“Take a couple of days off, Theo and Val, then come and see me, and we will discuss adjusting your courses this Semester,” Arabelle Remore said.

We nodded. I asked Roberts, “Can I get a lift to the Temple with you?”

“Sure.”

Val looked like she was going to say something, then stopped.

I raised an eyebrow at her, and she shook her head, “Vic can give me a ride, and I will catch up with you in a day or so.”

Back at the temple, I spent some time in meditation. None of my skills levelled as I only used Quick Sharp to stab the attacker. I smelled him. That was the first hint that something was wrong. I need to pay more attention to my perception skills. It is one of my most powerful skills.

How do I train my perception skills? The Hunting class from the last Semester did a lot to raise it. How do I replicate that? Sneaking through the Astral space was also good for my perception, as I focused on it to help us avoid monsters.

I was not happy with how easily the silver ranker suppressed my aura. I doubt I can fight against those two levels above me, but I need to try. I haven’t been using my aura offensively, but it could put an opponent off momentarily. That might be part of the weaponising aura class, but there is no reason I can’t start now. I need to have a stronger resistance to being suppressed and start using it offensively. I have mostly been using it to hide until now.

I thought about the last couple of weeks. I was pleased with what I did for Jabari. I must get used to thinking of her as Olivia, and that is going to be hard. What was going on in Kekie was not really my problem. They sounded like a place to avoid.

I need to get stronger. I can’t have my little sister out levelling me now, can I?

With that in mind, I collected Val and went to see Arabelle Remore as soon as possible.

“It is too late in the semester to catch up on another course to replace Adventuring. However, Professor Venter from Astral Spaces has picked up some anomalies in the readings from the last semester and wants to go back and check as well as visit some other spaces. She is proposing the whole two-week break between semesters. This will count as one paper if you are interested.”

“Yes, please,” I said quickly.

Val looked hesitant.

“You want to do this,” I said, “You will never get this experience again.”

“But I didn’t do the paper and …” she paused, “There is an arena tournament on.”

“Setting up the instruments is not hard even if you don’t understand what they do,” I said, “But your loss if you don’t want to come.”

She paused, “OK, I will be in too.”

“Excellent,” Arabelle Remore said, “I will let her know. This means you will have a free day during the semester and work during the break.”

“Great,” I said. I had a lot to do.

Industrial alchemy is not easy, especially when no more than the most basic recipes are available. We were learning to make those basic recipes as the foundation of our knowledge, but I wanted to enhance my resin armour, particularly against fire. Resin was not a product that was part of the basic recipes. The closest the basic recipes were for wood, to stop it from rotting and add some strength. The wood was soaked in the alchemical solutions overnight and then dried. The formula was a mix of a hardwood sap, like Ironwood, and then had copper quintessence and a special rock quintessence called arsenic.

The sap was different to the resin that my skill produced, and I would not have thought copper and arsenic rock, but this triggered a memory from my Poisoner class. Arsenic is also a poison. It is all alchemy, just used for different purposes.

I know wood has been treated to be flameproof for a time, but the recipe is a secret. I have to make my own. This trial-and-error approach is laborious and expensive in materials. I started with the obvious: Ice. It made the resin brittle and cold to wear.

Non-flammable things like Iron were next, but I couldn’t get the magic to work well with the Resin. Maybe that was my inexperience, or maybe I needed a catalyst, or maybe they were just incompatible.

This would be a long process. Once I settled on the right ingredients, then I needed the right ratios. I needed the Resin to stay transparent or at least translucent for my Blend Skill. I now had a free day a week to work on it.

I found the techniques from the Poisoner Class useful in identifying more than poison magic. That, combined with the knowledge of Industrial Alchemy, was very helpful in analysing wood treated for fire resistance and trying to determine where that magic came from.

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I am going to have to redo it all when I get to bronze because my skills will change, but at least I won’t be starting from scratch like now. There is a good chance that at bronze, I could incorporate more than one resistance into the formula.

All this practice was levelling my Resin Skill.

I am also analysing the Tranquilizer poison I bought from the Academy. The Iron rank one was the only one I bought. I soon realised it was extremely complex and way above my level of alchemy. Well, it was worth a try. Maybe when I do medicinal alchemy, I will gain some insights. All these courses are the basics to give you a grounding for further study under a Master. I am never going to have that for any alchemy. I need to make the most of this time.

Melee Fighting was intense. Practice, practice and more practice. Axe and Shield for weeks on end, both against targets dummies, with sparring weapons and once a week in the Astral Space. Then there were the backup weapons, which, in my case, were claws and teeth. It was intense.

For four weeks, we went into the astral and practised our melee fighting in small groups. Then the Weapons master said, “The next two weeks, you will be going into the astral with only your backup weapons. You have to be able to survive with them alone.”

That caused a lot of nervousness among my classmates. Their main weapon was what they relied on. I was practising with my claws before I had any regular weapon. I was excited. My claws were also more than a backup weapon to me. They were often my finisher attack due to the level jumping ability Kai gave them.

Not all the melee fighters would be without their primary weapons, as many could conjure them. I could still conjure my shield and, if necessary, open my Hunter’s Pack and retrieve other weapons. But the idea was there, and we all recognised that.

All of us except Pounder, that was. Pounder was not his real name. It was his nickname, as his fists were his only weapons. He had the Hand and Might Essences, but he wouldn’t say what his other two were. That showed he was more than just an ugly face.

I was teamed up with Pounder. There are times when blunt fists are not the best, not that he would admit that. There were three others in our team of five, all of whom were nervous with only knives. One of them could conjure a sword, and with the other two, I offered to carry their main weapons in my Hunters pack, just in case. That made them feel better.

We came out in the Meadow Gate. Different teams split in various directions. I was much more familiar with this Astral Space and the things I could expect. I was better and had grown a lot. I took a deep breath, smelling for what was around us. The major smell came from Pounder, who needed to use more soap.

Three Kai’s moved out to scout as we moved away from the gate and into the tree line. I continued to pay particular attention to my senses and what they were telling me. The idea was not to use my webs or usual abilities but to survive with our secondary weapons as if I had exhausted and used all my nets and other things.

I went full stealth to blend in and scout ahead with Kai. We were a team of Melee Specialists. We had no ranged attacks and technically no defender if we were only using secondary weapons.

I was familiar with this astral space and knew most of its dangers. All the fear of the initial visit is now cautiousness. I am a lot stronger than when I initially came here a year and a half ago. We still need to pick our fights with Bronze-rank enemies, but we can take a lot more of them as a group.

Perception was my focus this trip, and once I got a reasonable distance ahead of the group, I really opened up my senses. They were loudly moving through the bush to my ears, but I also picked up the swish of wings and the scuttling of smaller creatures.

My eyes picked up small movements around us. The Astral Space was not an Ecosystem. Even the small creatures were manifestations of magic. They were just less than iron rank and did not survive long.

The smells came alive now that I was away from other humans. It suddenly dawned on me that I have two-level jumping skills: my claws and my perception. My perception is at Iron level 8, but I perceive at Bronze level eight. In other words, my perception is better than eighty percent of the creatures here.

That is why I sent Kai to lead the others to me and dived out of the way of the falling python. Atdisia and I kept it busy until the others arrived, and we whittled it down. It was a fairly straightforward monster. That gave the three who were nervous without their main weapons some assurance.

I got a nice length of Snakeskin. I went out scouting again as they moved toward the next portal point. They were loud, and I expected better aura control because they should have been trying to restrain their aura. However, I am not in charge here.

I did have a Kai with them and guided them. The Jumping Frogs were difficult to deal with as they were so small and mobile, and there were two dozen of them. They were too small for my nets, and in the end, I handed out shields coated in sticky Resin. The frogs were only iron-rank, and once they were stuck, they were easy to kill. I accumulated frog legs. I am not sure what they are used for. It demonstrated the inability to defend against certain creatures without the right tool, and this was partly the lesson here.

Kai was bringing me the occasional item, mostly quintessences of various types. I had the ritual circle to determine what the item was, but I was not going to use it in such a dangerous place. Once, Kai led me to a pile of Earth Quintessence and the soil was disturbed, so I collected it in a hurry. When I picked up the first one, I noticed it was silver-ranked. I steered the others away from whatever monster had done that. And warned them of a silver-ranked monster in the area.

The woke us all up. It is a constant danger even though the astral space is swept to clear them regularly.

Large slow-moving Woadtree was OK for us to handle, although it would have been much faster with my axe. Fast flittering Flametail birds were almost impossible with only secondary weapons. They were bronze rank and briefly switched into flame to let knives pass straight through. One of our team members had the water essence, and hosing them down to put out their flame meant we could deal with them.

We made it to the next portal and were getting comfortable with only our backup weapons. I was enjoying it a lot. I liked freeing my hands and leaping from branch to branch with no restrictions. I was starting to utilise my Iron-rank body fully.

Taking Melee fighting was really, really good. I am seriously considering doing it again with my spear and then my knives as secondary weapons. Like all the courses, it laid the foundation that I could build on in the future.