“Really? You don’t know anything?” Hetti shifted, but clammed up as soon as Noem turned to her. She obviously didn’t believe him, but she was scared as hell for some reason. Well, for a well-documented reason.

Noem nodded. “Nothing at all. I thought they were following Mona’s signal, but that’s debunked already. Is there a black market for acceptance letters that are already addressed and bio-coded to one specific person?”

Sylvie nodded, much to Noem’s surprise. “Not in a ‘gonna sell ‘em online’ way, but in a ‘hold ‘em for ransom’ way. You’d be surprised how stupid some people are with the one physical thing they’ve gotta protect to get into the university.”

“Huh. Never thought of it that way.” Noem mused. “Then again, I never got a fancy letter, so what do I know about that kinda stuff?”

Alabaster slime-chair cleared his throat. Noem looked down, and after a moment combined with a nervous glance upwards, he realized the man was looking for permission to speak.

“You aren’t interrupting a lesson, man. Say something if you want to.”

“Oh… um, okay. Don’t… isn’t…” Alabaster cleared his throat again as his face turned beet-red. “What I meant to say was… isn’t there like, an, I don’t know…”

“You’ve got more filler words than sentence content in there. Try thinkin’ before you talk.” Sylvie sighed. “Remember what I told ya before we set out?”

Alabaster abashedly looked down at the ground. “If you can’t talk, you better be able to fight twice as hard.”

“And looks like you can’t do much of either right now, nevermind twice as much. So work on your talk, then let the words out.” Sylvie said. “Sorry, Noem. Gotta teach the new guy the ropes, ya know?”

Noem didn’t know. He’d never taught anyone ‘the ropes’, unless what he’d just taught Mona counted. In spite of that, he plastered on a sympathetic smile and nodded ever so slightly.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Alabaster muttered nervously. “I… okay. I know what I want to say. Here goes; unless you got an acceptance letter, you had to go through the entrance exams. How’d you get through them without a bond?”

Noem raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you wanted to know? The exams weren’t hard at all. A lot of people tried using fresh bonds to carry them through instead of the skills they used for years before that, so I flattened them and took my place.”

Alabaster stared up at Noem in absolute disbelief. “You… the exams have less than a one percent pass rate. They are not ‘easy’.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“See what I mean? Monster.” Sylvie snickered. “He’s only stayin’ in that cage because he doesn’t feel the need to break out.”

“Hey, don’t tell them.” Noem complained weakly. He grabbed one of the bars and flicked it with his pointer finger, which he pushed a Heavy Blow into at the last second. It shattered into a spray of dusty shards that dissipated when their connection to a Qi source was severed. “It makes this a lot less convincing if they know.”

Hetti gasped and raised a hand to her mouth. She was very emotive for a professor. That was a good sign for Mona if she ended up in Hetti’s class. “That was reinforced to hold a fourteenth realm monster!”

Noem tilted his head to the side. “And?”

“...Nothing. Nothing at all.” Hetti said quickly and closed off her body language. “Why did you let yourself get caught if you’re that strong?”

“Dunno. Maybe I just didn’t feel like hurting anyone.” Noem shrugged. “Or maybe I’ve got some dastardly plan that involves keeping all of you here.”

Sylvie shook her head and sighed. “He don’t got a master plan of any kind, I can tell you that much. Probably out here treasure huntin’ to help pay for Mona’s tuition, and he’s using us to keep those black-cloaked fellas away.”

Noem snapped his fingers and ended with his index pointed directly at Sylvie. The twelfth explosion echoed through his bones, which signaled what he hoped was the two-third mark. They seemed to have mostly forgotten about Mona, which was exactly what he’d been hoping for.

“Guilty as charged.”

Hetti didn’t seem fully convinced, but she also didn’t seem like she was about to argue. Noem shot her an off-kilter smile with the intent to catch her off guard, but it only served to make her tense up even further and fully close off her body language. He let the smile wind down and blinked slowly to inconspicuously bring up his interface on his contacts, then blinked once more when he didn’t see any messages from Mona.

“Hope that’s a good sign.”

“Hope what’s a good sign?” Sylvie asked with a heavy dose of suspicion.

Noem stared right through Sylvie’s blank face. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud, so I’d appreciate it if you could ignore it.”

Sylvie shook her head. “Not gonna happen, Noem. The signal from Mona’s interface is somewhere around here, and it ain’t comin’ from you. So we’ll keep you in that cage for as long as we need until you give us the info we need.”

Noem spread his hands in mock surrender and smiled. His cheeks were getting tired from forcing so many of them in such a short time. “I don’t have anything else planned for today, and it’s nice to finally talk to a real person again. So what do you want to talk about? The weather? Sports scores? I’ve gotta warn you; I haven’t kept up with which teams are the best for twelve years now.”

“You’ve only been gone for four years.” Alabaster helpfully pointed out.

“That’s the joke, dumbass.” Sylvie sighed. “Don’t give in to his flow. He might not look it, but Noem’s a little too good at talking.”

Alabaster tensed ever so slightly. “Oh. I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know because there was no reason for you to know.” Hetti said. “Don’t be so hard on him, Sylvie. He’s still–”

Punk’s tongue snapped out and stuck to Hetti’s forehead. She let out a tiny yelp of surprise, and Sylvie chuckled at the professor’s discomfort.

“You were about to say he’s still learnin’, right? Well, he’s out in the field on potentially dangerous work. That’s not the place for learnin’, it’s the place to put what you learned into practice.” Sylvie said seriously. “It’s not his fault we ran into Noem, but we should’ve briefed him with that possibility in mind. Well, our superiors should’ve briefed him. It ain’t my job to teach the newbies.”

Noem sat back and watched as Sylvie and Hetti devolved into an argument that never got heated enough to hurt any feelings. They were essentially arguing the exact same point, but whenever it seemed like it would die down, Sylvie would stoke the flames once more and delve back into it.

Alabaster watched with confusion and eventually looked up at Noem with a question burning behind his eyes. “What’s happening?”

Noem shrugged with a small, real grin. He knew exactly what Sylvie was doing. “Hell if I know, buddy. But it looks like it’s–”

{Noem, I did it! Hao Torang–that’s the apex’s real name–he accepted my bond! And, uh, why’s there a pile of foam right next to the exit? Hao says it’s filled with stuff that’s got your Qi all over it.}