V-27 Academia (I)

Dear parents, masters of the city, and beloved members of the committee:

You are all idiots.

No, calm down. You will do nothing. I will remain headmaster. You can complain or threaten me all you want, but none of you are Legends. And all of you are just here to bellyache. You're much like your own children. Actually, you're much like me as well. I, too, am incredibly selfish and would like the system to favor me and be kind to me over everyone else, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. So sit down and let me finish.

I received a mixture of complaints. Some of you think the classes are too broad and theoretical and need to be more practical. Others think the classes are too detailed and overwhelming and that the children need to be eased into things.

I'm here to tell you that these classes are variable. And if you're looking for, if you're expecting a child to become an instant expert after finishing them, you clearly don't remember your days of education. They are primers. They introduce you to information. They refine you and hopefully remove bad habits from your life. They expose you to new details. But ultimately, it is a Pathbearer's individual duty to further their own development. There is nothing I can give a student who is not interested in their field of study.

And I'm looking at you parents because some of you are absolutely trying to force them down a path they have no interest in. There is more than one way to be a Vanguard. Not everyone needs to be swinging a hammer at the front of the line. Some of them are perfectly good as scouts. Sometimes you need a large wrecking ball that smashes through all environmental boundaries and causes havoc behind enemy lines. That's valuable. Sometimes Shadows don't want to be thieves. They can be observers or they can simply be explorers. In fact, they make very good explorers. It's usually effective to be a Path of the Shadow explorer because none of the monsters see you, and you are not often detected. This allows you to come back to civilization with your findings instead of dying in some godforsaken gate because you woke a primordial dimensional that is fueled by the magic of castrations.

Once more, Phoenix Academy is not a daycare. It is a development center. It is a place for people to harness their potential and that is something that takes time and self-understanding. Self-understanding that most of you people mutilate.

I see you. I remember many of you before you were noble houses. I've been here for a long time and this claim of family mythology, I predate that. It's not real. That's not your mythology. That was your forefather. That was your ancestor. That was your brother or kin who was somewhere else and you are borderline parasites leeching off of them. This is not a place for noble houses to constantly play recruitment games or to squeeze out every bit of value for their own interest. You are beginning to forget your place. You are citizens of the republic first and citizen means that you are beneath the council, beneath the ascendance and by my tier as legendary you are beneath me.

There will not be a discussion today. I have come only to say this. You have no interest in your child's upbringing. You have no interest in developing their skills. You have no interest in general education. You want them to fit a specific mold.

But I will put this in return. There is a word for a predictable Pathbearer that is shaped from another's parameters, and that is victim. If any of your children turn up the way you want them to, buy a casket now. They will not make it off the battlefield. They will not return from their expeditions. They will not succeed at their studies. To prevail is to do what has not been done. To explore the territories untread. You simply want them to succeed in the most banal way possible. And I'm beginning to notice that we might have coddled you more than we have coddled them.

-Headmaster Hades Hymn to the Annual Admin-Parents Conference (This happened on time and never again; noble “enforcers” sent to “educate” Headmaster Hymn were never found again)

V-27

Academia (I)

"Godsfucking damn it! Cripple," Shiv roared, "Can't you people do a single goddamn thing right? This wouldn't have happened if you just, just..." The Deathless had to stop himself. He was feeling an aneurysm coming on.

"It was a strategic decision enacted on the part of Veronica Chandler," Cripple defended. "She wished to use the Tarrasque as a weapon to destabilize—”

"I don't give a shit what she was planning to do!" Shiv shouted. "You lost track of it! It developed a stealth skill! And now, it's borderline unkillable! Do you have anyone who has Vitality Drain?"

"There are a few Pathbearers within the Republic that possess such abilities," Cripple said, beginning to sound uneasy.

"And how many of them are legend?" Shiv asked.

Cripple didn't say anything anymore.

"Godsfucking damn it!" Shiv snarl once again. He was beginning to inch closer and closer to a berserker rage. "It's Undying, Cripple! It's Undying! Sullen made it that way, using my Vitae! If you hadn't teleported me out of the battle, I would have kept draining it. I would have tried to finish it off. We could have all finished it off. If you all just held it in place, and I could have sucked it, till there was nothing left of its soul. But no. You all just had to stick your heads up your asses. Motherfuckers!"

Shiv was done. He stormed away from the Ascendant, leaving Adam behind, who was no more pleased than he was.

"And where did you say the Tarrasque last went missing?" Adam asked again.

"It was mainly contained within the Southlands, in the Kingdom of Blood and Sacrifice. The Ley Gods were overwhelmed by its sudden appearance in their territory."

"Sudden appearance?" Adam scoffed. "I wonder how it got there. How many people did you kill?"

"Not our people," Cripple said, with a hint of rage.

"Not your people. And that makes it fine."

"Yes," Cripple responded. "It is a kinder fate than that which awaits them. Especially with the acts they have committed against our citizens.”

"And you're certain of this?" Adam cried aloud. His own outrage was climbing as well. "Because a great deal of what I've learned seems to be mostly false."

"To be born in the South means to be a slave. Means that your vitality, your lifeblood, your mana is dedicated to one of the Ley Gods." Cripple was unashamed. He made a fist and the outline of his ethereal form burned. "The Ley Gods care nothing for those beneath them. They eat, and they mutilate, and they build temples to their own glory. Those people were already dead. It was a question of time."

The Gate Lord simply scoffed. "You know, sometimes I see a flicker of decency inside you. And then you remind me that you're an Ascendant. There's always another excuse. So it's not in the Southlands anymore?"

"No," Cripple said. "The last thing we managed to detect was a slight disturbance in the middle of the Pacific. But after that, the Tarrasque's exact position is now unknown."

"It's unknown because Udral probably got to it," Shiv stomped back over. He pointed a finger at Cripple and took most of what he had not to throw himself at the strongest. "Remember Udraal? Udraal Thann? The one that decided to ambush the Ascendants and killed a few of their avatars?"

"I am aware of who Udraal Thann is," Cripple said, his voice filling with repressed anger. "I know him than you do."

"Well, you clearly don't seem to respect him as a threat because this shit was just sloppy. Instead of actively trying to hunt me down, maybe Ascendants should do something meaningful, like calling the other nations across integrated Earth and establishing a proper manhunt to put this thing down."

"That is unlikely," Cripple replied with a hint of weariness. "We have allies, but the Tarrasque at present is potentially containable and its route of destruction can be programmed."

Can Hu entered the debate with a loud trill of scorn. "This is a folly. You are not thinking clearly, Ascendant."

For the first time, Cripple's cyclopean eye fell upon Can Hu and the mending form of the Penitent was bathed in a beam of incandescence. "A Penitent," Cripple said with surprise.

"Can Hu, the Penitent Chassis," he interrupted himself. "One of the few that remains. Your mind is compromised, Ascendant. You know this. Your personality is being winnowed down. Your choices are being misled by the personal interest of a single individual and other cliques within your cabal. You cannot ignore this."

Cripple didn't respond immediately, so Can Hu pressed on. "The Tarrasque, also, is a planetary-level threat. It cannot be allowed to wander across the world. It must be eliminated. The Legacy Empire has specific prevention measures for the Tarrasque. Measures that will see it neutered magically and then transported far off-world. They would not have done this. They would not have waited and allowed the Tarrasque to be an uncontrollable variable."

A most rare laugh escaped from Can Hu and was filled with bitter irony. "Even their own mechanical servants were not controllable variables, after all. I assure you, the Legacy Empire learned from the Penitence, and they will apply that lesson to the Tarrasque. You should apply the same lesson. You should have applied the same lesson. And now it is too late."

Shiv let out a long sigh. He wanted to continue ranting and arguing with the Ascendant, but it was pointless. The mistake was already made, the bed was already shat, and sooner or later he was going to be digging into the sheets and getting dirty again.

"When you spot it, you tell me," Shiv said. "I want to know exactly where it is, if it's coming for us, what it's done, everything."

"You understand that if you decide to intervene, the Ascendants..."

"I don't understand anything," Shiv said. "I don't know anything about you, Ascendants. And I don't think most of you know anything about yourselves anymore, either." The Deathless shook his head. "In fact, we don't need to talk about this anymore. I'll write to Veronica directly. I’ll see what the head of your circus has to say. What a fucking mess."

An awkward silence quickly followed, and hushed whispers were exchanged between the two crafters at the back of the room, terrified by the row that was unfolding between the legendary-tier Deathless and the literal god of their Republic.

Slowly, Cripple shifted its body. It looked at its hand. Its hand, clenched in a fist, with great effort, released the tension it had built up. "There was a time where I would have simply killed it," Cripple said, sounding absent-minded. "There was a time I would have struck it dead. Damn what my comrades would have said. There was a time…”

The Ascendant lowered his eye, and went from seeming frustrated to downright pathetic. "There was a time. I fear you are right. I fear with every exchange I notice it more. And I fear that even my awareness can do nothing to ameliorate the decay. I do not know why I feel so… Compelled to defend the others… So indifferent to what we…”

“The decay,” Can Hu continued. “It is not something you can fight with will. Something lost inside you is not that which can be reverted by choice or effort.”

Adam let out a breath. "You're doing something. You're here. You're helping us. You're letting us know about things. It's more than we can expect from most of the others. When you meet the Starhawk again—” 

“The Starhawk's also going through this," Shiv said, interrupting Adam. "He's just decaying in a positive direction." The Deathless groaned. "I guess that's good and all, but still, he's not who he used to be either."

And a particularly dark thought came to Shiv, one that Adam might not like. He hesitated before he voiced it, trying to find the proper way to put it into words. "Adam, you think that the Starhawk might have his own Veronica too? Or someone that just… herds him?”

"What are you saying," Adam said, his eyes narrowing with judgment. "Are you accusing my father of manipulating the Starhawk?"

"No," Shiv said aloud. "Not manipulating, from the brief moments I glanced between them, they seemed to respect each other. Your father's too faithful to be a conniving shit like Veronica, but you think the Starhawk's mainly still good because of your father? Because his avatar believes in justice, nobility, and all that other stuff?"

And that got Adam thinking. 

It got Cripple thinking as well. "It is a possibility. We use our avatars as channels for our power, but in time we also take traits from them or are inspired by them."

"They might be mortal, but they are changing, and they can choose," Adam finished for him. "They can choose to do something that goes against their character. They can choose to do something that's outside the context of their narrative." And suddenly he looked at Shiv. "They can choose."

And nothing needed to be said between them. Rolando was an exceptional town lord, a near-unparalleled Pathbearer, a warrior, a strategist, someone that belonged in the lore and stories of countless books and propaganda pieces. But he had also succumbed in a few cases. 

One was Shiv. Roland  couldn't decide when it came to the Deathless. He couldn't decide if he wanted to kill the boy who was the fruit of everything foul that befell him, or if he simply wanted to spare him. Yet, in doing so, in his indecision, Rolando had selected something that bordered on torture. He condemned a child to a life of destitution and ostracization. It wasn't the thing a noble, pure hero might do, but it was, ultimately, human. 

All too human.

"Might not be a bad thing, but with Uva serving as his current avatar, you think that might affect the Starhawk, too?" 

But Adam wasn't worried about their mutual companion. "She couldn't serve as his avatar alone," Adam began, "not without the Eldritch allowing her to sustain the Starhawk's power."

"Oh shit," Shiv muttered. Another uncomfortable silence slid into the room.

"We really need to get that slipgate open and functional," Shiv commented.

"Yeah." Adam breathed, "As fast as humanly possible." He turned around and glared at the crafters before marching over to them. "Merrielmel, Concelhaunt, you tell me what you need, exactly what you need, and I will find it delivered. We don't have two weeks. We're doing this as fast as humanly possible. You have a few days. We begin slipgate testing soon. First, we're opening a pathway to the tutorial. After that, if you need a larger testing apparatus or another active mana core you want to draw from or one that can blend your skills with each other and offer temporary infusions, then you can use my gate."

"The orcs probably will be willing to offer their expertise as well," Shiv said with a slight hint of discomfort. He looked at Cripple. "Look, I don't much believe that the orcs are going to be nice and kind about this too. I know what they are and I know what I am." He paused. "Adam, I'm pretty sure they're going to take advantage of this too. It's not just Neith. The orcs are going to want to seize the slipgate. Just think about it. It's an easy way to invade any world they want to jump from place to place with no limits or borders to their slaughter."

The gate lord's shoulder sagged as he realized that as well. "Well, it's just another problem we need to find a way to counter."

A second later, however, his spine straightened once more. "Wait, wait. We're just thinking in negatives, but if we can activate this slipgate and we can potentially use this mechanism anywhere, then..." he paused. "Can we use this mechanism anywhere?"

"It's theoretically possible," Merrielmel Stammered.

"Well, good. If we can do that, we can find a gate where the Tarrasque is, and if we can attune that to the tutorial or some other primal gate..." Oh, Shiv's eyes widened. He realized what Adam was going for.

"Yeah, we can dump it across into the tutorial. That's a pretty good idea. That'll jack up the orcs, help them scratch their itch, and also deal with the Tarrasque problem for a while if we can't easily put it down."

And then that looped back around to one of Shiv's requests earlier as well. He wanted a means to engage his enemies without causing too much collateral damage. If he could drag his adversary over into the tutorial any time they fought somehow, then that would solve a great many of his problems, too.

"Okay, okay, I think we can really work with this," Shiv said. "Not all bad. It's not all bad."

A low grumble sounded from Cripple, and his incandescence was beginning to recede. "I am being called. Veronica Chandler, Councilwoman Veronica Chandler, has summoned me. We are due to convene regarding the prison breakout and the matter of the missing Deathless along with his maker." 

A beep sounded from Cripple, and Shiv offered a grunt of displeasure. “Any chance you can tell Veronica she’s a felling moron?”

"I will tell you what comes of this meeting, but in the meantime, please, please, I beg of you, try to be more subtle. It is already extremely straining hiding your presence within the academy, and if any of your conflicts becomes overt..."

"Yeah, I know," Shiv said, "which is another reason why we want this thing to start working, because if everything goes south, we're going to need somewhere to flee. It's also a good place to funnel some of the prisoners, too, if we catch them. We can move them across the Tutorial and into the Gate Piety. The ones who want to stay can, and the ones who are going to be a problem..." Shiv looked at Adam and he made a strangling gesture.

The Gate Lord really didn't like that. Despite everything, Adam was still the honorable sort, but for someone like Kura, whose notions of mortality were brutal and boundless, there couldn't be a half measure.

"All right," Adam said, "I suppose that will be that for now." He looked down at his feet for a moment and finally sighed. "For whatever it's worth, Cripple, I thank you for telling us."

The Ascendant's form dimmed. "It, I suppose, is the least I can do. Be mindful of who you deal with. I may be decaying, but there is more than one kind of decay as well. Those who deal with the underhanded, the fell, and the criminal have been corrupted in more… mortal ways…" 

And with that, Cripple vanished back into Radio.

The small automaton bounced on the ground and shook his head. "I hate it when he does that. I hate it." It patted itself down and briefly puffed up its body. "Can't believe I agreed to this nonsense, and you," it spun on Shiv. "You know how terrible your cape dimension is? There's nothing but orcs in there most of the time. You ever been inside a cape filled with a bunch of orcs?"

"Friend, I'm surrounded by orcs," Shiv said. "I know how they are."

"Yeah? Well, not everyone's built like you. You're practically a baby orc yourself. I can't fight them off, and you tell that guy with a big mortar on his back to stay away from me. He tried to plug his spark ignition into my charging socket. It's demeaning, not to mention violating. Also, there's nothing to do in there, but just sitting around waiting for you to be able to get things done so I can finally come out, and I'm hiding from that creepy book lady. You know what I feel from her? There are like waves of divine mana radiating out from her, and trying to notice her gives me a headache. It's like she's a blank spot in the world, and every time she speaks, that blank spot fills up again. It keeps ripping at my sanity."

Adam and Shiv shared a look. They were getting a glimpse into how the tome shrouded the Educator.

The automaton's fingers were curled, and slowly it lost its luster for arguing. "If you can find like a tabletop game or like some cards, just hand them over to me or something. Like give me something to pass the time. I thought I was going to get some spicy drama about that kid you're pretending to be, but it just turned out to be a horror show. I don't want to hear none of that shit. I want something cool. Being a Pathbearer is supposed to be cool, felling hells."

Merrielmel cleared his throat. "We do have several board games including Aeromancer's Tower, Gates and Raiders, and also Don't Impregnate the Succubi."

"What?" Shiv said, surprised by the final offering.

"Oh, that sounds interesting." Radio poked his head out from behind Shiv. "Never seen a succubi before? How's that go?"

"Well, it's more of a concept art book than a board game, though there are rules."

"Just give him the Gates and Raiders thing," Concelhaunt growled. "It's the size of a small table, it's gonna take him a week to read through it anyway. Also, what the fuck?" He shouted at Shiv and Adam. "Was that Cripple the Strongest? You have an avatar of the Republic hiding in your cape this entire time?"

"Yeah," Shiv said. "Pretty nifty, huh?" he replied sarcastically.

"No, not fucking nifty. What's the point of the secrecy and cloak-and-dagger shit if one of the Ascendants knows that we're here? What are you, some kind of super-asset? A special rat?”

"Nope," Shiv replied. "It's more like there's a conspiracy happening within the Oval Council and we're part of it."

Concelhaunt’s jaw dropped open. "A conspiracy in the council? So what, we can expect one of the Ascendants to keep a secret from the others?"

"He's already keeping several ugly secrets," Shiv said, "mainly me and Adam, along with all the other prisoners. You are probably among the least of his concerns. But after this is over," Shiv shrugged, "I don't know, he might come after you, who knows."

"If you're trying to fill me up with fucking confidence, you're spilling the juice all over my chest instead of down my throat." the goblin looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“Don’t see the point in bullshitting you,” Shiv said. “Look. If things do go wrong, we’ll let you stick around in Gate Piety. You fine with that Adam?”

The Gate Lord frowned at nothing in particular. “We are already accommodating prisoners, murderers, orcs, and criminals. I don’t think I have the hypocrisy to damn two questionable professors to their fate.”

That didn’t seem to reassure Concelhaunt much. Still, the goblin refrained from complaining overmuch as he understood his situation. Merrielmel, contrarily, looked more agitated than ever. “B-but with the orcs and the Ascendants and all that has happened, what—what if we-we-we…”

“Merrielmel, Merriel! Calm.” Concelhaunt held out a hand. “Just breathe. Breathe.”

The elven enchanter started breathing a bit too hard. Shiv studied him.

Psycho-Cartography: He’s worried that he wil never get to save his brother. There are too many uncertain variables. He is on the verge of a mental break. The only way to get him to stabilize is giving him some semblance of control back. He need something to convince him that his project won’t just be severed halfway.

“Merrielmel,” Shiv said. Both crafters looked at him. Merrielmel’s eyes were wide with worry while Concelhaunt glared with distrust. “I want you to get this done just as much as you do. You’re brother is missing? Well, I have someone I care about trapped in the Outside as well. I’m not letting the Ascendants, orcs, or anyone get the in way of this. Same with Adam. We need this to work.”

The elven enchanter swallowed but nodded vigorously. “I—We will begin calibrations soon. It will take some time to fully stabilize the diffusion mechanisms, but once it does, we-we-we—”

Shiv held out a hand. “I got it. We’re rushing because we have no guarantee when the next crisis or bullshit problem will come our way. We’ll do what we can, but understand that after you make this Slipgate, a whole bunch of people are going to make a grab for it.”

“I—I just want to—” Merrielmel was about to start hyperventalizing again before Shiv intervened.

“I know,” the Deathless said. “And I’m sorry. But this thing you have is too valuable to too many people. And that’s why you really need to gather your stuff and get ready to move once this is done. I don’t know what the Neath’s endgame is here, but if they get a Slipgate, I don’t think they’re going to be that willing to let you go again.”

“But… why?” Merrielmel asked.

“Competition,” Concelhaunt said, understanding. “We’re giving them a way to choke the market. Any market. That’s ignore whatever felling goldmine they might find in the Outside.” The goblin smith sighed. “You know before, when we finished with this mess, I was considering going to the headmaster and just telling him. Yeah, might cost us our positions, but—”

“It will likely just see you two pressed into making more Slipspace portals of the Ascendants or the Inquisitions instead,” Adam said. “It’s valuable. Too valuable.” He sighed. “And if only the value could be shared with the people instead of fought over by a pack of criminals, monsters, and unworthy gods.”

“And us, Adam,” Shiv said, grinning. “We’re here too.”

“Barely better at this point,” Adam said, sounding stressed. “Half of us are monsters, a few our bloodthirsty criminals, one’s a Forgotten Ascendant, and then there’s me.”

“But still better,” Shiv insisted. “So, might as well be us that holds the Slipgate, right?”

Adam nodded. He regarded the chamber around him and sighed. “Well. We’ll have a way of slipping past the Ascendants soon, so that’s something. I just hope my gate’s still there by the time we reach it. You think Null Mont’s made a move to claim in the name of the Composer yet?”

“She might’ve,” Shiv said, frowning. “But she’s pretty terrified of us, and Still Water will probably keep her from doing something too stupid.”

“One can hope,” Adam said. “We’re going to need to build a checkpoint here too. A Dimensional bunker right outside the Slipgate chamber.”

“For the orcs?” Shiv asked.

“Among other things,” Adam said. “We’re going to be facing the Outsiders again. If one of them manages to slip over, that might be even worse than an orc invasion. Imagine the Recollector on campus grounds.”

“Yeah,” Shiv said. He tried not to imagine just how many kids might end up dead in that situation before he or Adam managed to intervene. “Good idea. Should get started on that while the crafters and Can Hu focus on finishing the Slipgate. Okay. So, with the situation here somewhat figured out, we should do a debrief and get our other chores done. Helix is going to get on my ass about my Biomancy, and we need to get some evidence from Irons, too. What else do we have to worry about?”

“Have you selected your classes yet?” Adam asked.

“Selected—uh, no. Shit. How does that work.”

“It’s simple.” Adam pointed to Shiv’s pin. “You focus on that, and when the interface is pulled up, you think about classes, and you’ll get a whole list of options.”

Shiv did just that, and a massive, sprawling tree of potential class options materialized at the top of his vision. At the bottom, a weekly schedule appeared. One class had already been assigned to him. It was the Tac-Strat class that Irons recruited him into. Currently, it occupied the early morning of his weekends on Solsday and Restday. A strange time for that course, but Shiv supposed mostly Pathbearers had a stranger schedule than most.

That left much of his week open, and with how many choices he had—

Shiv noticed a blinking sprawl of text at the bottom of his vision just then. “Student has not… selected Gen-101. Gen-101 placement is required. Gen-101?”

“Oh, Gen-Ed,” Adam said with a wince. “Right. You need to take that so the academy can gauge where you need the most remedial education. The learning standards are different across the Republic, and so most first years have to take intensive classes that catch them up to speed with the rest of their peers. It makes some people’s first years quite hectic.”

“Let me guess, though: You didn’t need to take any remedial classes.”

Adam held his head high with pride. “There wasn’t a point. I had no academic, social, or martial weaknesses. You, on the other hand… Oh, shit. What are we going to do with you?”

“What do you mean?” Shiv said. “I’ll just take Gen-101 and figure things out.”

The Gate Lord licked his lips and tried to find some measure of tact. “Shiv… How good were you at your schoolwork? Actually, what do you remember of your schoolwork?”

“Not much. Stopped my formal learning after the matrons were finished with me. I hung around the library at times and Georges made me read and do some accounting. I got basic math down and I can write.”

“Barely,” Adam muttered.

“Hey, eat shit. Not all of us can have a chain of tutors—”

“It’s not an insult, Shiv,” Adam replied. “It is a problem. Marcus got in on a Wild Card Program. Those can be rescinded if the student does not perform up to standard. And considering Marcus is not a martial, you’re going to need to perform well academically… And that might be a bit difficult without some… Assistance.”

“What kind of assistance,” Shiv said.

“Well, you’re probably going to be taking Helix with you in your cape, right?” Adam asked.

“I don’t think he’s going to take no for an answer.”

“Well, I suspect you’re going to need his help for more than just Biomancy. I don’t usually condone cheating, but if you botch Gen-101’s basic coursework, you’re going to be examined for brain damage first, and then up for probation after. We can’t have that.”

“You want my orcs to do some math and language for me?” Shiv said.

“I would ask that you ask them in case you run into anything you don’t know.” It was just a funny way of saying “cheat” in the end. Adam pushed through his discomfort and continued. “Have you thought of what else you wish to learn?”

Shiv’s first instinct was to go for a cooking-related class, but then he reminded himself that Marcus didn’t have any skills for that. Despite this, Shiv was still interested in seeing how developed the capital’s culinary arts were. Even if he couldn’t study cooking in the open, he was going to refine and improve himself in the shadows.

That left Marcus’s main skills. Surgery. Practical Metabiology. Things related to Biomancy; things that would help Shiv’s development as a Biomancer.

Finally, a chance to actually learn some felling magical theory, Shiv breathed. His heart almost skipped a beat. Don’t fuck me over now, system. Not when I’m this close.

“You know anything about medical or Biomancy courses?” Shiv asked, scrolling through his choices. “Because I’m thinking about filling my time up with that.”

And it was like a lightning bolt had struck Adam. “I do, in fact. Medic-301. You need that. You’ll love that. And it’ll let you do a little good for the people of the capital as well.”

Shiv liked the sound of that. “And what’s that about?’

“Oh, it’s just the most hands-on medical experience you can have,” Adam said, “because the students who pick that course get slotted into the Phoneix Academy medical apprenticeship program. Residency, I think they called it. Start with that.”