The teacher strode calmly to the front of the room, her eyes roving over the three of them. Her hawklike gaze seemed to pick up every little detail as, for a brief moment, Nate felt uncomfortably naked.

She stopped in front of her desk and leaned against it. Her rugged pants, comfortable shoes, and stylish blouse that didn’t show a single crease that was out of place were all clearly fitted for her frame. She was in her mid-twenties, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and currently matched her green top. There was a slight beauty mark underneath the corner of her left eye, and her face lacked any lines from smiling or scowling.

This was the exact type of woman that could have potentially drawn his eye in his previous life, back when he was older. Now, he still found her pretty, but he was more interested in why she didn’t seem to be enjoying life.

“To get things started, I want each of you to tell me your names and your experience with the expedition this last weekend. I need to know where to begin and how coddled you were. My name is Mira Moorish, I would prefer you just call me Ms. Mira or Teacher while we are in class. Now, who wants to go first?”

Nate raised his hand. “I don’t mind being the first. My name is Nathan Holmes, and we were all actually part of the same expedition.”

Her brows raised at that. “Well, that makes things even easier. Let’s continue then.”

The next twenty minutes were spent with the girls giving equally brief introductions and then covering the expedition. Ms. Mira was rather impressed by the overall quality and breadth of the expedition they had gone on. She thought it was one of the better examples she had come across of a group actually taking the time to teach the newbies. She especially liked how Nate’s parents had taken the time to introduce their various positions in a fight.

“Alright, I think I have a good idea of where you three stand. You got a decent overview of a lot of the earlier content I would have covered, but not the details. So, we’ll start by going in-depth on everything and then moving on from there.” Mira pushed off her desk and walked around to the whiteboard. “Let’s start with your cores and the importance of choosing your techniques.”

She opened a drawer of the desk and pulled out an octagonal-shaped dice. “This is what your core looks like.”

Mira spun it around the desk and let them see each of the eight sides. “I’m sure you have heard in at least one of your classes that you are limited to seven energy skills.”

The three teens each nodded.

“Good. This right here is the reason why. Each time you learn a skill, it gets imprinted onto your core and takes up one of the eight sides.” She held up her hand, stopping them from saying anything.

“Yes, that means that strictly speaking, you can learn eight skills. However, only ever do that if you are content with never progressing again. One side always needs to remain open, connecting your core to your dantian. If you shut off that connection, then you will forever be stuck in your current realm.”

Nate raised his hand. “What about if you later removed that eighth skill? We are supposed to be able to swap them out, right?”

“Good question, and yes, you are. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. Putting an energy skill on the side of a core permanently changes it in some way. It becomes more of a one-way connection, something that accepts energy to power the skill but doesn’t cycle it back into the dantian like it would before.”

The class continued while Nathan thought over what he had just learned. He had two cores, which meant that he could learn two times as many skills as other people. It also seemed like it was best to space them out over both cores if what the teacher said was correct.

It meant that a cultivator’s core operated at peak efficiency with absolutely no skills involved. As soon as they imprinted one, and changed a side of their core, the speed of their cultivating would slow some.

It was no wonder that his parents hadn’t wanted to show off the energy skills too soon during the expedition.

Even if you could remove them later, the harm you had done to your core had already been done by then. No matter what, he didn’t want to slow down his cultivation speed too much. Granted, he planned on using mainly the rainbow orbs to cultivate in the future, and while he doubted it would affect those, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The bell rang a few minutes later, but they could ignore it. For the next two weeks, their first three periods would be spent entirely inside this room. The Orientation class was meant to prepare them for the expeditions and life beyond them. While you could argue that the classes they had been taking before then should have been doing exactly that.

You would be wrong.

Those were standardized classes; this was anything but. One of the benefits of having a small class size was the ability to tailor the lessons to the individual students. Normally, that would have been prohibitively expensive. However, by doing it once they formed their cores, the school actually received additional funding from the city. If anything, the school was saving money this time by having three students in the same class instead of just one.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ms. Mira waited for the ringing of the bell to fade and then continued from where she had left off.

***

Nate idly poked at the jiggling piece of Jello on his plate as he thought over everything they had learned over the course of the class. Despite her youthful looks, Mira Moorish was a very good teacher. She had readily answered all of their questions and had never let them go too far off-track for too long. She had given them just the right amount of leeway to keep everything interesting and natural feeling without being stifled.

“What energy skills do you think you will learn first?” Lindsay asked their section of the table as she bit into an apple.

“I’ll probably go for a support skill, something that takes a while to train, like ‘Flight’ or possibly ‘Basic Examine’,” Angie replied while folding her piece of pizza in half.

“I was thinking ‘Basic Examine’ or one of the healing skills myself,” Nate readily admitted. “I’ll avoid the attack skills for now. I think I will also only imprint one side of my core for now as well. Until I see how much of an effect losing a side has on my cultivation speed.”

“That’s a good point. We definitely need to be careful and pay attention to how it affects us,” Lindsay agreed. “I guess that might be part of why everyone starts using the beast cores more in their later realms. Even with all their drawbacks, it is probably still faster than their normal speeds.”

Her phone vibrated before anyone could say anything else. Pulling it out, she opened the message and spun the flat device so he and Angie could see the screen.

“Check this out!” She exclaimed happily.

Her parents had just sent her a text with a picture of her new halberd. The haft was made from a dark material with irregular lines of occasional lighter material that sparkled in the light. The head of the weapon looked to be constructed of scales that had been pounded together and sharpened. The spike on the other side and top were both sharpened horns that had been screwed in the base. They were made to be replaceable.

Overall, it was a fierce-looking weapon.

“Is this one you had been looking at beforehand? How heavy is it?” Nate asked, passing the phone to Angie so she could look at it more closely.

“Not as heavy as you might think,” Lindsay replied happily, dancing in her seat. “It’ll be heavier than my old one, but only by about double. So, it will still be an adjustment, but it could have been far worse. And more importantly, this one won’t break right away. Well, the spikes might, but they are made to be replaceable. It was my first choice of weapons, but we weren’t sure if we would be able to get it. It was being auctioned off in another city.”

“Will it get here in time for the weekend?” Angie asked her as she handed the phone back. “With that additional weight, you’ll need some time to get used to it.”

“I don’t know. I certainly hope so. My secondary weapon is coming from this same auction as well. We can buy a few darts and flechettes locally, but the ones at the auction were of a much higher quality. Still not as good as what Nate’s dad has, but they should go through anything we meet with ease.”

The bell rang a few minutes later as Angie was showing off the sword she had slowly bumped to the top of her list. It was something local, so she would even be able to try it out before purchasing it. Of course, it was part of another family’s private collection, so the price for it would be rather high.

As for her secondary weapon, she refused to give them any hints as to what she was even considering at the moment.

Nate waved to them both as he split for the sole class he had apart from them for the day. This was the class where he could get some work done on the second dungeon. He had already started mapping out portions of it in his head earlier. Now he just needed to draw it out in his notebook. That would make creating it later that night in bed or at his desk even faster.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t even started working on the traps for it all, just the room layout.

Knowing that meant the layout would likely change when he added the traps. The generic rooms he was going with at the moment allowed for a bit of flexibility when that happened.

The goal this time around wasn’t to create a labyrinth.

That had somewhat worked on the beasts in the first dungeon, but they had been bad targets for it in the first place. No, this time he was going to do what he should have done back then and go for length. The portal would still be in the middle, as that seemed to be a requirement of some sort. There would only be one exit from the room, and it would create an ever-growing spiral of rooms. Or at least that was the idea at the moment. It could change as he started drawing it and again when construction started at any point.

Simple, yes. Annoying for the blighted elves, also hopefully yes.

It would be a never-ending trek through room after trap-filled room. As supposedly thinking individuals, the blight elves were sure to feel despair. Assuming, of course, that the traps could actually hurt them. He would need to find ways to strengthen the traps if that wasn’t the case.

Nate listened to the teacher as he drew, stopping occasionally to write down a quick note. This particular class touched on things that he had learned during his previous life on O.E.. Not all of the information was exactly the same, which was why he still had to take the occasional note. Still, it was by far one of his easier classes.

He had a rough copy of the dungeon drawn up by the time class ended.

The last class of the day was the one he had been looking forward to the most. It was time to get himself a meditative art. It wouldn’t be the correct one, but he had convinced himself that didn’t matter. At least he would have one.

The teacher was waiting for them in the classroom when they arrived. The books for Angie’s and Lindsay’s respective arts were already sitting on their desks, waiting for them.

Nate placed his bag down on an open desk in the front row and walked up to the teacher. “We figured out what my affinity is during the weekend, just like you requested.”

The man quirked a brow and motioned for him to continue.

“It’s void. I have a void affinity.”

“Hmm,” A hand went up to scratch at his chin as he thought. “Rare, but certainly not unheard of. I’m not sure if we have a meditative art for it in our library at the moment. I’ll have to check. If we don’t, would you be fine with practicing an art for an adjacent affinity until we can get our hands on the proper one?”

“Uh- um- no?” Nate stuttered lightly. “I was told that I could practice a shadow art as well if needed.”

That was true. George had mentioned that both void and shadow affinities were close enough to his true affinity of dimensional energy that they would work. Void was the best. Shadow would work as well, but with far less efficiency. There were probably more that George hadn’t mentioned, simply because he knew the school wouldn’t have them.

Either way, Nate would take more arts if he could. It would be easier to modify the void meditation art later if he had something to compare it against.