and debt's your currency."
Dylan nodded, wrist-rune itching sharper. *Syllabus key: Wars in interest.* Ch.21—or Vol.2's ignition—meant no more basement shadows. Sell the storm, weaponize the rate, turn public frame into empire. But the global seven whispered: *Outbid the divine, rat? Or default on the divine's war?*
"Let's make it rain," he said, grin feral. "Milliliter by milliliter."
The wars had begun. Interest never slept—but now, it bid.