“Hn,” Dean Weber grunted. “How long have you been practicing Mana Circulation?”

  “Almost a year,” he answered.

  The Dean rubbed at the thin hairs on her chin that were common for goat-folk. “You are certainly an enigma. You are also very lucky to be alive. The amount of mana to cultivate your body like that would have killed most. Have you told anyone else about your breakthrough?”

  He shook his head. “It just happened. I didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone until I learned more about it.”

  The Dean nodded and the glow in her eyes faded, “That was wise.”

  Ben slumped in his seat and raised a hand to his forehead, a headache starting to throb. He frowned at the goatwoman. “Was that really necessary?”

  She raised a single eyebrow at him. “You do know your Job is to lie and steal, right? Why would I trust anything out of your mouth that wasn’t a compelled truth?”

  Ben didn’t think that wasn’t fair, especially not when he'd been honest with her so far. He didn't like it, but there was nothing he could do about it now. “Fine, then can you tell me about Mana Cultivation? I have a basic understanding of it from the skill. With a lot of time and practice I can refine my body, which will improve my statuses.”

  “That is correct,” the dean said with a nod. “It is a skill that few of the kin have ever earned. Not much is known about it except that every kin who has unlocked the skill has become powerful.”

  Ben thought that that was good to know. From what Yum told him, he would need all the power he could get to contest whatever the system threw at him for having the Unsung Hero Achievement and not taking the Job. If he survived the next five years, he might just have to become the Unsung Hero anyway.

  “Tell me, do you think you could teach Mister Romano?” Dean Weber asked, surprising him slightly.

  “What?” he asked, confused by the request.

  “Can you teach Mister Romano?” she asked again.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he said. “I could give him the diary that got me started on learning Mana Circulation. It’s where I started. And I could try to repeat the process I used, but without the ravenous hunger that followed using Torpor, I don’t know that he’d be able to eat that many rolls. Not to mention I nearly died in the process myself.”

  The dean frowned. “I see. Well, if you wouldn’t mind, get him started learning Mana Circulation, if he asks why, I expect you to lie. I will see if I can find a safe way for him to gain the Cultivation skill without putting his life at risk.”

  He returned her frown with one of his own. She was asking him for something and not offering anything in return. That wasn't the way he did things. There was always a cost. “And what’s in it for me?”

  The dean groaned irritably. “Keeping your reason for being here secret isn’t enough?”

  He replied sharply, a bit of heat leaking into his voice, “If you tell him or anyone, my time here is done, and then there is no way I’m sharing anything with Al. You are asking for something above and beyond. That deserves compensation. And if you don’t want to pay for my help, then I would suggest you find someone else to teach him.”

  The dean growled angrily. “You understand the fate of the world is at stake here, right?”

  He glowered at her. Of course, that was where she’d go. “Then I suggest you make it worth my while.”

  The dean glared a moment longer then sighed and sagged in her chair. “Fine, I suppose you do deserve payment for services. What do you want?”

  He thought about it for a minute. There were many things he wanted but only a few things he needed. “I want personal training.”

  “Training in what?” the dean asked.

  “Skill creation. I need to create a Shadow Claw skill, you never found the skill stones for it and I have yet to receive the promised tutoring,” he replied.

  The dean frowned. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Great, as soon as I’ve had my first training session, I’ll get Comrade Alphonse started,” he replied.

  The dean hesitated before finally saying, “Agreed.”

  He nodded.

  “Now, get out,” the dean ordered.

  The badgerman didn’t need to be told twice. He was ready to go home. He had some reading to do.

  Chapter 46 – Light Work

  When Ben got home that night, Esteban was pacing restlessly just outside his door. He sagged in relief when he saw Alphonse and him come through the front door to the apartment building. “Oh, good, you both made it back,” he sighed.

  “We’re fine, Esteban,” Al assured, giving their friend a smile.

  “How is everyone else?” Esteban asked, his brows furrowed with concern.

  Alphonse reassured him, “Everyone made it back just fine.”

  The badgerman stepped forward, eager for news of Bella. “How are your other friends after the party?”

  “They’re okay, well . . . except Bella,” Esteban answered, then nervously added, “She’s not dead or anything. She had to sneak out to come to the party so her guard wasn’t with her. He made all kinds of threats to the academy when he found out. Even made some threats against the three of us. I’m sorry to say, but as soon as Bella was stable, the guard had her house packed up, and they left.”

  Ben was glad to hear Bella survived but was equally sad to hear she was gone. Still, he breathed a sigh of relief. She lived.

  “I feel bad for encouraging her to sneak out. You don’t think it was my fault she got hurt, do you?” Esteban asked nervously.

  “Of course not,” Al said. “You are not responsible for the choices she makes.”

  Ben shook his head sadly. “I am glad to hear she survived, Comrade Esteban. But if you’ll excuse me, I need to rest.” He pushed through the pair of dogmen and climbed the stairs, entering his apartment and closing the door behind him a little more harshly than he should have.

  He struggled to focus the next couple of days. He tried to read The Fearless Badger Cultivation Manual but found it kind of useless. It basically said he needed to cultivate his mana in a place of extreme danger, like in the middle of a lair break, or in a nest of the deadliest beasts known to kin kind. A place that any normal kin would have been absolutely terrified to go. The Fearless Badger indeed. There was of course more to it than that, but it was complex. Circulation patterns. Control exercises. Cultivating the myriad mystic gates to improve his Badger’s Constitution, how the manual knew he had such a constitution boggled the mind. And there was a whole lot more.

  The only thing he really took away from it was a new Mana Circulation pattern, not that he was certain it was doing anything different. Coach Liv was livelier when he entered the Lair Team meeting room at their next meeting, his usual gravelly voice replaced with an enthusiasm Ben hadn’t seen from him in a while. “Welcome back, team. I hope you all enjoyed a couple days of rest after the Hunter’s Run. Now that it is behind us, it is time for us to begin moving forward. The next Lair is the Hazardous Laboratory.”

  “What’s the skill this month, coach?” Robin asked.

  “Heat and Cold Resistance, which means I’ve booked us a special Elemental Box,” Coach answered.

  “Why resistances?” Rober asked.

  Coach answered excitedly, “The Hazardous Laboratory is known for its sudden and rapid temperature changes and the elemental mutants you’ll fight your way through. It is also one of my favorite Lairs.”

  “Why is it a favorite?” Al asked.

  Coach grinned, “Fire Attunement, Fire Manipulation, Ice Attunement, and Ice Manipulation. This lair is known to give out these skill stones. And if you aren’t aware, any elemental attunement or manipulation skill stone is worth a small fortune, even if you sell it to the Academy, you’ll each be walking away with a good-sized pile of gold.”

  “The Elemental Box won’t be ready for a bit, so let’s start talking about how each of you would deal with an elemental with the skills you each currently possess.” Each of them was put on the spot to explain how they would deal with an ice or fire elemental with their current skills. And if they were lacking a skill; it was strongly suggested they get a skill or tool for it. Ben cringed at the thought of how much it would cost to buy a fire or ice-enchanted knife.

  It wasn’t long before Coach Liv was ready to move on and he announced, “Okay, homework assignment! By next class, I want each of you to come up with ten more ways of dealing with fire and ice elementals using your skills, five using the skills of your team, and one using a skill you don’t currently possess.”

  “Next,” Coach paused to grumble, “this will be interesting.” He cleared his throat and spoke up, “Dean Weber has asked that you learn an additional skill. You are not required to learn it by the next Lair run or even ever, but she does believe there will be value in it if you can learn the skill. Additionally, I will not be teaching you this skill. That is up to Mister Belov.”

  Ben felt his eyes go wide in surprise. Just what was she expecting him to teach? Oh, that evil old goatwoman. She just couldn’t let him figure out how to teach Alphonse in his own time. Nor was she willing to wait after his first tutoring session.

  The badgerman narrowed his eyes and gave Coach Liv a measured look, “Did the dean happen to mention we had a deal?”

  Coach Liv nodded and replied, “She said your request will be waiting at your home by the time you get there tonight.”

  “Hmph,” Ben grunted. “Fine, but if it isn’t, there will be hell to pay.”

  Coach Liv snorted a laugh. “Good luck with that. Now, if you will.”

  “Fine, fine,” Ben said as he stood up. “Okay, Dean Weber asked that I try to teach you a skill called Mana Circulation. It’s an advanced control exercise focused on internal mana manipulation. Professor Waltz has actually started you all along the path by getting you to move your mana inside the body. She’s told you to push the mana to your extremities then pull it back to your center, kind of like a wave. This is good to get you used to moving the mana, unfortunately it is limited, the constant change in direction doesn’t allow you to pick up speed, to begin turning that mud into cool, clean water.”

  “I know of two different circulation patterns for those just starting out,” he said, refusing to mention the third pattern related to his Badger’s Constitution. He had a feeling if they tried that one, it wouldn’t work. “If the first doesn’t work, the second should.”

  He spent the next hour trying to teach his team to master the basics of mana circulation. It was a difficult task, and he found himself having to explain and re-explain the same concepts over and over again. He started with the basics: teaching them how to sense and recognize mana as well as how to draw mana from the environment and direct it through their body.

  The next step was to learn how to create a loop of mana, either in a tight circle or a long loop that could transport a lot of mana at once. Alphonse was the first one to grasp it, and with repeated practice, he could now move mana with a surprising amount of speed and control.

  The last step was a difficult one—learning to circulate their mana constantly throughout their bodies. It was a much more efficient way of using mana, but it was a difficult concept to grasp, and only Han and Yui seemed to fully understand it.

  At one point, frustration finally boiled over, and Plvoer asked, “What’s the point of this? Aren’t our mana control exercises enough?”

  “It’s a prerequisite skill,” Ben answered.

  “Prerequisite to what?” Plvoer demanded.

  Thankfully Coach Liv intervened, “That will only be discussed if you manage to learn the Mana Circulation skill. Let it be enough, Mister Plvoer, that you’re being given an opportunity. Don’t waste it.”

  Plvoer glowered at Coach Liv and then at Ben before huffing and getting back to work.

  Class ended, and Ben was relieved to not be the center of attention. He hoped this wouldn’t become a regular thing.

  The rest of the day seemed to drag by as he eagerly anticipated his first session with his new trainer. He hoped creating the claw skills he wanted wouldn't take too many weeks.

  He arrived home exhausted and dirty. He was mentally and physically worn. A feeling that was washed away when he saw a stern snakewoman standing outside his door. She was tall and lithe, her scaly skin tinted red, orange, and black. She had dark red hair that hung long down her back.

  “Mister Belov?” she questioned as soon as she saw him, a thick Alhsashian accent coloring her voice.

  “Yes, are you the promised trainer?” Ben asked.

  “Trainer for what?” Al asked from just behind him.

  She spoke up before Ben could, “I am Doctore Alia Fayed, you may call me Doctore. I am to assist you in creating two skills, Shadow Claws and Light Claws, correct?”

  Ben nodded, “That's right. I am Burion Belov, pleased to meet you.”

  “We will see how pleased you are when I am through with you,” she replied. “Now, hurry up and open the door, we have much work to do and little time to do it.”

  Ben rushed up the stairs and let her inside.

  As soon as he closed the door behind him, she started, “At least your home is clean even if you are not, though I suppose your current state can be forgiven as you have been in training all day. Starting tomorrow, I will be here before sunrise four days a week. It will save me from your stink. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Doctore,” Ben answered, hanging up his coat and satchel.

  “Let’s begin,” she said, pulling out one of the stools from his counter and sitting on it to face him. “Creating skills is easy when you know what you want. The trick is to refine the skill into what the system will recognize. You are looking to create shadow and light element skills. You already have the shadow element at the Beginner Rank, which means he can learn skills but your ability to manipulate shadows is severely limited. If you really want to create a shadow skill, you need to rank up both your attunement and manipulation skills,” the snakewoman stated. “I know you are required to take Mysticism as a first year. Where are you at in Mana Manipulation? I also assume you are trying to gain a Light Attunement, or have you already?”

  The manipulation exercises were straightforward as promised, each building on the previous exercise. First, he created an orb of shadows. Second, a cube. Third, a pyramid. Each shape was surprisingly difficult, especially with the exact nature of the shapes Professor Siqueira required. Shifting an orb into a cube should have been easy once he got through the first three exercises. It wasn’t. “I’m stuck on the fourth manipulation exercise. As for Light, I’m still trying to gain the attunement,” Ben answered.

  She tutted and asked, “And are you close to learning it?”

  He nodded this time. “I believe so. I can connect with the light. Two or three more sessions in the elemental box and I should have it.” That belief was more of a hope, one he was starting to lose. The Light element box had been giving him headaches for a while now. It was enough that he found himself closing his eyes halfway through his sessions if only to stave off the pain.

  She hummed, “Good, when you finally succeed, do not stop reserving time in the elemental box. Instead, switch to Shadows and ask Professor Zwief for the Intermediate Rank. You need to increase your attunement rank. Your objective is to increase your connection . . . to widen it. If you succeed, you will find creating a shadow element skill significantly easier.”

  “Does that mean I can’t even try to create the skill anyway?” He asked, worried she was going to tell him to come back after he improved.

  “Not at all. We will work on it together. However, your chances of learning or creating the system recognized skill is almost nil,” she answered. “For now, let me see if I can help you past the fourth exercise in Mana Manipulation.”

  Ben thought that Doctore was kind of great. He appreciated her straightforward approach. She didn’t mince words or give him undeserved praise. The next morning, he had made it through the fourth exercise with her direction.

  A couple of hours after his morning training with Doctore, Ben was sitting down in the elemental box. He spoke the word to start his hour, and lights began drilling painfully into his eyes. Still, he forced himself to keep his eyes open. To feel each color and all the spectrums of those colors. Red wasn’t just red, it was crimson and pink and carnation and rose and hot. Orange wasn’t just orange, it was pumpkin and fall leaves and mandarin and fire.

  “Enough,” he growled, finally reaching his breaking point, pushing mana into the air, and taking a stranglehold on the colors, which instantly dimmed. He blinked a few times as the colors continued cycling, albeit dimmer than before. But that wasn’t his focus.

  Congratulations! You’ve completed attunement to Light. The Mystic Skill Light Attunement has been added to your skill list.

  His heart leapt with joy, and he blew out a huge sigh of relief. He had done it. He had gained his Light Attunement. It had been months of trying, and Alphonse had gained two attunements and was likely to gain his third any day now. All his hard work had finally paid off, and he felt a swell of pride.

  He stood and left the elemental box, seeing a large smile on Professor Zwief’s face when he stopped clear.

  “Success?” She asked, sounding hopeful.

  He grinned and nodded, “Success.”

  “Congratulations,” she said. “Will you be trying to learn another or maybe advance one of your attunements?”