‘Water clones?’ I said. ‘At E rank?’

‘Yes!’ May groaned. ‘Versions of yourself that can attack others. I want that! Mine are all subpar offensive moves.’

That sounded too ridiculous to be true. Then again…

‘Water is versatile,’ I said, frowning in thought.

Though that versatility was paid for in terms of raw damage. No matter how perfect my spear was, it wouldn’t destroy or hurt more than May’s. Especially, if she hit something flammable.

Well, maybe that’s too early to say, I thought. Mother was an S rank hunter. Could you truly become one of those when you lacked offence? Maybe she controls ice. There were many applications of the colder version of water I could think of that would kill a monster.

What did you need to use it—

‘Ah, before I forget,’ May said, dragging me out of my thoughts.

She went into her bag and produced a furled-up piece of yellow paper.

‘The scroll for training our cores,’ she said.

Ah, just in time, I thought, accepting it. Now that I’d reached D rank, I could start training immediately.

‘It has one use left,’ May said.

I noticed Flute Boy’s glinting eyes following the piece of paper.

‘One use left?’ I said.

‘Open it. You’ll see.’

I placed my Monstrography booklet to the side, then fell on the contents like a starving lupine.

Before any letters became visible to me, there was a click in my head and the system began to speak.

System item discovered! Analysing contents…

…

Contents analysed!

Divine Core Cultivation Manual has been stored in database and is available for access.

I stayed quiet for a moment, taking in the words. That’s when the paper between my fingertips began to frizzle, and the scroll crumbled into ashes, which became one with the wind.

‘There you have it,’ May said.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘They seriously hate students.’

There was no other reason for making the scroll usable only twice.

‘Keeps the students from sharing items too much,’ May said.

I shook my head. If it made sense to the teachers, there was nothing to say.

‘I just have to think of the name?’ I said.

May nodded.

Divine Core Cultivation Manual, I thought.

A system screen popped up.

Divine Core Cultivation Manual.

The core. The seat of humanity’s power—as any other part of the hunter’s body, it must be trained. Much like a muscle. Only, the core is spiritual in nature…

I hummed.

‘What do they mean with the core being spiritual in nature?’ I asked.

‘Ah, I can answer that one.’

May wasn’t the one who spoke up but Flute Boy.

‘Please,’ I said, taking the chance to rope them into our conversation fully.

He smiled as if to thank me for the opportunity.

‘It means the core is not a physical place,’ he said. He mimicked a cutting motion with his hands. ‘I wouldn’t be able to see it or take it out of you if I cut you open.’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘You can with a monster, though?’

‘No one knows why yet,’ he said, placing his hands on his cheeks as he spoke. ‘But the latest theory is that a monster’s core crystallises after death.’

Huh. They’re not always there?

Next to me, May clicked her tongue.

‘He’s right. Though I could’ve told you that.’

Her gaze narrowed before she raised an eyebrow at Flute Boy.

‘How did you know?’

Ah, right. This probably wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge either.

My head tilted, and I studied the two boys more closely. The two of them were lean but not in the way Fahim was. This was the result of hours of training. Both had skin the colour of sand, and their faces had the same sharp, defined lines around the chin and bridges of the nose. Normally, I would think them brothers. Something told me they weren’t.

‘Finally caught your interest, have I?’ Flute Boy smiled.

He placed his instrument on the table, leaned over, and held out his hand for us to shake.

‘The name’s Hero Jakrin.’

‘Jakrin?’ May said, taking the offered greeting without raising her head from the couch.

‘We’re from the eastern edge of the world,’ Hero said, ‘the Lamark Kingdom.’

Eastern, I hummed. May said Jax was from the east, too, didn’t she?

Hero motioned towards Bamboo Hat, whose nickname I was already mourning since I would lose it in the following seconds.

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‘This is my cousin, Boris Jakrin.’

Boris put forward his hand, too.

‘Nice to meet you,’ he said.

At least, I thought he did. Despite being close, his voice was so soft I had to listen to the after-echo to make sure I’d heard right.

‘He damaged his throat during one of our master’s lessons,’ Hero explained.

I inclined my head. Master. That must be a teacher they’d had before starting at the academy.

‘Djina Marshall,’ I said, shaking their hands in turn, ‘my pleasure.’

My tone was inviting, but my heart wasn’t in it. Everyone could be an assassin. That said, we needed the members, and they’d stood behind us during field argument, for whatever reason.

‘To answer your question,’ Hero said, turning to May, ‘our teacher is a member of the Star Society.’

‘Hoh,’ May intoned.

There was genuine respect there, which surprised me. It wasn’t often that May expressed anything other than scorn for everything being so far below her.

But, true to herself, May’s high regard made way for a wicked grin within moments.

‘“The Second Smartest in the World,”’ she quoted. ‘An organisation of scientists and researchers that almost beat House Brana to inventing the chip, right?’

Damn. These two were that important? From May’s stories, she was some type of “princess” or heir to an important family, too. Was I sitting at the table with the inheritors of the world or something?

Hero rubbed the back of his head.

‘My teacher would declare a war on your entire bloodline if he heard that label from your mouth.’

Boris rasped his throat, which I took to be him chuckling to himself.

‘May meant no offence,’ I said quickly.

To be honest, she probably did, but at least one of us had to keep up the pretence of being polite.

Case in point, I ignored the glare May shot me as Hero waved off my remark.

‘Our teacher is deep in the society, but we’re just street orphans he adopted on a whim. It doesn’t mean anything to us.’

That’s what he said. Yet despite his words, there was something in his stance that was off. I followed closely how Hero sat back down. His shoulders were too relaxed. Forcefully so, maybe.

Hero’s chin angled towards the floor, and he gazed into the fire of the lamp.

A breeze picked up.

The docile flute on the table whistled a cold tune as the wind blew on the tubes. The sound was haunting. It was like a hungry predator lunging out the dark—its sole purpose to devour the flame of the lamp whole, so it could leave the world in the dark blizzard it carried on its back.

Alas, an invisible film protected the source of warmth, and the wind curved harmlessly around the glass barrier of the oil lamp.

Hero spoke up.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

His voice was a melody that caused the universe pause, forcing it to appreciate the chiming.

May, being as ignorant as ever, filled the quiet immediately.

‘I’ve decided,’ she said.

We spun towards her, and May smiled.

‘You two, be happy,’ she said. ‘You can join my school.’

‘Your school?’ I said.

She shrugged.

‘We both know I’m the top.’

Huh?!

‘You’re not—’

‘Listen up, you two!’ May interrupted me.

‘My school lives by two rules,’ she said haughtily. ‘First!’

Her finger darted my way.

‘Djina here is to be called a shrimp and nothing else.’

My lips formed a line. I launched out of my seat and loomed over the table with all the height allowed to me.

‘Don’t you dare call me that,’ I growled at the boys.

May was one thing, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to accept it from two random guys.

‘Go ahead, try it out,’ May said. ‘I promise she won’t bite. She’s got a problem with me tonight if she does.’

My jaw unlocked and touched the floor.

Hero smiled and Boris scratched his cheek.

‘Shrimp,’ Hero said.

Boris coughed in his palm and whispered:

‘Shrimp.’

I closed my eyes and let my head fall. This couldn’t be real.

‘What’s the second rule?’ I said defeatedly.

May grinned. She stood from the bench. All three sets of eyes followed her as she walked away, looked back over her shoulder, and said: ‘No one who loves fire can be all bad.’

After those words, she descended the steps of the pavilion, her red hair bouncing up and down.

I blinked.

‘This girl really thinks she’s in a movie,’ I said.

‘Shut up!’ May yelled back from the lowest step of the stairs. ‘Don’t ruin my moment, shrimp!’

I rotated away from the screaming witch and to the boys.

‘We can meet tomorrow during Physical cultivation and do a round of sparring.’

My weapon skills were in much need of a boost, after all. That would also let me get a better feel of who they were. One conversation didn’t mean anything. I was also wondering why they chose to support us before—a question for tomorrow.

‘Sure thing,’ Hero said. ‘Though I don’t know how much use I’ll be after Elder Kang’s class.’

‘Word,’ Boris said.

I huffed.

‘You can’t be worse than me—’

‘Shrimp!’ May called.

My eyebrows levelled. Her previous antics had not gone unnoticed. Literally everyone in the pavilion was looking at us as she was choosing to call me by this ridiculous nickname.

If the extra heads bothered May at all, she didn’t show it.

‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Our bed is waiting for us.’

Hero and Boris weren’t the only ones whose eyes exited their sockets, and from somewhere to my side I heard a boy whisper:

‘It’s seriously like that? What a waste.’

I sighed and left without saying another word.

9.

image [https://i.imgur.com/lkdgNvB.jpg]

Unlike what May demanded (screw her, really), I didn’t go to sleep immediately like I promised myself and instead looked for a secluded place to train.

There was no need to search long. Asking another Ranker led me to a quick and simple answer: the training hall. A dome-shaped building on the third tier of the academy supported by metal beams finished with a black coating.

Spotlights installed at the top of the hall lit it up like a miniature soccer stadium. Strange that I’d never seen it before. But then the tiers of the academy were significant; traversing the entirety of a single tier could take upwards of ten minutes, depending on your haste. And this was my second day back at the academy.

‘I need to explore more,’ I said.

Where would I find the time for that? I didn’t know. But I had to.

Double glass doors formed the entrance of the building, and the interior was divided into spacious, transparent cubicles. Those must be the training spaces.

A sleepy clerk, a student like Marcus that must be an older initiate, told me it was on a first-come-first-serve basis. So, there was no booking them. This late, however, there were plenty of empty cubicles.

I chose one not too far away from the entrance, since the first few rows were for meditation while those in the back were for practising weapon forms.

Unlike the floor outside the cubicle, which was marble, the inside of the training cell was covered with a swatch of nubby, leather carpet. Dead centre on the mantle was a single cushion of which the design was quite military.

Sitting down caused me to frown. It didn’t even give underneath my butt.

I glanced around.

I’d expected some grand hall, but it seemed the academy didn’t care for offering one. The air was also quite stale. A consequence of the lack of raw maura permeating the space.

‘So, they want you to bring your own energy source.’

How kind of them.

All my cores were in my pouch as I didn’t leave the dorm without them. However, I wasn’t certain if I wanted to spend them on meditating.

Selling them at the trade centre for credits was the sole way I had right now to acquire enough money to buy abilities, and you could only sell cores if they were untouched.

I’ll do with the maura I have left. Which wasn’t much. Two hours had passed since the end of Physical Cultivation, but my natural regeneration hadn’t worked any wonders. I had six whole points of maura to splurge.

The realisation struck me that this ‘two hours of training before bed’—while a motivated decision—was actually quite worthless. Sleeping early and waking up before class would work better.

Another point to Mother’s schedule, I suppose.

‘Well, I’m here now. May as well.’

I lacked the maura for effective shaping practise, so I chose to practise cultivation instead, following the instructions of the Divine Core Cultivation Manual.

It was simple, really. The spiritual core could be envisioned as a nickel-sized sphere. My job was to stretch it and increase its size over time.

I breathed in and out. Twice more to gain my focus. One more time to prepare physically.

Take hold of my maura, thin it, rotate and push. The process was the same as when I enhanced my muscles. But instead of shoving my maura out of my core and into my veins, all of it needed to stay inside.

This thinning, spinning, and containing process was the growth force. And also the source of the pain. That the stretching had to take place excruciatingly slow—to prevent damaging my core—didn’t help.

It must’ve been only ten minutes until I forcefully took a break and folded forwards like a blanket to fight a cramp.

I need to do this for hours each day to get results? I thought. A tear leaked from the corner of my eye, and I already dreaded what awaited me.

Cultivation, unfortunately, didn’t yield immediate results. The manual said an average estimation was a dozen hours of practise before I would see the first point of increased capacity.

‘That’s crazy.’

The comparison to muscles was fitting. Working out for a week wouldn’t do much for your physique, but consistently training for months would create a night and day difference.

Luckily, the capacity points after the first should be easier to achieve—

A hard knock reverberated off the glass surface of the cubicle, making me to look up.

The lights above revealed a chubby boy standing in front of the door, who waved at me.

I had to silence the sharp exhalation of breath coming out of my lungs.

My feet touched the floor, and I opened the door, preparing myself to dodge or engage.

‘Good evening,’ I said warily.

And Son Gaef smiled in response.