I yawned as I entered Advanced Manufacturing. The morning spar with a flying telekinetic had not been stimulating. Seriously, the idiot gained a power like that and the only application he saw was to adjust the trajectory of his arrows? I nearly strangled him for the wasted potential.

  X2 and Bianca were testing the reactions of a fully assembled golem lying on our table. A torso sized cube surrounded the original cube Bianca worked on. The center cube rotated while the outer one remained stationary. When I sat, X2 pressed a button and the new golem’s two arms were replaced with cannons. It pressed another button, and spider legs replaced the anti-grav ring on the bottom.

  Bianca mumbled, “The translocation efficiency is 3% worse than projections.”

  X2 tutted. “Combining spatial storage with void weapons was bound to have unforeseen interactions.”

  “Yes, but where is that 3% going?”

  “It doesn’t have to be going anywhere. It’s magic after all.”

  I scooted back a little further. Any void leak at all within an extradimensional space would create an MP collapse that was indistinguishable from a temporary black hole. Bianca’s eyes flickered to my movement and she sighed. “The center cube is the storage device. In the event of a breach, it creates a shield powered by the spatial destruction to keep the effect sealed. It’s perfectly safe.” She gave me a considering look. “I hadn’t realized your studies had progressed far enough to understand the danger.”

  “Bianca, you promised to stop making fun of Mari when she had tier 3 gear,” X2 chided.

  “Bah! That armor has Fire Manipulation on it, a useless enchantment.”

  I lit the forge on the table and drew a ball of flame into my hand. “Not useless, merely difficult.”

  Bianca’s glasses glowed with magic as she scanned the fire. “That shouldn’t be possible. You would have to be mimicking the unique shade infested cerebellum of a natural ability user through conscious effort.”

  “Well, given the nature of my ability, my brain replacement is 1:1 with my shade.” Since I believed my shade was the manifestation of my true self, it consuming my mind didn’t bother me, and I hadn’t noticed any significant changes in personality.

  “Ugh… No offense, but I’m glad I have a useless power that doesn’t eat at my mind. The very notion of that thing thinking for me gives me chills.” Bianca clearly shared a common belief that shades were foreign spirits feeding on humanity. They sure killed enough.

  X2 pressed another button and shifted the cannons back to arms. “Replacing parts of your brain with better functioning elements is only practical.”

  “For the last time, I’m not replacing all of your brain at once. We’ll do it piecemeal so your consciousness has time to adjust.” Bianca massaged her temples.

  “I suggested no such thing, and I certainly wouldn’t take every opportunity to needle my brain surgeon about her needless concerns.”

  Jeremiah stumbled to the table, covered in smoke. “What are we talking about?” He coughed.

  “Bianca and X2 were debating the finer points of neuroethics,” I said. “Why do you come bearing smoke?”

  He patted himself off, “During the morning purges, our team found a bomb. Guess who had to disarm it?”

  I pointed at him.

  “Lucky guess!” He chuckled. “I failed to safely disarm it, but a little rewind saved my life. Still left a lot of smoke.”

  “I heard we might have a collaborator among the students. Did you notice any clues?”

  “Well, the traditional bomb was covered in uncharged High Elvish with incorrect grammar.”

  “Traditional? Then this terrorist used mundane explosives. Why would anyone do that?”

  “No idea, but that means they could be anyone. None of the coursework covers purely mundane chemistry. Anyone doing this would have had to learn those skills elsewhere.”

  I tapped my foot, pieces coming together. “Unless they learned everything after initiation.”

  “Demolition talents take time to develop if you don’t want to blow yourself up. It took me years to master all the needed skills, and I did explode myself several times.”

  “Right, that’s how it normally works, but what if someone could suddenly learn those skills rapidly? What if this person nursed a grudge for so long that they jumped on the first opportunity for mass slaughter that they could.” I was tickled.

  X2’s eye-light shined a little brighter. “Are you suggesting…?”

  “Yes, exactly that.”

  Jeremiah leaned forward. “I’m not following.”

  I tapped my chest, “I’m a demolitions expert. I picked it up when I needed to destroy a dam.” And the monster settlement below it. “With my ability it was trivial to learn through trial and error. To make a magical bomb, I would have needed to learn certain Crafting basics the hard way.”

  “Mari, surely you didn’t do it?”

  “No, obviously not, but what if someone else with the Exemplar ability did? Who else would bother with mundane explosives when MP infused materials would do more with less effort?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea that handing out my ability recklessly might have backfired. “That would reduce our suspects to a far smaller pool of students.”

  X2 rubbed its chin. “I’ll put together a list. One of my roommates is suffering from misplaced suspicion. Finding the real culprit would alleviate that.”

  Bianca gave it the side-eye, “Did you make a friend?”

  “I doubt that, but Monsters stick together.”

  Our conversation was brought to an abrupt halt by Gyro smacking her tongs against her hammer. “I understand that tensions are building within the university. You can’t let that distract you from your education. As Crafters, you’ll be required to continually advance your knowledge while exposed to countless dangers. It is important to adapt to a state of constant threat.

  “Now, with that out of the way, let’s begin one of the most important and complicated manufacturing methods: Upgrading. This is where many of you will run into the limits of your abilities and forever be relegated to low-tier field Crafting. While it’s possible to have a successful career as a Crafter without this technique, you’ll need massive facilities and a support network to create mid tier equipment, none of which you’ll have in a portal.”

  A student raised her hand. After Gyro called to her, she asked, “Why would your team need upgraded gear in the middle of a portal?”

  “Good question! A full upgrade is generally unneeded, but if your team finds themselves trapped in a situation they are not ready for, then a last minute power-up can be the difference between a fond story and a party wipe.

  “Most of your field upgrades will be side-grades to swap out one item ability for another. These are the quickest and simplest of upgrades. This technique is also critical to base building. Your team will need initial defenses fast, and you’ll want to improve those fortifications over time.”

  Gyro sighed.

  “Despite ‘upgrading’ being considered a single technique in the wider culture, it’s actually dozens of different methods bent towards a singular end. The reason they get lumped together is that most of the separate techniques require each other for best results. Over the next month of classes, I will be demonstrating these methods one by one.”

  She called a board down from the ceiling and wrote: cold smelting, script refactoring, meta-meaning fusion, MP forging, curse mitigation, item-item bonding, and extradimensional mass disposal.

  “Upgrading methods are also used to convert lower tier materials into higher tier ones, which is also essential. High tier monsters require high tier equipment to slay. High tier materials only naturally come from said monsters. To prepare for humanity’s greater foes, you’ll need to master upgrading.”

  Gyro then spent the rest of class demonstrating cold smelting, which required using your aura to enforce smelting conditions at lower temperatures or somehow smelting the MP of the objects together, causing the physical objects to meld. I observed the method with my aura, but could only get the first part.

  That left me a tad frustrated when class ended. As I packed my things, I turned to Jeremiah, “Did you still want to do a dungeon run?” My team was probably wiped from the excursion, and I needed more materials if I wanted to practice more.

  “Uhhh,” he seemed caught off guard.

  “I understand if you don’t.” I pulled on my satchel and started to leave.

  “No!” Jeremiah reached a hand out. “I mean, I still want to do that. When were you free?”

  “Tonight would be good. I’m available after my next class.”

  “Cool cool. What’s your class? I can pick you up.”

  “I fail to see the purpose of that. I’ll meet you in the catacombs, so that we can both have efficient trips.” Also, I was more likely to be jumped by monsters while walking alone.

  He deflated a little—odd—and told me the location of the dungeon he had in mind. I hadn’t heard of it before, but he was the upperclassmen and should have a better idea of where the good farming spots were than I did.

  With plans made, I then stalked the halls looking for monsters. Unfortunately, between puzzling over the collaborator and my frustrations with cold smelting, my aura leaked out and scared away the small monsters. This left me with no new resources to buy coffee with Vanya before class. I had to trade a bladedancer blade for the needed kuai.

  Vanya sipped her caramel br?lé latte and eyed my simple mocha. “Mari, are you strapped for cash?”

  I nursed the deliciously chocolate infused beverage that was much better than the black coffee I had forced myself to drink in the past. “I have all the money I need.”

  “But not enough to buy coffee with a card.”

  “Oh, I never had a card for my bank account back when I had one.”

  Vanya nearly choked on her drink. “How the hell do you plan to be a Crafter without a bank account?”

  “I can kill what I need. That’s half the fun.” I waved away her next question. “More importantly, I heard the bomber has been using mundane explosives! I have a class with someone who got a good look at them. The High Elvish had incorrect grammar, apparently. I wouldn’t know, but I trust the source.” My own book on the language had gone unused. It was difficult to spend time on it when learning a few more runes was more immediately useful.

  “Ah, so you also heard about the bomber.”

  “Didn’t we talk about it?”

  Vanya gave me a withering look. “No, we did not. I was starting to think you suspected me.”

  “Pfff, if I’m right, then someone with the Exemplar ability did it, so you have more cause to suspect me than I you.”

  Vanya wanted me to walk her through my logic as we went to class. We were outside the door by the time I finished. She seemed doubtful, “I think you are making a leap in logic. Explosives aren’t that hard to make. During a past life, my mom was an insurgent in demon occupied lands. This was back when the Hiveborn tried to enslave humans rather than kill them or infest them. She used to blow up all sorts of things and still keeps a few IEDs at home as mementos. Mundane explosives were easier to hide from their mage sniffers. She showed me a few recipes as a mother/daughter activity.”

  I wiped a tear from my eye. “That sounds nice.”

  “Yeah, my mom’s great.” She finished her coffee. “So, do you want to hunt for this bomber?”

  “Oh, could we? That sounds delightful. I have a dungeon run today, but could we track them tomorrow after enchanting?”

  She shrugged. “I’m already looking into it. The bastard is trying to implicate me for some reason. If you want to assist me tomorrow, then I’d appreciate it.”

  “It’s a date!”

  Vanya blushed and entered class. I contained a chuckle and followed her in. Was I romantically interested in Vanya? It didn’t matter. She made it clear that she only finds my personality slightly less repulsive than everyone else. If she was interested—no, best not to think about that. I made a joke that implied my friend was attractive. That’s all.

  Maleficum was in rare form today. Her lecture managed to enter previously unexplored realms of boredom while weaving a tapestry of alchemical terms that seemed to prompt understanding through pure osmosis. Vanya and I elbowed each other to stay awake. Midway through, I checked on our chronic sleeper and didn’t find him. In fact, several of the seats were empty.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Oh, that’s right. I forgot that a lot of students died over the weekend. Accepting casualties and soldiering through your schooling was second nature to basically everyone who made it to university. Being a hero meant walking with death.

  Did saving that man from Maleficum make a difference? Did everyone in his team die? Did they die trying to save him? Did he heroically sacrifice himself to save his team? I was no Diviner. I couldn’t know the consequences of my actions, but I regretted never learning their context. I would never know that man’s name or his story.

  That somber pondering raised my alertness and made staying awake easier, so I gave the man’s death more thought than I normally would have. Focusing my mind on that, keeping Vanya awake, and listening to the lecture caused me to miss Maleficum eating a student. Dammit.

  When we staggered out of class, Vanya shook head to toe. “Did you see the way her jaw unhinged? What the fuck…”

  “Yeah, that was—” I failed to suppress a yawn. “—very horrible.”

  “Are you entirely unbothered?”

  That deep fatigue threatened to consume me. All these people act like I need to flip out over every little thing or there is ‘something wrong with me’. “It’s not my first time, okay!” I bit back my honesty and tried to be a bit more palatable. “Long have allies fallen around me. I have grown inured to it, as I must, to not buckle under the weight of tragedy. At least that hero knew the danger they fell to.”

  “She.”

  “What?”

  “One of the girls was eaten. Were you so disinterested that you couldn’t make out their gender?”

  I checked my nonexistent watch. “Let us revisit this topic at another time! My heroism is needed urgently in another locale!”

  Vanya’s hair blew in the resulting gust of me ejecting myself from that conversation. I found intentionally embarrassing acts tended to lead people to think I’m quirky rather than... less positive conclusions. I didn’t slow my run until I was deep into the catacombs.

  By the entrance, I found Jeremiah in casual clothes—well errr—out of uniform. He had on a spotted white button down shirt under a dark leather jacket with fitting jeans and a pair of spotless running shoes, not the most practical attire for monster slaying, but when you can rewind your personal time, then protective gear isn’t that important. The man stopped his pacing at my approach and greeted me. “Mari, you’re early.”

  “Not early enough to beat you,” I remarked.

  He batted away the concern. “Nah, I just got here,” he lied. Why would he lie?? Based on his heart rate and the increased activity of his sweat glands, I could tell he was nervous about something. Despite that underlying noise, Jeremiah failed to suppress any of the physiological signs of falsehood. I didn’t call him out on the white lie. If he wanted to prepare for this dungeon run in secret, then I wasn’t going to begrudge him.

  I gestured to the stone doors. “What can you tell me about this dungeon?” I shoved my helmet on, and Coatlie squawked as she wiggled within its confines.

  “It’s an Orslin refurbished dungeon, making it tier 3. As long as we don’t vandalize the traps, the keepers are unlikely to accost us. We can expect water elementals, stone revenants, slimes, and a handful of celestial shards. Only the lowest order of those, but breaking them would cause a response.”

  “That certainly would. It’s still a mystery how the Orslin harvest those shards without getting smote. How large is their community under Aspiration?”

  “It’s difficult to count spirits, but it should be one of the larger gatherings on this plane.”

  I whistled in appreciation. Orslin were the enemy, but they made dungeons more interesting and left unique loot in them, so I had trouble prioritizing their banishment over other monster slaying.

  As Jeremiah turned to unlock the door, Coatlie climbed my neck until she could whisper in my ear. Her tongue tickled as she spoke, “Girl, what are you doing?”

  I responded with my own barely audible whisper, “Clearing a dungeon.”

  “No, I mean, why did you shove your helmet on?”

  “To protect my head. That is what they are for.”

  She hissed, “This is obviously a date. Look at what he is wearing and how he’s acting! He must be disappointed that you covered your beautiful face.”

  “You read too many school dramas.” I also seriously doubted Jeremiah was someone who thought monster slaying was romantic. All the blood and viscera tended to kill most people’s mood.

  “Fine, be dense about it. Don’t worry, I’ll whisper tips in your ear. First, you’ll want to raise your body temperature and then slither in his direction. That will let him know you are ready for the mating ball.”

  While Coatlie continued to whisper snake-centric dating advice, I followed my companion into the dungeon. Smooth gray stone tiles lined the floor as ever-burning sconces illuminated the entryway in an ethereal blue light. The walls were lined with bas-reliefs of humanoid wind spirits playing tag.

  Jeremiah glanced back at my approach, and his foot depressed a pressure plate. When slots in the walls opened, I dashed toward him and wrapped my right arm around his shoulders while my left drew my blade and deflected flaming arrows firing from the slot.

  The assault didn’t relent, so I swept him behind me while using my armor’s ability to jam the firing mechanism with its own arrows. Once the room settled, I placed him back on his feet.

  Jeremiah chuckled while straightening out his clothes. “You know I would have been fine, right?” He made a rewinding motion with the hand not holding a pistol.

  “I could not bear the thought of seeing that outfit marred, even temporarily.”

  He scratched his cheek. “Your armor is nice too.” He turned away. “I believe the right path is the optimal route.”

  “Lead the way.” I say that and then stick to his side close enough for him to feel the heat from my fire enchantments.

  The hallway to the next room wound in gentle curves that an inexperienced dungeon delver would have failed to notice. Additionally, a very subtle mechanism lowered the entire path as we walked it. While Orslins had access to spatial magic, they tended to prefer clever engineering solutions to create nonlinear dungeons.

  The next room had a single red slime as bait. Jeremiah raised his revolver and killed it in a single explosion of frost. I spent the next ten minutes carefully prodding every inch of the room for traps before circling back to the slime and examining its core. “Oh, interesting. That wasn’t a blood slime. It was a flame-slime. Aqueous flame creatures are exceptionally rare. Their materials can charge a few specific runes.”

  “Feel free to keep it,” my buddy offered. “That wouldn’t help my Starsong script.”

  He didn’t see my raised eyebrow. “That’s an exceptionally difficult language.”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “It’s intuitive for me. Every item has its own rhythm and story to tell. My output does veer from what I intend a lot of the time, but I take those as life’s happy accidents.”

  “Still, you must have masterful control of your emotions to make anything reliably.” Starsong could shift meaning based on the materials, the materials' history, the exact form of the target, and your intent while scribing or imbuing it.

  “Nah, I have a variety of projects that I work on when my mood matches the design.”

  “Amazing.” My own emotions were a thing to manage, a barrier between me and goals that required constant maintenance. I glanced around the room again in disappointment. “The monster presence is thin tonight.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Not when I wanted to slay monsters.”

  Jeremiah’s smile strained. “We slay monsters to stop their destruction and to retrieve their materials. I guess a well executed hunt can feel refreshing…”

  My irritation is leaking. I steadied myself and asked, “Which hallway is next?”

  “The middle path.”

  This time I led the charge, and Coatlie whispered, “Slaughtering your foes is gross. You should demonstrate your prowess by swallowing your prey whole.”

  Several humanoid stone figures shuffled in the next room. A wispy white aura flowed from their bodies and flared as they all turned toward me as one. Stone revenants had a fairly simple banishment method. Like Elves, all you had to do was destroy enough of their body, and they would fade away, but the only useful material from them was the stone you needed to destroy. Optimum slaying required butchering just enough stone to banish them and leaving the rest untouched, an amount that shifted between each one.

  I whooped, sheathed my blade, and tackled a dozen of them. In the resulting pile, I grabbed and squeezed handfuls of stone into dust until the revenants stopped moving. Like any revenants, one scratch could kill someone, provided they were made of stone. X2 would have been in danger here, as an example.

  Their fists and kicks still hit with the strength needed to move their ~2000 kg frames. While my armor could take it, the attacks still shook the squishy meat inside. I gritted my teeth through the minor pain and continued mulching my foes.

  In the middle of my fun, Jeremiah used an acid grenade over and over again to melt his targets, a suboptimal choice unless you needed melted spirit stone.

  Once we were finished, I was a tad relieved and gathered my portion into a large knapsack. “This was a decent haul.”

  “Yeah… Did you, uh, have fun?”

  “I did!”

  “Ah… Their screaming bothers me.”

  I nodded along. “Most things scream as they die. Their death wails sound like avalanches mourning their growing distance from the sky. There is a yearning for the unattainable in it that I find poetic. Perhaps such creatures want to be flesh and blood, and this is the closest they will get.”

  “Now, I feel kind of bad for them.” He examined the bodies with a sour expression.

  “If they didn’t want to taste the misery of defeat, then they shouldn’t have come to our world! What’s next?”

  Jeremiah perked up, “Well, there is a secret passage from this room that I hope you will like.”

  “Lead on!” My mind danced with all the wonderful possibilities of a secluded area. Perhaps a mid tier monster had sequestered itself in the shadowy folds of this dungeon, waiting to snare us in its maw. We could then fight tooth to blade on the edge of death.

  He depressed several blocks in the wall before turning a relief of a figure upside down. Water elementals then rushed through pipes and turbines hidden in the stone and one wall slowly slid open to reveal a staircase up.

  We ascended the damp tunnel; more water elementals rushed around us, creating a gentle breeze as they swirled. Bound to this purpose, the creatures were harmless. The passage opened into an underground garden. Vines wove through the railing around the enclosure. Grass filled the floor, and bushes of white roses lined a dome with a massive rent. Through the rend, the twinkling of blue crystal was bright enough to resemble starlight, and a city could be seen below us. The faint songs of Orslin plays and street performances wafted from the gap.

  Before the joy of being within leaping distance of a whole den of monsters could settle in, I noticed the picnic blanket, the basket of food, and the two full wine bottles, one a very expensive vintage that could impair even me. Jeremiah poured a glass of that sparking blue liquid. A storm cloud formed right above the surface before he offered it to me, “Surprise! I thought we might want to enjoy a mid-dungeon break. My team and I cleared the area before tonight, so nothing too dangerous should sneak up on us.”

  No. Why would he do that!? I wanted to kill some monsters for—very practical—reasons. Damn damn dammit! Damn him for caring in the wrong ways. I tried to remember he was trying to be nice, but that only pissed me off more.

  Coatlie dabbed my building tears with one of her wings. “See, this is a date. Relax and try to enjoy it. Surely, that isn’t so hard.”

  A date? Did he actually like me? I… didn’t know how to handle that. Most of my courting had been done on the other side of this equation, and it rarely went anywhere. He’s still holding the drink. Right, I grabbed my helmet and gave Coatlie time to resettle as a necklace before popping it off. Jeremiah relaxed slightly as I grabbed the drink. His tension returned when I asked, “Why me?”

  He poured his own drink of red wine with tiny fire dragons swimming through it. “Mari, are you fishing for compliments?” He flashed his most dazzling smile. When I didn’t respond, he continued, “You’re attractive, so I wanted to get to know you better.”

  I looked away. “You don’t know me.”

  “But I want to.”

  No you don’t. I sipped on my wine. The thunderstorm in my mouth traveled along my nerves, leaving relaxed muscles in its wake. Reluctantly, I reclined on the blanket, back straight and with my head on a swivel. Monsters could appear anywhere. The danger of monsters was familiar, comfortable, unlike this situation. My heart beat slightly faster, my eyes had dilated, and my pores had widened to perspire more, a phenomenon most notable in armpits and other prominent skin folds. One of the consequences of a complete mastery of your body is being constantly aware of all the messy details. I could suppress these autonomic responses, but they were novel.

  Jeremiah joined me on the blanket. His relaxed repast indicated that he would wait for me to process. I took the opportunity to really look at him. While I found him moderately attractive before, now that he had professed interest in me, I—in turn—found him more interesting. Was that how everyone experienced affection or was this yet another way I thought differently from my allies?

  If I find his interest in me an attractive quality, then he might feel the same if I expressed interest. “So, what are your heroic goals?” Might as well start with the most important question.

  He shrugged. “I’ll fight where I’m needed. It’s hard to kill me, but not impossible. I plan to find a good team and do my best to have a long career while doing my part.” He took another sip. “I don’t really think about that too much. It’s work… What do you do to relax? What are your hobbies?”

  “Between hunts, outside of training and Crafting, I study monsters.”

  “Come on, you have to do something for fun.” He opened the basket and offered an assortment of cheeses.

  I ate one before replying. It had a bitter rind with a creamy center, like a less buttery brie. “Studying monsters is ‘fun’. Though, I never devote time purely to leisure.”

  “Never? Is that the dedication it takes to be named?”

  “I earned my name at 12. Since then, I have sought to live up to it.”

  He laughed and took another drink. “I didn’t even have my ability until 14. My family wouldn’t let me face an actual monster until I turned 15.”

  “That’s when most people start their journey. My father wanted me to have mine as soon as possible. He thought a late start was why my older brother didn’t survive his shade infection.”

  Jeremiah winced. “That’s always rough. I lost a cousin that way. You never think your family will be the unlucky one in five.”

  I sighed. “Yes, but that is yet another burden becoming history with ability imbuing.”

  “I can drink to that!” We tapped glasses before indulging. The magical alcohol had begun to impair me, slowing my reactions, compromising my judgment, encouraging me to lower my guard. While I could fight the effect with my aura, I let it happen. Part of me wanted to do something stupid. Especially since it appears that there are no serious fights to be had. A dull rage at that burned in my stomach with the growing storm from the enchanted liquid.

  My companion had only grown more relaxed as he stared at the shifting lights of the distant cavern, the occasional hors d'oeuvre finding its way into his mouth. After delighting in another gulp of his wine, he reached into the basket and offered me a salmon canapé.

  “There is a little shop just off campus that makes these from fresh caught fish. They say you can’t taste the difference between conjured and natural meat, but there is a certain je ne sais quoi to the real thing.”

  I took it and nibbled around the edges, expert bites not letting a crumb drop. “We’re Crafters. We intimately know that the intangible has power…” Oh… That was it, what I’m missing when trying to manipulate the concepts of materials with aura. Just like how I can use aura to manipulate the mind, I need to will changes on the more metaphysical. That’s why I couldn’t sense Gyro doing it! Not being able to sense it was the clue.

  After gulping the morsel, I rolled to my feet. I have to try this! “That’s enough of a break. Let’s finish the dungeon quickly. I have a sudden idea I want to try in the workshop. You’re a Crafter. I’m sure you understand.”

  Most of Jeremiah’s facial muscles twitched and tried to break his smile. “Yeah… Sure, Mari. We can do what you want.”

  I didn’t have the spare mental bandwidth to interpret those physical tells. All my excess will went into maintaining the clarity of my epiphany.

  Man, dates really are worth the time. I should’ve invested more energy into them!