As the sun set, an ethereal purple glow descended on the campus. Motes of spirit essence grew and glowed like fireflies both inside and outside. A staccato of drum beats reverberated through our souls and settled a blanket of apprehension over our thoughts.

  Riena furrowed her brows and stood to peer out one of the living room windows. I gathered my harvested materials and tossed them in my room before flipping a switch that sent a pulse of energy through the kitchen, annihilating the grime on every surface, including me.

  I brewed two cups of chamomile lavender tea and handed one to the intrigued Riena. After she accepted the cup, I said, “Orcs beat the drums on the other side of the abyssal gate to empower their champion. The large circular plaza between the five buildings is a seal on the largest portal known to mankind.” A horned tyrant clawed its way through the barrier between worlds and spit fire at the assembled team of 4th year students. It had been a decade since an actual orc was sent on these nightly assaults.

  Riena frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about orcs. I’ve only seen a taxidermized head in my father’s collection.”

  “Gah! What a macabre display… I understand performing unsavory acts to demoralize the enemy, but you shouldn’t take your cruelty home with you.” At Riena’s confused gaze, I continued. “Orcs are basically green humans with tusks. While technically demons, they possess culture, technology, and their own heroes. Regretfully, no one has learned their language and whenever someone gets close, they send teams of assassins to kill them. They’ve been so fanatical about it that I’ve only appreciated their paintings and sculptures to avoid accidentally learning any words.”

  A sigh escaped my lips. One of the spirit motes took it and shaped clouds depicting my next words.

  “I don’t think they actually hate us. For reasons they wish to keep secret, it is us or them. During one of my travels, I actually met an orc. We wrestled for three days and nights. Once I showed sufficient mastery of his wrestling style, he let me live. I assume he didn’t want to kill a child.” A cloud in the shape of the orc nodded to a smaller figure and evaporated. Another cloud showed the same orc being executed. I dispersed various possibilities with a wave of my hand.

  The team below slew the demon and the drumming ceased. A cheer erupted across the campus and out of my own throat. Humanity would survive another day. Some thought the nightly battle was symbolic. Others thought it was part of a devious strategy by the orcs. Regardless of the truth, it had to be won each time or the seal would break and demonic hordes would overrun our rear lines.

  Riena pushed away from the window, and her stomach rumbled. I failed to suppress a chuckle. “Why don’t you grab the others while I cook dinner?”

  “You don’t have to do that by yourself,” she offered.

  I shrugged. “The Crafter making the team’s meals is tradition. I resolve to try traditions before dismissing them. It is said that the first heroes refused to pick up a sword because they were convinced that guns were better. No one can be certain about such ancient history, but it highlights the folly of dismissing historical wisdom thoughtlessly.”

  Riena blew a lock of hair out of her eye. “You’re talkative tonight—and guns are better.”

  “All weapons have their uses.” I grimaced. “I’ve been lecturing, haven’t I? Sorry, the impulse is hard to suppress.”

  “No no.” She patted my shoulder. “I’m a bit out of my depth and wanted advice. Through my bond, you sensed that and helped.”

  I started cooking the rice and chopping the fish. “Hmmm, I do not wish to be your mentor. I want to be your peer. If I help you with general heroics, then I would like your guidance on Crafting.”

  “Deal. Crafting is something I am confident about. What tier are you on?”

  My aura wrapped the rice cooker and accelerated the heat transfer. “I’ve only crafted tier 1 items.”

  “That’s um…”

  “Wildly insufficient? Yes, but I will learn. What tier have you reached?”

  She began to turn. “That’s not really important, and I should grab the others before you finish.”

  “Riena, you have a shade now. Flaunt your prowess! Every hero must boast to grow their legend.”

  “Tier 5…” She mumbled.

  I nearly chopped my own finger in shock. Barely an adult, and Riena was as good a Crafter as I was a Vanguard, all without an ability. Only a handful of Crafters could manage tier 6 creations, and only the Savior made tier 7 gear. By the time I recovered, Riena was already gathering the troops.

  As they sat down, I distributed the sushi. Riena held up one finger and winced. “Oh um, I can’t have shellfish.”

  I nodded. “I suspected that, hence the plate of tuna and salmon sushi. Your bond probably passed along the concern since I know the rest do not have food allergies.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Nyla swallowed a mouthful of rolls and answered. “You need like, what, 5% shade to no longer have allergies?” She grabbed more with her hands.

  Derek ate his with a knife. “It varies. Most heroes get that at less.”

  Casimir and I used chopsticks like civilized people. He had a concerned look. “Riena, how often do you need to eat? Normally, the Crafter is the one who needs to eat the most.”

  Riena lowered her fork to answer. “Three times a day, like normal.”

  “Three times a day!” Nyla rolled back in her chair. “Hell, if I ate three times a week, we were living large.”

  Derek frowned. “Surely that can’t be normal. I remember eating a lot of snacks as a kid, but family meals were once a fortnight.”

  “Yeah,” Casimir agreed. “That’s how often I need food.”

  Riena looked at us like we were exotic creatures. “You guys are messing with me.”

  I shook my head. “Shades don’t grow hungry. They don’t grow thirsty, and most heroes naturally want to live, so it compensates for biological needs. I can persist for two months without food or drink. Any longer and my vision grows blurry.” My own childhood experience was closer to Nyla’s.

  Our Commander closed her eyes, let out a long breath, and composed herself. “Thank you for correcting my ignorance. I agree, it is not fair for Mari to cook all my meals when she barely needs to eat.”

  Before I could respond, Casimir cut it, “But she should still cook the normal amount of meals because this shrimp tempura roll is fire.” The Vanguard and Guardian concurred with their Healer’s medical recommendation. Riena put her head in her hands.

  “Riena…” I coaxed. “It’s alright. I enjoy cooking and it barely takes me any time. Also, you really shouldn’t close your eyes in the dining room at night.”

  “Wha—” Riena flinched as I chucked a sterling silver knife past her head into the eye-ooze lunging for her. As she jumped to her feet and screamed, three spherical drones uncloaked and blasted the demon with lasers. “Fuck! How did the nope-blob get behind me? Kerberos, check the dorm for gaps.” One of the drones flew off as the other two recloaked.

  Casimir struggled to contain his laughter. “Your feet have never touched the surface, have they?”

  Riena blushed. “I meant to do it today, but I didn’t have time.” Many of those in the wealthy upper families never left their high towers. “I don’t see how that is relevant.” Both Derek and Nyla looked away in embarrassment for her.

  I clarified, “Demons can form in any darkness near an active portal. This is generally the first sign that a portal has formed. The speed of formation varies, but within Aspiration, the portal density means that a demon can form in minutes. Policing corners and diligent light scrubbing are a fact of life for any human that has to worry about portals opening in the ground beneath them.”

  “Ah…” She sat back down. “My mistake. I’ll keep my watchdogs looking for trouble then.”

  Once dinner was done, I flipped the switch to clean the kitchen again, and Riena helped me stow the dishes. I then retired to my room to study before nightly meditations. Since we had a week until classes started, I spent the next five days sequestered in my room with my textbooks. Riena’s drones would occasionally pop into my room to blast a forming demon, but otherwise, the reading was only interrupted by meditation to recover my strength and process what I had learned.

  The Enchanting book took me three days to read, while the other two took one each. I had no time to progress on my languages and only memorized a handful of new runes. Primed with barely sufficient knowledge, I put on a suit of chain and half-plate with a buckler, shortsword, and my normal helm. In the dead of night, I tightened the straps on my backpack and left for a dungeon.

  A trip down a spiral staircase into the catacombs gave me time to run through my plan. All I needed to do was run a quick tier 1 dungeon for base materials. With the addition of shrieker teeth and a few necrotic runes, I should be able to make a quick and dirty tier 2 set of gear before classes started. That way I would not appear to be a complete moron to my colleagues.

  Once in the catacombs, I went down the first hallway to a clutch of dungeons. Dungeons were any location overrun with monsters in our world. Some were constantly replenished by the proximity of a portal. Others had complex ecologies that reckless delving could disrupt. No matter where you were, if you dug deep enough, you would find a dungeon.

  The university had placed thick steel airlocks over each dungeon entrance in this clutch. These dungeons were a collection of separate cave systems. There were two tier 1s, a tier 3, and a tier 5. The last was worrying. I could comfortably solo a tier 3 dungeon, but the last time I cleared a tier 5, I had a full team and borrowed a set of excellent gear.

  Of the tier 1s, one was goblins like I planned for, and the other contained imps. The imp dungeon was farther from the tier 5, but was unlikely to have the materials I needed. With the slightest hesitation, I opened the goblin dungeon and descended.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  The door didn’t shut behind me. Students or teams perishing and letting a dungeon’s worth of creatures storm the school was a normal and expected occurrence. Such dungeon breaks were the only school security duty 1st years were expected to participate in. Aspiration was not designed to be safe. A successful student internalized this fact: it was a crucible.

  Crude divots in walls acted as primitive sconces for dung fires. The footing was jagged and treacherous, clearly made by the lowest quality tools. The cave split and twisted seemingly at random. Knowing goblins, they probably found a vein of weaker stone and excavated it to save effort.

  Most heroes assumed goblins were inherently lazy, evil, and stupid with a base cunning that made them dangerous to the unwary. The truth was far crueler. I once slew a goblin shaman that learned our tongue to tell me the plight of her people. These demons could not live longer than a decade. They physically matured very quickly, but their mental development was no faster than a human’s. Born in harsh environments and called to bear weapons within a few months, this race of child soldiers was quite mad.

  Alas, it was us or them. After silencing the shaman, I found other heroes who knew the goblin’s secret, and we agreed that the masses must never know. The blow to morale would be too significant. Most heroes had killed dozens of goblins and couldn’t handle the truth of their actions. Even I struggled to fully enjoy a goblin extermination, and my heroic heart loved slaying monsters of all kinds.

  The first goblin jumped from an alcove above me. I slashed open his stomach and harvested his liver before he landed. A stomp broke the creature’s neck and stopped his breathing.

  I tossed the organ in my pack. It was the only goblin part usable for crafting due to their species ability to eat the most toxic of foods. If harvested before death, it had mild restorative properties. After death, it was only an expendable unaligned power source. I checked the body to make sure he wasn’t a rare double-livered goblin.

  This variety had shimmering obsidian skin, green teeth, and two solid green orbs for eyes. Deep goblins like this lived next to creatures that no human had ever slain. Individually, they may be weak, but I had to be wary of reckless tactics. They would sacrifice an entire cell of goblins to drive off or misdirect a single foe greater than them.

  Sure enough, the next cave I approached was rigged to collapse. When I backtracked to find another route, a dozen goblins pushed away rocks and swarmed me from their hiding places. Shit covered knives and rotten teeth search for gaps in my armor, but this is why I wore the chain. They stabbed and gnawed uselessly at the metal.

  While keeping them away from my exposed face, I methodically harvested the liver from each one. The damned creatures didn’t understand their injury and attempted to fight through the pain. By the time six died from the shock, all were similarly wounded. The remaining goblins tried to flee and only made it a few meters before they had to crawl and expire.

  This many livers was sufficient for my plans, but I was hoping these goblins would have—as I turned the corner a goblin lowered her lance at me as her giant isopod mount charged. Finally! I parried the lance with my blade and punched the sharpened edge of my buckler through the bug’s brain.

  The goblin knight screamed in outrage and leapt at me with knife drawn. The poor goblin equivalent of a horse-girl ended her existence with my helmet through her skull.

  I crouched down and hummed as I harvested the isopod’s shell. With the right enchantments, this material would be stronger than my enchanted steel. Goblins would occasionally take in pets, and those were what I really wanted from this excursion.

  My spirit felt lighter as my pack grew heavier. After all that studying, a bit of monster slaying was exactly what I needed to clear my head. Since I could carry more, I continued deeper. This group of goblins had carefully hidden their nursery and living area. A casual search wouldn’t find it and none of the little feet I heard running about were headed there. Attempting that would also be suicidal. I didn’t know what ultimate contingency the goblins had planned, but it would be nasty.

  I navigated around several more trapped tunnels while killing the occasional surprise attacker before I discovered a metal plug installed by the university. The disk of welded steel read, ‘Warning, Tier 5 monsters ahead’.

  A chill crawled down my spine. Of course some well meaning hero sealed a worse danger and thought their work was done, but goblins excavated caves. Deep goblins would intentionally open their lairs to high tier monsters as a resource to tap.

  I need to get out of here right now.

  A quick spin brought me about, and I dashed the way I came. As I approached this segment’s exit, a mounted goblin stabbed at an unseen creature and back into it, blocking my escape. She whirled around and flipped me off while saying something that was probably very rude in the pidgin tongue this tribe had invented.

  It was her last act before tentacles pulled her and her mount into the maw of a tunnel-sized millipede. She cackled as it chewed her to death.

  Well played.

  The massive creature sniffed and shifted its sightless head to me. It emitted a warbling roar as its tiny legs frenzied and dug grooves into the rock. Parts of the tunnel were too small for it. Its jaws snapped shut and it plowed through those obstructions toward me as the tentacles around its maw stretched forward.

  I turned and ran to the slightly less dead-end than the one behind me. The creature occasionally snapped its jaw as though to let me know it was still there.

  When the plug came back into view, I increased my speed and the entire cave shook with the force of my steps. Once I was close enough, I sheathed my weapons and leapt feet first at the plug with my legs curled. As I kicked, I shoved my arms to the walls and reinforced the cave with my aura.

  The plug dented and exploded into the dark void. My section of tunnel crunched the rock my aura didn’t reach in the opposite direction. I pushed off and flung myself into the void before the tunnel could collapse.

  I drew my weapons and slashed at errant tentacles from the millipede as I fell. It burst from the hole and writhed back and forth as it got stuck halfway through. Remnants of torchlight peeked through gaps around the creature and illuminated my descent.

  Halfway down, I twisted in the air and braced for a landing. Rocks shattered as my feet drove several inches into the surface. The noise prompted the entire large room into motion.

  This may have once been an underground well, but the current occupants had sucked it dry. A horde of giant millipedes circled my plateau. Several rose to investigate the noise.

  My heart pounded and a mad grin consumed my face. Now this was a hunt! I leapt and kicked off the first millipede. My motion drew the attention of more creatures, but the blind monsters couldn’t follow me through the air.

  I continued to vault off of them until I got a feel for the technique. With sufficient proficiency, I position myself to slice at the back of one of their heads. As expected, my blade bounced off harmlessly. The force of the blow bent the metal, shattered the enchantments, and sent me flying toward my next jump.

  After several minutes of navigating the increasingly complex millipede maze, I latched onto the millipede stuck in my original entrance. While there might be a way back through a different exit, I didn’t want to navigate a tier 5 dungeon alone and with no gear.

  The millipede disliked my hug greatly and slammed me against the rocky roof. Stone broke on my armor as I persisted in my climb through the disorientation. When I reached the tunnel entrance, I rotated around until I placed my feet on the ceiling and drove my useless shortsword into the rock.

  With a primal roar, I unleashed all my strength as I squeezed the millipede and pushed with my feet. My efforts eventually pried the creature free, and it fell from the hole. Before falling after it, I grabbed my shortsword and flung myself up into the tunnel.

  Creatures rushed through the gap behind me. I kicked along crumbling walls and punched through falling debris until I made it to a fork beyond the trap. Millipedes filled every path but one, giving me a clear option.

  My pursuers required that I exert more force than the cave could handle to outpace them. The entire complex shook as I and a number of large monsters rampaged through it. The balancing act of speed versus not wanting to be buried alive left a creature nipping at my heels.

  When it shut its mouth, I kicked it with both feet and propelled myself through the dungeon entrance. On the way out, I smashed the emergency shut button and two doors slammed shut before the monster clattered into it.

  After taking a moment to count my limbs and focus on breathing, I rose and calmly updated the dungeon’s tier to 5+. There was really no telling what the caves led to, and millipedes were inherently scavengers. For all we knew, these bugs grew fat on the leavings of greater eldritch horrors or even a Titan. Careful spelunking would be required to responsibly clear this dungeon.

  The terminal asked me if I needed to record any casualties due to a surprise tier increase of 4. I told it no and recorded that this was a solo deed by Exemplar.

  “Thank you for your service, Exemplar.” The machine’s cold thanks was the cap on a profitable adventure. With a jitter in my step, I ascended back to my dorm.

  It was morning by the time I arrived. Derek was setting up another all-day snacking table for Riena’s insatiable hunger. The woman staggered into the kitchen for her morning coffee and sighed at the display. “I don’t eat that much!”

  Derek shook his head. “We can’t have our Commander cooking three meals a day. That much labor is more than anyone should do.”

  “Our chef did it every day!”

  “See, it was their full-time job. We need you working on your skills.”

  Riena groaned and grabbed an apple. “Fine. I can see I’m not winning this argument.” As she sat down, she saw me and stood up. “Exemplar! What happened?”

  I was covered in green blood and caked with dirt. “Nothing important, just a low tier dungeon-clear to get base materials.”

  From his position longing on the couch, Casimir glanced up from his tablet and said, “Alone? I know you're named and ranked, but your power set doesn’t render you immune to surprises. A team helps with that.”

  I sighed. “The tier 1 dungeon became a tier 5. I pulled through without issue, but the rest of you would have died.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “The dungeon records are very clear—”

  “Mari, I’m not calling you a liar. Our team is stacked. Nyla could easily damage anything in the 5th tier, and the rest of us can put her in the position to do that.” Casimir had discarded his tablet and sat up to face me. “Tier 5 would be reckless for us to rush into, but it would be doable.”

  “The tunnels collapsed from our running battle.”

  Casimir rolled his eyes. “If we were there, it wouldn’t have come to that. Now go clean up and—I forgot I wasn’t the Commander. Are you injured?”

  “No.” I stalked to my room and slammed the door. I didn’t need them concerned for my safety. They would all surpass me eventually, but for the moment, I was better.

  I dumped out my materials and began finding ways to maintain my edge.

  The crafting tools I brought were adequate for beginner work. Runes of flexibility drawn with liver paste let me shape the chitin plates into protection for my head, chest, shoulders, forearms, waist, shins, and feet. Scrubbing away the runes firmed the material. While it was discharging the previous effect, I went through the painstaking process of etching each scale from the serpent before assembling them into a flexible mail that would cover everything the plates didn’t.

  Lastly, I took one of my glaives, sundered the existing enchantments, and drew a malleability rune to let me shove the shark-like teeth of the shrieker into the blade and rework the previous rune structure. During the curing process, I ground more liver in my mortar and pestle before loading them into my imbuer. The gold pen had a round cup at the other end to hold raw monster ingredients or one of my capture spheres. When loaded and touching a rune, the precious metal channeled metaphysical particles—or MP—down the gradient in a manner less efficient than those with a core Crafting ability.

  Those gifted individuals could have thrown all my materials in a pile, drawn a few sloppy runes, and blasted it with their own power to produce a higher tiered item, depending on their strength. Proper design and a well-made base would give them better results, but they didn’t need such things to casually craft better than I ever could. Since those people were not crafting for me, I couldn’t slouch in my projects.

  As an ambitious first serious attempt at Crafting, I aimed to make this into a set. Everything had the standard durability runes. The scale mail had additional runes to distribute impacts and cushion blows while the shrieker teeth were enchanted for greater sharpness. What made everything a set were the series of necromantic runes I had to power with the elemental.

  I couldn’t restore the shrieker’s soul-sucking aura, but they were compatible with drain-life runes. Consumption runes in the weapon and armor would absorb the stolen vitality to increase their durability and repair some damage. Healing or empowering myself with the energy would have corrupted my shade and wasn’t worth the hassle.

  After sealing my door and working for two days, my first tier 2 set of gear was complete. I slew the void spiders nesting under my bed and meditated before my first class this morning. My mind struggled to settle into a proper rhythm. It buzzed with how well the new equipment would work in the only Vanguard track course still in my schedule: Advanced Sparring.