A month passed by in what felt like a blink of an eye, and now it was eight in the morning, sharp.
Dahlia felt like she was embarking on her first solo trip to General Elementary School again—Safi was racing around the tavern, putting up chairs and bussing tables, while Alice was flying up and down the stairs stuffing boxes of food, toiletries, and general amenities into her arms—and if she were to be honest, the two of them worrying so much about her just made her even more worried.
By the time the two of them were ready to set off and nudged her out of the tavern with a satchel on her back, she already felt like shivering and running back into her bedroom to hide.
“... Exam venue’s this way,” Safi said, dragging her to the left.
“No. It’s this way,” Alice said, dragging her to the right.
And the two started squabbling immediately, making a ruckus early in the morning. The perfumers setting up their stalls down the street snickered. Smiths and metalworkers throwing open their doors and windows hollered at Safi to shut the hell up, and the street cooks helping each other set up their mobile kitchen wagons started cheering, telling Alice to beat him up so bad they’d have less competition for customers for the rest of the week. It was as boisterous a morning as ever on Eighth Mantid Street, but today was not the day for the uncle and niece combo to mess around in front of the tavern.
Dahlia turned towards the two of them, gripping the straps of her satchel, and bowed slightly.
“I know where the venue is,” she said softly, trying to hide the trembling in her voice. “I can go… by myself. You two just stay here and… open Tavern Emparatoria. Half of our earnings come from breakfast service, right?”
Safi opened his mouth and raised a finger as though he wanted to make a point, but that opened him up for a leg sweep, and Alice tossed him straight back into the tavern with a loud crash.
Immediately, Alice darted in to pat her down from head to toe like a worried mother. “You know the way? How? Oh, did you pack spare towels? Bandages? Also, there are two boxes of dried stag beetle dumplings and one vial of crab oyster sauce inside your satchel, and the containers are super fragile, so make sure you eat them all within the week, okay? But don’t share them with other people! I made them for you, so you better–”
Dahlia groaned, whirling around and waving behind her as she trudged down the relatively empty street.
“I’ll… see you in a month, I guess,” she mumbled. “I’m fine. Steady. Not nervous. I’ve passed… exams… before. This won’t be–”
“Hey!”
Her antennae perked, and even without having to turn and look, she could feel the Arcana Hasharana raising a fist at her back.
“Bring back souvenirs, will you?” Alice said cheerily. “I think I’ll feel like eating Mutant beetle meat after a month!”
“...”
Dahlia’s face softened. It was such a silly request to make of someone who was about to head to her possible demise, but…she couldn’t deny Alice’s own brand of encouragement set a strange calm over the pounding anxiety in her chest.
The fear still wasn’t easy to accept—it never would be—but now she had no choice but to move forward, and the gathering point for the first stage of the exam, according to Kari, wasn’t that far away.
[It’s a thirty-minute walk away.]
I can make it in fifteen.
A small, quivering smile bubbled onto her face as she started jogging lightly, warming up her muscles for what she assumed was going to be a long day ahead of her. She’d been running around Eight Mantid Street to train her stamina while eating plenty of points, and combined with Alice drilling the Sharaji tongue into her head for six hours every day, working as a waitress in Tavern Emparatoria for the other six hours of the day, and finishing her Hexsteel made out of Madamaron’s parts just last night…
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[Name: Dahlia Sina]
[Class: Assassin Bug]
[Points: 21]
[Hexichor Art: Recollection]
[Hexichor Aura: 1182/1247 (95%)]
[Strength: 5 (+6), Speed: 5 (+2), Toughness: 5 (+8), Dexterity: 8 (+3), Perceptivity: 6 (+2)]
[// MUTATION TREE]
[T1 Mutation | Hexguard Arms]
[T2 Mutations | Base Chitin Development | Dagger Antennae]
[T3 Mutations | Stylet Claws | Stridulating Throat | Segmented Setae | Recalibrated Weight] 150P
[// EQUIPPED HEXSTEEL]
[Assassin Bug Claw Gauntlets (Quality = C)(Str +4/5)(Dex +3/4)(Aura -100)]
[Adaptable Desert Locust Greaves (Quality = E)(Spd +1/2](Tou +3/3)(Aura -93)]
[Firefly Bracers (Quality = D)(Str +2/4)(Tou +2/4)(Aura -174)]
[Butterfly Goggles (Quality = F)(Per +2/2)(Tou +1/1)(Aura -56)]
[Antlion Cloak (Quality = E)(Spd +1/1)(Tou +2/3)(Aura -98)]
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
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… My status screen is getting harder and harder to read, Kari.
[‘Tis but a fact of life.]
Don’t ‘fact of life’ me. Can’t you collapse a few of the boxes to make it easier to read?
Kari sighed, muttering something about ‘increasing her speed and perceptivity level so she could read faster’, but Dahlia had the feeling that sooner or later, she’d be equipping so many Hexsteel that she’d have a status screen as long as she was tall—and that was going to be a nightmare, high perceptivity or not.
Are my attributes high enough for the exam, though? she thought, squeezing through the crowds in the bazaar as she squinted under the harsh sunlight. Her status screen was actually getting in the way of her vision, so she waved it away and focused on getting to the giant sandstone building at the end of the bazaar. I’ve put all five hundred points or so I earned the past month into Aura, and then my running and exercises pushed it by a hundred more levels—my Aura’s decent enough, right?
[Eh. I assume it’s about the same as most other participants,] Kari said plainly. [Granted, your newest Hexsteel does have a special ability, so… I’d say it was worth increasing your Aura with literally all the points you had. The exam is going to be a month long. Using your Hexichor Art and mutations will be vital, no doubt.]
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[Antlion Cloak (Quality = E)(Spd +1/1)(Tou +2/3)(Aura -98)]
[Special Ability: Undulating Scales]
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And the undulating scales on my antlion cloak will make it easier for me to use the antlions’ Hexichor Art on it as well, she thought, glancing at her wing-like black and gold-streaked cloak; Madamaron’s chitin had been chopped up, ground into dust, and reforged by the smiths on Eight Mantid Street into hundreds of tiny scales she’d spent weeks stitching onto the back of her cloak. Whenever I use Hexichor Art: Scourgewind across my entire body, it always drains my Aura insanely fast even if it’s only active for an instant, but I only have to vibrate my shoulders at a fraction of the usual strength to make the scales on the cloak ripple violently.
[Thus, you can probably form a small spherical wind barrier around you three times a day without burning through your entire Aura,] Kari finished, crawling up and down her cloak as she squeezed through the crowd at long last. [It’s quite a powerful defensive option, but you should still pay attention and try not to rely on it. Consider both Stormlure and Scourgewind–]
Last-minute resorts and finishing blows.
I know.
If only there’s a way to reduce the Aura drain whenever I use my Hexichor Art, though…
She’d activated Scrougewind several times the past month while making her antlion cloak to see if the magic would pair with the equipment, but as far as she could tell, her firefly bracers had zero synergy with Stormlure. The bracers’ defensive ability to spark lightning on impact had nothing to do with how she could summon a burst of lightning in her claws. Now, she hadn’t tried summoning lightning to her forearms where her bracers were, or to any other part of her body—whenever she activated Stormlure, she’d instantly collapse and be forced to lay down for the rest of the day—so for the time being, she had to restrict herself to three activations of Scourgewind and one activation of Stormlure per day.
… What about the rest of my attributes, though?
Are they high compared to what the other participants have?
Kari was quiet for a moment. [The bonus attribute levels from your Hexsteel are making up for your relatively low base attribute levels. I would say you’re just about average across the board. Really, really average. But you only obtained me a few months ago, so you started at a disadvantage, and… your strength has never been raw power, anyways.]
That much was certainly true. She had a sinking feeling the entire past month that the other participants had much, much higher attribute levels and more mutations unlocked than her—mostly because they were probably older than her, meaning they had more time to accumulate points—but what attribute levels she couldn’t increase because she didn’t have enough points, she’d try to make up for with Hexsteel. She could afford to spend six hundred points on Aura if the extra Hexsteel she was equipping gave her more six hundred points’ worth of attribute levels… and the higher her base attribute levels, the more valuable each level given by her Hexsteel would become.
Whatever the case, she felt she’d done her best the past month. Alice had advised her throughout with how to spend her points, and Safi had been diligently feeding her as many points as she could swallow every single day—with Kari in her head, she had more than enough advantages on her side to pass the exam.
Hopefully.
Maybe.
She still couldn’t help but gulp as warriors emerged from the crowd around her, all of them heading straight for the giant monastery at the end of the bazaar.
The monastery that was the gathering point for the first stage of the exam was a monumental structure carved from the desert itself, half-fortress, half-temple. Massive sandstone pillars flanked the entrance, the grainy walls weathered but reflecting harsh morning sunlight like mirrors. She would’ve stood still and gawked at it had she not been watching the Hasharana turn the building into the exam’s gathering point the past few weeks, and besides, the warriors walking alongside her to the line of reception desks outside the front gate were more interesting to look at anyways.
Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…
There were many who’d registered: short and silver-haired ladies with dragonfly wings folded on their backs, towering men with bronze skin and black beetle chitin armour rounding their joints, and more clad in Hexsteel breastplates, draped in layers of weather-beaten cloth, and wielding impractical-looking weapons that didn’t seem like they belonged in any warriors’ hands. They were too numerous, really—Dahlia started holding her breath as she neared the ten receptionists before the front gate, hardly anyone paying any mind to her while pushing her around.
So… hot…
Why’s everyone so… big… compared to me?
[Don’t be stupid. You forget you’re only fourteen years old,] Kari muttered. [Most people who register in the Hasharana Entrance Exam are at least twenty, and most who actually participate are twenty-five or above. Most of them have also had their systems for at least a decade, so it’s likely the beetle class users have all unlocked a size-increasing mutation somewhere along the way. For your reference, beetle class users make up around ten percent of all participants every year.]
Huh… that’s interesting… to–
Before she knew it, though, the people in front of her were waved past the reception tables and she was pushed in front of one. The Hasharana with the beige-coloured, flower-patterned cape crossed his arms as he frowned down at her—she was easily only half his height, tiny and paltry in comparison—but then he snapped his fingers at the people behind her, stopping them from pushing her forward with a deep, resonating thrum of wind.
Her eyes immediately widened as she clamped her ears with two hands, the other two still gripping onto the straps of her satchel.
That’s my Hexichor Art.
Antlion vibrations–
“Name,” the Hasharana rasped, and she immediately clammed up as she stared at him.
“Uh…” she mumbled, trying her best to speak in the Sharaji tongue. Thank the Great Makers it wasn't too hard to learn; it was just a dialect with relatively minor differences compared to the Alshifa tongue. “I’m… Dahlia Sina. Fourteen. I'm here to–”
“Name: Dahlia Sina,” he rasped again, his amber eyes flickering to the left as he stared at something invisible; a status screen. “Age: Fourteen. Education history: Unknown. Origin: Alshifa Undertown. You are participant number three-one-eight, and your assigned team is ‘Dahlia’. Proceed to room three-one-eight and await further instructions.”
Dahlia blinked.
“I'm in team… what?” she asked. “I think there's a mistake. My name is Dahlia. Sorry, my… I'm not good at this tongue, so maybe–”
“Proceed to room three-one-eight,” the man sighed, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her past the table. “I read it correctly. You're in Team Dahlia. Your teammates are already there, so move and get into your room.”
…
The warriors behind her were sweaty, gnarly, and impatient to speak to the receptionist, so Dahlia gulped one last time before looking up the stairs to the front gate.
No going back now.