1.

I stood in front of the cave entrance, examining my weapon. The glow around the edge of the cursed tool, as the system called it, had died down. It wasn’t gone completely. It’d just become less pronounced, like the glow of an angler fish in the deep, dark sea—never quite gone, no matter the distance.

I breathed out. ‘Feed cursed energy’, the system said. So, the warmth I had felt crawling up the tool was like stolen maura? And when the curse mark absorbed enough maura, I could…“power” my weapons, spending the cursed energy? Odd. I’d never heard of anyone else with a similar skill.

‘Up and out you go!’ May yelled.

I turned and swallowed a snort. I was beginning to think May actually enjoyed being guts deep inside monsters because she was smiling while her arms were covered in the alpha’s insides.

She raised the bloodied, guts-dripping D rank fire core to the sky, shouting in triumph.

Breath surged out my mouth.

‘Thank the heavens.’

‘Now we can both buy an ability,’ May said.

I considered, then shook my head.

‘I’ll pass. I’ll save my credits for the water clone. You getting the speed enhancer is better for us anyway.’

The water barrier was cool but wasn’t better than a whole water clone. The earlier I started saving for it, the better. That, and my strongest suit was my general speed and manoeuvrability in water. What would hit me there? And if I had to call on a water barrier to save my life on land, I was most likely dead with the next attack anyway.

‘You sure?’ May said.

Her heart wasn’t in it, though. Greedy girl that she was.

I raised my spear, and May eyed the weapon. She’d seen my last attack.

‘I’m not entirely certain how it works yet, but I got an ability for it.’

Lacking offence would no longer be a problem if I learned how to use it.

May nodded.

‘We have four days left,’ she said. ‘Make use of them.’

‘I will.’

2.

And I did make good use of the time: I practised harder than ever in Elder Kang’s classes and that of Elder Muyue. Our team’s training increased in intensity, too. May drilled me like a sergeant, beating the living crap out of me and teaching me everything she thought I could absorb.

We hunted in our spare time. A lot. Only this time, our purpose wasn’t to gather cores but to train our abilities. May’s new skill was called Flame Step. It turned parts of her face glowing red as she darted through the area with the velocity of a speeding fish outrunning the water police. She was so quick that, at first, she kept overshooting her target and ramming into trees. It would’ve been quite funny if she wasn’t doing it in the presence of predators deciding the opening was a perfect time to lunge for her throat.

Myself? I discovered a few things about my cursed ability: The Thirst Unending.

One, the amount of maura I could steal with each strike (that drew blood) depended on the beast. Lupine gave more per hit than scythe-pawed foxes, for example. That must be why I felt that rush of energy when I fought the alpha—a D rank beast just offered more maura than any E ranked creature ever could.

Two, there was a limit to how much maura I could feed the mark before it wouldn’t take any more. I couldn’t put an exact number to it. But the capacity was somewhere around thirty cuts against various E ranked monsters.

Three, which was the most important, when I emptied my curse mark and shaped a cursed tool, I could refill my mark while keeping the cursed tool I formed active. That was a huge discovery. It meant I could have two cursed tools ready to go if I kept the first one active indefinitely.

So, how to keep a tool active ‘indefinitely’? During the day was no problem if I didn’t mind looking like a weirdo and carrying my weapon everywhere. But I needed to sleep at some point, which was when the gig slammed into a dam like a raging river thirsting for blood.

May and I brainstormed multiple ideas, but we hadn’t found one that we liked yet. Still, I was happy with the ability. The final move, the cutting jet, which spent all of the tool's stored energy, was strong enough to give Boris pause and force me to regulate how much energy I allowed into the weapon during training. That was something: Boris had remained unfazed in the face of May’s constructs.

Lastly, I could push the cursed energy into any tool I could shape. But I went for the weapon that I was starting to like the most—a spear.

Which was why May grilled me so hard on spear combat that I wanted to strangle her in her sleep to make the suffering stop.

In the end, though, as a seemingly everlasting nightmare extinguished by morning, the date of the test had arrived.

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3.

More than a hundred of us gathered on the sandy training field that had tasted the cheeks of many a downed initiate during sparring. To my surprise, Elder Kang wasn’t the only one awaiting our arrival. Elder Muyue and Elder Sui were there as well. All three stood in front of a circle-shaped pad pulsing with maura. The energy clung to the air in a very literal sense. It was like a swarm of hands reaching out and trying to hold onto the fabric that was life as if they would descend into hell if they let go. Dead souls, the term came to me.

I leaned to the side and whispered.

‘What is that?’

‘Beats me,’ Hero said.

Beside Hero, his brother from another mother shrugged, and May mirrored the movement.

We were standing in the middle of the gathered throng. From the looks of it, all the other initiates shared in our confusion.

‘Everyone is here, I believe,’ Elder Kang cut through, his voice booming as ever.

We went quiet collectively.

Elder Kang nodded proudly, seeing how quickly he drew attention.

‘You must’ve been wondering what exactly my test would entail,’ he said.

Understatement. It’d been the zealous topic of discussion at many evening gatherings between disciples.

‘It was kept secret on purpose,’ Elder Kang said, 'to prevent certain parties from preparing overly much.’

The elder threw his thumb over his shoulder.

‘Behind us is a Linking Pad. It’s a temporary gate. The destination is a dungeon.’

He paused and allowed hushed murmurs to pick up.

A dungeon, I thought. So, my first dive wasn’t going to be the siren gate. I’d acclimated to the idea a little now that there was concrete evidence of the curse mark helping me, but I still wasn’t sold on meeting the siren again.

‘Why choose that as the setting for a group battle?’ May whispered.

None of us could come up with a suitable answer. Dungeons were filled with riches, such as cores and items that you could only find in dungeons—rumours were some dungeons even contained ability scrolls learnable solely by those who had cleared the dungeon—but also monsters. Many monsters.

Fighting each other and settling grievances became hard when flesh-eating beasts were chasing you down.

Elder Kang laughed.

‘Some of you question the decision. What good will knowing do? You’ll need to overcome what’s inside regardless.’

He left us no room to complain because the broad-shouldered man stepped back, and an elder whose voice I hadn’t heard since the first day cleared her throat.

‘That may be the case,’ Elder Sui said, ‘however, rest assured. What you’re entering is not a dungeon in the classic sense.’

Her presence was as commanding as it had been on the first day—more so than Elder Kang’s, I thought, seeing them stand side by side.

‘None of the dungeons found in the first few layers of the sect are,’ Elder Sui continued. ‘The inhabitants have been replaced.’

Many breathed out in relief, me included.

Dungeons in the wild started at C rank, which was partly why the academy denied those below said rank. The boss monster, usually found within the boss room somewhere in the dungeon, would be higher than that.

Elder Sui waved her arm.

‘For that, we have these three to thank.’

Elder Muyue inclined his head in thanks, and Elder Kang accepted the gratitude in his way as that of a statue.

Three? As my mind asked the question, it noticed someone it hadn’t until now: a tall, young-looking man in a light blue robe. The ends of the billowy dress were in constant motion, making small half circles. They appeared to be dancing. The man himself wasn’t. He stood still, and the stillness was eerie. No matter how long I stared, I couldn’t catch a hair on his chin moving. He was like a pond forgotten by time and the rest of nature. My senses roved over him. Not a drop of maura released from his skin. Was he an elder? He must be.

Hero mused to himself. ‘How are they keeping the space stable? A dungeon collapses once the boss has been killed. Is the boss still in there?’

The mystery man coughed in his hand, drawing everyone’s attention before Hero could speculate more.

It was strange. He moved, but it looked like he hadn’t. I couldn’t remember how any of his muscles had moved to make his action happen.

‘It’s true Elder Muyue and I cleared the dungeon,’ he said. ‘Yet it’s always possible we missed some particularly stealthy beasts. Please, be careful.’

The students pulled a face.

‘Well said, Elder Brook,’ Elder Sui said. Then, her gaze fell on us. ‘I warned you before of the worthlessness of pride. Know that there is significant danger of death beyond this gate, should you allow it to carry you away.’

A moment.

‘However, wherever the risk goes up, reward goes up with it. For that reason, throughout this test, those thought to have given an exemplary performance will be considered for mentorship under one of our elders until the end of the two-month period.’

A gasp rippled over every student, and the strange man was cast from my head in a stroke of lightning.

Mentorship, I quietly breathed. That meant one-on-one lessons with an elder you didn’t need to pay for. Their very structure and goal would be tailored to your strengths and weaknesses. Such a reward was worth killing for.

Literally.

But that wasn’t the only reason I went quiet. ‘If you are lucky,’ mother had said. This was it! This was the opportunity she had sent me here for. May turned to me, and we shared a knowing glance. I was so excited that I missed most of Elder Sui’s following words. But a large, cloth sack had appeared next to her, and the elder removed a sealed scroll from its contents.

‘This scroll holds a map,’ the elder said. ‘Every group leader receives one. You’ll figure out its use once you enter the dungeon.’

Elder Sui stepped towards the gate behind her and crouched in the middle. She placed something in the centre that I couldn’t make out. That’s when the strands of gripping maura finally latched onto their target. They hauled on reality, ripping open a wound in reality. Maura curved and twisted. Seconds later, a vortex hovered above the pad.

‘Those who are ready,’ Elder Kang said, ‘step up orderly. The location you’re sent to is random, so do not rush.’

We did as commanded. Students disappeared after Elder Sui handed them their respective scrolls. Fahim was the group right ahead of us. Taran and Chloe were at his side, but there was another face I didn’t recognise. A stocky boy. From his energy signature, he was a Ranker. But what did it matter? I’d take care of him if he got in my way like I would everyone else!

Fahim looked back. His eyes found mine. We shared a solitary glance.

‘Good luck,’ he mouthed, and I mouthed it back despite the bloodlust inside me.

I noticed how Elder Sui handed him a black scroll, and then the gate swallowed his group of four.

May was handed our map. I couldn’t deny that the swirling of the portal mirrored that of my stomach. My belly churned and complained of how there would be many pitfalls that could undermine me. But the scream echoing ‘mentorship’ overrode everything. I breathed in, and my hand went to the waterskin at my side. I’m as ready as I can be. If I failed now, I was doomed to do so from the start.

There was an audible whoosh as Boris vanished, his shield in place. Hero was next. Before May went, she reassuringly squeezed my forearm.

But right before I stepped through, I looked to the side, where I felt a gaze on me. The man standing at the side of Elder Muyue was looking at me. Elder Brook, Elder Sui had called him. He smiled and did not look away.

His aquatic pupils, which seemed to be the gate to another universe, were the last thing I saw before the outside world disappeared completely.