A thousand snakes burst from Gabriel’s arm, and a flick of my wrist severed them with Hunter. The eyes of the partial snakes glowed green and turned on their progenitor along with dozens of other bits I had torn from my opponent. Gabriel retracted her hand and scraped at the snake zombies. That gave me enough time to reposition and switch to my Oni armor.

  Hunter floated beside me as I covered the floor in hyper slick ice and pit traps. “That doesn’t work anymore,” the scythe whispered.

  “I know,” I gritted out. Hunter’s aid had barely let me hold on for the duration of this duel. Gabriel adapted to every tactic and had multiple counters to my previous methods. Hunter let me turn those counters against her, but the woman was developing ways to rapidly slaughter the undead hordes. Her perfected draconic form was marred with dozens of maws that devoured Hunter’s minions wherever they assaulted. If empty, those maws grew eyes and spat acid at approaching troops. Spines shot from under scales in a constant rain that whittled down too slow minions.

  When she turned to me, the giant woman grinned. A clear ichor seeped from her pores. She then clicked her main teeth, and a spark ignited the liquid, engulfing her in fire. Gabriel grunted from the pain before her face relaxed, and she laughed. “A purifying flame is so freeing, Mari. You should try some!”

  I dodged the burning globs and switched armors to grab onto them and arc their trajectory back toward Gabriel. She continued to laugh as the undead around her crumbled to ash, ignoring the splashes against her chest. Wings unfurled and scattered more fire around her. I racked my brain for the next step. There had to be a way to exploit the self immolation. Either she’s regenerating through the damage or producing enough combustible liquid to feed the flames.

  Gabriel didn’t give me time to think of a new stratagem and charged. With grim resolve, I grabbed Hunter in one hand and my blade in the other. If I was going to lose, I could make it hurt.

  Before we could clash, Burn Bright blew his fire-whistle. It sounded like hell screaming. “Alright, that’s class. Get your asses to the showers!”

  Gabriel stopped instantly and shrunk. I parted the wave of fire in time to see her flip her hair. The motion was a trigger for her dimensional-storage tongue-piercing and conjured a fresh uniform. “One of these days, we’ll get to really rip each other apart. Will you keep up or will I have to match your pace? I don’t mind slowing down for you. We both want the same thing after all.”

  I hummed. “There are still plenty of toys I can bring to keep it interesting.”

  “Ooh, I’m looking forward to new moves. I’ll make sure mine are fresh too.”

  “That spontaneity of yours is an asset in fights.”

  She grinned wider and displayed rows of sharp teeth. “The violence comes so easily now, an effortless dance of carnage accompanied by a symphony of screams, broken bones, and tearing flesh. I enjoyed it before, but this ability, Mari… I can see why you make an art of it.”

  I nodded. “Yes, exactly. There is a sublime beauty to heroism. It emboldens and drives me to greater action. I’m glad you can appreciate it. The monsters deserve to have two such artisans against them.”

  Gabriel tugged at her white skirt with silver trim. “You forget that I’m a monster now.”

  I waved that away before turning to the showers. “In no way that matters to me.”

  She strolled by my side, arms behind her back. “Maybe I want to be a monster.”

  The months of hate and abuse flashed through my mind. “Oh, I can treat you like one. There are so many terrible things I’m going to do to you before the scales are even.”

  A purr rumbled from her throat. “Only if you have the strength to keep pushing me to new heights.”

  “One blade sharpens another. We’ll make good use of this hate while it lasts.”

  “While? I didn’t think this was something we’ll ever move past.”

  “How long can a right hand hate the left? We’re two halves, Gabriel. You said as much yourself, and I feel the same way.” We passed through the showers without me noticing. My rival had absorbed all my attention. We faced each other in the hall and readied our combat stances. Minute movements showed her planned attack. I responded by signaling my defense and counterattack. Our silent spar continued for 30 seconds before we broke eye contact and went our separate ways. At the edge of my eye, I caught Nyla giving us a confused look.

  Ignoring the look, I hurried to my fabrication class. Of course she was befuddled. Other people didn’t get me. Gabriel only came close because she was me.

  Hey, you promised, Coatlie rumbled through my mind.

  I sighed and put my armor back into storage, revealing the uniform underneath. Coatlie made a good argument that it would be ‘more efficient’ if I switched directly to an optimal gear set rather than constantly wearing potentially suboptimal armor. Few monsters could take me completely unawares, so I acquiesced to her demands.

  Better. A girl that’s worked as hard as you on their appearance should show it off.

  When I sat down at our table, X2 whistled and handed Jeremiah a few kuai. “It appears she wasn’t secretly a golem from the neck down.”

  Jeremiah stared at the coins in incomprehension until the glassy look faded from them. The man then carefully pocketed the money. “We had a bet on that?”

  X2 patted its friend’s shoulder. “Would I give you money for no reason?”

  “I guess not.” He settled back in his seat and studied his disassembled pistol like a life raft keeping his consciousness with us. All the shattered pieces I collected from the Bone Terror had melded together into a man that radiated pain. The physical wounds on his body created shadows in the mind that took far longer to heal. A fading redness in his sclera was the inverse, a tangible sign of emotional injury.

  I reached over and squeezed his callused hand. “Losing teammates is hard. Being the last survivor is harder.”

  He sucked in a breath and looked away. “We shared a meal two days ago, and now they’re all crushed bones. That… it’s such a sudden change. We hadn’t known each other that long but… I’d grown used to their company.”

  “The guilt will come for you. You’ll wonder what you could have done to save even one of them. Dwell on it once. Analyze your tactics, determine deficiencies that need improvement, then don’t let yourself think about it again. The past is irrevocable. Let it sink under the waves of time. People might tell you that it gets easier, but I’ve never experienced that. You will grow stronger to carry the weight of their deaths.”

  He wiped random workshop debris from his eyes. “R-right… On the bright side, I’m keeping the dorm. A team was attacked in theirs, and they don’t sleep there anymore. The survivors and one Monster track student are moving into mine.”

  “Which one?” X2 asked.

  “Ironically, she’s one of the Deathknights.”

  “Ah, Lenore will like that. She was always polite, but I could tell living with monsters aggravated her.”

  I interjected. “So… how hard is the necromancer hitting the 2nd years? Do you all require assistance?”

  Jeremiah held up a hand. “Mari, it’s fine. This is our responsi—”

  “Yes,” Bianca cut in and received a sharp look from Jeremiah. “What? At current casualty rates our class is on track to fail. If a named hero wants to lend a hand, I won’t turn her down. My own team is scared shitless of death spells and is focusing on gathering materials for my golems.”

  I nodded. “If they keep an eye out for Axel’s journals or the man himself, then this will be a good exchange of time.”

  “Good. We can clear the hydroponics sector tonight. I know if I was a necromancer festering in the utility sections, that’s where I would be. I’m eager to settle this distraction to my education.”

  “Sure.” Before I could segue into how fighting existential threats is part of the Aspiration educational experience, Gyro started the lecture.

  “After the next two lectures, you’ll be able to upgrade items, but after this lecture, you’ll be able to mitigate curses. Upgrading will normally result in a cursed item. In fact, the process by which lower quality material can bear a higher tier curse is the foundational principle behind upgrading. It’s where Crafters got the idea.

  “It’s important to emphasize that fixing cursed equipment costs far more MP than creating the correct gear in the first place. For new Crafters like yourselves, these techniques will help you correct mistakes in the field where sources of MP are plentiful, but the exact materials may be scarce. We’ll go over in another lecture the factors to weigh when deciding to correct a mistake or start over.

  “Now, to get to the good stuff…” Gyro called down a chalkboard and diagrammed a hypothetical cursed gauntlet. “To mitigate a curse, you have to correct flaws in the construction using what we’ve learned so far and refactor your scripts to a compatible ability. The imprint of the curse lingers, so the ability you replace the property with will have some relation to the curse. For example, a curse of enfeeblement could be turned to weaken enemies or strengthen the wearer. It can’t become a fireball enchantment.

  “If you’re paying attention, you’ll realize this will be true for upgraded items as well. The new abilities and curses you gain will relate to the starting configuration. Consult the metaphysical taxonomy of concepts in the back of your book to…”

  Gyro spent most of the lecture walking us through an example with a not-so-hypothetical cursed gauntlet. I summoned my Oni armor to the table and followed along. The trick to it that the book didn’t quite cover was how you had to fight the cursed property with your aura. All the techniques for resisting regular curses applied but were infinitely more complex and draining by doing them on a target instead of yourself. This effort was mitigated by burning immense amounts of MP.

  Thankfully, all the extra dungeon running had granted me a surplus of monster paste. Most of my mind went to beating the curse into submission while with the rest of my focus, I infused the material with MP and refactored the scripts to shift the Weaponless property.

  Bianca tsked. “Sure, I guess you could go with that.” She and the rest of the table were watching me since none of them had a cursed item on hand.

  “For Exemplar, removing the property is boon enough,” X2 commented. “Besides, this adds a direct simple offensive ability to round out Ethereal’s defense and Ice Creation’s utility.”

  Jeremiah squinted. “I understand having Durability on armor, but I don’t know if it is worth a whole ability slot. The materials are plenty strong by themselves.”

  “I like to punch up,” I responded. “While it might not be wise to slay tier 6 monsters with tier 4 gear, it is an eventuality I’d like to prepare for.” I drew the final rune and let the curse refocus its power through the new property. The armor glowed briefly before a puff of shadow escaped it with a very faint scream.

  After confirming I didn’t re-curse the armor, I sucked it into my storage and resummoned it with Hunter. “Ooh, that’s cool,” he said as rime crawled up the haft and hoarfrost coated his blade as waves of cold misted off of it.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I smiled. The Frost Weapon ability had taken hold. It would automatically imbue any weapon I wielded with cold energy. For weapons like my heat knives, the combination of fire and ice would result in an explosion, but that ‘small price to pay’ could be a boon in the right circumstances.

  Gyro paused at our table and eyed my weapon and armor. “Good work, Mari. You’ve made excellent progress. Before trying for tier 5 equipment, I’d recommend branching out and covering your bases. Finish mastering the Runes of Creation, and then work on another magical language for higher tier items. You’ll understand why after the final rune.”

  “Thank you, Professor.” I gave her a nod. “I am eager to continue climbing the tiers.”

  “Most Crafters only go up a tier after they’ve exhausted their options in their current tier. That’s not laziness on their part. Our role is the most versatile, and we fill any need in the team. Breadth of capability is better than one magnum opus.” She directed those last words at Bianca. “Also, jumping up the tiers is not trivial. Your general experience with monsters and magic combined with an almost peerless mastery of your aura has let you leapfrog to this point. Further progress will take serious work. Remember, you have four years here. At a tier per year, you’ll still be the second person to make a tier 7 item.”

  “I grasp your point.” A sigh escaped me. “Patience is a difficult virtue to cultivate.”

  She gripped my shoulder. “Bear with it, Exemplar. Making it to tomorrow matters more than winning the battle today.” With those wise words, she was off to the next table working on a cursed item.

  Class ended shortly after that. Bianca and I confirmed a meetup time before I rushed to the catacombs and cleared a couple low tier dungeons. Vanya and I had planned to do these together, but I didn’t want to face her after yesterday. If she couldn’t trust me to not kill her, then how could she trust me to watch her back.

  Why be lab partners with me? She had no one else. I was her first, last, and only option. Did she resent me? She must. The school hates her, and to her, my desires are hate.

  In my stewing, I ignored the non-hostile creature approaching until she got in my face, and I backed into the wall away from her. The cool stone chilled my ass through the flimsy skirt. Stupid Coatlie’s fashion sense. “Uh, hey Izy.”

  “What’s this I hear about you thirsting over a fake dragon? I distinctly remember you not being ‘into scales’.” She swished her tail and blocked off escape to my left. “Love the new look by the way.”

  Izy had delicate horns and long flowing red hair that matched her crimson lips and eyes. All her teeth were a bit sharper than a human's, and red scales covered portions of her otherwise normally human features. Any misconceptions about her identity as a monster were shattered by her clawed hands with scales extending up the forearm. Even half a foot shorter than me, she radiated menace.

  Seeing her again, I couldn’t help but remember how I first met my ex-girlfriend.

  I dove into the nearest foxhole away from the flames. No one tells you how loud dragons are. It’s not just their big voices. Their spells shake your shade, their flight breaks the sound barrier, and their breath weapons are roaring torrents worse than any thunderbolt, waterfall, or earthquake.

  Perhaps with a bit too much haste in my scramble to safety, I failed to notice the lack of a bottom to this hole. After a couple seconds of tumbling, my descent became more controlled like I had rolled through tunnels all my life. My ability is so kick-ass.

  When the path ended at the ceiling of a large cavern, I suddenly wished I had flight instead. No amount of skilled arm flapping slowed my fall. My ability did let me roll with the landing and not break any bones, but it was a near thing as I smashed through empty egg shells and smacked against a hill of gold.

  A creature scrambled toward me. I threw off the shell covering me and drew my sword to face down the red dragonling. It pounced on me before I could react and pinned me to the pile of gold coins that composed this nest.

  Its reptilian eyes poured into mine and a rumble in its throat morphed into a feminine squeal. “I always wanted a sister! All my other stupid siblings chose to be icky boys. Bleh!” After retracting her tongue, she eyed me over. “Oh, you’re a silver. Mom’s been naughty. Well! That's her problem.”

  I struggled to wiggle my arms free. “I’m not a dragon. This is armor not scales. I’m human.”

  The dragonling nodded. “That would explain why you speak human. I didn’t know dragons could lay your kind.”

  “I did not and will never hatch from an egg. We are not siblings. I crashed into this nest from above.”

  “Hmmm, that would make you an intruder, and I’m supposed to eat intruders.” She shook her head. “Nah, you’re the first girl I’ve ever met. Let’s be friends instead!”

  Seeing no other way out, I relented to the monster’s strange demands. “We can be friends, but I’m a boy.”

  She closed one eye and leaned the other closer to me. “Are you sure?”

  The question irritated me enough that I found a surge of strength. With a roar, I rolled the massive creature off of me. She giggled like we were playing.

  Izy was the first dragon I rode. Much later when we were both far older, we tried dating. At the time, I told myself I was only interested in her human forms and the human parts on those forms.

  Her tail wrapped up my leg as she dragged a claw under my chin. “Why settle for an imitation, when you could have the real thing?”

  “Izy… That’s not why we broke up.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you got mad that I kept calling you ‘my princess’.” Her free hand gestured to my body. “I was right. What are you complaining about?”

  How could I, the mighty Exemplar, hold a grudge over someone telling me the truth? Part of me resented Izy for siding with my heart over my mind in the war over my soul. I asked her to stop, and she refused. My own hangups had a lot to do with why that relationship fizzled, but not respecting my desires was why I hadn’t sought her out again.

  The tip of her tail prodded my ass through my skirt while her claw grabbed my right wrist and pressed it against the wall. Each poke wound the tail tighter around my leg. “Remember the good times we had? All those different positions and—” She leaned in and whispered, “shapes.”

  My face was flush as I shuddered. Dragons could take a variety of mortal forms. While Izy preferred feminine presentation, she was willing to experiment and briefly take male forms. “I had fun, but…”

  Her tail tightened further. “But what? Tell me you don’t want this. Push me away. I won’t stop you.” Our faces were inches apart. Her breath smelled of sulfur and a masking draught of berries. Flames danced along her tongue and smoldered in her eyes.

  A shout came from our left. “Izy!” I didn’t hear any approaching footsteps before Vanya pushed the dragon off of me. “The professors have told you to stop touching people like that unless they ask for it.”

  “She didn’t say no.”

  “You’re a 4th year student. Control yourself!” Vanya whirled back to me. “I’m sorry, Mari. Izy gets really handsy.”

  I straightened out my uniform and stepped off the wall. “It’s fine. We used to date.”

  Vanya blinked. “Um no, that does not make it ‘fine’.”

  Izy scoffed. “You humans are so prudish. It’s not like you're covered in poisonous spines or exploding sacs. All this caution is unwarranted.”

  As Vanya turned back to the dragon, I barked, “Why do you care? Aren’t I just some psychopath that wants to kill you?” Was I anything to her?

  She winced, “Look, I was… intimidated yesterday by your actions. You degloved a girl and told her she needed better gauntlets.”

  “She did! A dagger specialist either needs to protect their hands or switch to larger weapons. I’ve lost friends to blunders like that. It’s so much better to experience pain in a controlled environment than dying in the field. I even helped her wiggle her skin back on and showed her where to pour the healing potion.”

  “What was her name?”

  I spread my arms. “Why would I care? She could be dead next week. It’s better not to get attached unless you have to, like with friends.”

  “If you didn't care enough to learn her name, then you didn’t care enough to teach her a ‘valuable life lesson’. You tortured that girl for fun.”

  “I had a good reason!”

  Smoke leaked from Izy’s mouth as she chortled. “You had a good reason to torture her for fun?”

  I glared at her.

  “No please, enlighten me. Mom would kill me if I did that because it would ‘jeopardize our agreement with humanity’ and yada yada. If I had a good excuse, there are some students I could have so much more fun with.”

  The dungeon break alarm blared, and I let out a sigh of relief at escaping this conversation. Ghost, wraiths, specters, and a Grave Harvester crawled into the hallway from the lower levels. Most of the drones patrolling the Crafter’s tower couldn’t do anything to the incorporeal monsters, and those that could had depleted their ammo on the increased morning hordes.

  I summoned my father’s silver sword from storage and let out a whoop as I joined the fray. It wasn’t often that I got to spend time with this blade. I wove through retreating heroes and dispersed ghosts with single strikes. The echoes of life could come from any creature in the right circumstances, but today’s culprit was the Grave Harvester eating corpses in the back of the crowd. A Crafter had dropped their storage item, and the slug-like monster reached bone limbs through a dark hole and pulled a monster corpse into their mouth. Energy pulsed through the creature’s green spectral flesh as it munched with large flat teeth. Its voids for eyes squinted in mirth at the meal. From its rear, a ghost of the corpse crawled out and joined the wave of monsters.

  My silver sung through the air with each swing. Ectoplasm I failed to suck into my storage coated the floor in a steady rainfall as I mowed through the ghosts and threw downed heroes backwards. I was too late for one guy, so I summoned Hunter and stabbed the Wraith clawing out of his body to bind it to my will. Wraiths occurred for a variety of reasons, but death by ghost touch is a sure method. They were the ghosts of shades, dark shadows wreaking havoc before reality ripped them apart.

  “Let him wield me,” Hunter requested. As terrible of an idea as that sounded, I dropped the scythe and let him float over to the Wraith. They moved to flank and prevented more undead from circling behind me. I charged toward the Grave Harvester and encountered several more Wraiths. These, I destroyed. They were as strong and fast as their heroes in life, but Crafters weren’t known for their martial prowess. As speed bumps fell to my blade, their dark ectoplasm entered my storage.

  Before I reached my target, I scattered another wave of ghosts to reveal an incorporeal Trow Anansi casting a spell with her humanoid hands and pouncing at me with glowing red spider legs. I summoned my Oni armor and went ethereal to grab one of the legs and flip the creature over me before stabbing for her heart.

  She stopped the spell and elbowed the sword to deflect the thrust through her lung. This miscast dropped a fireball at our feet, but since we were both intangible, that didn’t affect us. It did cause several drones to spray water, which reacted wonderfully to the spreading frost of her wound. Specters were difficult to kill. As ghosts that had grown beyond their echo, they were all mid tier monsters. Most could only be banished through severe damage.

  Her arms and legs popped out of their sockets and turned around to grab at me. I ripped my blade free and stepped back before conjuring an ice-spear. Since it was in my hands, it remained intangible as I stabbed at the Specter. The creature tried to roll around and deflect with her limbs, but when she focused too much on my spear, I lunged in and severed a leg.

  After the first limb, the rest quickly followed until I was hacking at a limbless torso and thorax. As the creature disintegrated, I plunged my hand into her chest and ripped out the heart. I then thrust my prize in the air and roared before storing it and turning tangible. The Grave Harvester heard my challenge and oozed toward me much faster than one would suspect from such a bulbous creature.

  Unlike most heroes, I knew exactly what to do and dove into the creature’s mouth faster than its teeth could bite. While it had its lightning-fast limbs, crushing teeth, layers of defenses, innate intangibility, and an army normally protecting it, inside the creature there was nothing. My sword drank freely as I blended the monster.

  After enough damage, the creature exploded in ectoplasm, and I stood in its wake with its teeth in my left hand. As the remaining ghostly defenders scattered in all directions, I stored the loot and raised that hand to Hunter. All his minions crumbled to motes of green energy that flowed into him and smoothed several blemishes along the blade.

  He then floated to my hand and buzzed contently, “The more I animate, the more complete I grow. Let us find more to slaughter!”

  “All in good time.” I chuckled and stowed my equipment before turning back to alchemy class. I have so many more ingredients for potions!

  When I joined Vanya at our table, the ghost-goo soaked elf started to say something, but Maleficum began the lecture. I listened while brewing potions of spirit sight, soul heal, speed boost along with four more healing potions. My baseline materials were high enough quality that these creations were all tier 4. With the leftovers, I made three fear bombs.

  After class, I was the first to open the door and nearly ran over Riena. She smiled and stepped to the side with me. “Oh good, you are alive. When you didn’t return for two days, we were a bit worried. While Nyla did report seeing you, Casimir is miffed that you blew off his medically ordered team bonding sessions.”

  I groaned. “Can’t we bond over dungeons or something else that matters?”

  “Sure!”

  “Really!?”

  “We’ve been running dungeons without you since you were so busy. Tonight is supposed to be a break, but I’m free.”

  Although Riena hadn’t reestablished her bond, she wasn’t being difficult like everyone else in my life. “Great. I actually lined up a little hunt for tonight if you want to join me.”

  Vanya walked past our huddle as Riena nodded. “I do. Let’s do what you want. It’s so much more important, right?”

  “Yes, exactly. I’m so glad someone understands.”