Description

Ranger’s Dawn

Beneath the Dragoneye Moons: Book Three

____________

Selkie Myth

Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Oathbound Healer

Adventures in the Argo

Ranger’s Dawn

Beyond the Wall

Journey to the Center of Pallos

Immortal Moments

Return to Remus

New Horizons

The Gladiator Gauntlet

This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Kart Studios. Cover Typesetting by MiblArt.

Ranger’s Dawn (Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, Book 3)

Copyright © 2020 Selkie Myth

All rights reserved.

 

This story is dedicated to my wonderful wife, Lauren, without whom this wouldn’t be possible. Her endless love and support keeps me going.

This story is also dedicated to my beautiful daughter Flora, whose smiles light up my every day.

I would also like to acknowledge my beta readers, who put up with my endless typos, fix my mistakes, and help guide the story, so it can be the best story possible.

I’d like to thank all the other supportive authors and writing communities, and all the kind words they have.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Royal Road. My story and success

wouldn’t be possible without their website.

Thank you, to each and every one of you.

 

 

Chapter 1

Ranger Academy I

The rest of the day after the Ranger Convocation – I finally had the name for it – was spent in a giant party in The Room. Food and drink were brought out, and everyone had a chance to min- gle, a chance to chat with each other. A chance to say hello to new teammates, and goodbye to old ones.

Even the ones written on the wall.

Ranger Team 4 – the old one, not the new one – was particularly busy, arguably the center of attention. Artemis retiring, and old teammates were crowding in to say goodbye, other Rangers wanting a word with one of the living legends, and in at least two cases, the movers and shakers of Ariminum wanting to sign their kid up at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft.

And of course, we also had Arthur, the newest Sentinel.

Or, as we were now starting to call him, Toxic.

The problem was compounded by the other Sentinels hanging out with Arthur, wanting to get to know him better, getting a better feel for the newest member of their most exclusive club.

With the celebrity-like status of the Sentinels, more people wanted to see them, effectively making Ranger Team 4 the center of attention, which I didn’t want to be.

Maximus and I eventually managed to escape – Julius felt obligated to stick with people, while Kallisto reveled in being a social butterfly – and hit the buffet line.

Which generally consisted of Maximus taking a small sample of everything, to better expand his horizons, while I hoovered up the mangos.

Artemis popped out at one point, dumping a leg of ham on my plate.

“Eat.” She ordered me.

I gave her a look.

“You know I’m not allowed to tell you anything about Ranger Academy.” Artemis said, seemingly going off on a wild tangent.

Artemis dropped lots of little hints like that, all technically within the letters of the orders every recruit at Ranger Academy was given, but probably breaking the spirit. What I heard it trans- late to: “There’s going to be massive mana consumption at Academy, best get your reserves up.”

Hang on. That didn’t make sense. Blowing tons of mana was fine, it was –

“Eat up, they’re going to underfeed you.”

There we go.

The party continued, people breaking up into groups, mingling, doing general party-ish things.

Parties were not my jam, and I kept finding myself feeling, be- ing, isolated. Artemis tried to stick with me, but she kept having people come up to her, congratulating her on her retirement. Arthur was in an even worse swarm, and while I was no stranger to constant streams of patients in a clinic, this was so much worse on so many levels.

There was no neatly defined relationship of what I was to everyone else. Tagger-on? I was more than that. Ranger? Not quite – especially when I wasn’t called to be in a team. Socially, I was an odd duck, both my age and gender separating me from everyone else. There were a few young kids, but they were young kids. The recruits for the current batch weren’t here, and the grapevine had the youngest graduate of the current year being 22.

All in all, the party was more on the “awkward” end of the spectrum, than the “fun” end.

A few things were fun though.

“Hey Julius!” I called out to him, waving my arm, wandering

over.

“Oh hey Elaine.” Julius said, stopping his conversation with seven other people, one of them a woman.

“Hey Julius! New team?”

“Yup! Getting to know each other, off for some teambuilding exercises soon.”

“Who’s this?” The woman asked.

“This is Elaine. Interesting character we picked up on my last round. About to enter Ranger Academy.”

“On that note – Elaine, this is probably goodbye for now. I hope to see you at the next Convocation, as a full Ranger… again.” Julius held out his hand for a handshake.

I gave him a hug instead, trying to crush him with my 118 Strength. Puny against a higher-level, physically-based Ranger. Strong compared to anyone from Earth, anyone without points in Strength.

“You better stay alive. Get another healer to tag along with you.” I muttered into his armor.

We spent a moment like that.

“Again?” The woman asked, after an appropriate amount of time saying goodbye.

“Well, you see…” Julius started to explain my story, and I de- cided to make myself scarce.

I found Kallisto, flirting with two incredibly good-looking, wealthy-looking women. I shook my head at him. Some guys had all the luck.

“Kallisto!” I sidled up to him.

“Hi, I’m Elaine, his former teammate. Great dude Kallisto. Can’t go wrong.” I said, being a quick wing woman for him. Not that he’d need the help.

“Elaine! This is probably goodbye for now, you’re about to be vanished off to Ranger Academy aren’t you?”

“Yup! Best of luck out there, stay safe! See if you can get a healer to tag along with you. Especially you, you need someone to patch you up if you get ran over by a level 400 monster 20 times your weight.”

“You got ran over by a level 400 monster? I have to hear that story.” One of the ladies asked him, fluttering her eyes.

“Well….” A grin split Kallisto’s face, knowledge that he was in, so to speak, as he started to explain the story of the Nothasaurus, now thirty stories tall, with teeth larger than the Argo, and I went off to find Maximus.

Maximus was, to only a raised eyebrow from me, deep in conversation with the Nature Sentinel, who was holding an entire amphora – basically a fancy jug – of wine, happily drinking right from it.

Nobody would want to pour themselves a drink out of that after he’d had his way with it, but from the rate he was going at, I didn’t think that’d be a concern.

I decided to respectfully hang out, and not interrupt the powerhouse who could literally flatten me with a thought.

Interesting that idea – if someone got strong enough, could they literally kill someone with an errant thought? If they briefly got mad, and activated a massive skill, would it fire? Was there a way to stop that, to restrain yourself? Or were high-level hot- heads doomed to eventually kill someone on impulse?

A solid question, one possibly for the Nature Sentinel. Another day.

Maximus and Nature were in a deep discussion, and I decided a little bit of eavesdropping would be socially acceptable. We were at a party, it wasn’t like I was sneaking up on them, nor were they in a private room or something.

“… Mithril, and Adamantium.” Maximus said. “Speaking of, here’s Elaine! She found the scroll in question.”

Nature turned to me, and he was intense. He was built like a brick shithouse, with a modest layer of fat on him – not that any- one could call him fat, but it was clear he was no body sculptor. It reminded me of a bear, a lion, an apex predator that had some ex- tra weight on him because he was just that successful at hunting down other creatures in the jungle.

He eyed me up and down, and grunted.

“Good find. See you at Academy.”

With that, he turned and walked away, Maximus and I staring

after his back.

“Don’t mind him too much. All the Sentinels are a bit strange. Arthur’s the most normal of them, but give it some time. He’ll have as many screws loose as the rest of them.” Maximus said.

I gave him a Look for that.

Maximus and I spent a bit of time chatting, about nothing much. Mostly Arthur.

“I didn’t see that coming.” Maximus said, for the 3rd time. “Yeah, I had no idea. Anyways, let me know if you find any good stories on the road. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“Thanks! If anyone has an interesting skill at Academy, see how much you can get out of them. Mana, range, ability, versatility, how often they can use it – anything and everything.”

“Sure! Stay safe!”

“Stay a Ranger.” Maximus shot back.

We shook hands, and I wandered off, determined to use [Identify] on every single person, this being a great chance to level the skill.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Identify] has reached level 97!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Identify] has reached level 98!]

Eventually, I found my way back to Artemis’s room, where I’d dragged my cot back.

I changed, and not having much left to do, flopped back down, only to jump up with a scream.

“All the gods dammit Artemis! Why mice!? Why today?!” I yelled into the void.

The remaining two weeks until Ranger Academy passed in a blur. I spent the first week with my parents, who eventually had to leave, to head back home. Dad could only spend so much time away from being a guard, and the trip to and from Aquiliea took weeks in the first place.

We visited all over town. The colossus statue over the harbor, which locals claimed was a statue of Herculix. A grand library that I had to reluctantly tear my eyes away from – I only had so much time with my parents. The Mausoleum, a series of incredibly elaborate burial methods for the rich and famous, to show off for eternity.

I mentally snorted at that one, [Recollection of a Distant Life] helping out. It’d last until the Republic fell, and tomb robbers got to it. If a high level [Tomb Raider] hadn’t already snuck in.

All too soon, I was saying goodbye to them. I didn’t know if I’d be able to write or not, but they promised to try and make it to graduation.

I spent my last few days wandering around the city, suddenly feeling lonely. Artemis still had her room at HQ for some reason, and I was still bunking with her. However, she was running around like her hair was on fire, getting her school started. Lots of work, founding a school. Wasn’t as easy as hanging up a sign on a door it seemed like, and she was a one-woman operation. From what I could see, she took to it with the same determination and grit that she took to being a Ranger, with significantly fewer friendly-fire fatalities.

I also raided the library, but with Academy starting soon-the gap between graduation and the new class starting was to give the instructors a break, or so I’d gathered – it felt like my doom was hanging over me. I tried to stick with a light exercise routine, to not fall too much out of shape.

The last day before Academy started broke, and I woke up to an empty room, Artemis most likely having gotten up when the deadly moons were still high up. I gathered everything that could be considered my worldly possessions – the pendant and knife mom and dad had gotten for me rated as my most valuable, my manuscripts a close second, my new bracelet and dress a distant third, along with my other knick-knacks – and headed down to the temple. I deposited them all with the temple, keeping just a spare tunic, a few loose coins.

I’d handed my Ranger’s badge back – temporarily, and with great reluctance.

I headed down to the baths, having a sneaking suspicion that “luxury bathing time” wasn’t part of the Ranger Academy curriculum. If there was time to get yourself clean, “freezing water” was probably how they did it. With sharks. Little mini-freezing water sharks, to “encourage” you to bathe faster.

I took the plunge into the warm, steamy baths, and got to thinking. Didn’t have much else to do.

Would I get my own bath at Academy? Were women rare enough that they were just thrown in on their own? How did they handle sexual harassment? The team I’d just been with had been fantastic, maybe due to my age, maybe due to their maturity, maybe due to Artemis having bolted them into shape before I came along. Alone, with hundreds of other men? With [Pretty]? Cripes.

At the same time, Artemis had made no mention of it, and she was fiercely protective, like a mother bear.

I liked mother bear Artemis.

To counter that, it’d been years, over a decade, since Artemis was at Academy. Also, Artemis was, to put it mildly, extremely aggressive, having no problems zapping people who annoyed her.

I literally couldn’t, not until they’d committed some action that was overtly hostile, that I could justify a response with flames and burning.

I’d see.

I was driving myself nuts in the bath, and finally got out, toweled myself off, got dressed, and headed back to HQ. A quick meal, and I went to bed early, Artemis still out and about, busy with her school.

I spent hours tossing and turning, nerves creating a massive twist in my guts.

“Up! Up! Come on, let’s go!” Artemis yelled at me, rudely waking me up.

“Academy.” I said, bolting straight up in bed.

“Yup! Move, move, move, move! Get your skinny ass in gear, or I’ll skin you and feed you to a cat!” Artemis yelled at me, point blank.

My mind caught up with what Artemis was saying, and I paused, half-dressed, looking at her.

“Wait, what? A cat?” I asked, confused. Artemis never yelled like this, never had bad insults like this.

Artemis’s grinning face fell. “No good?” She asked. I shook my head.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, being a senior, retired Ranger, and opening a school up for mages, and being, among other things, an amazing former Artillery Mage, and living in the capital now, I was approached and asked to be an Instructor at Academy. Part-time, I’m going to be one of the people yelling at you, trying to convince you to quit.”

Artemis paused a heartbeat, letting that sink in.

“Was practicing my yelling.”

I gave her a single arched eyebrow.

“Maybe stick to the lightning bolts?”

“Lightning bolts!? Lightning bolts!? What do I look like to you, some pint-sized lightning bolt mage, who can only zap things!?” I thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Yup.”

“Drop and give me 20 recruit!”

I carefully schooled my face to not give away how little I thought of 20 push ups as punishment, and did them. Artemis needed some serious help on the drill instructor front, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

Nah, I’d let someone else sass her too far, let her bolt the hell out of them, and go from there. If Artemis was using me as a test dummy to sharpen her verbal wit, I wasn’t going to make the knife going into me any sharper.

Thankfully, The Room was where new recruits to Academy met for the first day. What happened after that, I had no idea. Nobody would tell me, or rather, they were under orders not to.

We all found spots on the main floor, jam-packed like sardines. I was lucky in one sense to be on the main floor – unlucky in an- other, in that I couldn’t see much besides the back of the people in front of me.

Damn being short.

I got some strange looks from the people standing next to me, who glanced at each other.

“She’s a healer.” One of them said, with some surprise. The other one looked down at me, obviously using [Identify] or something, and raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t see that every day.”

They glanced at each other, then shifted themselves slightly, to give me a bit more room, shield me a hair.

“Thanks.” I said, meaning it. I’d have appreciated being involved in the conversation, but hey, I could be offended that they’d done all that without even saying hi to me, or appreciative that they were preventing me from being crushed. Seriously, was the requirement to join this year to be twice my weight and height or something!?

A hush spread through the crowd, and I decided my dignity was worth less than seeing what was going on. I stood up on the bench, finally able to see over the heads of the rest of the crowd. “Welcome, new Ranger Academy recruits!” A member of Command yelled from the podium.

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 16]

[Mana: 17210/17210]

[Mana Regen: 20521]

Stats

[Free Stats: 62]

[Strength: 118]

[Dexterity: 218]

[Vitality: 235]

[Speed: 220]

[Mana: 1721]

[Mana Regeneration: 2379]

[Magic Power: 1506]

[Magic Control: 2039]

[Class 1: [Constellation of the Healer – Celestial: Lv 187]]

[Celestial Affinity: 187]

[Warmth of the Sun: 160]

[Medicine: 184]

[Center of the Galaxy: 160]

[Phases of the Moon: 187]

[Moonlight: 104]

[Veil of the Aurora: 146]

[Veil of the Aurora: 146]

[Vastness of the Stars: 135]

[Class 2: [Pyromancer – Fire: Lv 62]]

[Fire Affinity: 62]

[Fire Resistance: 62]

[Fire Conjuration: 62]

[Fire Manipulation: 62]

[Fuel for the Fire: 62]

[Burn Brightly: 62]

[Rapidash: 62]

[:]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Identify: 98]

[Recollection of a Distant Life: 131]

[Pretty: 125]

[Vigilant: 131]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 167]

[Ranger’s Lore: 140]

[:]

[Learning: 148]

 

Chapter 2

Ranger Academy II

“Welcome, new Ranger Academy recruits!” A member of Command yelled from the podium.

A modest cheer came from us.

“It is an honor to welcome you to the class of 4798!”

“I’d like to thank the Instructors, the members of Ranger Team O, and the Sentinels who have chosen to impart their knowledge to each of you. Each and every one of them works tirelessly to train you, to instruct you, to help give you the skills needed for you to survive out there once we’re done with you.”

“You are the best Remus has to offer, and have passed a gruel- ing pre-selection process. Through this training, you will become one of the elites, the best of the best, the pinnacle of humanity – a Ranger.”

Pre-selection process? Welp, one of the benefits of being named a Ranger on the road – I guess I was allowed to completely skip that.

“The training will be difficult. It will be hard. Right now, there are 509 of you. Only about 110 of you will make it to graduation. Only about 100 of you will be selected to become a Ranger. If you fail, you’re automatically able to re-enroll, and try again.”

“And now, I’ll pass you off to Ocean.”

He sat down, and a tanned, sleek, fit man, like Swimmer but better in every respect, with swirling tattoos in teal ink that looked like waves on his face took the podium

“Without further ado, Trainees! On me!”

Bless Artemis and the rest of the team teaching me proper military commands and discipline. About two-thirds of the trainees immediately started moving, following Ocean as he jogged out of the arena. The remaining trainees quickly caught on, and fol- lowed as well, mixing in with the crowd.

Ocean set a brisk, but not unreasonable pace through head- quarters, then out onto the street, as we slowly fell into ranks and rows behind him.

Well, it was clear who came from the army, and who came in through the external selection process. The army people – I considered myself in that group – ended up in neat ranks and rows as we jogged in unison through the town. The non-army people ended up either figuring it out quickly, and getting their own place in the formation, or getting jostled out to the side, to fall be- hind the rest of us.

We didn’t go down the main, central road through the city, but we were on one of the major arteries. People took a look at us jog- ging through the roads, the sheer implacable mass of bodies, and decided that when an implacable force met their very moveable object, it was time to get out of the way.

At least, that was my assumption. I could mostly see the back of the person in front of me, and a bunch of people pressed to the side of the road, under awnings and in alleys.

At one point I saw a massive wave of water lifting a wagon up and out of the way, the casual display of power by Ocean sending a shiver down my spine.

The guards didn’t try to stop us in the slightest, the gates opening well before we got there, and the 500+ trainees jogging through, the instructors and Team 0 taking up the rear, catching anyone who might’ve fallen behind.

We made our way down to the docks, where three large ships were waiting for us. We loaded up, and set sail.

As the sailors pushed the boats off from the docks, a wave of loneliness hit. My parents were gone. Artemis might show up now and then, but she was busy doing her own thing. Julius. Kallisto. Maximus. They were all gone, off on a new round. Odds were, one of them would never return.

I suppose Arthur, or as he might now go by, Toxic, might be around now and then. Depends how much he needed to learn as a Sentinel, how much they needed him to solve problems, and how much he wanted to teach. Still – in quite a few senses, I had no- body here.

I didn’t want to be arrogant – Perinthus, Maximus, and a number of other incidents had taught me that I never knew enough, that I was never good enough, that I had to always strive to be better. However, Arthur had spent a good amount of time teaching me poisons and woodcraft, how to hunt and survive in the wilderness. If he was teaching anything, did he have anything new to teach me that he hadn’t already imparted in the almost two years we spent together?

It took less than an hour to make it to a large island, the home of Ranger Academy.

I expected austere military barracks, maybe stone, maybe shitty huts. I expected that maybe we’d be made to camp in the woods, learning to build our own shelters. Perhaps we’d be as- signed a wagon and tents, like Rangers on the road were, to learn to live that lifestyle.

I did not expect what could only be summed up as “decadent opulence.” There was a massive, sprawling villa made out of marble, statues and fountains of water, dozens of healthy, happy- looking slaves bustling around, moving plates of food around.

Were… were those escorts lounging about and waving? Were we at the right place? This was the fearsome Ranger Academy? We didn’t end up at a luxury resort for the rich and famous?

Nope, the boat was going to the dock attached to the villa.

“What on Pallos?” I asked the person next to me, the same one who’d helped shield me in the arena. He looked at me, hesitated, then said.

“I’m a repeat. I’m not allowed to say anything about what goes on, but it is part of the Academy.”

I narrowed my eyes. That wasn’t a ringing endorsement of the place. There wasn’t a note of longing, of happiness at seeing Hotel Luxury again. There was a tired, exhausted note. Not all was what it seemed.

We disembarked slowly.

“Septimus. Room 6.”

“Octavius. Room 44.”

As each person got off the boat, they reported to one of the instructors, who looked up their name, and told them which room they’d be in.

“Elaine.” The instructor looked at my name, and hesitated. Uh oh.

 

“Stand here for a minute.” He finally said. I walked to the spothe pointed at, getting a glimpse at the clipboard as I did so.

“Have her wait.” Was the only thing written down.

Well then, that was not a promising start to Academy.

I hung out, only to see a familiar gigantic shape jogging to- wards me.

“Arthur!” I called out to him, waving happily.

He only frowned at me. My hand slowly dropped to the side. Was he pissed at me? Did he not like me or something?

“Trainee Elaine.” He said, as formally as he could, then paused, waiting for me.

“Trainee Elaine, when I address you, I expect a ‘sir’ at the start and end of everything you say. Do you understand me?” Arthur said again.

Ah. Right. This wasn’t the casual Ranger group anymore, the six of us happily traveling together as equals. This was Ranger Academy, where Arthur was one of the hotshots, the amazing Sentinel, and I was just another Trainee at the bottom of the totem pole. I’d gotten some drilling on this, but it hadn’t quite clicked until now that here and now was when it was relevant.

“Sir! Yes sir!” I said, throwing in a salute for good measure. “Very good. While we’re here, I’m Toxic. Come with me.” Arthur said, and started to jog up to the villa, passing lines of new trainees making their way to their room.

[*ding!* Congratulations! You’ve unlocked the General Skill [Training]! Would you like to take this skill?]

Training: Hoorah! You’re an army recruit, and you have a long way to go trainee! This skill gives extra experience when training, and makes picking up skills and learning from the instructors that much easier! 1.5% boost to all experience per level when be- ing trained. Note: Only applies to army training.

Well, I had a free skill slot, and this let me kick the can down the road of what skill I wanted to get. I was pretty sure this skill stacked with [Learning], and a good amount of Ranger Academy seemed dedicated to raising my skills. Maybe I’d get lucky enough to class up, or be able to work with some of the instructors on good skills.

[Recollection of a Distant Life] I had a sneaking suspicion was reaching the end of its useful life as well. I’d written my manuscripts, the total sum of all medical knowledge I had, and the only thing left were tales and stories. It’d gotten me into the Rangers, but now I was here on my own merit.

Unless I decided to take some sort of Bard class as my second class. It’d be an interesting evolution to be sure, but it’d take me out of direct combat, doubling up on the support. If it was a sup- port class, and not some sort of wandering bard related thing. A decision for another day.

We made our way into the villa, and it was even nicer on the inside than the outside. Artwork, marble busts, and trays of delicious food scattered the hallways, and jugs of wine could be found on every other corner.

The hell was going on here? This looked like paradise.

We reached a room, labeled room 100.

“Ar-Toxic, what’s going on? Sir.” I said, confused, belatedly remembering to add the “sir” at the end.

Arthur looked at me, hesitated, then shook his head.

“I’m also being tested, seeing if I can keep secrets now that I’m a Sentinel. Can’t tell you, Trainee Elaine.”

Hmmmm, interesting. Alrighty then.

We entered the room, and it was nice. Very nice. There were even some mangos on a tray.

The fuck was going on?

“Ahem. Trainee Elaine, at attention.” Arthur said. I turned around, snapping to attention.

“As may be incredibly obvious to you, you’re a girl.”

I resisted rolling my eyes, since Arthur was doing it for me. “While we believe every Trainee will hold themselves to the highest standard, there have been incidents in the past. Here’s an emergency signal disk. Pour some mana into it, and break in case of, ah, an incident. We really don’t want any casualties.”

I was having a hard time keeping a poker face at Arthur’s clear discomfort over having to give me this lecture. It was good to know that they’d thought of this before, and had a system in place.

Honestly, thinking about it, it was more likely there had been numerous problems in the past, and Arthur’s mention of causalities made me wonder if this was to solve the problem before a body count started to pile up. Artemis must’ve been what, 18 when she went through Academy? Ooooh yeah, I could totally see Artemis causing a number of casualties. I was a healer, young, and honestly, vulnerable-looking. Yup, time to keep this disk with me.

“Quite frankly, after the first 3 months, there’s never been an incident, so you can probably relax after that.”

“Please don’t sleep with anyone, and please, please don’t get pregnant. They’ll throw you out for the second one, and get really mad at the first one.”

“If an instructor approaches you, there’s a chance they’re being an idiot and trying to test you, in spite of being told not to. If an instructor persists, know you can always say no, and talk to a Sentinel about it.” Arthur paused a moment, then added. “I recommend Night or Ocean. They’re the serious ones that you’re likely to find.”

Arthur was fuming red at this point, and I let a chuckle escape at how incredibly uncomfortable he seemed.

“Understood Trainee Elaine?” He finally finished and asked me.

 

“Sir! Yes sir.” I responded.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 2!]

He relaxed.

“Good.”

I cracked a grin at him.

“Never had to give the talk before?”

“Ug no. That was terrible.” Arthur said, clearly relaxing back into his “Arthur” role, and no longer    “Toxic.”

I grinned at him.

“Why, Arthur, I never knew that-”

“Elaine, if you finish that sentence, I will damn you to thou- sands of pushups.”

I grumbled something under my breath about “abuse of power”.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 3!]

Seriously System?

Then again, I wasn’t going to complain.

He gestured around the room.

“I’m told to tell you to make yourself comfortable and at home. Mingling occurs later on, where you can meet the other recruits. When the big gong strikes, assemble in the front courtyard – you have 45 heartbeats to get there, and fall in formation. Any questions?”

I opened my mouth to ask about his first statement, then closed it. Arthur was also being tested, I reminded myself.

“Sir! No sir!” I said, saluting. Might as well do this properly. Arthur saluted back, then left. I grabbed the mangos, and sat on the bed, thinking as I peeled and ate them.

Everyone was being incredibly, suspiciously cagey about this villa. Clearly, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Arthur telling me “He was told to tell me to make myself comfortable” translated to he didn’t think I should make myself comfortable and at home. The recycled Trainee on the boat not having good things to say about the place reinforced that feeling.

However, Artemis telling me to eat, trying to stuff me, suggested that if nothing else, I should chow down.

I ate everything in the room, then started to roam the hall- ways, grabbing food and chowing down, a one-girl whirlwind of gluttony. Mmmm, I had been offered a glutton class once upon a time…

I made some polite conversation with some of the other trainees, most of which were reveling in the luxury and excess, a few with a hard look in their eyes joining me on my quest to give myself indigestion.

However, as the sun started to get lower in the sky – I could tell from the open-aired courtyards scattered throughout – my fellow gluttons slowly dropped out of the eating contest. Figuring that they had advanced knowledge, or were recycled, I decided that when in Ranger Academy, do as the Rangers, and stopped eating as well.

I started to work my way towards the front courtyard, dodging some trainees with giggling women on their arms. The fuck?

I found the front courtyard, and just hung out, making some small talk. I noticed a half-dozen animals that I hadn’t seen be- fore, including an Ornithocheirus with a saddle, a massive bear, steam billowing off of it like it had just left a hot tub – or was Steam-aligned – a muzzled saber-tooth tiger, all lean muscle, flexing its claws, a pair of wolves, one with a bright, shiny coat, one matted dark as night, curled up with each other, a massive potted plant in a wheelbarrow – what?

I knew Rangers tended to be strange people, as it required a certain type of crazy to get to the levels needed, and to sign up for a job with such a high fatality rate. It hadn’t quite occurred to me just how much crazy there was, and that it’d be concentrated at the Academy.

In the front of the courtyard, there were two gongs. One was a massive thing of bronze, twisting pillars supporting it, glowing inscriptions on it, at least 10 meters in diameter. The other was much smaller, the size of a normal gong, maybe one meter in diameter, simple looking, but with even more densely written inscriptions on it.

One of the instructors walked out, nodded at us already in the courtyard.

“You’ll do well.” He said to all of us, before walking up to the big bronze gong and punching it as hard as he could.

B00000000000000000000000nnnnnnnnnggg

The sound of the gong reverberated through the island, calling us to attention.

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 16]

[Mana: 17210/17210]

[Mana Regen: 20521]

Stats

[Free Stats: 62]

[Strength: 118]

[Dexterity: 218]

[Vitality: 235]

[Speed: 220]

[Mana: 1721]

[Mana Regeneration: 2379]

[Magic Power: 1506]

[Magic Control: 2039]

[Class 1: [Constellation of the Healer – Celestial: Lv 187]]

[Celestial Affinity: 187]

[Warmth of the Sun: 160]

[Medicine: 184]

[Center of the Galaxy: 160]

[Phases of the Moon: 187]

[Moonlight: 104]

[Veil of the Aurora: 146]

[Vastness of the Stars: 135]

[Class 2: [Pyromancer – Fire: Lv 62]]

[Fire Affinity: 62]

[Fire Resistance: 62]

[Fire Conjuration: 62]

[Fire Manipulation: 62]

[Fuel for the Fire: 62]

[Burn Brightly: 62]

[Rapidash: 62]

[:]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Identify: 98]

[Recollection of a Distant Life: 121]

[Pretty: 125]

[Vigilant: 131]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 167]

[Ranger’s Lore: 140]

[Training: 3]

[Learning: 148]

Chapter 3

Ranger Academy III

The sound of the gong reverberated through the air, the inscriptions lighting up. It was strangely quiet for how close to us it was, and if I had to guess, there was both a dampening, and amplification going on, letting the noise of the gong echo through the entire island, letting people know wherever they were.

One trainee immediately stepped forward in the courtyard, raised an arm, and yelled out “On me.”

A number of people started to fall into rank and file to the side and behind him, and I joined in. I mentally dubbed the trainee who’d called out the fall-in “Leadership Material.”

Those of us in the courtyard already filled out the first few rows, and there were sounds of scrambling, tripping, swearing, and some clanks, clangs, excessive swearing, and one loud shattering noise from behind.

I kept my eyes forward, not that turning around to look be- hind me would have me seeing anything. If nothing else, I needed to learn how to fly so I could see over groups.

Not that I couldn’t step on [Veil], but the mana consumption was horrible. It was easier for me to fix a shattered body in terms of mana than to use [Veil] as a stepping-stone.

After a time I’d guess was exactly 45 heartbeats after the initial gong strike, the instructors pounced, yelling obscenities at the trainees who were showing up late.

They were creative, I’d give them that. I didn’t think the trainee’s grandmother could bend that way, regardless of what the instructor said.

The side of my lips curled back in a grimace at another particularly offensive insult. Wasn’t that going a hair too far…?

In short order, the vast majority of us were in formation, waiting for the instructors to begin their next lecture, while about a quarter of the trainees were in the back, getting smoked by the instructors for being late.

Must not smile. Must not crack a grin at someone else getting punished. That was a one-way ticket to getting punished myself.

“Trainees, listen up! I am Quintis, your Senior Drill Instructor! From now on, you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of the dung pit you all call your mouths will be sir! Do you slimes understand me!?”

“Sir, yes sir!” We sounded off, some of us more with it than others. A few “understood”, and at least two “affirmative” re- placed “yes”, but for the most part we were in unison.

“For the next two years you will sleep here! Learn here! And if the gods smile upon us, some of you might become good enough to be a Ranger! Just know, at any time, anytime of day or night at all, you maggots can crawl over to that silver gong over there and tap it! If you do, you are free! Free from sleeping in the mud, the leeches in your boots, the worms in your food! Free to go back to the villa, and enjoy all the wonderful luxuries every god and god- dess has seen fit to place on this beautiful planet! Free to enjoy the life each and every one of you is capable of living, with your skills and abilities! You will also be paid a frankly ludicrous amount of money for no longer wasting my time! The sooner you quit, the more you get! Do you understand me!?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Another cry came out, more unified.

The purpose of the villa became crystal clear with his statement. It wasn’t a trap, really. It was more of a lure, a way to see who couldn’t tough it out, who’d rather have a life of ease and luxury instead of the hardships of being a Ranger.

It made sense. Anyone who’d give up at the hardships now, was likely to give up during the hardships on the road. By making it as nice as possible, anyone who’d choose a life of ease, a life of luxury, over being a Ranger, over the Ranger’s mission, would be selected and filtered out.

It could also be an anti-corruption measure. Who would be tempted by wealth, luxury, ease, women, men? The only temptation not present was power.

It’s why Arthur couldn’t tell me to get comfortable – he didn’t want to see me get used to that standard of living, to be drawn back to it.

A commotion came from the back, louder than before.

“but-”

“Don’t care! You’re out! Get! Onto the boat with you, you’re being shipped out.”

Must. Not. Look.

From the sounds of the yelling and the instructors, genius back there had decided he didn’t need to show up to formation, was too busy enjoying himself, and had mouthed off to the instructors. He was being thrown out as a result.

Idiot.

The Senior Drill Instructor continued to yell at us for a bit, and the short version was as follows. Over the next week or so, we’d get the bare-bone basics of how to do basic army things, for those of us without proper, formal training. Most of the people coming in from the army had already done that, but about a third were ‘external’, and needed to learn some really basic stuff, like salut- ing, marching, and other basics.

Then would be three months of hell, which caused the instructor to stop swearing every three words, and almost gleefully told us everything about it. Training, 22 hours a day, being pushed to our limits and past them. Sleep? Sleep might happen, now and then. Maaaybe 4 hours a week, if we were lucky. Food? Yeah, we might get some rations here and there. If the instructors felt we’d earned it.

For three months.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone wavering, starting to show cracks at the mere description of what we were going to go through. I had bets on him not making it. If hearing about it was causing that much indecision?

After much yelling and hollering, which was somehow incredibly boring but I forced myself to focus on it, we were told to fall out, get in lines, and have a conversation with one of the instructors.

We did what we were told, and ended up in roughly 50 lines of 10 people each. I ended up in Quintis’s line, and when it was my turn, I stood in front of him and saluted.

“Sir! Trainee Elaine reporting as ordered. Sir!”

Good first impression, good first impression, don’t get on the Senior Drill Instructors bad side.

“Give me 200 burpees peanut!” Quintis promptly yelled at me. I hated burpees. Pushup, followed by jumping in the air, only to go right back down to a pushup. I did what he said anyways. “Do you know why you’re doing burpees!?” Quintis yelled at me.

“Sir!” pant, get a breath in. “no sir!”

“You are not Trainee Elaine! You are Ranger Elaine, and will re- fer to yourself as such! Do you understand me?”

“Sir! Yes sir!” I yelled out, as I did the standing up part of a burpee.

“Ranger Julius saw fit to promote you. Now, you weren’t one of mine, but now you will be. However! Until your pansy ass quits Academy, you are a Ranger, and will not besmirch the name by re- ferring to yourself by anything else! Are we clear?” Quintis yelled at me.

“Sir! Yes sir!” I yelled back.

I had a feeling that I had a bunch of eyes on me at this point. Dammit all. So much for trying to stay relatively low-profile. At the very least, Quintis, maybe, possibly seemed to vaguely be happy that I was here, and didn’t seem to massively hate that I’d become a Ranger outside of his precious Academy.

“Right then. Ranger Elaine. I need a report on the following. Can you swim? Can you read? Can you write? Do you know your numbers? Can you….”

A long, long list of questions came from Quintis, and I answered to the best of my ability, while still doing burpees.

I could swim, read, write. I could march, salute, dig a latrine, couldn’t build a fortification. Made me a bit of an oddball, and Quintis muttered to himself on that one, although apparently, I wasn’t the only one. Kids of soldiers usually missed fortification building as well. I couldn’t sail, my knots were terrible, my wilderness survival passable, my first aid knowledge top-tier. I had an aura. A dozen other questions, probing to see what I could already do, what I’d need training on.

I felt pleased by my answers, the knowledge I had coming in. I’d gotten a thorough practical education on my way here from Julius and the team, and upon reflection, it was like what they taught me had been tailored just for here and now.

Which it kinda was. They were teaching me practical Ranger skills, and Ranger Academy was all about being taught practical Ranger skills.

I was an offensive mage + support, and I wouldn’t classify my- self as a physical fighter or utility. Strange how Support and Utility were broken out into separate groups, but six of one, half dozen of another, and I was considered to be Support. I didn’t have any animal companions, or any ‘other’.

“Right, last questions. Do you have binding or restrictive skills?”

I blinked. Was this a standard question? Was this a-

“Ranger Elaine! Stop standing there with your thumb up your ass and answer the gods-damned question!”

Right.

“Sir! I have a powerful restrictive [Oath], surrounding harm, fighting, and healing. Sir!”

“Well spit it out! I haven’t got all day!”

Ah curses.

I recited the [Oath] as I continued to do a burpee, the physical exertion making it hard to talk. One moment I was talking to Quintis’s face, the next I was detailing [Oath] to the ground, whispering my secrets to Gaia. I did get a whistle out of Quintis for my efforts though.

“Right, you’re going to be handed off to Night eventually.” He said, forgetting to curse me out in the middle.

“What are you still doing here Ranger Elaine!? Get out of here! Next!”

After some time milling around on the field, we were called into formation again.

“All of you are Ranger Trainees! As a result, you selkie-looking slimes should all be offered the skill, [Ranger’s Lore] as of… now! Take it! It’s an upgrade of [Soldier’s Solidarity], and will be one of the most useful skills you worthless heathens will ever see!”

“You will also be judged by how high you get it!”

“Basic training starts tomorrow! You shit-stains are all dis- missed!” Quintis yelled, freeing us.

I headed back to my room, not wanting to mingle, checking over my level up notifications.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 4!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 11!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Learning] has reached level 149!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Medicine] has reached level 185!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 161!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Ranger’s Lore] has reached level 142!]

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 16]

[Mana: 17210/17210]

[Mana Regen: 20521]

Stats

[Free Stats: 62]

[Strength: 118]

[Dexterity: 218]

[Vitality: 235]

[Speed: 220]

[Mana: 1721]

[Mana Regeneration: 2379]

[Magic Power: 1506]

[Magic Control: 2039]

[Class 1: [Constellation of the Healer – Celestial: Lv 187]]

[Celestial Affinity: 187]

[Warmth of the Sun: 160]

[Medicine: 184]

[Center of the Galaxy: 160]

[Phases of the Moon: 187]

[Moonlight: 104]

[Veil of the Aurora: 146]

[Vastness of the Stars: 135]

[Class 2: [Pyromancer – Fire: Lv 62]]

[Fire Affinity: 62]

[Fire Resistance: 62]

[Fire Conjuration: 62]

[Fire Manipulation: 62]

[Fuel for the Fire: 62]

[Burn Brightly: 62]

[Rapidash: 62]

[:]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Identify: 98]

[Recollection of a Distant Life: 121]

[Pretty: 125]

[Vigilant: 131]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 167]

[Ranger’s Lore: 142]

[Training: 11]

[Learning: 149]

Chapter 4

Ranger Academy IV

I made my way back to my room as the sun fell, the moons starting to slowly rise, slitted pupils watching this part of my journey. I grabbed a quick meal from one of the platters lying around, and contemplatively munched on it. If I had to guess, from the way some of the other recruits were busy eating earlier, and the various hints dropped by Artemis, combined with sheer logic, that the hell months didn’t feed us enough.

I nodded to myself. That made sense.

As I fixed myself my own sandwich – I still had to teach other people how to make them – I considered my plan of attack. Would it be better to scuff as much as I could now, then have the sharp fall-off once the hell months started? Or was it better to start weaning myself now, to not have that sharp spike of hunger pains at the start?

I wandered into my room, still lost in my own thoughts.

What about sleep? No way we weren’t going to get sleep deprived, not with how often I’d pulled watch, not with how often we’d gone gallivanting off in the middle of the night to handle some crisis or another. Should I start weaning myself down now,

or-

My musing was interrupted as someone entered my room.

“Hey you. Want some of this?” A shirtless man said, indicating to himself.

I couldn’t help pulling a disgusted face at him.

“Ug, no.” I said. “Please leave.”

“Aww come on, don’t be like-” He started to say, only to get interrupted by a hiss.

I’d heard snakes of all stripes in the Kadan Jungle. I’d heard louder hisses, meaner hisses, and the sound and cadence of the noise made me think of a snake.

However, none of their noises broke, shattered [Center of the Galaxy] in quite the same way. None of them brought about a deep, primal fear, rooted in my very bones, fight-or-flight instinct screaming at me to move, to run, to flee for my life.

I couldn’t move a limb, the fear was paralyzing, an apex predator here for me. There was no running. There was no hiding. There was no fighting. There was only groveling.

A second man entered the room – fully clothed bless him- and he was a pale, thin man, with red eyes and white hair, stalking forward with his hands clasped behind his back. My guess was he had albinism.

Softly, oh so softly, he spoke, every word defying how I knew sound should work, piercing through the static background noise, he spoke.

“Did you not hear the lady? Your presence is neither requested nor desired. Leave.”

I seized the moment to [Identify] him. I had to know what I was dealing with.

[Warrior].

He was higher-level than the Nothasaurus, by a good chunk. If I had to guess, from all my experiences, he was just shy of level 500.

I wondered – first real class at level 8. Second class at level 64. Was the third class at level 512?

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Identify] has reached level 99!]

I dismissed the notification – it wasn’t supposed to show up during high stress or combat situations.

I suddenly felt a sense of release, as I regained control over my limbs.

“Oh yeah? Who are you? Why should I-” The man started to bluster.

I gave him a Look, like he was the biggest idiot in the world. Which he might be. Did he not [Identify] the person in front of us? Did he not realize that the person was higher than both our levels combined? Was he one of those idiots who didn’t have [Identify], or was he scared, and simply lashing out?

“I am Night, first among the Sentinels. This is my island. I will brook no disrespect.” He said, and suddenly I was on my knees, bleeding from my ears, unable to hear anything as everything in the room shook.

Night and the man were gone, and I healed myself with [Phases of the Moon], [Center of the Galaxy] kicking back in.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 161!]

I blinked, looking around. It was like a bomb had gone off in here. What had…

With a polite knock on my doorframe – I no longer had a door -Night was present again.

“Please, walk with me.” He politely said, and with the display of power, and his previous declaration, I wasn’t going to say no.

We slowly walked through and out the villa in silence, Night only pausing to request a slave to get my room fixed. The slave’s attitude was telling – deferential, but not terrified. Nor surprised at the damage.

“I apologize for the unpleasantness.” He started off saying, finally breaking the silence. “There always tends to be one who thinks my orders are mere suggestions. They must be reminded of their position.”

I suppressed a shudder. It was clear that Night placed himself above all the other trainees – and for that matter, he might be placing himself above all the other Sentinels. Which, by implication, was placing himself above most of humanity.

“What happened to…” I said, gesturing back towards the villa. Night snorted.

“He went for a long swim. He should be able to make it. Only about half a mile or so, and the moons are out tonight.”

I looked at him. There wasn’t a drop of water on him. Either he was able to accurately hurl a person half a mile, he could run on water, or he was just so fast that he could towel himself off and change clothes in the brief time he was gone.

Which meant the explosion in my room earlier had been from Night moving that fast, the blast of air so loud, so powerful, it caused a minor explosion. From 0. While carefully accelerating a second, not as durable person.

Fucking hell. What sort of monster was I talking with?

I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat.

“What do you want with me?” I asked, looking directly at him. He laughed.

“Ah, brave little otter. I wanted to have a discussion on your [Oath]. I am, shall we say, something of an expert on restriction skills, and yours has potential to be problematic during the training that is to come.”

I had never been called an otter before, but if the highest-level human in existence wanted to call me an otter, I’d swim on my back and carry a pebble.

“Restriction skills?” I said, wanting a clarification on the termi- nology, and there seemed to be no better person to ask.

“Yes. Skills which bind you, and give you power as a result. I am Night. It is an open secret that I am restricted to operating when the sun is not present. The skill strengthens me, empowers me to reach untold heights.”

Which might be why he was such a high level. He could punch far, far higher than normal, and as long as he hunted during the night, he could slay monsters higher level than him, getting a large bonus to exp for punching up. Being able to reliably kill monsters his level also helped.

“My concern is multifold. People will be injured. We need toknow who can push through minor injuries, and still accomplish what needs to be done. We can not have individuals get used to being healed now, then find that they falter and fail when present in the field. This will kill many, many Rangers.”

“At the same time, I do not wish to separate you, to put you through a trial of one. It is unfair to everyone involved. You will not bind to the others, develop a sense of comradery. At the same time, you will be resented, accused of acquiring special favors through less savory means. This too, can not be allowed to pass.” “Tell me. How do we make this work?” Night said.

We walked, taking a slow lap around the villa, as I thought on the problem, fingers tapping against my side.

“Well…. If someone’s at risk of dying, there’s no way I’m not going to try and keep them alive.” I started off saying.

“Acceptable, and please do. We have a pair of healers, but they are not always on-hand, and preventing training accidents is to be desired. My concerns are more low-level injuries, broken bones and the like.”

‘Broken bones’ and ‘low level injuries’ didn’t go together in my book, but this was Night, and his scale and perspective were clearly different.

“If people explicitly ask me to not heal them, I won’t. I believe, for the most part, in self-determination, in letting people make their own choices. Have people ask me to not step in on minor in- juries, and I won’t be restricted. Now, if someone comes to me and asks for healing, I will heal them, regardless of the consequences.”

Night gave me a long look, as we continued to walk.

“This is acceptable. Tell me more about overriding people’s choice.”

“When the impact is more than just the person. Perinthus, some people refused healing. They put the entire town at risk, for what? Their ego? Some strange desire to not want help? Some sense of pride? No, at that point, the good of the many out- weighed the desire of the few, and they were healed, regardless.” We walked again in slow, contemplative silence.

“What if you had to let one die, to let two more live? Three?

What if you had to kill one person, to save four? Five? At what point does your [Oath] free you, let you make decisions to kill, in- stead of save?” He finally asked.

I stopped, staring at him, thinking. He stopped, turning, looking at me with those intense eyes.

“I don’t know.” I finally said. “I know I couldn’t deliberately launch an attack on the Classer causing the plague in Perinthus, regardless of the damage he was doing. Fortunately, I had a team to cover me.”

“If your team was not present, what would your course of action have been?” He said, each word carefully articulated.

“Told the guard. Told other healers. I wouldn’t have shouted it from the rooftops – that would’ve sparked a riot. Possibly con- fronted him, let him launch the first attack, then go from there.” I promptly replied. I’d done a lot of thinking on the subject.

“If you see a powerful archer drawing a bow at you, stacking skills, what could you do?” Night asked me, seemingly changing the subject.

“[Veil] to hide myself and block the arrow, move into a different position, evaluate if I should be fighting or running.” I said. Another situation I’d had some thinking on.

“You do not need him to fire first to attack back?” Night asked. I shook my head.

“It’s clear the archer’s hostile. My [Oath] is restrictive, it doesn’t mean I have to be stupid.”

“What if someone was attempting to merely restrict you, just bind you? They meant you no harm, they simply wished to kid- nap a powerful healer.”

“Attack the bindings. Throw up my shield skill. Attacks against my shield are obviously hostile against me, and I can go from there.”

“If said hostile parties chose not to attack your barrier, and simply erected a prison around you?”

I hesitated, not wanting to say that I’d probably be in serious trouble.

“Very well.” Night said, properly interpreting what my silence meant. “The solution is to get your secondary class to the point where the question is meaningless.”

We walked for some more time in contemplative silence. “Excellent pairing of classes, by the way. It used to be the traditional pairing for healers to take a mage class secondarily. Did you come up with the pairing yourself, or did you discover some account of it with your great joy in reading historical accounts?” Night asked.

I suppressed a shiver. He knew way too much about me. It was kinda creepy.

“I came up with it on my own. Why did the pairing fall out of favor?” I asked.

Night shrugged.

“Pure healers stayed in camps and towns, becoming wealthy. Healer-mages went out and fought. Over time, the healer-mages died out, as those that fight tend to do, and youngsters looking to become healers did some basic calculations. Stay, and become wealthy and respected, or go, and become dead. Is it any wonder that healers ended up entirely backline? Mages get a full sixteen skills to defend themselves against attack with, while healer- mages tend to only have eight. On the other side of the coin, it’s exceptionally rare for those that find themselves with a calling to become a mage deciding to take up the more peaceful mantle of healing.”

“Hence, healer-mages dying out as a combination.”

We continued to walk for a bit, then reached the front of the villa again.

“Miss Elaine. It has been a pleasure. I wish you the best of luck in the coming weeks.” Night formally said. “I do hope none of the earlier unpleasantness will occur again.”

I saluted, knowing when I was being dismissed.

“Thank you Night.” I said, turning and leaving.

The next few days were relatively straightforward. Early wakeup, formation, a run around the island, then get some bare- bone essentials drilled into us, mostly for the benefit of the non- army members who had joined. That way, when the instructors told us to do something, we’d know what exactly they were asking us to do. Break for lunch, more drills, then more laps and light exercise.

The two wolves were hilarious, marching in lockstep behind us with a pair of goofy grins. They didn’t need to, but they were clearly having the time of their lives making fun of us. Or participating. Hard to tell.

I had a brief talk with the owner of the wolves, who said the black one’s name was Moon.

And the white one’s name was Moon.

Why you’d name your two wolves the same thing, I had no idea. I had to stifle a laugh every time he asked “MoonMoon” to do something though. Odds were good, the wrong Moon would do it – and from the glint of mischief in their eyes, it was deliberately to wind Wolfy up.

[Ranger’s Lore], [Learning], and [Training] were all enjoying the current activities, seeing a few points in the first two, and a modest jump in the last one.

We had the first drop out three days in- the dude with the carnivorous plant in the wheelbarrow. He said he couldn’t risk his plant’s health, but I personally, privately thought he was sick of wheeling it around everywhere.

Four more dropped out before the end of the first week, all muttering and complaining about it being “too much.” Too many pushups, too much running, too many orders, just – too much everything. They weren’t given the nasty treatment the first person who’d been thrown out was, but they were somewhat looked down on by the rest of us.

Hey, we were sticking it out, and they were quitting less than a week in. Of course, I’d look down on them somewhat.

I was pleased to see the dude who’d tried harassing me was in the lot. He asked to leave after five days, constantly looking over his shoulder, jumping at every little noise, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Probably just a result of being on the receiving end of Night’s displeasure. Good.

Another day of training wrapped up, and I went to bed, in- tending to get a full night’s sleep. Tomorrow was the last day be- fore the hell months started. I’d come up with a few ideas, but one in particular stuck with me as I saw people leaving.

[Identify] had severely diminishing returns if you looked at someone you’d already [Identifyl‘d once. Otherwise you could just sit there and [Identify] the same person for hours on end to grind it up.

With [Training] providing a nice exp boost, and [Learning] most likely going to level up a good amount, I was only going to [Identify] people once they quit, and my chance of IDing them basically vanished. By waiting though, I’d maximize the amount of experience I could get out of them, because [Learning] and [Training] would be higher level.

A crack of lightning woke me up in the middle of the night, along with the all-too-familiar sound of rocks whizzing by, impacting on the ground or pillars, causing an explosion of noise. The primal roar of a sea monster pierced the air, reverberating, striking fear into my heart.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Vigilant] has reached level 132!]

Not nearly as badly as Night though, and instructors were moving through the villa, yelling at us to move, to run, to fall into formation in front of the building.

Which I promptly did, wondering if Artemis was out there somewhere, throwing lightning bolts and rocks. It was her style.

I got outside, a massive deluge of rain pouring outside of the villa, a shimmering golden barrier separating the villa from the elements. Other trainees were running to the courtyard to fall in. I started to run through, head on a swivel, ducking as a projectile went whizzing over my head.

The duck was unneeded, but I was getting concerned. What was going on here? Were we under attack? Who’d attack Ranger Academy, with some of the Sentinels hanging out? Was it just a monster attack?

I made it to the formation, neither at the front nor the back.

Senior Drill Instructor Quintis walked out to the front of the formation, a cruel grin on his face.

“Welcome Trainees, to the hell months!”

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 16]

[Mana: 17210/17210]

[Mana Regen: 20521]

Stats

[Free Stats: 62]

[Strength: 118]

[Dexterity: 218]

[Vitality: 235]

[Speed: 220]

[Mana: 1721]

[Mana Regeneration: 2379]

[Magic Power: 1506]

[Magic Control: 2039]

[Class 1: [Constellation of the Healer – Celestial: Lv 187]]

[Celestial Affinity: 187]

[Warmth of the Sun: 160]

[Medicine: 185]

[Center of the Galaxy: 161]

[Phases of the Moon: 187]

[Moonlight: 104]

[Veil of the Aurora: 146]

[Vastness of the Stars: 135]

[Class 2: [Pyromancer – Fire: Lv 62]]

[Fire Affinity: 62]

[Fire Resistance: 62]

[Fire Conjuration: 62]

[Fire Manipulation: 62]

[Fuel for the Fire: 62]

[Burn Brightlv: 62]

[Rapidash: 62] [:]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Identify: 99]

[Recollection of a Distant Life: 131]

[Pretty: 125]

[Vigilant: 132]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 167]

[Ranger’s Lore: 144]

[Training: 28]

[Learning: 150]

Chapter 5

Ranger Academy V

The rain poured behind the barrier, gusts of wind causing it to go sideways at times. The trees flailed wildly, and it was strange to be warm and comfortable behind the barrier, as the elements howled outside.

“Welcome Trainees, to the hell months!” Quintis shouted.

“At any time, you worthless goblin-loving maggots can choose to leave hell months, and return back to the sweet, tender em- brace of the villa! You will be warm! Fed! Safe! Escorts to meet your every need! All you need to do, is tap that gong over there!” He said, pointing to the silver gong, now taking on a dreadful psychic weight.

“Before we begin, we have a pair of unusual restriction skills with us. Ranger Elaine! Trainee Diao! Front and center!”

We moved to the center, where Quintis clapped a hand on both of our shoulders.

“Ranger Elaine is obligated to heal unless you explicitly ask otherwise! You will now ask otherwise!” Quintis roared out.

In a slightly softer tone, he followed it up.

“Ranger Elaine will disregard and still save your worthless life if it’s needed.”

A bunch of muttering came from the crowd.

I will admit, this was strange. Nobody was being directly coerced to ask me to not heal them – and I could still at any time – but I felt this was strongly pushing [Oath].

At the same time, it wasn’t like [Oath] demanded I fix every little bruise and scrape, nor that I need to touch everyone and heal them just in case there was some lurking disease I didn’t know about. This was simply making sure it extended a bit further than usual.

“Trainee Diao is obligated to fight to the death if challenged! None of you will challenge him to a duel, spar, fight, or any other feat or contest. Understood!?”

I yelled my understanding with everyone else. How on Pallos had he managed to stay alive and un-arrested by the guard with that type of restriction skill? Was he a gladiator or something be- fore becoming a Ranger?

“Lastly, some of you think you can use your aura skills. You would be wrong! If you troll-screwing scumbags can keep your aura to yourself, you may use it! Else, turn it off!”

“If you are caught using a wide-spread aura, you will be thrown out! This is a personal challenge, not a test of who can get closest to people with beneficial auras!” He screamed out, in that cadence only drill instructors could manage.

I withdrew [Warmth of the Sun] to only include me, and, looking at the pouring rain, upped the temperature.

“You are permitted to use skills, as long as they only impact yourself!”

“Now follow me!” He yelled, and jogged through the barrier.

I followed, along with everyone else. Passing the barrier was a strange sensation, that could only be described as “tingles of light”, like my leg had fallen asleep and was waking up with an angry buzz, but all over my skin.

The storm hit me like a physical wall, buffeting me, almost bowling me over. The rain was freezing, colder than anything I’d ever felt before.

Heck, we were in a nearly tropical climate, during the summer. This should be a warm rain, not a freezing rain.

Ah. There was a skill at work.

We ran down to the sandy beach, where the first of many torments began.

“Trainees! Down in the sand, and roll!”

I threw myself to the ground and rolled in the sand, as ordered. It got everywhere – my hair, my hands, my clothes, inside my clothes, in my sandals – there wasn’t an inch that wasn’t coated in cold, sticky, irritating sand.

“Up! And run!” Quintis ordered.

We ran – no longer jogging – and it quickly became clear who had builds that were physical, and who had builds that were more based on skills.

Seeing a brief opening through flashes of lightning, I activated [Rapidash] to try and stick with the main group. There were instructors lurking in the back, and I didn’t want to be the unlucky girl they pounced on.

Lightning continued to crack the sky, great spiderwebs like reaching branches segmenting the stars before the rumble came down, the weight of the thunder pressing down on us, interspersed with howls of wind and rain driving into us.

The bright lights from the villa pierced the storm, mocking us, letting us know it could all be over soon.

We started to run around the island, and on a particularly muddy patch, after the burst of speed from [Rapidash] was gone, I slipped and fell into the mud. I tried to catch myself with my hands, but it was too deep, my face planting into it, mud getting into my eyes, my nose, my mouth.

A hand grabbed my shoulder and violently threw me back. I windmilled, then landed on my back in the mud, back and hair getting caked. I was now a mud-monster.

“Ranger Elaine! Are you alright!?” One of the instructors screamed in my face, a violent tone to gentle words.

I half-saluted from my position in the mud.

“Sir! Yes sir!” I called out, mud spraying from my mouth.

“Then why are you not running!?” He screamed.

I got back to my feet, continuing to run after the group. Nice of the instructor to make sure I wasn’t busy drowning in mud. It would’ve been a real awkward way to go.

We made it back around to the sandy beach where we’d started, close to the villa, only to get new orders.

“Halt! Drop, 500 pushups!”

I dropped and started to do pushups. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a dozen of the instructors descend upon us, one of them heading towards me.

“Ranger Elaine! What type of push up pace is that!?” He screamed at me. “Faster!”

I redoubled my efforts, arms already starting to feel the burn. Satisfied, the instructor moved onto some other poor sod, yelling at them in a similar manner.

I didn’t dare slow down, mentally dismissing [Training] level- up notifications as they showed up.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 29!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Training] has reached level 35!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Ranger’s Lore] has reached level 145!]

I’d murder to have my [Greater Invigorate] skill back at this moment.

We kept running and exercising as the storm calmed down, and the sun came up, my stomach rumbled I figured we’d stop for food any minute now.

Any minute now.

Any…

I was feeling light-headed as the sun peaked in the sky, having been working out with everyone for roughly the last 10 hours without a single break.

Curses. I see why Julius had made a comment on vitality and Academy.

I opened my menu, and, without really thinking too hard on it, dumped my remaining 62 free stat points into vitality.

I immediately felt somewhat better, and perked up as I saw some bread being brought out. A second, smaller tray of food was brought out, filled with meat.

My face fell, and there were cries of dismay, as one of the instructors gestured dumping sand all over the bread.

“Trainees! Lunch is served! Half a loaf per person!” Quintis yelled out at us. “Companions that eat meat line up over there.” He pointed to the smaller tray.

Ah. Not getting people’s companions killed. That was a one- way ticket to not recruiting anyone with companions, and they could be powerful.

“Fuck this.” One person yelled, staggering off towards the villa. I quickly threw an [Identify] his way, to get the experience. No level, sadly. One of the instructors leapt over to him, and helped him along the path of shame, the path to quitting. Quintis had a sadistic grin on his face.

“Right then! Anyone else want a real meal? No? Then what are you doing, form a line, move!”

We scrambled into a line, and quickly, with exhausted military efficiency, grabbed our half-loaf of sandy bread.

I half-heartedly brushed the sand off, then bit into it, the hard, stale texture nearly breaking my teeth, grains of sand grinding my gums.

It was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. I wolfed it down within seconds of getting it. Warm, slightly salty water was also served, and downed with gusto. There was plenty of water, it was just somewhat nasty. They weren’t trying to kill us.

We were given maybe five minutes of rest before the instructors were yelling at us again.

The afternoon started, more of the same, with the exception that a blowing sandstorm covered us, tiny grains pelting us, get- ting in our eyes. My limbs were feeling heavy, my eyelids drooping.

The rain of projectiles being shot over our head was never- ending, causing me to flinch and jump every time, occasionally flickering [Veil of the Aurora] reflexively to shield myself.

Some Trainees stopped caring about the shots, which had me frowning to myself with the tiny amount of extra energy I could muster up. Ignoring potentially lethal blows was a great way to get yourself killed one day.

We continued on through the day. Through the night. And right back into the day. We were fed again at midnight, frozen bread instead of sandy bread.

More dropouts. And we were still in the first 48 hours of hell months.

The physical aspect was hard. The sheer boredom was almost harder.

A week passed, more of the same. More dropouts.

“Trainees! Groups of eight, by height!” Quintis yelled at us.

Ug. More running. Fine, fine. I got up and started to run along with the other trainees, only for an instructor to get in my face and yell at me.

“Ranger Elaine! What is your malfunction! Group up by height, nitwit!” He screamed in my face, spit practically flying into my face.

I wasn’t the only one, as the other trainees who’d started to run on auto-pilot also got roasted.

Groups of eight were rapidly formed, and I quickly found my- self isolated.

Men, as a rule, were taller than women. Generally speaking, as a person got older, they got taller.

Not only was I the youngest recruit, not only was I the only female recruit, I was also on the short end of the spectrum for a woman. I was roughly 155 cm tall. The shortest man who was still with us was 170 cm tall, and it only got worse from there.

The instructors moved along, smacking people around, get- ting them into proper groups of eight. One group had a group of six, another had nine people in their group. Yelling about “proper counting” and questioning their intelligence and their ancestor’s sexual choices.

“Ranger Elaine! What are you doing!?” Quintis yelled in my face.

I gave a wobbly salute, as my coordination had fled along with my lack of sleep.

“Sir! There’s nobody even close to my height, sir!”

“Are you sassing me Ranger Elaine!?”

“Sir! No sir!”

He looked around with a gleam in his eye, mentally measuring people, seeming to agree with me.

“Wood! Earth! Metal Mages! Raise your hand!” He called out.

A few scattered hands were raised, and he grabbed the closest one.

“Make Ranger Elaine platform shoe! She must be taller!”

The mage muttered something to himself, making me a pair of tall, thin metallic stilts. In my sleep-deprived haze, I eyed them, unsure how I’d ever keep my balance, or how they could support my weight.

“Do you call these platform shoes?! Ranger Elaine is a person, not a mantis! She will be running in your group; do you want to fail!?” Quintis continued to yell.

The mage hurriedly fixed the problem, and suddenly I had platform shoes to use. They were heavy, awkward, and unwieldly, but now I was at the proper height for whatever the instructors had planned next.

“Form up in your group! Follow me!” Quintis yelled.

As we started to run after Quintis, who never slowed down the pace, my respect for the Senior Drill Instructor went up quite a few notches. Not only was he sticking with the murderous pace he set the rest of us, eating the same food we were, he was also keeping an eye on all of us, finding and solving problems in a quick, practical manner.

We ran to the center of the island, the omnipresent light of the villa promising warmth, food, sleep, clothes. My tunic was already ruined, in shreds, and I was coated in sand, mud, and other disgusting fluids that I didn’t want to think too hard on. My new boots were killing my legs, the extra weight and unsteady balance doing me no favors.

Bless [Center of the Galaxy] for keeping me sane. I’d need to check on my levels at some point, but I was too tired to process them right now, didn’t have the bandwidth. The recurrent back- ground *ding!”‘s reassuring me that I was making amazing progress, as hellish as this was.

A series of seasoned, gargantuan logs, glowing with inscriptions, were in the middle of the island, and we were ordered to grab a log each as a team.

“One, two, three, LIFT!” I said, coordinating my team. Nobody else was doing it, and I seemed to be the only one with a mental stability skill, still able to process things.

More of the same was next, except we were now carrying a massive log, designed to be a challenge even to high-strength individuals, around with us.

The log got steadily heavier and heavier, and I strained, doing my best to pull my weight.

Suddenly, the log got much heavier.

“Blah.” Someone on my team said, shaking his arms. “Just need a quick break.”

That was clearly the wrong move, as the instructors descended upon him like eagles to prey, a whole flock tearing and yelling.

“You do not give up on your team! Everyone pulls their weight!” Was the main refrain.

Two minutes later, he was heading to the villa, tears in his eyes. From what I’d heard, he hadn’t been forced to quit – the instructors had verbally brutalized him until he left of his own volition. There was the standard yelling they did, then there was that.

I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.

One of them tapped the log, and suddenly it was lighter, de- signed for seven people to carry it, not eight. And by lighter, I meant it was just as heavy as it was before Slacker decided to stop pulling his weight.

Those were some impressive inscriptions. I quickly glanced at my mana, seeing that there was a moderate drain on it, probably what fueled said inscriptions.

Being made to shoot myself in the foot like that was easily the worst part about carrying the log.

Another day. Another week. Of running around with the damn heavy log above our heads, more people dropping out. One team had a single giant of a man, just a hair shorter than Arthur, single-handedly carrying a log himself.

That’d be one hell of a weapon.

The elements kept changing around us. Thunderous gales turned to sandstorms, sandstorms turned into sleet, sleet turned into snow, with frozen icicles flying through the air. Billows of choking smoke, banks of noxious coughing gas that made us all tear up, boiling steam making us wish for the sweet release of the frozen snow to return, followed by more heat as all the elements vanished, and the hot, hot tropical summer sun beat down on us.

The food never got better, but there was plenty of water. They wanted to push us to the extreme, not kill us.

Crawling through conjured ooze, worse than any mud. Stickier. Smellier. Nastier. It clung to our limbs, foul stench clogging our noses. I wished I was crawling through dirty diapers; it would’ve been an improvement.

A month later, the tone shifted slightly.

“Fuck!” I yelled, as a stinging sensation hit my arm, blood being drawn. I quickly healed myself with [Phases], and threw up [Veil] as another projectile was shot at me.

“They’re shooting at us!” I yelled, the remaining four members of my team groaning.

That made us all jumpy, as we no longer knew if the omni- present sound of projectiles flying over our head were designed to miss, or aimed at one of us. We dropped the log more than once as someone got jumpy, diving to defend themselves instead of carrying the log.

The instructors were Not Amused by that at all, and one chronic dodger found himself leaving in tears.

Games were played with the logs. Races.

The first team could rest until the last team made it. The last team got no rest.

Turns out, it’s possible to put a log down as a team, and fall asleep, in seven seconds. Getting even 40 seconds of sleep was a worth while endeavor. We were well-motivated to move fast. Everyone else had the same motivation. The all-physical teams did amazingly well.

The more mage-centric teams struggled, like mine. It was completely random if a team was physically or magically based, and some drew shorter straws than others.

We ran up to the center of the island, where we dropped the logs down.

“Congratulations! You are all slightly less worthless for having made it halfway through!” Quintis yelled at us. “You have earned yourselves a rest!”

It was like Black Crow had come down and killed every single Trainee, as we all collapsed to the ground in unison, desperate to get some sleep. Rocks? Water? Someone else’s rank foot? None of that mattered, the sweet siren of sleep summoned.

I woke up, to a hazy fog covering everything, unable to even see the person next to me. The villa was still visible, cutting through the fog like a false beacon.

A soft voice whispered to me, coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“You killed him.”

“Nobody will want you.”

“It’s your fault.”

“Why would the gods touch you of all people? You’re worthless.”

“You’ll only kill more people.”

“Nobody will marry a girl who’s a killer.”

“It’ll be your fault again.”

“Why are you here?”

“You’re a good healer. For a girl.”

“You killed her.”

“What’s the point?”

“You should quit.”

“No! She should die!”

“If you had done nothing, she would be alive.”

That, and a thousand other words whispered to me, pressing on my sanity, rooting through my mind, unearthing my deepest,darkest secrets. I shook my head. Just words… just words….

…. But it was my fault Origen died. I had killed Lyra, as surely as if I’d pushed her off a bridge.

Were the voices right? Would I just kill more?

Hours. Hours of the voices whispering to me, tormenting me. The fog lifted with the dawn, and maybe a third of people were no longer around.

I got up, and started to walk to the villa. The voices had been right.

I took three steps, and hesitated.

What would Kallisto say?

What would happen to Julius? He’d be demoted, right? Maybe thrown out?

What would the look on Artemis’s face be? Would understanding and acceptance be worse than the disappointment?

Shaking my head, I turned back, rejoining the group. Quintis gave me a stink-eye, another recruit almost broken.

We continued running, the boredom returning rapidly, the ‘rest’ having been a trap, a sleepless night full of mist taunting us. Another lap.

Another lap. Another lap. Another-

The instructors descended upon me as a single unit, a horde of rats onto a single morsel of cheese.

“You’re worthless!”

“Your parents must not care about you to let you do this. Are they trying to get you killed?”

“Useless!”

“Just be dead weight on your team!”

“Who ever heard of a healer Ranger!”

“Girls should stay at home!”

“You’ll just distract your team!”

“Just go home and have some babies!”

“You’re only here because you spread your legs for the right person!”

“We’ll stick a knife in you!”

“Your hysterics will bring your team down!”

“Go home!”

“Nobody needs a childbirth expert on the road! What else could you possibly know?”

“Go away!”

“You’re so damn ugly with your hair all muddy like that!” “We don’t want you!”

“Nobody would want you!”

Hundreds of insults, threats, promises of mutilation, harm, and more came from all the instructors, demeaning me, causing tears to well up in my eyes and fall from my face in hot streaks.

But I kept on running. I wasn’t going to quit, they’d have to force me out themselves.

“She’s not quitting.”

“Next!”

And just like that, I was free, free from the swarm of instructors, and I blinked, looking around, only to see them descend upon another trainee, hurling abuse at that one.

Something about their mother and sealskins.

Three minutes passed, and in spite of having made it two months, through all the trials so far, the instructor mob did him in, and he raised his hands in surrender, walking towards the villa.

I was in the back of the pack, and I got to watch them cleverly isolate, then torment each trainee in turn. [Veil] was on almost permanent flicker-duty, deflecting a constant barrage of shots heading my way. As trainees quit, unable to put up with the abuse, the combined focus of all the Instructors, I threw an [Identify] their way, barely remembering my plan to grind the skill.

Other trainees didn’t have as many shots aimed at them, but my combination of shield skills and healing left me receiving the bulk of the barrage. Every other trainee had at least a dozen minor injuries from impacts, and it seemed like whoever was con- trolling the attacks wanted me to join them.

And yet, once the “instructor mob” portion was done, it was suddenly easy, as easy as it had been at the start. That is to say, it was only running, no sleep, shit food, and environmental hazards. The shots started to go over our head again, the ooze pit vanished, the insanity mists were nowhere to be seen, and there were no traps, no logs to carry, no instructors screaming threats in my ear. No races, no cruel games pitting us against each other, with the reward being sleep.

Just a single, unified body of Trainees, who’d all gone through hell together. An unspoken bond was between us all, binding us together, making us a single, cohesive whole. I could see why Night was reluctant to isolate me, why he wanted me to have this bond with everyone else.

The last two weeks felt almost perfunctory. Not a single per- son dropped out.

“Fall in!” Quintis yelled, and by sheer sleep-deprived instinct, we assembled into our formation.

“Cooooooooooooongratulations! You’ve all passed!” Quintis yelled at us.

There wasn’t a single cheer, just a mass-collapse event as we all settled into the sand right where we were to go to sleep. Walking to the villa? Clean sheets and food? Nope. Not worth it. Sleep now.

 

Chapter 6

Ranger Academy VI

I woke up to a servant – or slave, probably a slave – bringing in a tray of food into my room. I bolted up, realizing I was in clean clothes again.

There was a note on my bedside table.

Hey Healy-bug!

Congratulations! I’m so proud of you!

Can’t wait to see you later.

Cheers,

Artemis

 

What was unsaid was she was probably the one who’d brought me back and changed me.

I got up, both ravenous and not hungry. I’d adapted to life with barely any food, a subsistence level just above starving. I glanced at the offerings – a weak soup, designed to slowly get me back up to “full speed” so to speak.

I ate it, then found sleep claiming me again. I figured it was safe to sleep – we’d just been put through three months of torturous hell, we’d demonstrated we could take it. They needed us re- covered for whatever came next.

“Rise and shine sleepy head!” Artemis said, as loudly and ob- noxiously as possible.

I sprang out of bed, saluting Artemis, deeply honed reflexes from the last three months kicking in.

“Ranger Elaine ready to oh hey Artemis.” I said, my brain kicking in halfway through, processing that I was out of hell months, and it was, well, Artemis!

“That’s Instructor Artemis to you, Elaine!” Artemis said, send- ing massively mixed signals.

“Sir? Yes sir?” I said.

Artemis preened.

“That’s more like it.”

Worst. Drill. Instructor. Ever. I wasn’t complaining.

“What happens now?” I asked, sitting up, seeing a tray of slightly more substantial food had been left in my room.

“Well, you’ve all passed the hell months. Congratulations by the way – I was worried about you. At this point, you’ve all but made it – it’s exceedingly rare for someone to drop out at this stage, and it’s usually due to either outside influences, a training accident, or an injury so crippling that a Trainee drops out.”

I tilted my head. “What could that be?” I asked.

“Usually something breaks in their head, and they walk away. Swear to never fight again or some nonsense.”

Mental trauma, basically. Without the proper word for it. Something I couldn’t even heal. Well, not magically. And I knew I wasn’t equipped to try and properly treat it nonmagically. Although, sympathy and a willing ear went a long way… thoughts for another day.

Also, I disagreed with Artemis. It wasn’t nonsense.

“What happens next?” I asked, between a mouthful of bread. Hot, warm, straight-out-of-the-oven bread. It tasted like heaven. Soft flakes of tender goodness melting in my mouth.

Best part? No sand.

Just how good would a mango taste if I could get my hands on one? The thought was sheer bliss.

“Well, you get a week to rest and recover. You spent four days sleeping already, so practically it’s only three days. In the mean- time, the Instructors are planning an individual course for each of you, although a lot of classes will intersect.”

“Huh?” I asked, confused. Hey, I was still sleep deprived. The only thinking I’d done in the last three months had been “Put one foot in front of the next”, and the “careful thinking” part of my brain was still rebooting.

Artemis sighed.

“Let’s say you have a ranger class, like Arthur – the one that shoots arrows. And you can’t read, or sail. You’d get the general Ranger class, a class on reading, and a class on sailing. Along with everyone else that needs those classes. Depending on how good you are at shooting arrows, you might or might not be signed up for archery classes.”

“Then take a, say, healer. You can read, can’t sail. You’d get signed up for the general Ranger class, you’d skip the class on reading, and get signed up for the class on sailing. You’d be exempted from the class on healing, but signed up for the class on how to be a mage, because your mage abilities and levels suck.”

Ouch.

“You’d be in the same sailing and general class as the ranger we talked about before, but you wouldn’t be in his reading class, and he wouldn’t be in your mage class.”

“Personalized education for everyone, but the classes are for all.”

Artemis’s eyes unfocused, the typical signal of someone receiving a System message.

“Hey, I leveled! [Teaching] up!” She said, pumping her fist. “Nice!”

Something clicked.

“Hang on, aren’t you not supposed to tell me things about Academy?” I asked.

Artemis gave me a Look.

“One, I’m an Instructor now. It means I’m allowed. Two, the main thing we want to keep under wraps are the Hell Months. It’s a bit too easy to prepare for them if you know what’s coming. A skill like your [Center of the Galaxy], and high vitality makes it quite a bit easier to pass than we’d like.”

I could practically see Artemis rubbing her hands in glee at the first point. She always did like having privilege. Not that I could blame her – every benefit she got was hard-fought and hard-won. “Don’t repeats get to know though?”

“Sure, but anyone kicked that hard, and coming back anyways is hard to stop. They’re clearly dedicated.”

The logic didn’t quite sit right with me, but again, who was I to question the more interesting practices of the army. Wasn’t the first, second, or even third time they did stuff that I didn’t agree with. For now, I’d be a good minion, and play the game by their rules.

“Most Trainees get assigned a Sentinel as a mentor, depending on where they think their skillset lies. Ideally to help them with any skills that aren’t obviously covered by other classes. Which is good and bad.”

“Oh?” I said, encouraging Artemis to continue.

“In theory, it’s to get some wisdom from the strongest humans in existence. In practice, people good at blowing things up aren’t great at teaching them.”

I gave Artemis a flat look at that. She cuffed me.

“Don’t give me that look! I’m a great teacher!”

“Some are better than others. Sky is notoriously flighty, and I honestly think he resents being promoted to Sentinel. His life of relatively carefree flying around as a Ranger became one of responsibilities, being on-deck to move Sentinels from A to B, along with myriad other job duties. He hates it, and does whatever he can to avoid ‘extra work’, aka anything he decides is beneath him. Don’t get me wrong, in a pinch he’ll be there, but if you get him as a mentor, you’re lucky if you get one meeting with him the entire time – he’s usually either shirking responsibilities to fly around, or he’s flying a Sentinel to a hotspot.”

“He does teach a class on flying, although I suspect it’s more because he gets sanctioned time to fly around, which is what he wants to do anyways, than out of any desire to teach.”

“Sealing and Ocean are some of the best teachers. Destruction has passion, but he’s terrible at teaching. Magic always has some- thing new and interesting, but rarely gets anyone assigned to him. Bulwark is similar – only Inscriptionists and defense specialists get assigned. He mentored Origen.”

“Almost nobody gets assigned to Acquisition, or at least not openly. Rumors are, he gets assigned to teach people less savory skills. Theft and assassination, among others.”

“Nature believes in the school of hard knocks, which also means he doesn’t have to do it. Expect to get thrown into the Kadan, and walk out a year later. Lowest pass rate, highest number of drop-outs after Hell Months, but there’s no arguing with his results – his trainees have the highest survival rate.”

“Brawling is totally average, but gets solid levels out of his trainees. Most fighters end up with him. I know he mentored Kallisto and Maximus.”

“No idea on Toxic, the mysterious new Sentinel.” Artemis said with a straight face. I punched her in the arm.

“Come on, Arthur loved teaching me all about poisons and hunting.”

Artemis cracked a grin.

“Sure! No idea how he’ll help people on their particular style of fighting though. The point is to help people on their path, not throw people on yours. Might split assassin training with Acquisition, thinking about it.” Artemis said, looking thoughtful.

“Lastly is Night. The best, but only takes one Trainee a year. He was my mentor back when I did Academy.” Artemis said. “My bet? You’ll end up with Night. You’re arguably the most promising Trainee this year, although you’re not a Trainee, and you have both night-related skills, and restriction skills, something that Night handles.”

She shrugged.

“I’m not in on the meetings, I’m just a part-time Instructor. Might end up teaching you magic, might not. You kinda know everything I’d teach already, it’d be a waste of your time.” She said.

“Right, I’m off. Enjoy the next few days! Eat lots – but don’t stuff yourself too much. There’s a bath in the lower levels of the villa that’s almost never used – it’s good for us. Cheers! And again, congratulations.”

Artemis hugged me at the end, and I hugged her back, happiness filling my heart. I’d made it!

She headed out, and as I finished eating, I decided to take a peek at my level ups.

I got a whiff of myself before I got to see them, and decided that this could be handled after a bath. I’d been changed to sleep, but I had months of literal filth still caked onto me. Bless Artemis for not saying anything, and hugging me anyways.

A hop, skip, and a jump to the nice, luxurious, heaven-sent, warm, blissful, one-girl bath, and I was reviewing my level-ups. Hmmmm… let’s merge all the level ups from the same skill together, and skip the middle. Just the start and the end.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Constellation of the Healer] has leveled up to level 188! +10 Free Stats, +15 Mana, +15 Mana Regen, +15 Magic power, +15 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Constellation of the Healer] has leveled up to level 189! +10 Free Stats, +15 Mana, +15 Mana Regen, +15 Magic power, +15 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element!]

That was honestly pretty disappointing. Three months, only two levels? Blah.

To be fair, I was only healing myself, and I was only healing the lowest of low-level injuries. Sore feet, cracked skin, minor cuts and bruises, the occasional shot from one of the Instructors that I wasn’t able to shield with [Veil]. All in all, I’d done almost nothing in my class, and through that lens, two levels was generous. The added stress, and the [Learning] and [Training] multi- pliers were the only reason I’d gotten two.

I think. The System didn’t exactly give out details like that, much as I’d like it to.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Celestial Affinity] has reached level 188!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Celestial Affinity] has reached level 189!]

Sometimes, it was hard to see what the Affinity skill did.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Warmth of the Sun] has reached level 161!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Warmth of the Sun] has reached level 189!]

Ding ding ding! Wild success! Keeping the aura on a tight, full- blast, constantly needing and relying on it did wonders for the level.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 162!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 189!]

A second capped skill! I threw my hands up happily, not caring that it got water everywhere. A brief twinge of guilt went through my mind at whoever had to clean it up, but then again, they’d just spent the last three months in a warm, cozy place. My sympathy was, probably improperly, limited.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Phases of the Moon] has reached level 188!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Phases of the Moon] has reached level 189!]

No way to tell if that was from the healing I’d done, or the over-leveling I’d done earlier. I wasn’t complaining.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Veil of the Aurora] has reached level 147!]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Veil of the Aurora] has reached level 181!]

Turns out, blocking shots non-stop for months was great for [Veil]‘s experience. Not quite enough to cap it, but enough.

[Vastness of the Stars], [Medicine], and [Moonlight] refused to budge… which was fair. I hadn’t used the skills at all.

Speaking of, what was [Moonlight] at?

[Moonlight]: The phases of the moon are visible to all who look up at them and see them. Able to apply [Phases of the Moon] at range, whenever moonlight touches them. [Phases of the Moon] applies with a significant efficiency penalty. Penalty in- creases with distance. Increased range, decreased penalty per level. Current range: 10.4 meters. Current penalty: 351% in- creased cost per meter.

I’d worked the math out at one point – it got 1% more efficient per level, and .1 meter per level.

Right. Onto [Pyromancer].

[Pyromancer]?

Hello? System? Is this thing broken?

With the most reluctant *ding!* I got a notification.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Pyromancer] has leveled up to level 63! +5 Free Stats, +14 Mana, +8 Mana Regen, +14 Magic power, +8 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Strength from your Element!]