14.

May left for Spirituality after making sure I could safely meditate near the locus, and I spent the early morning making use of the cultivation paradise.

Droplets fell from the ceiling, landing on my head. I was sitting in the centre of the lake, on the single rock jutting out of the surface, again following the instructions of the cultivation manual: thinning, spinning and rotating my maura.

The pain was as bad as the first time. But toughing it out was easier—like a scab was growing over a wound. Touching it still pained. Yet less so.

Half an hour of bearable hurt passed, and then I switched gears and honed my shaping skills. Water maura entered my lungs with every breath, making going through my forms easier. Quicker.

And so my progress was smooth.

Status.

Status Screen for Djina Marshall.

Hunter Nickname

N.A.

Hunter Rank

N.A.

Affiliation

Hunter Academy

Physical Status

Invigorated, The Siren’s Accursed

Maura

18/22

Physical

D

Mind

E

AP

E

Talent

N.A.

Abilities (Basic)

Dagger Wielding - rank E, Sword Wielding - rank E, Body Enhancement - rank B, Weapon Enhancement I - E, Maura Shaping - rank E (2/3).

Abilities (Attuned)

Maura Nature Manipulation (Water) - rank B+, Water Striding II - E

Ailments

Curse Mark of the Siren.

My maura nature was close to achieving S rank. If my body enhancement reached S rank, too, I could enter the dungeon of the siren.

The thought finished, and a dread wrapped around my middle like a band before the echoes dissipated.

‘No thanks.’

Damn what May thought—helper spirit or no—but they wouldn’t catch my corpse near that gate. Not yet, at least. I’d even disregarded meditating near the water cavern completely because I didn’t want to “luck” my way into seeing the thing’s face again.

Violently shaking my head, I cast the image of the siren from my mind like a rock, not allowing the void near my neck time to reappear. With the continuous, pattering on the top of my dome, the metaphor sprung to life, and the sound made my gaze slowly turn to between my feet.

A patch of stone outcropping was visible between the gap in my crossed legs.

I raked my palm over the rough surface. It’d escaped my notice before, but the rock was damaged, and worn out. A giant, u-shaped hole had stolen the smoothness factor from the stone. There was but a single perpetrator possible—

A water droplet plunged onto my head right that moment as if to wholeheartedly accept the guilt.

I chuckled.

Lacking offence, huh. That’s what I said during our talk of abilities at the pavilion. But how could that be true if it could cut through rock?

I looked up and a droplet fell on my nose, then harmlessly slid down my chin.

My mind followed the movement of the water.

‘It’s just too slow.’

How long had the water spent assaulting the stone formation beneath me? Years or decades? A century? I couldn’t tell. And in any case, each answer could be summarised as: too long.

…but maybe there was a way for me to cut the time short.

My brain spun, trying to think of ways when a beep sounded in my head—another function of the system. So, I regrettably exited the grotto without an answer and went home.

The time for class was here, and so was the moment for Fahim’s report.

15.

‘Sorry,’ Fahim said when Monstrography ended.

Well, darn.

‘No one has anything?’ I said, glancing to the side.

Some of the other students—including the boy who’d eyed me my first time here—shot us looks but left, going for lunch.

Fahim’s hair whipped side to side.

‘Taran inspected the exits. But he was trying to figure out how the gates worked. He was looking for a way around the nighttime curfew.’

I tilted my head. Questioning that hadn’t occurred to me.

‘Did he,’ I said. ‘Find a way?’

‘From what he can tell,’ Fahim said, ‘an invisible barrier snaps shut around the gates after midnight. Stops anything but the elements from getting through.’

Obvious. These were the elders we were speaking of. All of them could kill us in a moment if they wanted to, so keeping us out of the academy must be child’s play.

‘But he must’ve seen a few people leave,’ I muttered, getting back on topic.

‘He did,’ Fahim agreed. ‘But he’s bad with names.’

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‘Bad with names?’

‘Names aren’t really a part of his tribe,’ Fahim shrugged. ‘Doesn’t even have a last name. So, they used his clan name as his surname during the assessment.’

Well. That certainly fit the “wild” impression I had of him. And if that was the case, it made sense he wouldn’t know any names. Our first year had over a hundred people. All with a first and last name, sometimes more.

‘That puts a serious wrench in our search,’ I said. ‘And odds.’

With no list, our sole option was a public investigation. But doing so would kill our advantage of surprise.

‘I know.’ Fahim sighed, then looked up.

He hesitated for a moment before speaking.

‘There is one person he remembers leaving in particular.’

A light in lit in my gaze.

‘Who?’

Even one name was better than none.

Fahim stepped closer and covered his lips.

16.

The name Fahim whispered resounded in my head…it had a certain ring to it that I couldn’t shake. Not while I was making my way to Physical Cultivation and not during the entirety of the lesson.

Even afterwards, when the time for sparring came, my eyes unwittingly went towards the source of my growing unease, pulled like an anchor from the seafloor, steadily but surely, without any way to counteract the draw, and landed on a group of three across the sand-covered training field that smelled like boy-sweat.

Kate and her two buddies were already at it. The tall girl used a wooden flail of some sort—but the shaft was non-existent, nothing more than a bundled chain wrapped around her fist.

She swung the flail in an arc around her to keep the other two at bay, who were doing their best to close the range on her, both holding spears in their hands.

The exchange ended in a nasty hit. Her ball slammed into the top of one of the boy’s shoulders. He didn’t shout in pain. Only grimaced and cradled the upper part of his arm, going to his knee and dropping his weapon in the process.

Kate mouthed something as she walked over to see the damage (probably her apologies). Yet there was something about the way she strode forward to see if he was alright that caused me to frown...the easy sway of her hips. Like she didn’t truly care what the result of her examination would be.

‘That was a nasty hit.’

The sudden sound nearly made me startle out of my skin. Hero and Boris stood at my side.

Can’t believe I didn’t notice that, I chastised myself.

I gave them a once-over. Aside from the standard garb of the sect and the flute fastened to his neck with a cord, Hero wasn’t wearing anything that left an impression. His cousin was the same. Only the flute had been traded for the bamboo hat hanging off his back from a strap around his neck, and a shield slightly bigger than a buckler that was strapped to his arm.

‘It was,’ I said. ‘Kate’s skilled. Fighting her will prove an issue.’

His eyes rested on me, and there was a minute pause inside those pupils.

‘Fighting her?’ Hero said, the edges of his mouth curving. ‘I thought May and her were kicking it off in the dorm room.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

They played tag when it came to trading insults with the other two girls. But who knew what would happen once the test started? Allies and enemies were but a flick of the blade removed from each other.

‘Alright, teatime’s over!’

May returned from the weapon rack with a sword strapped to her waist. The spear and two daggers in her arms she threw at me. Then, she looked over the boys’s equipment.

‘Your weapons?’ she said.

Hero lifted his flute.

Boris raised his shield, and a brown coating layered his skin.

‘Mud?’ I said.

He nodded.

‘Cool,’ I said.

I’d never seen mud as a power before. Must be a fusion of water and earth. I paused. Did that mean I could control it, too?

‘Mud is one thing,’ May said, no emotion visible on her face. ‘But what’s that flute going to do?’

I glanced at Hero, questioning the same thing.

He smiled and tilted the instrument in his hands.

‘Want a demonstration?’

So, we lined up in front of Hero to better our view.

‘I use wind,’ Hero said, putting the flute to his lips.

A high note played from his organ.

After a moment, I frowned and looked at my hands. They were tingling.

‘You feel it?’ Hero said, and the note quit.

‘It’s a buff?’ May said, turning over her palms.

‘It improves your general aim,’ he said. ‘You should be able to view it on your system panel.’

As told, when I whispered status and searched my screen, an extra bar had shown up.

Buffs

Windmill’s Fury.

Squinting at the new term revealed a description that explained the accuracy of my projectile-based abilities had gone up.

‘It’s not a lot,’ I said.

The bonus was only ten percent.

‘Because I solely played a single note,’ he said. ‘The more complex the song, the better the effect. Takes more maura, though.’

‘Any other buffs?’ I hummed.

‘A tune that speeds you up,’ he said. ‘And I can slow down others or interfere with their missile constructs. The effectiveness depends on their overall grade compared to mine, though.’

He finished by shaking his head, signalling that was all.

But what he had voiced was quite useful, I had to admit. Perhaps the most useful out of anyone in our team.

Even May gave a reluctant nod to show her respect.

‘Your mud,’ May said, turning to Boris, ‘you use it to tank, I assume.’

‘On the mark,’ Hero said instead of his cousin, saving the other’s voice.

He glanced at Boris, and something like silent communication passed between them.

‘He’s up for a demonstration, as well. You can use him as target practice. That way we can also see what we’re dealing with on your end.’

May’s shoulders jerked.

‘Sure…’

My head titled. It sounded like she was forcing her tone to be even.

Hero’s brow touched his skull but he didn’t say anything.

Boris, for one, looked around for a spot where we weren’t at risk of hitting other students and squared his stance. His maura flashed. Then a brown sheen coated the entirety of his sandy skin complexion like a second layer. It coated his shield, too.

Our self-proclaimed captain’s feet carried her a few metres away from where Boris was standing.

She held out her hands in front of her and breathed out. What formed to the side of her head started as a red needle in the middle of the air but quickly grew to the size of a short staff. Then, it started spinning.

There were hushed whispers around me, and when I turned my head, I saw other students peeking.

A whistle screamed through the air as the spear began to gyrate, and the rush of heat blew strands of my hair backwards.

‘What an incredible level of control…’ Hero said.

His eyes were wide. So were those of the initiates around us.

I smirked.

‘If you have a buff for your cousin,’ I said. ‘You may want to use it now.’

‘Against something like that?’ Hero chuckled. ‘I’ve got nothing. He’ll have to rely on himself. But he’ll be alright.’

I side-eyed him. That was some confidence.

‘Ready?’ May called out over the storm of noise she was generating.

Boris sagged through his knees and angled his back foot. The mud around his skin grew darker, and his eyes leered an inch above his shield.

“Ready,” they silently said.

And the missile shot forward, penetrating the airspace.

Fast! I thought. I couldn’t even follow it as it crashed into Boris’s shield, sending the boy skidding back through the sand, gritting his teeth as he fought to stay upright…

No, wait. He was still in the same place—without a scratch mark on his protective coating or shield.

Huh?

May’s face was turning into a volcano, so red was it becoming.

A sudden thought struck me. It can’t be, right? I don’t know why, but I turned to Hero for an explanation or argument against what I was thinking. Yet his expression was just as clueless as mine.

So, I turned to the rest of the audience. One among them dry coughed. Which was when May’s top burst like the force of nature it was imitating.

She whirled on all of us.

‘It’s still a work in progress, okay?!’

Hero reflexively threw up his hands, waving disarmingly.

‘No worries! That’s why we’re here. To train!’

‘I don’t want to hear that from you! Djina, you go!’

This witch, I thought. She did that because she knew my shaping was lacking right behind hers.

‘Don’t make me look bad with you,’ I complained.

‘Shut up,’ May spit.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. May stormed past me, and I took her place in front of Boris.

A deep breath, and then the maura within my core rumbled. My hands clasped together, creating a loud clap and pulled apart. A refracting, watery substance formed between them with speed visible to the naked eye.

Good, I thought. The motion was more fluid. Just like I’d practised.

Murmurs.

‘You’re quick,’ Hero said, warily glancing at the weapon.

A slight purring sound came from the weapon in my hands. Like it was trying to tell me something.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I practised—’

‘Of course she is,’ May cut through. ‘She’s a shrimp.’

My lips formed a line. I solemnly shook my head, thinking, “goddamn fire users”, and turned to Boris to call out:

‘I’ll be honest—’

I almost shut my mouth. Boris’s pupils were narrow. Despite May’s attack doing nothing, his shield was still raised high, solely his pale eyes peeking above the rim and staring me down.

He was ready. Yet I continued.

‘—even I don’t know what’s going to happen if this hits you.’

‘Come.’

Boris didn’t raise his voice like I did. Yet it was perfectly audible despite the distance.

Alright. I flipped the spear, grabbing it at the lower end. Three measured steps gave me a running start. On the last, my upper body curved, and my arm swung down.

The javelin bolted across the gap between us as an imaginary blur. But the depression the tip carved in space as it howled forward was real, and the weapon veered down towards Boris’s feet due to the angled force.

My eyes widened. Oh, no.

Boris realised too late. He tried to raise his foot, but my javelin chewed through his boot, taking everything below the ankle to the grave.

At least, it would’ve, had the lance not splashed and broken harmlessly against his shoes.

Boris blinked. I scratched the side of my head, poking out my tongue from the side of my mouth.

‘What can I say,’ I said. ‘I’m still working on it.’

This time there was genuine, roaring laughter in the crowd.

‘She doesn’t know what will happen, she says!’

One of the students rolled over the floor, sand getting in his hair and on his clothes.

I sighed, walking away and pretending not to notice May’s snickering and Hero’s awkward encouragement.

That was the thing with my constructs. I could make them perfectly stable…if they were in my hands. As soon as they left for a vacation through the summer air, they lost their firmness, becoming like water smashing on rock. Literally and figuratively.

‘We’ve got our work cut out for us,’ I said.