When Jiran landed on platform forty-two, he was met by an unassuming and dark-haired staff member. He wore a thin, dark blue robe with only a single decoration, the emblem of the academy sewn onto the left breast.

“Master Jiran. A Good afternoon to you. This one is called Dournell. If you would be so kind as to allow this one to guide you.” he spoke obsequiously while bowing low, his movements slow and well-practiced.

“Sure,” Jiran responded with apprehension.

What’s this guy's deal? Master? This one? Ass-kissy much, geez.

“Thank you, Master Jiran. Right this way, then.” He walked at a leisurely pace with his hands folded in front of him, tucked into the folds of his robe.

They walked on a soft carpet that covered the hard stone floors. The walls were decorated with murals of men and women in robes similar to the academy uniform. They stood behind lines of soldiers, directing battles and conducting rituals in the name of the empire.

Flowery script ran below the detailed pictures, delineating the names of each battle and the key figures expertly painted in the scenes above.

They changed floors twice, jumping down through a large square hole in the floor.

No need to waste space with stairs when you have mana.

After several turns, they arrived at a set of wooden double doors.

Each door was covered in thousands of scratches, creating an atmosphere of deranged madness in the otherwise unremarkable hallway.

When Dournell pushed the two doors apart, for just an instant, Jiran could see the artist's genius masterpiece.

The softly glowing hallway lights reflected within a few very specific scrapes. The meticulously arranged reflective surfaces formed a perfect image in what Jiran assumed was a chaotic mess.

The image was of two acolytes holding triangles above their heads. Jiran realized that when the doors were shut, those triangles would form an invisible M.

That's a bit… Extravagant.

What have I gotten myself into this time?

Inside the room, a young woman, perhaps a year his senior, regarded him with a serene expression.

She had raven black hair and striking yellow eyes. Her perfectly symmetrical face, prominent cheekbones, and full lips made Jiran’s heart skip a single beat.

Immediately following his first impression of a strikingly beautiful woman, came an instinctive knowing that he should be very cautious with her.

There is something seriously wrong with the look in her eyes. Like a wolf halfway through a meal, baring her teeth as you approach.

Definitely not going to let my guard down.

“Master Jiran. Welcome to Class M. My name is Ramora Sri’doh, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Her voice was silky smooth, like Brandon’s memory of Italian gelato on a hot summer’s day.

She bowed deeply with her hands on her knees. When her head rose, he saw the briefest flicker of a predatory smile that made his arm hairs rise in an ominous warning.

This entire setup screams honey trap.

Maintaining his neutral facade, Jiran made a point of inspecting every inch of the room without responding or looking at her again. Coughing lightly, she made an attempt to return his attention to her.

“My role here as assistant to Class M includes directly servicing any needs you may have. Please, do let me know if there is anything… Anything at all I can handle for you.”

Her suggestive tone was so blatant, Jiran barely restrained his eyes from rolling right out of his skull.

Gotcha! Well, two can play that game.

“In that case, there is something you can do for me. I have an urgent need that only you can assist me with, Miss Sri’doh,” Jiran’s smile held none of the contempt he felt boiling in his chest.

Ramora’s predatory eyes flickered to Dournell who silently excused himself, shutting the door behind him as he left.

The wide smile she directed at Jiran was dazzling. Under normal circumstances, he might have taken an extra moment or three to admire her beauty. Today was not that day.

She approached him slowly, maintaining eye contact.

You’re laying it on way too thick, woman. If you were more experienced, you would have known I was on to you. Which means someone else is pulling your strings. Who would set up a trap for me, and why?

The fifth list! They must have seen me in the crowd and added it last minute to get me up here alone.

Now only a few paces away, Ramora stopped, her voice practically purred.

“What is it I can do for you, Master?”

When she tried to take another step, her body pressed against a layer of pressure instead of advancing.

“I’m here for orientation. If you could please commence with whatever that entails so I can leave, that would be fantastic,” His dry, disinterested voice could not have been more clear.

Let’s see how your boss responds to failure.

Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed a bright pink.

“As you say, Master Jiran,” She took a step back from his wall of aura, her expressions flickering too quickly from one emotion to the next for him to decipher what she may have been thinking.

“What’s with the master this, master that?” he asked. Her reaction to his question was a wide-eyed, blank stare.

Several seconds of confused silence later, she finally came to the conclusion that he honestly did not know.

“This is the Master Class. Every year, the top three students are chosen to join this prestigious tutoring program. Not only are you permitted to choose your own schedule, but you have the honor of teaching a class alongside our esteemed professors.

“The masters additionally benefit from unfettered access to every faculty and laboratory in the academy.”

Jiran completely forgot the disinterested act he had been trying to play as he whistled in appreciation at the benefits of his current position.

“There’s more, I can tell. Out with it, Ramora.” He quickly collected himself and tried to put her on the back foot again.

“The Masters are not static. Each moon, the entire student body will have a competition to determine the five strongest runner-ups. Those five will have the right to challenge any single master once. If that master is defeated, they will lose their position.”

“What an asinine system. What purpose does pitting the entire student body against its most competent leaders possibly serve in the military?”

“My apologies, master. Such a question is far above my lowly status to answer.”

“You mentioned teaching a class?”

“That is correct, each of the three masters is required to teach one class, twice a week.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“If that’s all,” Jiran turned toward the door.

“Please, Master Jiran. I have not given you your uniforms,” She moved quickly back to her original side of the room and retrieved a sealed bag made of fine canvas.

Jiran could see the struggle on her face as she handed the bag to him.

“What?” He spoke in a steely voice causing a fine layer of sweat to appear on her forehead.

“Nothing! Please let me know if there is anything wrong with the fit or size. After you claim the uniforms, they should adjust automatically but occasionally there are issues, which I will personally see to correcting. Thank you for your time.”

Her tone and demeanor had completely fallen apart by the end. She spoke as rapidly as possible while maintaining proper pronunciation. Then she immediately dashed past him and out of the room.

So they did something to my uniforms that will require her personal touch? I can’t wait to meet whoever set this up.

Jiran did not wait around for any more shenanigans to develop. Exiting the room, he backtracked to the same platform he had used to enter the academy.

The closer he got, the more nervous he became. A tingling sensation ran up his spine. The feeling of someone standing just behind him and breathing down his neck assailed his senses.

Why do I feel like I'm on a battlefield all of a sudden?

In preparation for whatever was ahead, he threw the bag of uniforms over his back and secured it with a sturdy molding. With each step, he formed the images for shapings powerful enough to defend himself without destroying the academy.

Whatever had set off his danger sense, he was ready.

Jiran rounded a corner to see platform forty-two east jutting out from the side of the building. Seeing nothing on or around the protruding surface, Jiran advanced with cautious steps.

When he set foot upon the platform, he immediately saw what had set his instincts off, or rather who. A flying figure in shining blue and white armor. She carried a silver lance taller and thicker than her entire body.

She saw him at the same time and soared through the air right toward him. His heart was already hammering in his chest as she flew close enough for him to make out more details.

The blond girl with glowing blue eyes made Ramora look like a puddle of mud in comparison. Her tight-fitted armor left no doubt that the figure beneath should not belong to a girl of only fifteen seasons.

The radiant beauty came to a stop, hovering in the sky fifteen meters from his platform. Her expression of overwhelming excitement set alarm bells ringing in Jiran’s brain.

Her luminous gaze roamed over his body and alighted on his face where she stared for several seconds.

She licked her full, pink lips in anticipation of the meal to come.

Like a rabbit staring into the eyes of a panther, his heart completely froze and then once more broke out into rapid palpitations.

All the while, her lance remained steadily pointed at his chest. The tip held unnaturally still as if a magnetic force was homing into his wildly beating heart.

The long handle gripped tightly in her hand was infused with dozens of brightly shining stones. Their light throbbed rhythmically. With each pulse, Jiran could see energy flowing along veins all the way up into the weapon’s coned tip.

His examination of the threatening lance snapped him out of his frozen thoughts.

I need to say something. Whatever she thinks I did, I need to convince her I’m innocent.

“Hey there, Olive. Long time no see,” Jiran laughed nervously, seeing her threatening posture never waver.

Really brain, that’s what you came up with?!

Jiran’s self-recrimination was put on hold as she shouted in a voice loud enough for the entire academy to hear.

“Jiran of Feylon! I, Oliviala Le’Cruex Dominus hereby challenge you to single combat!”

What? What is happening right now?! Hell no! I’m not fighting you in single anything.

Get away from me, Satan!

Jiran did the only thing any rational teenager could do in his situation.

He ran.

His chest lit up with mana as his fifth channel activated and he vanished from sight. He leaped into the air, flying away as quickly as his aura could propel him.

He looked over his shoulder and to his horror, Oliviala was right behind him, spear now pointed toward his head.

"You'll never escape my grasp!

"Thrust of a thousand bleeding hearts!" Olive’s arm lit up with purple energy that seeped into her lance.

As her mana entered the stones, their glow intensified tenfold before it transferred through the pulsing channels in the weapon. Her mana swelled at the tip and began to shine in a blinding purple light.

She’s more of an edgelord than the rest of them!

Jiran stopped messing around. Flames burst from his feet through bell-shaped cones of pressure. He was propelled through the air at several times the speed of sound. A triangle of pressure in front of his body cut the wind.

He crossed half the city in seconds. The shockwave from his acceleration blasted everyone standing in lines outside of the academy onto their asses.

He heaved a massive sigh of relief as he looked behind and saw she had not been able to follow him.

What is wrong with that girl? Why did she come at me in full battle regalia? What a freaking psycho.

How am I going to get anything done at the academy with that level of crazy breathing down my neck?

I need to blow off some steam and clear my head.

After some thought, Jiran set off to the northeast. He soon left the limits of the city. He increased his speed once he could no longer see the sprawling metropolis behind him.

An hour later he arrived at a series of craggy hills with massive, jutting rocks that pierced the sky. The entire area looked like a battle zone. Explosions had destroyed huge swaths of hills and rocks creating fields of rubble.

He released his camouflage and then landed near the center of the destroyed area. With lungs filled to the brim with mana, he yelled as loudly as he could. Precariously positioned rocks crumbled and fell while the stones on the ground shook from the intense vibrations he had put in the air.

The rumbling did not stop after he completed his call. The ground shook as boulders rolled across the land of their own volition. They bounced up hills and rolled down in a frantic contest to be the first to crush the interloper who dared disturb their home.

As the boulders neared, they unfurled into their humanoid forms, golems of rock and sediment. Their sizes varied from no larger than a toe, to more massive than a single-story house.

They had no discernable facial features, many not even having a head. However, every single one of them, regardless of size, had two legs and two arms.

Jiran pushed mana through his first, second, and third channels. Three rings on his chest lit up as mana filled each ring completely. This was not the quickly moving light of a single mote of mana spinning at incredible speeds. His channels were packed to the brim with energy far denser than his tier should be capable of producing.

With two arms raised in opposite directions, parallel to the ground, Jiran unleashed his power. Blue lasers of solid light leaped from his palms and immediately impacted two of the larger golems. Hundreds of meters of land were incinerated as two enormous explosions rocked the landscape.

The shockwaves from each blast eradicated the smaller golems, leaving not even a mote of dust to denote their existence.

Anticipating the inevitable impact, Jiran jumped into the air and curled into a ball. His entire aura morphed into a defensive layer of pressure, muting the extensive vibrations. The most powerful molding he could summon was used to support every inch of his body. Even so, his ears still bled and bruises sprouted across his skin.

He clicked his tongue in irritation when his vision vanished.

Ruptured my eyes again, fantastic.

Jiran landed and then formed a regenerative shaping. When he pushed it through his body from head to feet, his eyesight returned and he beheld his surroundings.

He stood between two, hundred-meter craters. The rocks, crags, and boulders in a one kilometer radius had been completely destroyed. No golems moved in the area, nothing moved at all.

Once lifted into the air by his aura, he scoured the field of dead monsters for their cores.

Two hundred Tier four and seven Tier five. Not bad at all. These should last us a while. Ah crap, I should have brought a bag. I don’t want these getting my new uniforms dirty.

He removed his shirt and gathered up all the small shiny stones these creatures used as a core.

Very similar to Mayalyn’s core and Olive’s lance. It’s pretty impressive she had a weapon made with these.

Most beasts don’t have a core. As far as I know, it’s only inanimate creatures, and now Mayalyn’s people. Everyone thinks they’re useless, but clearly that’s not the case considering the feeling of danger I was getting from that weapon.

After collecting all the cores, Jiran sat cross legged on the rocky ground with them in his lap.

Last time I tried this, I was only in the third Tier. At the time I didn’t have enough mana to fill them completely all in one go, Then the mixture of my mana and their mana caused them to shatter every time.

If I absorb Density during the process, I should be able to complete the conversion without destroying them.

I’ve seen Mayalyn’s core too. Knowing how a core is supposed to work gives me several ideas on how to correctly attune my mana, which might help stabilize the energies.

The mana needs to be able to flow in a circular pattern, these dark and light spots should be the intake and output.

Knowing he would be using ridiculous amounts of mana, he formed the massive web and aura manipulations needed to recharge his mana. With his preparations complete he began his first round of tests.

He carefully channeled mana into the cores one at a time. He was forced to pause and refresh his mana as he quickly realized cycling the core while charging was impossible.

When his mana forced out the original beast's energies, they changed from the myriad colors of gems to a bright blue. Over half of the monster cores he tried to modify were destroyed in the process, unable to handle the sudden alterations.

What kind of nasty little surprises can I pack into Mayalyn’s weapons with these?