Nate had spent the next period completing all his various homework assignments. This was the Tuesday and Thursday after-lunch period class that he shared with Angie and Lindsay. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the class any more interesting that day.

His head was still throbbing lightly from earlier, but the main issue was that the material was boring. The teacher was generally pretty good, but this time, the class was an absolute bore.

By the time the class had ended, and they were headed for Brick Jones’ class, Nate felt like taking a nap. All of his energy had been sapped out of him, and he was yawning almost constantly.

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Lindsay protested as she pulled him along.

“It was pretty bad,” Angie muttered, rubbing at her eyes. She had actually fallen asleep halfway through and Lindsay’s shoulder had a slight drool mark to prove it.

“Well, I managed to stay awake,” Lindsay pouted.

“Fine, how about next time I provide the shoulder for sleeping beauty over there?”

Angie blushed as both girls turned to stare at him.

It took Nate a second to understand what the problem was. There was no Disney in this world, or if there was, it had never taken off to the same degree due to the portals. As a result, his reference had been taken literally.

He spent the rest of their walk to class explaining the original Brothers Grimm version of the story to the girls.

Nate knew he couldn’t just carelessly mention things that they wouldn’t understand. That one had just slipped out by accident.

Mister Jones was waiting for them when they walked into his class. “Alright, shall we jump right into things? Nate, Miss Moorish, informed me that you had learned basic ties earlier in her class. The skill is pretty much useless for your purposes at the moment; however, I do have some instructions for you here. They’re not much, but they should hopefully help guide you toward the proper evolution of the skill.”

He handed the paper to Nate and turned his attention to everyone. “Now, who has questions about their meditation arts?”

***

“Why do you think they did it?” Lindsay asked after school had let out and they were ensconced in the car and on the way to Nate’s house.

“Hmm? Did what?” Nate and Angie asked at the same time.

“Why did they risk giving Nate a third skill? I mean, I’m fine with it, don’t get me wrong, especially if it works out like they hope it will. I can’t see Nate not using it to help us find our other affinities like we had asked a few days ago. Back before we fully understood how complicated the process truly was.” She raised a hand to her head and re-centered herself. “I just don’t understand why they would have risked themselves like that.”

“Well, Brick is easy to understand,” Nate began. “The man is a fanatic for all things meditation art-related. This skill will help me combine two of them and create a truly personalized one. The thought of being involved in something like that is probably like catnip to a man like him. Plus, I assume he imagines that he will benefit from whatever I learn in some fashion, and he isn’t wrong. I wouldn’t mind revealing what I had learned to him.”

“What about Mira though?” Angie wondered. “Why would she risk it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe she’s dating Brick?” He said doubtfully.

Both girls kept their faces straight for a second before they started laughing at the sheer absurdity of the thought.

“He’s like forty-five and she’s maybe twenty-five, no, just no, eww,” Angie especially seemed disturbed by the thought. “Old people date old people, that’s the rule. He’s like our parents’ age.” She shivered and mock vomited.

“While I mostly agree with what she said, that doesn’t help explain why she helped him, or you. I suppose she could just be one of those teachers who likes to see her students succeed… She is young enough that it’s possible she hasn’t been completely corrupted by society yet. I would rate the chances of that being a possibility though as slim. She doesn’t seem like the idealistic type.” Lindsay gave them her opinion.

“Or maybe we have it all wrong,” Nate said after a moment. “It could be that the school only officially gives two energy skills to the students, but that the teachers can give them one more or something. Who knows, maybe there was never a risk to them to begin with.”

“I can see that being a possibility,” Angie agreed. “With how expensive this school is, I would have expected a full complement of skills, honestly.”

“I still expect that to happen,” Lindsay muttered. “I think they’re just spreading things out. Let’s face it, after we finish our orientation class, get our skills, and finish our meditation arts, we could pretty much graduate. They need something to incentivize us to keep going to school beyond just the first few weeks after we get our cores.”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

That was a perspective that Nate hadn’t thought of before that moment, but it certainly made sense to him. The school they were in catered to cultivators, not people who were expecting to go to college or some other form of trade institution.

It wouldn’t be odd for them to simply and somewhat abruptly graduate at this point.

It wasn’t something that Nate had even considered, and he didn’t think either of them had either. However, the option was there now. The school needed to find a way to keep the students involved so that the sweet tuition money kept rolling in.

“Have either of you thought about graduating early?” He asked.

They both shook their heads.

“I had honestly forgotten that it was even an option until she mentioned it just now,” Angie said. “I see no reason not to get everything that we can out of the school. I think we will probably still end up graduating at least a little early, just not a lot. Our parents will want us to stay in school for as long as possible as well, I think. It keeps us safe. After we graduate, we will become registered as full-blown cultivators with all the responsibilities that entails.”

With that, the topic was more or less finished and they moved on to something more interesting. Talking about their upcoming weekend expedition.

Unlike the week before, Angie and Lindsay wouldn’t be coming with Nate and his parents this time. They would be going with the company that their parents had originally paid to guard them. Unsurprisingly, they were not looking forward to it nearly as much as they had the week before.

When they reached Nate’s house, his parents’ car was in the driveway and the garage door was open. The floor of the garage was littered with dirty equipment and gear that hadn’t been put in the wash yet. It didn’t look like they had been home for longer than a few minutes.

“I’ll see you both in the morning. I should probably help my parents take care of all that and make sure they are alright,” Nate told them as soon as the car stopped in front of his house.

Inside, he found his parents taking apart their bags and going through their supplies.

“How did the expedition go?” He asked as the door closed behind him.

His parents were covered in dirt and looked absolutely exhausted.

“It was a nightmare,” His dad said tiredly after a moment.

Nina nodded her head from her place on the floor amidst the bags they were going through. “We had cultivators from other cities appearing and mucking everything up. Apparently, news of the structure surrounding the portal in our dimensional zone has begun making the rounds. Not to mention the tall tales from the few cultivators that have come back from going inside it.”

Niall took up the story when she paused. “When we got out there on Tuesday, everything was fine. We managed to get a few beasts early on, and it was looking like it would be a good trip. All of Tuesday was actually pretty good. Yesterday and this morning though… The first of the outsider cultivators showed up sometime early morning on Wednesday. At least that is when we ran into them.”

His wife tossed him one of his dirty shirts that had somehow ended up in her bag as he continued. “They didn’t care that we were out on an expedition or that they were inconveniencing anyone. They all wanted the same thing, and they wanted it right at that moment. Directions to the structure. We got into more than one fight with them, and when we got to the processing facility, we heard there were dozens of others who had as well. It didn’t sound like anyone died. They were more like vigorous scuffles than duels, but still, it was not something we were expecting at all.”

Nate took a second to process and absorb everything they had just said. This was not something he had been expecting to happen, not at all. As silly as it sounds, especially considering how aware he was of humanity’s greed, he hadn’t expected cultivators to come from other cities. At least not in swarms.

A few here and there. Yes, he had foreseen that, but not a mob.

He was going to have to redo the traps in the first dungeon to deal with these troublesome cultivators. He didn’t like the way that they had acted and disturbed the locals who just so happened to include his parents. The thought of adding more signs to the outside of the dungeon crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Using those had been a risk, doing it again would potentially tell people that the creator was connected to the locals in some way.

It wasn’t worth it. He would simply increase the difficulty of the traps and leave their fates in their own hands. He hadn’t wanted to originally meddle with the traps that went against the cultivators, but that was before this new group.

“Well, you both look like you didn’t sleep the entire time you were gone. How about I clean up everything in the garage while you finish up in here? Then you can tell me more when I come back inside?” Nate offered, noticing how they were both dragging with every movement they made.

He would have told them to go straight to bed if he had thought they would have done it. Putting everything away and cleaning the equipment came first, then sleep. That was the rule.

They tiredly waved him away, wordlessly agreeing to his suggestion.

Outside in the garage, Nate began going through all the equipment that had been left scattered across the concrete floor. It took him a few minutes to separate everything and throw the first load into the wash. Once that was going, he pulled out the hose and quickly sprayed down the items that his parents had missed before.

Their weapons would need a more thorough cleaning later, but at least now they weren’t covered in blood and gore.

The amount of new wear, along with all the new dings he found scattered across their equipment, told a story of struggle. His parents had clearly not told him everything that had gone on out there. It had been a much more difficult expedition than they had said.

Finishing up out in the garage, he lowered the main door almost to the ground, leaving a small gap for airflow. The floor was wet from him washing off everything, so he wouldn’t close it all the way until it had fully dried.

Inside the house, he found his parents passed out on the floor of the living room. Judging from their positions, they had fallen asleep shortly after he had gone outside.

Shaking his head in amusement, and feeling glad that they were alright, he headed up to his room. He would let them rest for now, while he worked on the traps in the first dungeon. They would wake up when he started making dinner if they weren’t already up before then.

Hopping onto his bed, he pulled up the dungeon interface and set about his work.