Welcome to the most dangerous school in the world
DragonLab wasn't on any map.
More precisely, it was on maps, but marked as an abandoned industrial park. Su Ye's car rolled into a rusting factory building, through a gate that looked like it belonged to a forgotten decade, and then an elevator dropped. Lin Jin counted floors by instinct.
Twenty. Down.
When the doors opened, he forgot how to breathe.
The chamber was enormous — six stories of soaring arched ceiling mapped with panels that simulated the night sky, bathing everything in a wash of deep blue-violet light. Transparent lab pods lined the walls, filled with glowing substances that didn't have names for what state of matter they existed in. Dozens of teenagers in matching uniforms moved through the space with purpose — some controlling holographic displays, some interacting with luminescent creatures, and one person, without question, walking across the ceiling.
"This is DragonLab," Su Ye said. "Full name: Dragon Genome Research and Combat Training Facility. Founded in 1987. Officially, it doesn't exist. Unofficially, it's the only institution in the world that trains Dragon-Lineage operatives."
"Dragon-Lineage."
"Humans who carry dragon genetic markers. Roughly a one-in-a-thousand probability. At some point in your family history, an ancestor had... contact with a dragon."
"Define contact," Lin Jin said.
Su Ye adjusted her glasses. "That's not your most important concern right now."
"Then what is?"
"Tomorrow's entry assessment. Survive it. Find your core ability." She turned to walk away.
"Survive it?"
She was already gone — because a round robot had appeared from nowhere and was hovering in front of Lin Jin's face, speaking in a voice that was aggressively chipper:
"WELCOME! New student! I am NUGGET, the Navigational Unit for General Getting-around and Everything Troublesome! My calculations suggest a 73.4 percent probability of minor injury in your first week — would you like to pre-sign the medical liability waiver?"
Lin Jin slowly set his cat down.
The cat gave NUGGET one flat look, then turned and walked away.
"What's your cat's name?" NUGGET chased after it.
"Black Hole," Lin Jin said.
"Fitting! Both the color and the personality!"
His dorm room in Block B was already occupied.
One roommate was levitating eighteen inches above his mattress, eyes closed, three empty chip bags drifting around him like satellites. Blanket on the floor. Completely asleep.
The other was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by tools, dissecting something with the kind of intense focus that made Lin Jin wonder if she'd been there since the previous year.
He checked the room number. Correct.
"Oh, new kid," said the floating one, without opening his eyes. "Left bed is yours. Right drawer has earplugs. I glow when I sleep. Fair warning."
"...Thanks. I'm Lin Jin."
"Park Ji-ho." The floating boy finally cracked one eye open — Korean, quick, intelligent eyes, the kind that were always calculating something. "Wind-class. I specialize in intelligence gathering and rapid exits. For the record: I am the least trouble in any room."
The girl on the floor looked up. Curly hair, deep brown skin, eyes dark as deep water. She held up a circuit component. "Ayesha Nassar. Egypt. Fire-Forge class. This is our dorm's security camera. I'm retrofitting its encryption so admin can't monitor us in real time."
"Is that against the rules?"
"Technically," Ayesha said, "I'm upgrading the equipment."
Lin Jin looked at Park Ji-ho.
Park Ji-ho made a what-can-you-do face.
And that was how Lin Jin met the first people in DragonLab who would make everything harder — and everything possible.