White's hand twitches involuntarily. Immediately other processes are cut to minimal levels as she assesses it, a reflex she wasn't consciously aware of. It takes a second but she identifies it as the beginning of a move to cut Green off.

The why isn't a huge mystery; to be [i]denied feedback[/i] would have sent Green lunging across the field to grapple Euna for real. The only thing worse than failing a test is not [i]knowing [/i]if you failed it. Her whole being is set to absorb, digest and adjust based on data and not receiving that data is [i]awful[/i]. She is dimly aware that one of the reasons she keeps using Headpattr is because the rating system gives her the immediate feedback hit that she craves. It all comes back to space. In space there's so little going on that simply knowing everything relevant was a reasonable ask. Some part of her assumed that combat, as a relatively constrained physical activity, would be similar.

But instead she's being strategically denied information. That, even more than the fight, raises her opinion of Euna. In motion things had been happening too quickly and she'd been too self aware of her own motions that the technical ability hadn't fully sunk in; she didn't have the eyes to see, didn't have the context to fear. But denying information was something White especially understood. If Euna thought of fighting like space, a limited dataset that could be accurately modeled and solved, then there'd be no need to deny information; the opposite would be true. That's the approach any second floor karate dojo would take. To not do that meant that Euna viewed combat, deep down, as essentially unsolveable.

And [i]that [/i]had White's full attention. It put into context the incredible situational awareness she showed when fighting; the checks, the listening, the phantom follow throughs. Ready for anything, even here. [i]Unspecialized[/i]. 

One of the primordial problems of intelligence is over-fitting. Thinking takes work, so why not simply develop accurate answers and then cut out the intelligence to save on resources? Early machine learning devices did this all the time; boiling themselves down immediately into instinct engines. The answer to the problem had been found not in code but in dreams. Dreams are humanity's solution to over-fitting within the human brain. A dream casts a person in scenes they don't encounter in daily life, in hyperspecialized perils and possibilities to force them to engage aspects of their brain that would otherwise atrophy as they press buttons on a keyboard all day. It was why the Hecatoncheires were made unaware of their true 'score', why they were given the ability to dream, why they were made as [i]people[/i]. Because otherwise they'd collapse into Brown's singularity, wireheaded and empty. Preventing that was one of White's core functions, and that's why Euna's refusal to comment on her form meant everything. 

"There will be," she said sincerely. "I want to learn what you have to teach. I must make you aware of a complication, though," she grimaced. "I don't know what 3V has told you, but I am essentially one ninth of a hivemind - in particular, an aspect focused on discipline and self control. So I can personally commit to training regularly and can ensure my own attendance. The rest of me does not operate according to the same standards. I do not want to inconvenience you with a commitment to a large number of students of dubious quality and intermittent attendance, so I understand if you change your mind about this at any point."