I dashed through the tall grass, amidst the sculpture-esque tree, my gaze was directed towards the tallest of towers – the one made from diamond. The speed was exhilarating; I never had the opportunity to unleash it, not when running.

  With each dash, I jumped through the air, accelerating further, my feet barely touched the ground. When the tower got close, I saw the students.

  The many first years, who were cheering against me, who glared at me. Today I will show them. I unleashed my starpower without direction, and soon they noticed me. I smirked.

  “I might have been a little late, hope you can forgive my tardiness.” My voice silenced the conversations.

  Ude stepped forth. “Today one of us disappears.” Her claws grew, and her starpower rose.

  I sighed, “Makes sense. You. Get away!” I pushed the others with a force form. Already, my mind acceleration was running full steam.

  “Let the game begin.” Ude growled, her scales gleamed under the stars. Around her skin, a faint barrier shimmered.

  With a detection form in my hand, I could read the flow of her starpower. She didn’t have anything gathering in her feet, so she wouldn’t dash. Ude channeled most of her starpower towards the barrier and the claws.

  This will be fun.

  With a roar, she ran towards me, and she ran fast. This level of speed was nothing compared to Ivaldie, but the way she moved – it was awkward and imprecise.

  Ivaldie fought like a perfect machine, choosing the most efficient route, Ude swung blindly. I leaned away from the claws, dodging the strike completely. “Too slow!” I grinned. Steel had much more explosive strength,

  She wound up for the next attack, her eyes burning with determination. I pushed forward closer to the grappling range. Strengthening condensed into one chain. I struck her elbow.

  Her swipe fell flat, but I wasn’t done. I directed all my starpower towards the force form. Needle, pressure, condensed, bullet, impact. With each word and impression, the starpower became sharper.

  My palm connected to her stomach, and her barrier crumbled. A bullet shot rang out, and she got knocked away. “Is that it? Just some pathetic claw technique? You can do better.” A small wound bled on her stomach, and her barrier shimmered. “Come at me!”

  With slow movements, she rose to her feet, clutching her side. “I won’t give up.” Such a cliché phrase. It made me chuckle. She strung up a technique; above her, a spear of light entwined with vines appeared. It was painfully slow.

  Was that how Ivaldie felt? It took me but a second to create a bullet and imbibe the starpower with the dispelling form. Right as she was about to unleash the spear, my bullet tore into the construct.

  The starpower strings unwound, becoming heat and light. “Really? Five whole seconds for a finisher? This must really be a game to you.” I propelled forward and struck her hand.

  The thin barrier cracked immediately. Then something else cracked. Her bone. She screeched. Two force forms pushed her away. “Really? All it took to break your hand and the barrier was one punch? Come on! Is your strengthening at initiate?” I scoffed.

  “Shut up!”

  “Why would I?” Ude could barely stand. “Your footwork is sloppy, your attacks are predictable, and your strengthening is weak.” I made a plasmafication form, and cold purple fire rose from my hand. “The only way you can win is if you use your emotions. Why do you fight me, Ude?”

  She clenched her teeth. My flames rose higher. “Tell me!”

  I imbibed the dizziness form into the plasma and turned my palm towards her. The fires burst out. Ude jumped to the side, but it wasn’t fast enough.

  The plasma struck her, and she stumbled onto the ground. And I kept firing at her. “Give up!” I shouted.

  The girl recklessly clawed at the fire with her healthy hand, roaring and coughing. It couldn’t hurt her; the plasma was only slightly cold, and its effect was nausea.

  She didn’t speak, only groaned and scrambled. I saw her SE rise before my eyes. “I can do this all day, you know. Can you even hear me?” I ceased the starpower.

  My fellow first years stared at me with horrified, hopeless eyes. There were no whispers, only a grave atmosphere.

  Ude spun on the ground, kicking the air, as if fighting demons. She clutched her stomach and retched.

  I sighed. The dizziness form would only affect her for a few minutes. I made a different form, replicating Kory. Comfort in one hand and light in the other. The angle of my wrist focused the direction, and I pointed at Ude.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The light shone bright – she covered her eyes. She still struggled against nothing. “I’ll kill you! I’ll save them! I-”

  I focused the rays, and her eyes glazed over. She still struggled, but in a few minutes, she stopped moving and stared at the sky.

  “Are you done now?” My voice was tired, even more tired than usual.

  “Y-yes…” She coughed. “I lost. Finish this. I can’t bear this humiliation anymore.”

  I sat down on the ground and looked at the glass sky. The stars always shone so bright here. “The Cornerstone of Combat, Standard Close-Quarters Martial Art, Starpower and Its Nature, Dragon’s Might Technique, Leadership for Beginners.”

  “What are you saying?” She lifted her head and gulped, probably swallowing acid reflux.

  “That’s your homework. It’ll probably fix your messy combat.”

  “I-I lost… You can have my heart. Stop this mockery.” The fear in her tone was clearer than ever – she was so obviously afraid of me.

  I laughed, it was a strained, painful kind of laugh. “Why the hell would I want to kill you?” She reeled back. “I don’t have any grudges against you, only grudges against the cruelty of this place.” Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed a healing panacea.

  “For your hand.” I threw it, the pill hit her body, and she didn’t even react.

  “You were telling the truth…”

  A smirk found its way on my face. “See, I made you regret it!” I giggled. “Sorry, that was inappropriate.”

  Her eyes turned towards the pill in the grass. She was reading the results of the scouting. Slowly, she reached towards it and ate it. “Why?”

  “I’m here for magic and for friends, not to kill people.” I shrugged. My blood boiled for a second. “Luckily, geists aren’t people.”

  I got up and turned towards the students. There were four from the unripe class – Nillie, Goile, Sarei, and Milli, amongst the others. Their reactions were mixed. I didn’t bother analyzing them. “This school is beyond violent; it is cruel and thoughtless.” I clenched my fists. “I will take first place on the exam. With it, I will save a life.”

  “If you don’t want to be humiliated by a human, you'd better stick together… Don’t let yourself fall into complacency or servitude.” Starpower surged out of me, right towards the force forms.

  I ascended into the air under the wary gazes of the children. I no longer cared what they thought. This loneliness will pass, so long as I keep striving. With my decision cemented, I flew towards the onyx tower.

  __

  It was a lavish monolith built out of black bricks. From the walls dark thorns of metal grew, twisting into hostile, intimidating forms. Varaxis’s document mentioned that this was the most dangerous tower of them all. Too bad I needed to gather cores for the God’s Flesh.

  I grabbed Siege’s pass and pressed it against the tower. It shook. A haunting, wiggling noise pressed on my ears, and a void-like portal appeared on the wall. I stashed Siege’s pass and gathered my thoughts.

  “Still better than the void of death.” I jumped in.

  My senses went numb, and in a moment, I was back to reality. There was pure darkness and a constant whistling of the air. The ground wasn’t solid; it was covered with tar-like liquid that seeped with cold and smelled of rotten eggs.

  I weaved a light form and recurred it, pressing it into my forehead. The light spilled onto the dungeon. It was a thin, claustrophobic tunnel of rock, with walls that shifted ever so slightly when I looked away from them. Thick shadows of rocks danced beneath the light, even if I wasn’t moving. The tunnel stretched into eternity, consuming my light.

  This was hell, I decided.

  I made a detection form. Just as the sphere of awareness was spreading, the tar beneath my feet sucked out the sensation from the air.

  The dungeon wanted me blind and afraid. I refused.

  My heart pumped like crazy as thoughts of violent murder flashed through my mind. Strengthening turned to full power, and I drudged on.

  For ten minutes, I walked through the tunnel, accompanied by the unsettling whistling of the rocks and the squelching of my feet. Something wet touched my shoulder.

  I struck immediately, but my fist met air. “Fuck…” I gulped. It couldn’t have been the tar; the ceiling was dry. Something invisible was here.

  Despite the scratching fear, I spoke with confidence, “Show yourself or die.” .

  The whistling was the reply.

  My mind sped up. Two hands outwards – plasma and necrosis. The deadly fire burned ahead, but nothing was there.

  I spun around, spraying it everywhere. When it was the turn of the ceiling, something sharp struck my shoulder. Pain shot through my body and then disappeared. I saw it.

  A nearly transparent humanoid figure, with long twisting limbs, as if they were broken. It walked on the ceiling, its slender hands – sharp as knives. It didn’t care that fire was rotting it alive, didn’t bother with anything else.

  Gently, it caressed my shoulder, and I didn’t feel a thing.

  Senseless Parched

  Species: Geist

  SE: 21

  Affinity: Onyx

  Description: parched’s natural technique makes it disappear from perception, its attacks do not cause pain, and it doesn’t kill its victims. It feeds on the suffering that would’ve been felt.

  I shattered its hand with a quick punch, but it wasn’t needed. The parched turned into pure light. A small gem dropped into the tar.

  Agony burst through. I saw the truth of what was happening to my shoulder. It was ripped open in such a way that it didn’t hinder my movement, blood seeped from the wound, dripping into the tar.

  A healing pill was in order. The bleeding stopped immediately, and flesh grew back. In four minutes, the shoulder was spotless. Vita sucked out some of my starpower and covered it back with itself.

  I grinned. This enemy was pathetically easy to kill. Maybe my goal was easier than I thought. I grabbed the actualized potential with a force form and put it into my core bag.

  This tunnel will become my little farm. With barely any effort, I made a recursive necrotic plasma technique and aimed it outwards. Strengthening pumped my muscles, and I jogged, spilling fire in front of me.

  The next hour, I ran forward. Parched? They died quickly from the deadly fire – but there were only three. Not nearly enough. And then I ran right into a crossroad.

  The tunnel split into three, and I had to decide where to go. With the detection form gone, it left only one way forward. “Ene, mene, muh, und raus bist du.” I picked the third one and went back to fire thrower jogging.

  Without the monsters appearing, it quickly got boring. But then, I heard a screech. Constant screaming that got closer and closer. I stopped fueling the necrotizing plasma and overcharged the light form.

  In the distance, thin strands of crimson shot into the wall, then more and more appeared. It was a geist with thick tentacles striking into the wall. Black tar dripped from it everywhere. Within the mass of strung-up flesh, there was a skull-shaped head with one eye and massive teeth. The monster screamed in agony.

  “This is getting fun!”