After a quiet weekend, mostly hanging out with Mason and our other friends, when they weren’t training, we got back into our weekly lessons.

Martial Training still only consisted of running and working out, the class had been split into two a few weeks ago though. Those of us with Beast affinity were together while the rest of the class were separate.

Hoshi, Haru, Aspen, Kat and I were running together, the rest of our Beast Affinity class being in a different group. To my joy the longer this leg of the run lasted, the more time we had before we were on the “elite” version of the obstacle course we now had to use. I had been getting better control over my coordination over the past few months but over the weekend I had noticed my breakthroughs in cultivation had also increased my speed and strength again.

“Finally going to keep up now your cultivation is higher than ours Cain?” Hoshi asked with a laugh.

“Higher? I’ve just barely reached a high level of Tempering, I’m still catching up to half of you who were awakened months ahead of me.” I answered, avoiding the actual question.

“Aha” one of them responded as they gave each other a weird look.

I didn’t know what they meant but I decided to push myself and run harder. A small burst of speed pushed me ahead of my friends but I couldn’t maintain it for long, letting Kat pass me quickly. We kept going until we reached the end and we stopped for a moment to catch our breath.

“Remember Cain, our other form is influenced by our familiar. Kat is also going to have better endurance than the rest of us.” Aspen stated, causing Kat to blush and start turning invisible again.

“I mean, fair but still. I want to be faster, I don’t like feeling like the slowest of us.” I reply hesitantly.

Haru and Hoshi nodded slightly, clearly feeling similar to me as we headed towards the obstacle course. With a small smile and a sense of competition, a unanimous decision was silently made to race through the course. Lined up at the start line, a pause of moments before we leapt off as a group, to the sound of shoes scraping on concrete.

I sprinted forward, losing track of everyone else as my entire focus went into controlling my strength and movements. It was becoming easier to sink a little bit into instinctual movement rather than overthinking it. The course started easy, a short run, into climbing a cliff, digging grooves with my claws. As a group we reached the top, I could hear the heavy breathing of the others around me, I leapt over a cliff, landing in a river a dozen metres down, sinking deep into the water.

Over and around natural obstacles, flashing through trees, sliding down hills, it was exhilarating. The non-beast students didn’t understand what this feeling was like, as a group we bonded from this feeling of freedom, it reminded me of watching the main character of G.I Joe leapt through the streets of Paris in their exo-skeletons.

Twenty minutes later we finished the course, again with Kat just barely in the lead. I’m pretty sure she would have left us behind completely if she wasn’t so timid, she was slowly coming out of her shell as she spent more time around us, very much helped by Aspen. As we finished we headed into the showers to get clean after our exercise, I let Clin out of my core to chill in the humid air that he enjoyed.

A short time later we all grouped back together, waited for our other friends to finish their portion of exercise before heading to get some lunch. As per usual on a monday afternoon, we went to the same cafe we went our first week, beating the second and third years who were still in lessons.

As I was almost finished eating Mason spoke up to me,

“Cain, have you thought about what you are going to trade in your contribution points for? I think everyone else has already done so.” He asked.

Sounds of agreement came from everyone else as they were still eating.

“I don’t know if I want to admit this or not but...I may not even know where the contribution hall is..” I quietly replied.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“You really are hopeless aren’t you. Have you even explored the academy or just cultivated, studied and hung out with us?” Mason answered, shaking his head.

“I reserve the right not to incriminate myself further..” I muttered, getting a laugh from everyone.

“I’ll take you after lunch, you have no need to go back to your Fire Affinity lecture until you can insta-cast both your spells after all.” Mason answered.

“Can I come too?” Haru and Aspen asked at the same time.

*

The four of us headed north, I could see the stadium to our left, through a park that surrounded the recreational area.

The others were talking but I was only vaguely listening, I was preoccupied by my fear of fire during the hunting trip. While we were out there I was too worried my spells would cause a fire in the forest, my 'old world' instincts were still colliding with my current life.

Of course I can control my magic well enough to put out any flames, it's one of the basic tenets of Fire Affinity. Not only my own flames, by injecting my mana I can control natural fire to an extent. I needed to throw away my old trained reactions and focus on the world of magic I'm living in now. This kind of unconscious mindset was probably holding back my mastery of my spells, I was unconsciously afraid of the effects of my magic.

Be it the feeling of being different or even influenced by Clin's animal instincts while in the 'combat form', honestly I hated that term, I have to come up with something better sooner or later.

Either way, the bond we shared made accepting these changes easier in the moment but I know that there is always in the back of my mind screaming that I was losing the person who I was.

These feelings were something I would have to work on, I wanted to be fully in the present, I would probably fall into a depressive spiral if I let myself get too deep into that, the grief was still there hidden deep down. I know that Clin would always be relied on because of our connection, especially since he would get more intelligent as he grows stronger and our bond deepens further but I didn't want to have to rely on Essie, Mason, Haru, Hoshi, Ivy, the twins and even Aspen to keep me stable and grounded.

While I was thinking circles in my head, we had reached the entrance to a simple building, one you would barely pay attention to normally with the large workshops all around it. We were in the production area of the academy, somewhere I hadn’t even considered entering until now, my “talents” weren’t suited to any of the vocations here, fire and earth or metal for weapon makers, nature and fire for chemistry or alchemy, depending on what you wanted to call it. The final main vocation would be formations, I had a look at a book on them at one point only to find out it requires hundreds of hours of study to learn the symbols and design to become proficient, which so wasn’t something I wanted to do.

I realised that Haru and Aspen were already walking through the doors as I looked around so hurried to catch up to them. I didn’t know what I was expecting from something named the Contribution Hall, but it was certainly something more grand than a single middle aged man sitting behind a standard receptionist desk.

Mason was just arriving at the desk when I caught up.

“What can I help you lot with?” the man grunted.

“Cain?” Mason asked.

“Umm, I don’t even know how many contribution points I have, or even what I should look for. Maybe something for Clin? or a new spell? or even something to help me cultivate?” I rambled in response.

“Your storage bracelet is connected to the academies system, it should be under the same tab as your schedule,” Aspen whispered to me.

I quickly opened the screen on my bracelet and swiped to what was essentially an app for the academy and found the information I was looking for. The information included a breakdown of what we received for the cores and meat. The normal Dark Wolves netted us fifty contribution points per core and five per carcass. The real reward came from the Dark Wolf leaders' meat; the added strength and mana in the meat turned into fifty points per kilo.

All in all I had almost two thousand contribution points. After a quick check with Aspen, I was one of the top ten contributors from the trip so received higher “payment” for what I brought in. I relayed the amount of points I had to Mason while I wandered what we could possibly get.

“Can you give him the basic compendium and I’ll show him the auction room.” Mason finally answered the man.

As he pulled a book out of a drawer and passed it to me I couldn’t help but notice he was looking at me like I was a bit slow, I guess I had been a bit single minded over the past few months. I should have explored the whole academy a long time ago, not that knowing the Contribution Hall was here would have helped me before I started getting the points.

As I flipped through the book, I found that I really didn’t have many points in the grand scheme of things. Tier One spells went from between two hundred and four hundred, higher quality meat for familiars was wildly different depending on the elements, unfortunately Void was the most expensive with only Poison coming close. Tier Two spells were priced in the thousands along with Natural Treasures like the Golden Sunflower.

“Jeez, I really need more Contribution Points if I want to get anything decent. What’s the best way to earn them?” I asked.

“I know I said this before, but seriously, you need to explore the Academy better. There is a Mission Hall near the admin buildings, some simple huntings missions that can be done on the weekends for first years, helping out with the Magic Herb gardens, jobs in the Beast Hall. There are lots of ways to make Contributions Points if you just put the time in.” Mason answered.

“I notice that there is a complete lack of Void spells here too, there are hundreds of the base elements but no Void.” I asked Mason instead of getting further down the work rabbit hole.

“Void has so few spells that they only come from your instructor in first year, you may notice that that book only has a few Tier Two spells and only some basic potions, mana gathering formation and natural treasures. And of course there are more spells for the base elements, they are the most common elements in the world for awakened people, even people who aren’t very powerful or didn’t go far into their cultivation might invent or discover a spell that is better than what is otherwise out there.” Haru lectured in an almost condescending tone.

I gave him a withering look that he clearly didn’t care about since all I got back was a wink.

“Ok, so about all of that, that book only shows the basics that you can buy from the Academy. Here is where you find the real fun stuff.” Mason intoned as he opened a much grander door than I'd seen elsewhere in the building.

The door opened into a massive room that looked like an upscale bank, a half dozen attendants were manning the counters nearby and what looked like a tradehall was through a large archway.

I looked back at the door we just walked through before looking back at Mason.

“Uhh did we get teleported or is it bigger on the inside?” I asked.

“Little column A, Little Column B.” Mason answered before he started walking away from me.