A girl's sweet voice echoed in Subi’s mind as he slept.

“Let us talk Subi, there are some things I forgot to tell you. I know it has been a long time but I think it would be good if we had a chat”

Subi drowsily opened his eyes to see the spritely little goddess before him.

“Uh, what is it, did I die again or something? Poison from a bat or something?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that, I just wanted to talk is all. I’ve been watching you since I sent you here, and well…"

"What is it goddess?"

"Well when we met I was just really busy, I mean, not exactly busy, but I was under a lot of stress...”

Subi raised an eyebrow as he sensed the conversation starting to take a turn in a shady direction.

“Hurry up and out with it already, you are starting to sound like a girl about to break up with someone”

“Breakup?” she stammered “But we were never that close, I mean I watch you a lot but, that hardly constitutes a relationship it has to go both ways”

Subi raised his second eyebrow “What the hell are you yammering about, just out with it alright”

“Mhm, okay” she said before walking towards Subi and kneeling down to address him at his baby height. “I never got to tell you before, that the world I put you in… Its dying”

“Huh? But you said there was no demon lord or anything like that. That it just had a few problems but was a balance between fucked up and frollicking around slug things”

“Yeah, I know I said that, but I just have so many worlds to watch over, so I don't always get around to reading their files… So I just kind of eyeballed it. I mean I got curious after the dungeon break and then looked it up, and yeah... That isn't a good sign”

“Wait why are you just telling me this now?”

“I um… ah…”

“Wait, you JUST checked it now?! It took you three years to get around to checking the status of my world. What kind of goddess are you?”

“Don’t yell at me okay, this is just a hard job, and I can’t always pay attention to every detail so…”

“So what now? You saying the life I am building here is all a load of nonsense and everything is on the out no matter what?”

“Well, that is the thing. While the world is dying, there is a small chance it might not”

“A small chance. You do realise I’m not one to go against the odds, and a small chance is as good as a death sentence in my eyes right”

“Mhm, I have watched you enough to know that”

“Wait, so you watch us but you don’t do your work. I'm not a reality show! You are a goddess, you should be beyond acting like a couch potato”

“No, I uh… Yes I watch a lot of people’s adventures, and yes I sometimes rest my feet. And yes maybe I don’t pay as much attention to my work as I should. But I’m not a potato alright!”

“Wow… I was reincarnated in another world thanks to the potato goddess and now I'm told my world is actually from the reject pile and has something so wrong with it that it probably won't make it, and guess what, I'm a wolf so I can't do anything about it”

“You aren’t just a wolf, you are a Feyr”

“Yeah, the crystal said something like that too, but what the hell is a Feyr?!”

“I don’t know, I mean I'm not studied up on these things, but I know it isn’t just a wolf”

“Hey goddess, can you do me a favor. Can you wipe my memory of this conversation before I wake up. And then if you get to finding out what a Feyr is or if any of this stuff can be solved just let me know”

“But why would you want to forget, do you hate me?”

“No I don’t hate you, I just don’t want to be this stressed out if I can’t change it, you know?”

The goddess nodded, “Okay, when you wake you won’t remember this conversation”.

Subi awoke in the middle of the night drained and with a headache, “Ugh why do I feel like crap”, he carefully navigated his way out of the academy and outside of town into the outskirts of the forest for some fresh air. “Why do I feel like this again…”

He jogged all the way out to the river in wolf form, shooting through the trees as gracefully as the breeze, and then sat down by the river as a human. He looked up at the moon and the stars and wondered about his fate and this world. He wondered if there could be hope but didn’t know why.

…

“Hey Rem, wakey wakey, it's time to get up, first day of school”

“No Subi, just five minutes more, these pillows are so nice and warm”

Subi’s grey blue hair shimmered in the morning light, his strength now was more than enough to steal the pillow out from under her head.

“Nooo! My pillow! Still too warm to get up” Rem said defiantly with her head now resting on the bed itself.

Subi began tugging on the sheets “Nooo” she cried, until subi finally pulled the covers away. Rem tucked up into a ball in a last ditch effort to conserve heat. Subi hopped up onto the desk and opened the window fully letting the morning breeze in.

“Gah, alright I’m up” Rem said with a yawn as she sat upright.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at subi, “Why is this so important to you Subi, surely being five minutes late isn’t the worst thing”

“It is the first day, and the whole student body saw you leading the fight yesterday, if you are late they will start to talk. Oh shes actually a slacker. Oh I knew she wasn’t what everyone said she was. I heard she got knocked up at a young age and has a kid”

“Is that what you are worried about Subi? No one is going to be thinking that”

“Trust me, if you don’t show up on time, some will definately be thinking that, and from that small crack, bigger ones will grow. We can't allow the good will you won to go to waste”

“Pff, people like that don’t deserve to talk”

“You might be right but they will talk just the same, so up up, lets go”

“Alright alright, fetch me my hair pin from the bag”

“Hah, here you go” Subi proudly tossed it to her, happy in his new found bodily strength and coordination. If he had to guess he was at least as strong as an adult, but because he was so small he felt like he was almost weightless and quick as a razor. Thoughts danced in the back of his mind that maybe today he should start training his human body to learn sword arts.

He danced around as Rem picked up her study satchel and headed out the door “Okay, I’m off Subi, don’t cause another avalanche of monsters today okay” she winked cheekily.

“Bye,” Subi waved.

He hopped up onto the desk and stared out the window at the front of the school. “Yeah, today I start training!”

He rummaged through Rems backpack looking for a mask they once bought at a village festival. He then had a crazy idea involving stilts, a pair of gloves and a robe.

... 2 hours later…

Subi had broken down a chair and fashioned it into a pair of stilts and two arm extenders. He got the hang of balancing on the stilts and then had covered himself in a robe and a mask. “Yes, this will do”

While he was still too small to pass as an adult, maybe he could pass as a pre-teen boy or a shrunken elderly gentleman.

He made his way outside and began to walk down the main street towards the guard barracks. He walked into the training grounds and found a place to watch from the sidelines as new recruits were engaged in mock battles and training drills.

The sound of scribbling came from deep inside his robe as he secretly scribbled notes and training plans. He made sure to not only detail the drills but also the common mistakes of the new recruits and the remedies given to them by their trainers.

After watching for hours he got up and walked out of the town into the forest. He caught a few stray glances as he walked about town, but people were either too worried about their own business to notice or thought better of getting involved with whatever weird thing was going on under his robes.

Once out in the wilderness he chucked off the robe, “Ah finally free of the disguise”.

He hopped down off his stilts and searched for a tree that would make a good practice target “Ah this one will do!”.

He picked up one of his arm extenders to use as a sword and opened up his notebook to have as a reference. Then over the next several hours he repeated what he saw at the guards training camp. Including punishments like pushups and situps for when he made a mistake with his technique.

“Yah!” he yelled as he slashed at the tree trunk visualising that it was a fearsome enemy.

“Yah, yah, yah!”

…

Latimer stood in front of the entire student body in the main hall and yammered on about school tradition and the value of integrity. Rem however was still a bit sleepy and couldn’t quite pay attention to what he was saying.

A girl with curly blonde hair a few seats away from her waved, “Hi… You are Rem, right? I’m Cat”

“Oh nice to meet you Cat” Rem replied as straightening up

“I thought it was really brave what you did yesterday, I hope we can be friends”

“Oh really? Sure!”

“Okay, lets eat lunch together later”

“Mhm,” Rem smiled brightly.

A plain looking boy behind her coughed a couple of times in order to get her attention but Rem politely ignored it. A spikey haired kid with knuckle dusters poked at the plain looking kid

“Hey, why are you coughing, are you sick? Maybe you should go to the medic”

“I don’t need to go to the medic”.

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The Maestro raised his voice to emphasize his last point, “In this school you will learn what it takes to become true leaders, and if you give it your all, you just might have a chance at making this world a better one. Thankyou, and without further delay, let us get to class allocation. Mr Baz call out the students who will be under me in class 1A”.

“Rem Masubi, Jon Hower, Dan Kovic, Mili Catia, Clive Dandy. Please make your way up to the front to be collected by your teacher”

Rem, a plain looking boy who was coughing a lot earlier, a boy with knuckle dusters, Catia, and Clive all made their way to the front.

Baz spoke to the crowd “Classes consist of five students each, this is a small but highly specialised school where we spend time on each of you individually. Moving on to class 1B”

The Maestro gestured to them to follow him, while the other teachers waited for their own respective classes.

No one made a sound as they nervously trailed along behind the Maestro through the halls, and even while on edge it was still a surprise when he stopped and turned, “There are three components to you learning at this school; the first is theory which you will learn in this classroom here”.

He motioned to his left to an empty classroom, “The second component is practical, and you will learn that in the practice fields out back”, he turned to his right and looked out the window.

“Lastly, there is that which you accomplish out of school, tasks of merit that you are to accomplish on your own time and according to your own…” he looked down at Rem “... Ambitions”.

“I expect you all to do your best and as a result to become your best. Know that here you will have the tools to do so, so if you cannot gain your ability to lead here, it will be hard to do so elsewhere… So I expect no excuses and your utter dedication. Am I clear?”

“Understood!” the class replied in unison.

…

Subi concentraded hard on the footwork he had seen the guards pull off earlier. “Okay so wide knees, an athletic bend, and a springy step”.

Subi tried to pranced back and forwards making sure to never topple over or lose his footing, “Hrmm, this is tougher than it looks”.

It would have looked strange to anyone else looking on but the goddess sighed with delight as she saw Subi training to swordfight in a toddler sized body. “Why is it I find him just so adorable” she said while blushing bright pink. She swung her feet up on a table and slouched her body down into the couch, “So adorables”.

“Huya, huya, huya!” Subi shouted in his baby voice as he tried to pounce back and forth with a strike inbetween.

…

After finishing up in the theory room under the harsh gaze of the Maestro, Rem, Cat, Clive, Dan, and Jon went out the the practice fields where Mr. Baz was waiting for them. His brawny physique made him look more suited to being a knight than a magister.

“Hey guys, I’m sure the Maestro already filled you in when it comes to me but it never hurts to let you know a second time so that it sticks inside that skull of yours. I’m Mr Baz, Baz for short, and my specialty as a magister is physical augmentation. So in this class you will learn to channel your mana into your physical being so that you can accomplish feats an unaugmented person cannot. For example, this solid stone pillar here, if struck with the right force, and if you apply the right amount of magic, it can be cracked even with your bare hand. Which normally would require a large metal hammer. Pretty handy in a fight”

Baz began humming in a low gutteral chant and swinging his arms around in a strange swirling pattern. His arms crossed in front of his body, then swirled over his head, he spun in a tight circle, cocked his fist and leg back, and then suddenly shot them forward at the same time. His fist struck the stone pillar like a slab of iron, causing it to buckle and crack on impact.

“Whoa” the students remarked, “He cracked it”.

Dan's eyes shot wide open, “How did that go again? Do I move like this, and this, and Huya!”

“Hrmm, that actually isn’t too bad, you have the basic form of it already, now you just have to learn how to generate enough mana to protect your body as it strikes and for that I have the perfect drill” Baz shot back with enthusiasm himself, glad to have an eager student.

Baz pointed over to a pile of buckets he had laid out close by, “You see these buckets, I need each of you to take a bucket and walk over to the fountain over there and fill it up, then meet me back here”.

The whole class grabbed a bucket, Cat shrugged at Rem as picking hers up, as if to say “What can you do? Let's just do what he says I guess”

Rem giggled and picked up her bucket.

Dan arrived back before anyone else and stood up straight to salute Baz "I'm ready to learn sir!".

“Now that you all have a bucket of water, I want you to lift it up in front of you with your arms straight like this”

He stood with feet wide apart and his hands directly in front of him parallel to the ground.

“This is what it is like to hold mana within your body, with each second that you do it you will feel a strain, and the more mana you do it with the greater the struggle will be to hold your form. Now as you start to struggle tip some of the water out, not all of it, just enough to keep your arms up right, and let us see who can hold it up the longest before their bucket runs out”

Dan held in his breath and refused to spill a drop, Cat immediately spilled out half of the bucket to lighten her load, Jon tried to hold it up and slowly tipped water out little by little, and Clive kept squatting up and down for some strange reason. He turned to Rem, “I’m engaging different muscles this way, its easier to balance it… I think”.

Rem looked around at everyone elses struggles and made a guess as to how much water she had to lose to last as long as anyone else and steadily poured out the water until only a third of her bucket was left. Mainly she just wanted to be as efficient as she could without putting herself under too much stress.

Dan began screaming in agony trying to hold his up “I wont spill it, I wont!”, his arms started shaking violently spilling water in all directions “Oh no I’m losing some of it”.

Cat began controlling her breathing, much like a woman giving birth, with sharp breaths in and long breaths out.

Jon kept spilling more and more water than he intended to.

While Clive was the first to put his bucket down “Gah, I messed up, all the squatting did was tire me out faster”. He scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously, "My idea was kinda stupid now that I think about it"

Rem’s eyes widened in shock at Clive giving up so soon when he had started out so confidently. She tried her best to not be affected by the weight of her bucket but it began to shake like anyone elses.

“I’m holding it, I’m holding it, I’m holding it” Dan chanted as his arms shook violently.

Rem couldn't stand the distractions of others struggling around her any longer, so closed her eyes while she focused straight ahead. She began to visualise the amount of water she had in the bucket and imagined as if it was sacred water glowing with light. And as her arms got heavier, the more she channeled some of its light into her own arms.

The rest of the world faded away, as she cycled the glowing light between her arms and the sacred water.

Dan looked up from his now empty bucket, and looked over at Rem and then the teacher “What the hell, how did she beat me?”.

Jon emptied out the last of his bucket “Well, I’m out I guess”.

Cat dropped her own shortly after the others.

They all turned to Rem as she muttered under her breath as though in a trance.

“Just like Subi would, never give in to the doubts that roar inside, always hear the choice no others allow to speak. Keep calm and clear, and let your better voice be heard. Don't the darkness shroud the mind. Keep an eye on the task at hand”

She let out a short snort and grunt as her arms started to violently shake but just when it looked like she was about to drop it, something happened.

“Look class look!" Baz said as he pointed to Rem, "She has it”.

The students gathered around Rem, as she kept chanting and holding the bucket forward. It wasn’t so much that she was trying to hold the bucket out anymore, she was now instead just refusing to give in to her own doubts. As the doubts receded a deep sense of clarity rose from within, she took in one deep breath and her arms grew still. She slowly opened her eyes, and then lowered the bucket and put it down, allowing a cool breath to ease out between her lips.

“Wh-a-a-a-a-t!” she said while turning pale as a ghost, “Why are you all watching me!”

“Well done Rem” Baz replied with a proud glint in his eye, “I’m amazed you figured it out so quickly, have you done this exercise before?”.

“No, I uh, have never done it before”

“Simply amazing” Baz said mystified.

Baz placed his hands on his hips and turned back to the class, “So what did you all learn from how you mucked it up?”

Dan massaged his shoulders and cranked his neck side to side, “Its hard to carry a full bucket, it just starts shaking and there isn’t anything you can do to stop it”

Jon scratched his head, “If you keep leaking water to ease the weight you get tired quicker and quicker until you lose it all”

Cat squinted her eyes, “If you only focus on breathing and having enough water to get through the task, you can beat the boys but... Then Rem somehow shows you up”

Clive smiled proudly, “Don’t do other exercises while you are trying to hold it up, you tire out quicker! Kind of like holding your breath”.

“Why do you say that with so much pride, what were you doing squating like that anyway, how could you even think that would work” Jon replied

Clive turned to Jon with a deadpan expression, “Oh I didn’t think it would work, I just wanted to try it out, you know do something different to everyone else and see how it measured up. It doesn't matter to me who wins, just that we figure it out in the long run”

Jon shook his head, “Wouldn't that mean you should try to find a good idea, not one that is obviously bad”

"Sometimes answers are crazy counter intuitive," Clive replied.

“And you Rem? What did you learn?” Baz asked.

“I learned… I learned there was no longer a reason to hold it anymore once I defeated my doubt”

“So class as you can see with just this simple drill, if you over estimate yourself, your situation will grow unstable, if you leak your energy over time the effects will compound, if you start with only one goal by the time everything is over you will fall short, and if you do something weird for no reason you will just be wasting your time”

Baz laughed heartily, “Ha ha ha, you all did really well, but Rem here figured it out. The trick to physical augmentation is in clarity of the mind. The more you are distracted by your task the less in touch with yourself you become. When it comes to magical augmentation there is no room for doubt or distraction. But Rem do you know what you did wrong in the end there?”

“Um no, not really...”

“You put the bucket down when your mind became clear. That is the moment you need to focus even harder, okay?”

“How can you focus harder in that moment, I felt like I was completely empty”

“Your mind was empty, but your body could keep going, don’t believe so deeply in your own limits that you aren’t willing to push them!”

Rem's eyesight began to blur, and Baz's voice began to shift and morph, "I-I don't feel so good" Rem eeked out before hitting the floor.

The kids reached out to her with concern but were stopped short by Baz as he picked her up his arms.

“Sorry guys, gotta cut this lesson short. Keep practicing then make your way to the next class”

Baz squatted down, his legs humming with blue energy, before he shot into the sky in an arc and came down on the other side of the school.

…

“What were you thinking! You should know better than to push them this hard on their first day!”

“I didn’t push her to do anything, she pushed her limits on her own”

“She is completely exhausted, you know these kids can't see their mana levels yet, you should know that when she ran short she would start using her own body to fuel the augmentation”

“How long till she is back up and kicking do you think?”

“She has low blood sugar and is dehydrated, I'm giving her some water and fruit extract. Hand me the small mana potion from the table”

“Uh, h-here”

Rem grumbled and opened her eyes as the mana potion found its way between her lips

“Now now Rem, don’t push yourself so hard, I know it is your first day and all but there is nothing to prove here” the curvy mage said as she handed Rem a couple of grapes. Rem chewed on the grapes for a moment, and then started to come back around.

Rem looked up at the woman and let her eyes follow her curves, she was dressed in a what could barely be called a robe, it was more like a short skirt and half open shirt tied together from bursting by laces. She had jewel red hair and she had a single scar on her top lip just off to the side.

“You okay darling? I think you pushed yourself a little too hard in training, you have to give yourself a bit more time before you give it your all like that okay, otherwise your body can panic and it won’t know what to do”

“Uh, okay, I didn’t know. I would thank you but I don't know your name” Rem said sweetly.

"I'm Cassandra, the healer here at the academy"

“I didn’t interupt the class did I?”

Baz pulled back the corners of his mouth, “Well, maybe a little, but the rest of class are still out there practicing”

Cassandra warned Baz with a wag of her finger “Don’t have her do anything but watch for the rest of the day”

“Of course, she is just going to watch, isn’t that right Rem”

“Yes miss I will be careful”

The rest of the students dropped their buckets and ran over as Rem came back. Rem smiled nervously amidst the attention.

Dan stood uncomfortably close to Rem, “Whoa I can’t believe you went until you collapsed that is so badass, I wish I'd thought of going that hard”

The plain faced Jon pushed Dan back a step and then looked at Rem with concern, “You sure you are okay, that looked pretty intense”

Clive nodded along “You flopped like a pancake so we were worried, ha”

Cat looked at Rem appraisingly and then lifted her chin, “I think I’m starting to get it now, you focus on your inner thought pattern don’t you, then stop your mana from travelling back into your body. By the time you figured it out you didn't have any mana left, so that must be why you feinted”

Baz stepped forwards and waved the students back, “Guys guys, calm down, calm down, give her some space okay and show me how the drill is going, get those buckets back up”.

The students lined up and hoisted their buckets up infront of themselves, as Rem quietly watched on with a polite smile.