image [https://cdn.midjourney.com/482d61d4-8be6-4e24-9070-faf064274972/0_2.png]

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While Alchemy left for good, Kostel was hanging around. He had picked up his weapon and now was humming a merry melody, strolling on the lawn, hands in his pockets.

Go away, dumbass! Peter cursed.

Sorry?

Peter faked a yawn and changed his position, indulging the System. A few minutes later, the guard went away, still humming.

What was that about? Peter asked, rising on his buttocks.

"Shrug off? He barely managed to keep his pants clean."

"You're kidding me!" Peter blurted. “You gave him the System?”

"All OK?" a random student stopped to ask.

"I'm fine, just talking to myself," Peter waved his hand, pretending to read the book. I beg you, don’t tell him about us. He'll rat on me the first occasion.

The fuck? You told him?

"The expression is with both hands. I forbid you from giving the system to anyone else without my permission. Do you understand?”

“Being ruled by an alien AI is the natural order of things?”

“Whatever. Don’t tell Kostel about us at all. He’s a moron," Peter said.

Is Kostel also an Impulse?

“You traitor!” Peter exclaimed in righteous indignation. “What about patching up my class before giving one to idiots?”

“Starts rough,” Peter facepalmed, feeling the need to cry. We’re doomed…

He’s changing the subject, isn’t he?

For most of the evening, Peter searched for Alchemical ingredients in the forest. Luckily, monsters avoided daylight, and the task was completed without a problem. Returning to the lab, he transformed the new substances into glazing, coating the pills he had created earlier and baking them a second time at a very low temperature. The result was supposed to accelerate the Health and Mana recovery further.

In the afternoon, the date with Regina went extremely well. She did frown at the interior design of Peter’s preferred tea house, all laces and embroideries, but enjoyed the cakes and the tea. Just hanging together made Peter feel warm inside. When they parted, they hugged and kissed. A real kiss. Her mouth tasted like the cakes and the tea… and had a certain freshness and spiciness that made his lips buzzing with energy afterward, for whatever reason.

But finally, the hour to pick back the pet approached, and he exited his dorm. It was a hot evening, and the air was still and humid. Peter’s heart was split. Despite finding Alchemy attractive, he didn't appreciate her advances. Yet… rejecting Melinda could cause him problems.

He arrived in front of the teacher's mansion at five to nine, dressed in jeans and a gray neutral T-shirt. The building was one of the nicest on the campus and had a circular row of columns. Peter had no idea how it looked before but knew many buildings had their exteriors or interiors redone in the few months between the Awakening and the College’s opening. Cultivators were fans of traditional architecture, one of the few things Peter agreed with.

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“You mean follow my heart, you dummy!”

There was no answer. Sighing, Peter rang the bell.

"Come in. Upstairs," Melinda's voice replied from the speaker.

A buzz signaled the door was open. Peter entered a vast lobby with marble on the floor and intricate wood panels. A central stairs dividing into two alleys went up.

"To the right," the woman’s voice reached him.

He followed the indication to a corridor ten feet wide. The carpet on it was Persian and exquisite. Before he stepped on, he took his shoes off. His feet sank into the rug as in forest moss. Twenty yards further was the master bedroom, twice his studio's size. Dressed in a semi-transparent silk robe, Melinda sat on a velvet couch. Her full breasts were half-revealed, and he could see her belly button. Her midriff was toned and looked like a living porcelain. Peter swallowed a lump.

"Sit," the woman patted the couch.

He did, but not quite as close as she wished. Melinda frowned, but Peter pretended not to notice, walking his eyes around. Art, a lot of art. He could swear some of the paintings belonged in a museum.

"It's an honest collection, even if cheap," she said, noticing where he looked. "I had to settle for the second-tier art. The Louvre. No one but the council can touch Orsay."

"Orsay?"

"Where the good stuff is. Van Gogh and others…"

"Oh… I thought the Louvre was cool…"

Melinda shook her head. "Good art, strong art, comes with pain and struggle. It helps Cultivation. Painting a bland, plump woman for a gig can't compare with an artist who cut his ear and then blew his brains off… Maybe one day I will show you the real Starry Night… My father has it… You feel you're falling into it."

The woman's eyes were watery. She was half-drunk, Peter realized, from the empty bottle lying on the floor. A French wine, and an expensive one. There was another bottle on the coffee table, almost full. She poured a glass, offering it to him. At the last moment, she changed her mind and took a sip. Then, she grabbed Peter by the back of his neck and kissed him, pouring both the liquid and her tongue into his mouth.

The kiss was wild and inebriating. Peter lost control and kissed her back, kneading her breasts. Suddenly, the kiss with Regina came to his mind, and he stopped and leaned back.

"What's up?" she caressed his cheek.

"I’m seeing someone," he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to do this… for both of you.”

She frowned, scrutinizing him, then finished the glass of wine and poured herself another, which followed the first. “I’m sorry…” she said, letting her head back on the armrest. “I should have asked… I was just in a blue mood. A project dear to my heart was closed today… You're cute, and I lost my mind for a moment… Let’s be friends,” she yawned with half-closed eyes. “You can call me Melinda…”

“OK, Melinda... What was the project about?” Peter asked.

“To make training fun… Free… ah… advice,” Melinda yawned again, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Stay near me during the trials.”

"What trials?" Peter asked, a bit concerned by her words.

She looked at him with hazed eyes. "Soon, everybody will train on the third floor of the Tower…"

Melinda hiccuped and suddenly went limp, snoring softly like a cat. That made Peter detect another snoring, alternating with hers. Behind the couch, his belly up, Shredder was asleep as well, his tongue hanging out. Next to him was a half-eaten steak in a cardboard box from the best restaurant in town and a water bowl filled with wine.

Geez… What would this qualify for? Animal abuse? Giving alcohol to an underage monster?

He grabbed the pup under his arm but gently shook Melinda by the shoulder before leaving. She moaned, breathing heavily, her breast almost exposed in that laying position. Peter shivered and shook her again; this time, she half-opened her eyes.

"Teacher… if the third floor is dangerous, why don't we start with the first?"

"You silly… aaaah…. boy…" she smiled, yawning. "You already started the first floor."

"I did? When?" he asked, trying to remember if one of their field trips had entered some cave.

"Earth, silly boy… Earth is the first floor."

She returned to sleep again, so the best thing to do was to leave. Outside, Peter almost bumped into his colleague, the girl who was always dressed in black Goth clothes. She frowned at him, and his heart skipped a beat. Please don't tell Regina you saw me leaving Alchemy's house!

Before he finished his thought, she was already turning right on the next alley.

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An hour later, after leaving Shredder—still asleep—in his studio, Peter left the Campus, found an isolated spot, and changed into his armored clothes. It was an uncomfortable feeling; the night was one of the hottest ever on record for July. The System was still silent.

He took the small drone from storage and sent it to fly around the city. It was a smart device that was easy to use. It took not long to find his target, somewhere between the Campus and the forest. He rode on the Yamaha—he needed to familiarize himself with it, after all—and parked the bike a block further from his destination, approaching on foot.

There was still traffic in front of the dilapidated building, a few people entering or exiting, carrying pet cages, everyone concealing their faces behind a hoodie. Soon, the flow of visitors ended, and Peter entered.

The space had been a store once. On the shelves were cages with jackalope kits or mutated owl hatchlings. The most common monsters and the most hunted, even by normies.

The girl had his back turned on him. "Hi, Shadow," he said.

"Please, don't shoot me!" the girl in a Venom costume screamed, covering her head and torso with her arms."I won't tell, I swear!"

"C’mon! If I wanted you dead, why didn’t I shoot you back at Garcia’s?” Peter protested, taking a step back to appear less threatening. “This is business. I have a warg pet, a pup. I’ll need somebody to care for him when I’ll be out of town," he said curtly.

"A warg pet?" she finally said, calming down. "They’re very rare."

"He's nice and small for now. Looks like a normal dog, but his poop is so acidic it goes through the ground, and he eats shoes. Literally. I must leave him with someone I can trust. I'll pay extra if you train him to behave nicely."

"…Sure," she said after a brief hesitation. “But you promise you won’t shoot me, right?”

"I promise. You won't keep it in a cage, right?"

"Of course not! We have big pens in the backyard."

"Great."

"Call before you come," she gave Peter a visit card. “If I’m not here, someone else will be. It's a hundred bucks per day. Sorry… We need pet food and medicine."

"It's OK. Nice costume," Peter said while leaving.

Once outside and on the motorcycle, a familiar voice greeted him, sounding happy.

Hey, you're back.

“You sound more normal now,” Peter said. “I hope you didn’t tell him about me, right?”

"OK. Melinda… err… Alchemy understood. We didn't push it too far."

He sighed. “I like being around her. It’s just… I’m torn in half if you want to know.”

Because at some point, I might put her in danger.

I’m not a superhero… Just a regular guy with a System. Let’s hunt some monsters until I level up. Alchemy implied that the third floor is dangerous.

"No… I asked why don’t we start with the first floor, but she was drunk and said some nonsense, like Earth being the first floor— "

The curse sounded so loud that Peter swerved on the street and almost crashed on the walkway.