The atmosphere of the classroom is usually boring with a hint of loudness. Mostly from Turk and Xarex, the two humans who were with Garus the first time he threatened me. Those two are always loud, but today… Today is different. It probably has to do with the growing aura of violence around Penelope. Not a visible aura, but a ‘I’ll kill you if you talk to me,’ kind of aura. It seems to have shut just about everyone up, even Turk and Xarex. Hells even Professor Keller is awfully quiet, and he’s supposed to be teaching the class.

  Viola accidentally drops her quill. The moment the quill hits the ground, Penelope gives it a death glare.

  “Sorry,” Viola says as she picks up the quill.

  Ok, this has gotten absurd. People are trying to study here. Well, not me, I'm trying to draw a perfect ten-pointed star. It’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I mean, how does this even make sense? … Wait, I got off topic. What’s up with Penelope? She was like this during Professor Stargazer's class, too.

  Hopper taps me on the shoulder as he mouths, “What’s wrong with the Princess?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  Could it have been something I said? Nah, that can’t be it. Who would ever be angry at something I said? … Maybe I should apologize or… I could avoid the problem.

  Professor Keller clears his throat nervously. “Now, let's pair up and work on this problem. As soon as you’re done, you can head on out,” he says as he finishes writing a question on the chalkboard.

  Almost immediately, the entire class partners up. Well, at least I still have Hopper. As I turn around, I find the seat open and Hopper nowhere to be seen. Where did he go? My gaze scans the classroom to find him pairing up with William.

  Hopper turns to me and gives me a big thumbs up as if telling me, ‘You go it!’.

  That asshole. I’ll get him for this later.

  With a sigh, I pull a chair up to Penelope's desk and plop down in front of her. “Hey there, stranger. Someone stab you in the middle of the night?” I ask.

  “What?” she says with a pinch of anger. Scratch that, more like a full scoop of anger.

  “Well, you’re acting like somebody whose favorite puppy got kicked,” I say as I jot down the math question.

  “No, nobody kicked my favorite puppy? What would give you that idea?” she says.

  “For one, your quill has cracks from how hard you’re holding. Two, the entire class is avoiding you like the Blight,” I say as I gesture to the room.

  Penelope gently places her quill down. “That quill was already broken, and the class isn’t avoiding-” she says as she looks around.

  Penelope's face drops as she finds the entire class in one corner doing the equations. Quite literally, they’re as far away as they possibly could be from us.

  “Told you.”

  “It’s just warmer in that corner,” she lies to herself.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s definitely why. It has nothing to do with the murderous aura around you that could scare off a demon. Nothing at all,” I say sarcastically.

  “If it’s so bad, why are you here?”

  “Hopper was too scared to face you. So, as The Chosen One, I volunteered.”

  Penelope gives me a long and hard stare. “He ditched you, didn't he?”

  “Yup, but if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think you're scary to be around. I just found you annoying,” I say as I try and fail to draw a ten-pointed star.

  “Is that really supposed to make me feel better?” she says as she takes my hand and corrects my terribly lopsided attempt at a ten-pointed star.

  “Nope. So, what’s wrong?” I ask as I try to fathom how in the hells she drew that ten-pointed star.

  “Nothing's wrong.”

  “Do I really have to point out everything again, or can we just skip to the part where you just tell me, Penelope?” I ask.

  Penelope gives out a long sigh. “Fine. I’m a little… angry at myself for what happened yesterday.”

  I look up at her as she avoids eye contact. “You mean with the giant?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t listen to Hopper about not being ready to fight one, and you saw how that went. We got lucky; If it had been an older one, we could’ve ended up…” Penelope trails off as she carefully picks up her quill.

  “We probably would’ve, and it was your fault.”

  “You’re terrible at this whole make someone feel better thing,” she says with a soft chuckle.

  “If you were angry at yourself for some stupid reason, then I would be trying to make you feel better about yourself, but you're not. The reason you're angry is a valid reason. You did mess up. Sure, we made it out alive, but if anything had gone wrong, we might not have. So, be angry and learn from it. Many don’t get the privilege to do that,” I say as I work on the math question.

  “...”

  The sound of my quill scratching parchment grows in the silence of our conversation.

  “Can you say something? You’re freaking me out,” I say as I look up at her.

  Penelope stares at me with green eyes. “That was overly wordy of you, Charlatan,” she says with a notable lightness to her.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Well, let me say it in a simpler way. You’re not perfect. Get over it,” I say as I slide over the math question to her.

  Penelope looks over the question with a smug smile. “You forgot to convert the units of measurement.”

  “I saved that for you to do,” I [Lie].

  “Yeah, right,” she says as she corrects the answer.

  Professor Stargazer enters the classroom as usual, as I eat my morning cookies. Hopper reaches for a cookie, but I swat his hand away. He looks at me in confusion as I hand him a different bag of cookies.

  Still too much poison. Guess batch twenty-one is a failure. Tasty, but still a failure. Maybe I should mix the vanilla with the poison before I make the cookie dough. That’ll have to be batch twenty-two.

  “Ok, class. I know we usually go over an hour of lecture before we head into the Whisperwood forest, but today is a special day. The fifth and sixth years aren’t back for another week, so that means we have a guest,” Professor Stargazer says as she gestures to the door.

  The door opens to reveal a lean human man. He has black shaggy hair and a scraggly beard. He has an awkward feel to him and looks closer to someone from the streets who is wearing professor garb than an actual professor.

  The man clears his throat. “Hi,” he says with an awkward wave.

  The room falls silent as we wait for him to introduce himself or say literally anything else. We wait for what feels like ages before Professor Stargazer gives him a slight nudge.

  The man looks back at her, confused, before having a realization. “Ah, apologies. I’m Professor Ackford. I’m in charge of the fifth year's physical training, but as they have yet to return, I was asked by Myri- Professor Stargazer to teach you all a little something,” he says.

  At the mention of his name, the class burst into a small murmur.

  “Ackford? Isn’t that the commoner Professor?” one of my classmates whispers.

  “He may be a commoner, but he’s also a Professor for the fifth years. He must be at least somewhat competent,” one of my other classmates whispers.

  Professor Stargazer claps her hands, putting an end to the chatter. “Now, I want you all to be respectful and listen to what Professor Ackford has to say. You might learn something very interesting,” she says.

  Professor Ackford gives Stargazer a slight nod. “Before we begin, I would like to ask you all what you think the best [Attribute] is?” he asks the class.

  Viola raises her hand. “[INT]?”

  “Why do you think that is?” he asks.

  “It has a direct correlation to how many times I can use my stronger [Skills],” she explains.

  “True. The difference between [Skills] that require MP and those that don’t is like night and day, but that was not the answer I was looking for. Does anyone else have an answer?” he asks with a hint of nervousness.

  Talon raises his hand. “It has to be [CON]. It doesn’t matter how much MP you have if you die before you can use it all.”

  Ackford nods his head. “Correct, but not the answer I am looking for,” he says.

  Well, there are only four more [Attributes] left. The chances of anybody picking the right one have definitely shot up, but something tells me none of us are going to say the correct one. Smelly Doug used to run a con like this. You present a question with an obvious answer, but then pull the rug on the mark with an outlandish answer. It disorients the mark and makes them see you in a position of superiority. Which means Professor Ackford isn’t as meek as he seems.

  I raise my hand. “None of them,” I answer, trying to stay as vague as possible.

  A slight smirk tugs at the edge of his lips. “Correct. The six core [Attributes] are obviously all important. [DEX] gives you greater motor control and mobility. [STR] gives you, well, strength. [CHA] allows you to weave words together masterfully. [LCK] bends probability in your favor. What I’m trying to say is that all the core [Attributes] are important, but they are useless without an understanding of how they affect you personally,” Professor Ackford explains.

  Behind him, Professor Stargazer finishes drawing a magic circle that bursts forth with a blinding light. As the light fades, we find ourselves in the arena along with a wide variety of equipment.

  “And the best way to understand how your [Attributes] affect you is to push them to the limit,” he says, gesturing around us, “Let’s get started with [STR].”

  Professor Stargazer gestures to a machine with multiple weights on it. Penelope doesn’t even wait to be called on and walks over to the machine and lifts the weight effortlessly.

  “Marvelous, now let's push it to the limit,” Ackford says as the weights start to glow black.

  Penelope strains as the weight suddenly increases. Her feet literally sink an inch into the ground from the weight. Then, in one fell swoop, I watch as she loses her grip and the weight comes crashing down on her, or it should’ve. The moment she falls, the machine catches the weight, stopping it from crushing her.

  Penelope stumbles out from below the machine as she tries to catch her breath. “How much was that?”

  “Almost 4,000 pounds. Very impressive for a first year,” Ackford says as he jots some notes down. “How about you, Mr. Lightfoot?”

  Hopper looks a bit worried before heading over to the machine. This is probably not going to go well. Hopper lifts the weight and almost instantly collapses.

  “Barely 20 pounds. It is important to know your limits,” Ackford remarks. “How about you, Chosen One?”

  With a devilish smile, I walk over to the machine and try not to think about how the weight could kill me. Carefully, I lift up the weight with more ease than I thought, but that doesn’t last long. Soon enough, the weight rapidly increases until the muscles in my arms scream out in pain. I let go of the weight and stumble out drenched in sweat.

  “Almost 1,300 pounds. A respectable number. Let’s continue,” he says.

  How did I manage to lift that? Two weeks ago, I was struggling to pick up Penelope’s sword, but now. Is this the power of [Leveling Up]? I guess I hadn’t realized because of how gradual it was. This class might actually teach me something.

  Professor Ackford continues to test everyone’s [Attributes]. As he does, I start to notice a pattern. Every test has two groups. Those weak at that [Attribute], like Hopper with the [STR] test, and those who are strong, like Penelope. There really isn’t an in-between. Well, except for me. For everything except [CHA] and [LCK], I find myself falling somewhere in the middle. Speaking of the [CHA] was certainly something. We had to perform a one-man play for our classmates. Let’s just say I have a possible career path in acting.

  Then there was the whole debacle with the [LCK] test. We were told to roll a die a number of times until we rolled a one on the die. Let's just say I rolled the dice eighty times until I finally rolled a one on the die. My highest record used to be fifty.

  “Now, I hope you all learned what your limits are today. Knowing your limits is important for when you have to break through them. I recommend you all test your [Attributes] every time you [Level Up] to get a better grasp of your abilities,” Professor Ackford explains as we pant from the combined [CON] and [DEX] sprints we just did.

  That was a lot, and I still have the rest of today's classes left. Well, at least I can enjoy the weekend. Wait! I just remembered. I have to volunteer at the local food bank. Damn you, Hopper and Penelope! … Maybe I don’t have to do it alone.